“Gone with the Wind,” He Said
The Cold Case Search for My Missing-in-Action Airman Brother
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Throughout my young life growing up I listened to my family talk about my brave older brother Eugene Darter who had become missing on a bombing mission over Nazi Europe in World War II. My parents said he was still alive and would somehow come home soon. Well that never happened but I often thought about my MIA brother Eugene but could never find out any more about what happened to him. Many years later, one night (Eugene's birthday) my fingers typed "B-17" into Yahoo! Search. Up popped web sites of American units who flew from the UK to bomb Nazi targets in Eruope that contained many emails of families who were searching for their MIA's with some responses from knowlegable people who were helping them in their search. I instantly grew excited and decided that the next morning I would send out a message to some of these people asking for help. A day later I received a response with a list of crew members (that included my brother's name) that stated their B-17 had crashed near Texel Island, Netherlands. I immediately entered some of the crew members names (who were POWs) into Whitepages.com and located a phone number of one Doral Hupp and called the number. A lady answered and said that Doral was sitting there on the sofa! I asked Doral if he knew my brother Eugene to which he responded "Yes" and he immediately began to tell me that he had found him in a pool of blood on the Radio Room floor, had stopped his bleeding, got him up, gave him a shot of pain killer, and got his parachute on him. Well, I was shocked and began to cry and could hardly believe what I was hearing. This was day one of my journey down the path of discovery which consumed me and my children for the next 14 years. It is still hard for me to believe that it was possible to make so many discoveries after 60 years including the intense flak hits and combat with German fighters in the air, the attempted escape to make it back to their base, eyewitnesses to their burning B-17 and its crash, several surviving crew members and their families, pieces of the aircraft on the beach just before a memorial, and X-files with potential unknowns. Along the way I met so many wonderful people in the UK and Holland where his B17 crashed, and even held a memorial to honor Eugene and two other MIA crew on Texel Island. This book tells the dramatic story of the 14 year search and many discoveries. And finally the finding of the eyewitness on Texel who saw my brother come down through the fog and mist on that sad day, and how he was "gone with the wind" into the sea forever more. This book tells the story of the horrific combat and suffering this aircrew went through as part of the 8th Air Force, 95th bomb Group. The 8th suffered over 26,000 lost men, more than the enitre US Marine Corps in WW II and double the death rate. The air war was extremely dangerous with so many lost men but "D" Day could never of happened without the destruction of the German Air Force.
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About the Book
This book documents the search for my MIA brother Eugene F. Darter, who, just after meeting his baby brother on a pillow, flew off to Nazi-occupied Europe and vanished on his first bombing mission over Germany. My investigation began with a random Internet search on his fifty-seventh birthday on January 3, 2000, that quickly resulted in the miraculous discovery of one of his crewmates who found him badly shot and collapsed in a pool of blood in their shattered and burning B-17. Along the path of discovery were some amazing miracles, including discovering his surviving crew and their families, what happened to his two other MIA crewmates, pieces of his bomber on the beach a few days before a long planned memorial, and most importantly, eyewitnesses who saw crew members captured by the Nazis on a Dutch island. However, the greatest discovery was an eyewitness who saw an American airman come down through the fog and splash down into the sea, crying for help, but then carried away by the fierce wind farther out into the freezing sea beyond reach. “Gone with the wind” was his description of the shocking event unfolding in the stormy sea just in front of him. This book will be of particular interest to many families who have MIAs that number more than eighty-three thousand in America’s wars. There is so much information available today on the Internet, in databases, individual researchers in the US and abroad, and in the National Archives for searching for your beloved MIA. There is also a great deal of assistance from the US government, who has many teams in the field every day searching, finding, identifying, and bringing home our hero MIAs.
About the Author
Michael I. Darter is an emeritus professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Darter is an international expert in transportation infrastructure, but nothing he has accomplished in his profession has been as satisfying as discovering what happened to his only brother. He has mourned his loss for decades and many years ago pledged to find out what happened to him no matter what it took to bring closure to his family. The discoveries indeed brought heartwarming closure also to his brother’s surviving crewmates and the former wife of the pilot who finally knows what happened to her beloved husband.