Pilot Class 43-D is "unincorporated", as of 16 Apr. 2007. Maybe this a good place for this item..... 43-D except for a couple more issues of the Delta Eagle is to be considered kaput, dissolved, and practically non-existent. Paper work has been filed for dissolution and should be finalized by the time you read this. It is really a sad occasion, and having been Editor for about 19 years, it will be hard to replace what I have been doing. I want to thank all of you for your continued support and wonderful comments on my efforts. I appreciate them and it is what kept me going all these years! As they say in AF parlance, take care, and check six..... Your Editor, Frank Dutko - 30 -
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Pilot Classes 1944, has opened up to anyone who was a cadet regardless of the year of graduation. We have annual reunions in different parts of the country, our dues are $15 annually, and I put 6 "POOPSHEETS" out each year to keep us pretty well connected. Contact: Stan Yost 13671 Ovenbird Drive Fort Myers, FL. 33908 or email at: skypilot44@earthlink.net
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Veterans Online Prescription (Rx) Refill Service: Prescriptions
***************** The Athens Messenger Hell's Belles Monday, June 30, 2003
Brought together by chance, they reunite by choice ______________________________________ The men of Hell's Belles are from different states, various professions, and diverse backgrounds; yet they are bonded by a common link that's kept them together for 61 years.In 1942, the men of the 316th Fighter Squadron of the U.S. Air Force came together as strangers. And what a motley crew they were. There were doctors, lawyers, journalists, Indian chiefs, students, stockbrokers, farmers, ministers and FBI agents. But by World War II's conclusion in 1945, the assortment of unlikely companions had become brothers. All together, the Hells Belles squadron consisted of 35 pilots, who were constantly being replaced, and 250 enlisted men, including George Cohen of Athens, on the grounds crew. They would remain together for the next three and a half years. When the squadron, which was part of the 324th Fighter Group, reached its first port of call in Rio de Janeiro, Cohen, a young art student, and the others could not have known what a long, incredible journey was in store for them. Now, decades later, many of them still gather each year to revisit old memories and create new ones. A dozen or so Hell's Belles, accompanied by family, convened in Athens this past weekend to share their tales during the squadron's annual reunion. The men of the 316th, which traveled from Rio de Janeiro to India to Egypt, where it first engaged in combat, to Libya, Tunisia, Italy, France and then Germany, did not start out dressed the way one might expect American troops to dress, Cohen and squadron-mate Wesley Moore recalled. The squadron, which was attached to the British Eighth Army, wore British battle dress uniforms, because they were coarse in texture, as opposed to German and American uniforms, which were both smooth. If the Indian Gurkhas, who worked closely with the British and were trained in knife fighting and operating in the dark, came upon a sleeping soldier wearing a smooth uniform, the man's throat would likely be slit. That was incentive enough to wear British attire, they explained. Cohen recalled that the squadron was camped near the base of Mount Vesuvius when it erupted for the first time in 73 years and that they even put together a mimeographed weekly newspaper “Hell's Belles Tells” while stationed in North Africa. Cohen, who settled in Athens in 1966 to teach graphic arts at OU, illustrated the newspaper, which also included poetry, gossip columns and stories. Few outfits were overseas as long as the 316th. The men were together 24 hours a day; they ate together, slept together five to a tent, and shared jokes and grief together. Although Cohen and a few others won a lottery — their names were drawn from a helmet — to return home early, most of the crew remained together until the end of the war. Once back in the United States, a group of Hell's Belles living in the New York City got the notion to find their buddies. A roster of men was compiled and the crew began calling friends of friends and police stations around the country to track down their pals. By 1955, enough men had been located to hold the first official reunion of the 316th, and more would be found in the years that followed. This past weekend, as the men chummed around at their reunion, years melted away and the Hell's Belles, a group of fellows brought together by chance and dispersed by circumstance, were together again. Things have changed for the members of the 316th during the past several decades, as best summarized by Lloyd Cummins. “When we first started having reunions we'd bring our children; now our children bring us,” he noted. Yet, one could imagine not even a second had passed since the war as Moore and wife, Alice, faces aglow, danced as gleefully as teenagers to songs of the World War II era. One man, a former pilot, wisely declared, that “Old pilots never die; they just fade away,” as he merrily poured himself a drink. And the reunions are bound to continue for years to come. “After living together for so long, you form a bond,” Cohen said. “It''s like a family reunion.” “Yeah,” Moore agreed. “You're like brothers.”
