Most of the Spare Charlie crew and other men they flew with are photographed in 1944. Front row, left to right, Samuel L. Peak, Victor R. Romasco, Thomas J. Tracy, Allen Osterberg. Back row, left to right, Murl F. Simmons, Richard Oberlin, Frank A. Welke Jr., Robert F. Scharff, Redin R. Kilpatrick and Max L. Rockey. (Delta County Historical Society )
ÉPAGNE-ÉPAGNETTE, France — An Army aircrew whose B-17 bomber was shot down over northern France has been honored 80 years later thanks to the joint efforts of an American woman with a history degree and a Frenchman with a penchant for World War II.
A memorial for the nine-member crew was unveiled near the crash site here Saturday, the anniversary of the incident, which left all but one of the airmen dead.
About 50 of the soldiers’ relatives traveled to France from the United States to attend the memorial’s unveiling with local residents and government officials.
“I am very happy and very grateful that the Spare Charlie crew have not been forgotten,” Camille Noel, a George Washington University history graduate, told the crowd, identifying the crew by the name of their aircraft.
Noel, who fought back tears as she spoke, played a key role in getting the memorial erected.
Camille Noel, a George Washington University history graduate, speaks during a ceremony in Épagne-Épagnette, France, Saturday, June 22, 2024. Noel’s research of an American B-17 bomber crew whose plane was shot down during World War II lead to the crew being honored with a memorial near the crash site. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
Descendants said many details of the crew’s final mission likely would have been lost to history if not for Noel’s research.
Her research began in 2019 when the Utah native had to write a biography on a soldier from her home state and chose 2nd Lt. John Lundberg, the Spare Charlie’s navigator. That assignment sparked her interest in the rest of the crew, and she wrote about them for her final thesis.
After contacting their families, obtaining personal records, piecing together the training they went through in the U.S. and the multiple bombing mission they completed in Europe, Noel wrote to a newspaper in Abbeville, France, in an effort to try to find potential eye witnesses.
The newspaper put her in touch with Emmanuel Berle, a retiree and local World War II aficionado. Together, the duo was able to piece together a detailed narrative of what happened on June 22, 1944. Noel had planned to visit the area in 2020, but she had to cancel her trip because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
She and Berle kept in touch, and in 2022, he proposed getting a monument erected for the crew.
“It’s important to have a permanent memory of this crash,” Berle said, adding that most people now living in the area had been unaware of it. He helped raise funds for the memorial from French donors, and Noel solicited the crew’s family for donations.
“Those men died for the liberty of western European countries and it takes all of us, and future generations to not let their final sacrifice be useless,” Berle said.
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress “Spare Charlie” of the 381th Bomb Group stationed at an 8th Air Force Base near Ridgewell, England, May 30, 1944. A memorial was unveiled in Épagne-Épagnette, France, on June 22, 2024, for the plane’s crew of nine who were shot down over the village during World War II. (National Archives)
Every member of the Spare Charlie crew was between the ages of 20 and 27.
In addition to Lundberg, there was pilot Samuel Peak from Texas, co-pilot Robert Petroski from Michigan, bomber Allen Osterberg from Michigan, radio operator Frank Welke from New York, upper machine gunner Murl Simmons from New York, ball turret gunner Robert Scharff from New York, tail machine gunner Max Rockey from Michigan, and waist gunner Richard Oberlin from Ohio.
Spare Charlie belonged to the 534th Bomber Squadron of the 381st American Bomber Group, which was part of the U.S. Army Air Forces, or USAAF.
From June 1943, the 381st Bomber Group was based at Ridgewell Airfield in the United Kingdom.
The heavy bomber B-17 “Flying Fortress” played a pivotal role in the U.S.’s effort during the war. But many crews died before finishing their tour of 25 to 30 missions, something the soldiers flying the B-17s were aware of.
The Spare Charlie crew — minus Petroski and Lundberg, who were substituting for two regular crew members on the day the plane crashed — had already completed more than 20 bombing runs together, prior to their crash, including one on D-Day.
On June 22, the crew, including Petroski and Lundberg, set off from the U.K. in the early evening to attack three power stations in northern France.
A memorial for a U.S. B-17 bomber crew is unveiled in Épagne-Épagnette, France, Saturday, June 22, 2024, near the site where the plane crashed during World War II. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
Spare Charlie was flying in the lead position of a formation that included several other bombers that day, according to Noel’s research. Around 7 p.m. near Abbeville, German artillery hit the aircraft and it came spiraling down breaking into pieces.
Oberlin got sucked out of the aircraft and managed to parachute to the ground before Nazi forces captured him and sent him to a prisoner of war camp. He was the only one in the group who survived.
“He had survivor’s guilt and dealt with it his whole life,” said Richard Keefer, Oberlin’s grandson and namesake, who was in France for the memorial ceremony.
Oberlin would talk about his war experiences if asked, but he preferred not to, Keefer said, saying there were many details about Spare Charlie and its last flight, including the plane’s name, that he wasn’t aware of until Noel contacted him
Relatives of other soldiers knew even less.
Robert Krausman, Petroski’s biological son, was about a month old when Spare Charlie went down. He took his stepfather’s name when his mother remarried. For years, he wore Petroski’s wedding ring, which his mother received after the crash, but he knew next to nothing about the incident that caused his death.
Relatives of a B-17 bomber crew, whose plane called Spare Charlie was shot down by Nazis during World War II, visit the site of the crash in Épagne-Épagnette, France, Saturday, June 22, 2024. An American flag was recently erected at the site. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
“It was a subject my mother never liked to revisit,” Krausman said. “But with Camille’s research, I’ve become exposed to some of the stories and those of the others. There’s a lot of closure.”
Petroski was one of six crew members initially found and buried in a local cemetery. Most crew members have been reburied at the Normandy American Cemetery, about 190 miles west of the crash site. Lundberg, whose body was discovered several months later, is also buried at the cemetery.
Scharff was the last crew member found, over two years after the crash. His great-nephew Jim Reedy was at the memorial’s unveiling.
“If we don’t do things like this, the memory will atrophy and people will eventually forget all about it,” Reedy said. “It’s important to keep the memory alive so we don’t repeat the same mistakes again.”
One of the most touching moments of the ceremony was when three French children read portions of Lundberg’s last letter home, which he wrote specifically in case he died in combat.
Army Lt. Col. Clayton Merkley, whose granduncle 2nd Lt. John Lundberg was killed in World War II, speaks at a ceremony in Épagne-Épagnette, France, Saturday, June 22, 2024. Lundberg and his aircrew were honored with a memorial near the site where their bomber was shot down. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
His grandnephew, active-duty Army Lt. Col. Clayton Merkley told the crowd how Lundberg’s wings hung on his bedroom wall as a teenager, and how the entire Spare Charlie crew continues to inspire him.
“Eighty years later, neither the memory nor the motivation of the Spare Charlie crew and all those who assisted are forgotten,” Merkley said. “Instead that memory and the sense of purpose burns bright.
A memorial for the Spare Charlie B-17 bomber crew includes the names and photos of each crew member. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
After laying a wreath of flowers next to the new memorial, Noel and Berle held hands and smiled as they looked at the marble slab that includes the names and photographs of each crew member. They hadn’t met face-to-face before this visit.
“It’s been very nice to give these families more information,” Noel said. “A lot of them have told me they are finally getting to know their uncle, their great uncle, because all they knew before was that he died in World War II — that was it.”
