Cambridge American Cemetery

The Wall of the Missing, Cambridge.Eugene Darter's name on the Wall of the Missing.
A lone airman stands guard at the Wall of the Missing. He is joined by a lone soldier, sailor and Coast Guardsman.

This 30.5-acre cemetery contains 3,810 headstones of American servicemen killed in the European Theater. There is also a 427-foot-long Wall of the Missing, dedicated to the memory of those whose remains were never found. There are 5,127 names on the wall. Among these is Eugene Darter, big brother of Mike Darter who went down on his first mission with the 95th Bomb Group. It's a beautiful and hallowed spot, green and well-kept. The graves here represent 42% of all those temporarily interred in England and Northern Ireland. Many of those killed in action were eventually re-buried back home in the States. These are the men who stayed behind and made England their final resting place.

Book Review: A Younger Brother's Search for the Last Hours of His Brother's Life

Mike Darter met his brother Eugene once, when Eugene was on leave from the Army Air Corps. At the time, Mike was a baby, and he would never see his big brother again. However, Mike never forgot his big brother, and his book 'Fateful Flight of the Lonesome Polecat II' is a wonderful tribute.

If Mike ever gets tired of his current career, his book has convinced me that he could make a very good living as a private investigator. He had to do an incredible amount of old-fashioned gum-shoeing to reconstruct that last mission, including tracking down all surviving members of his brother's crew, and visiting the site where the plane went down after being hit by enemy fire.

Eugene Darter, flying on a 95th Bomb Group B-17 Flying Fortress on his first mission, went down off Texel Island. Many years later, Mike began to search for the fate of the Lonesome Polecat II and its crew. He found that some of the men had, indeed, survived, after parachuting out slightly sooner and landing on Texel Island. Eugene, badly injured, had parachuted safely, but landed in the frigid waters and was unable to get to shore. This book reads like a detective story, as Darter begins to make the connections needed to find out about his brother. He searches MACRs, interview survivors, researches the air battle after which the Polecat went down, and even travels to Texel Island to meet with the last man to see the plane and, possibly, his brother.

This is a fascinating book, full of maps and diagrams charting the data that Darter has meticulously collected. It is a fine tribute to the men of the Lonesome Polecat II.

Order your copy from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Fateful-Flight-Lonesome-Polecat-II/dp/0595325882/ref=ed_oe_p/103-0005295-6637462?ie=UTF8&qid=1184424396&sr=8-1