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  • Ramrods to the Seine: The 371st Fighter Group’s First Memorial Day, 1944

    For the 371st Fighter Group, today’s 142nd Wing, Memorial Day was a workday.  It was the group’s first Memorial Day since it was activated in the US on July 15, 1943.  The unit’s tasking on its 29th combat mission was to fly Ramrod fighter escort missions in support of medium bomber attacks against

  • Chomping at the Bit – The 371st Fighter Group’s Start on D-Day

    It was the Day of Days, D-Day, June 6, 1944. Soon after Allied troops began landing on the beaches in the Normandy region of France. On that Tuesday morning, Allied nations broadcasted word of the landings to let their populations know that the liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe had begun. In an

  • Getting Patton to the Rhine

    Eighty years ago this week, between March 15 – 21, 1945, the 371st Fighter Group (today’s 142nd Wing), distinguished itself in battle as it provided close support to General George S. Patton Jr.’s Third Army as it broke through the Siegfried Line and raced to the Rhine River.   In recognition for

  • Second Campaign: The 371st Fighter Group in Normandy

    This is the second installment of a series examining the military campaigns which the 142nd Wing is credited for, on the 80th anniversary of these events in the Second World War. It examines the role of the 371st Fighter Group, today’s 142nd Wing, in the Normandy Campaign.

  • We as Allies Remember Jack T. McWilliams

    Armistice Day – In 1918, on the 11th day of the 11th month, at 11 minutes past the 11th hour, the guns of the First World War became silent.  In the aftermath of that conflict, with the permission of our Allied partner France, American soldiers who died on the battlefields in France were buried

  • The 371st Fighter Group and the Aftermath of the Holocaust

    During this April 24 through May 1, 2022 Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust, with the Russo-Ukrainian War raging in Europe and perhaps some of the ghosts of World War II being stirred, we remember the terrible things that can happen when one group of human beings are demonized,

  • The Mysterious Fate of William T. “Shorty” Bales, Jr.

    Friday, April 13, 1945. A day after the passing of American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Third Reich was collapsing as Allied forces pressed into Germany from the east and west. It seemed like the war in Europe would be over soon, though the fighting continued.