Ernest Eugene Wheeler
Freeman Field
Advanced Twin-Engine Flight School
Class 43 - H
Reprinted in part with the permission of the Kentucky Historical Society. 
To obtain a copy of the complete story, visit http://history.ky.gov/Research/Research_Services/Publications_Ref_Request.pdf.

 

 

 

 

The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society
Winter 2004, Vol. 102, No. 1

Wartime Romance and D-Day Tragedy: A Kentucky Flyer's Death and His Wife's Struggle to Cope

by Hugh Ridenour

....After completing training at Union City, Gene moved to Malden, Missouri, in May 1943 for basic flight school and then to Freeman Field in Seymour, Indiana, for advanced two-engine training.  He was proud of being one of three men picked from his class at Seymour for the cadet class staff......

....excited about flying twin-engine airplanes, he hailed the "two big engines pulling you around with about 100 instruments to watch constantly" and the pilot's role to "sit right up front of the plane and look straight down."....

....Gene completed flight school on August 30, 1943....

....Just as he had speculated, Wheeler took participated on the night of June 5-6, 1944....as copilot of a C-47 and a member of the 441st Troop Carrier Group in Operation Neptune...

....After bring hit by ground fire, the C-47 crashed in flames at 1:35 am near St.Pellerin, France.  No crew member escaped.
Gene Wheeler in a letter-writing pose while stationed at Freeman Field in Seymour, Indiana, during the summer of 1943
Page last revised 04/18/2022