{"id":20109,"date":"2021-11-28T14:43:01","date_gmt":"2021-11-28T14:43:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saj.pachecostudios.com?p=20109"},"modified":"2021-11-28T14:45:34","modified_gmt":"2021-11-28T14:45:34","slug":"104-year-old-wwii-veteran-learns-about-a-special-crew-that-didnt-return-from-a-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/national-news\/104-year-old-wwii-veteran-learns-about-a-special-crew-that-didnt-return-from-a-mission\/%20","title":{"rendered":"104-Year-Old WWII Veteran Learns About a Special Crew That Didn\u2019t Return from a Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Photo above – <\/em> Benedict Staudt (front row, second from left), was the co-pilot on the Damien Murray crew, flying the B-24 Monster\/Flak Magnet.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Yvonne Caputo<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wrote a book about my father\u2019s time in the Second World War as a B-24 navigator, Flying with Dad: A Daughter, A Father and the Hidden Gifts of His Stories from WWII. \u00c2\u00a0<\/em>Little did I know that hidden gifts would continue to come to me after its publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Joe Haenn<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

One of the gifts was chronicled in a previous edition\nof the SAJ’s Weekend Focus.  It was about\nhow I met a 104-year-old WWII veteran, Joe Haenn through the book.  Not only did he live close by, but I learned\nthat he was the assistant crew chief for a plane that my father was on when it\ncrashed.  When Joe told me the condition\nof the plane, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.  Had dad been in his normal position in the\nnose, he would not have survived, and I would not have been born 20 months\nlater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My relationship with Joe is the gift that keeps on\ngiving.  He lives in a personal care home\nvery near to me, and we visit on an almost weekly basis.  Our conversations often center on the ongoing\nquestions I have about his service during the war.  One day I asked, \u201cDid you ever get close to\nany of the crews?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His response was immediate and uncharacteristically sharp,\n\u201cNo, I didn\u2019t want to know, because they might not come back.\u201d  His voice softened and he followed up with,\n\u201cBut there was one crew; they didn\u2019t return, and I never knew what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked Joe for a name, and that I would talk to the\n467th<\/sup> Bomb Group\u2019s historian J. Peter Horne for any information that\nhe might have.  Joe gave me the name\nBenedict Stoudt, which I passed onto Peter. \nAn email arrived that very same day from Peter saying there was no crew\nby that name.  Would Joe have other names?  Joe supplied two more, and Peter was able to\nlocate the information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benedict Staudt was the co-pilot on the Damien Murray\ncrew.  On August 6, 1944, they were\nflying the B-24 Monster\/Flak Magnet <\/em>on a mission to Hamburg,\nGermany.  Just prior to the target, they\nexperienced flak and the plane went down. \nNine of the crew members including Staudt survived and were picked up by\nthe Germans.  They remained prisoners of\nwar until they were freed by the Allies toward the end of the war and all returned\nto the states.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Flying With Dad: A Daughter, A Father, and the Hidden Gifts of His WWII Stories
Available at Amazon<\/a><\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Peter was also able to provide the dates of the crew\nmembers deaths showing that each had lived long full lives after their return\nhome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I handed all of this information to Joe, and I sat quietly\nwhile he read.  When he finished, he\nlooked up, his eyes misted, and he said simply, \u201cIt\u2019s good to know after all\nthese years.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My heart caught   He waited 76 years to know what happened to\nthe man who waved goodbye to him from the cockpit of the plane as it rolled\ndown the tarmac to take off for that mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story appeared in a local newspaper, which is how\nthe next gift happened.  On a Sunday\nafternoon, my phone rang.  I didn\u2019t\nrecognize the number, but I answered. \nThe woman on the other end was Janice Graves, and she introduced herself\nas Benedict Staudt\u2019s daughter.  She said\nher sister, Loretta Staudt, found the newspaper article about Joe and Ben while\ndoing some ancestry research on the internet. \nJanice then looked for me on the internet, found my name and phone\nnumber, and she just decided to try calling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The energy and excitement between us was\npalpable.  Janice told me what a\nwonderful father her dad had been, and that after the war like so many others,\nhe wouldn\u2019t talk about his experience. \nWhen he became sick, the family encouraged him to write his story\ndown.  He did so by dictating it to his\nwife.  Janice said that his memoir was\nsaved as a word document, and would I like to have it?  Of course, I would love to read it, and did I\nhave permission to share it with Joe, his family and the 467th?  Her response, \u201cAbsolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Drawing of Benedict Staudt by Bish Gutowski, a fellow prisoner of war<\/em>. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

My next visit with Joe was exciting.  I printed out the story that was accompanied\nby a drawing that was done of Ben when he was in the POW camp.  This gift to me became another gift to Joe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following week, I presented my book virtually to\ntwo local libraries.  When it came to the\nquestion-and-answer period I recognized the names of two people who were in the\naudience.  I was able to meet and talk to\nboth of Ben Staudt\u2019s daughters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never did I dream that putting my father\u2019s stories of being in the war into the book, that would I receive the gift of meeting Joe.  Nor did I dream I could help solve a mystery for Joe, and subsequently meet the daughters of the man who was tied to that mystery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo above – Benedict Staudt (front row, second from left), was the co-pilot on the Damien Murray crew, flying the B-24 Monster\/Flak Magnet. By Yvonne Caputo I wrote a book about my father\u2019s time in the Second World War as a B-24 navigator, Flying with Dad: A Daughter, A Father and the Hidden Gifts of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20110,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Murray-Staudt-Crew-Seated-Uniform-003.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20109"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20117,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20109\/revisions\/20117"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}