The Key to Finding the Bolin Crew

For all the information we have accumulated on most of the 35 Kassel Mission crews, there was one we knew absolutely nothing about. All we had was the MACR (Missing Air Crew Report) and the crew list. 

Roy Bolin’s crew was the first to go down on the mission. Their Liberator crashed near Eisenach, Germany. Only one crew member survived.

In 2009, two die-hard KMHS members on our newly formed Search and Contact Team—Don Lum and Duane Giesler—began searching the Internet to find family members of the Bolin family. It wasn’t easy, but they hit gold when they found Janet Bolin Heise. 

Like so many, Janet and her family never really knew what happened to her uncle Roy Bolin. Once she learned a little about it, she was gung-ho to join the search team. But Janet was on a mission of her own—to find the one who survived—the tail gunner. Together, she and Giesler, whose father was also on the mission, searched for Orland J. Schooley.

Janet’s motivation is displayed in this moving letter she sent to Duane in 2010. 

Dear Duane,

I called  telephone information regarding Orland, in Crawfordsville, Florida earlier this year. They did not have an Orland J. School[ey] in an area of 150 miles.  I also gave information the alternate names he uses. 

…I will write a letter to the Ft. Myers address.  On the envelope I will request to be notified of the forwarding address.  I have checked with the postman and that is possible.  I have not gotten to doing this and your note has encouraged me to get at it. I am assuming there is a forwarding address. It will be a letter of honor.  I will not ask questions. I will write about how we children were told about Roy's death. I will let him know that the tail gunner gave us hope and his life was honored each time the story was told.

When ever the adults told us about Uncle Roy being killed they would tell us in a certain way.  They would say,"Uncle Roy was shot down and killed over Germany."  Without fail the next sentence was, "But the tail gunner got out."    There was a difference in how the two sentences were spoken.  The first was sad and forlorn.  It was spoken with a heavy heart.  The second sentence was said in a life affirming manner.  It was positive. It showed that life goes on. Something tragic happened at the same time that something over which we could rejoice happened. It gave the family something to hold on to.  All was not lost, "the tail gunner got out."

I never knew the tail gunners name until late last year.  I always thought that "the tail gunner" was at the crews re-interment at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. The only person who could help verify this does not remember.  Anyway, I like to think he was there.

Did you ever wish you could relive just one day of your life? I do. I know exactly what day it would be. It was a day shortly after Sept. 27, 1944. It was an Indian Summer Day  It was warm, the sun was out and there was enough of a breeze to remind you that the wind can blow gently.

On the day I want to relive our family was visiting our grandparents, on their farm in Moultrie County, Illinois. Lately, whenever we visited I would be asked to go out and get the mail.  The first time I was asked to do this I started to refuse.  However, I got such a look from my mother that I obeyed. I went out the back screen door, down the gravel drive, across the highway to the rural mailbox and got the mail.  I remember thinking, "what is so important about the mail?" "Why cant the grownups go out and get it?"

On the day I want to relive I was not asked to get the mail.  My grandmother went to get the mail.  She walked down the gravel road, crossed the highway, opened the rural mailbox and took out the mail.  As she did this I went to play in the front parlor. After a while I went to find something else to do.  As I did this I went into the front foyer.  I looked through the screened door and saw a letter, in my grandmother’s hand.  It was shaking back and forth.  Then I noticed that my grandmother was sobbing.  She was sitting on the porch with her feet on the first step down.  With each sob her head bent forward almost touching her knees. I was so alarmed.  I went to find my mother.

My mother was in the kitchen stirring something on the stove. I ran in and said, "mother  grandmother is on the porch crying."  My mother put her finger to her lips indicating I should speak more softly.  So I repeated myself, softly.  My mother turned and stood very erect. She looked down and  said "don't go out there, don't go out there."  To this day, so many years later I wish I had disobeyed. I wish I had gone out on the porch, climbed into my grandmothers lap, put my arms around her neck and kissed her cheek."  Now that I am a grandmother I know what it would have meant.

After that day I knew the importance of the mail.  The letter?  It told my grandmother that her beloved youngest  son, 2nd. Lieutenant, Roy E. Bolin had been shot down and killed over Germany on September 27, 1944.

Sincerely,

Janet Bolin Heise

Beside filling our files with information on Roy Bolin, including letters between him and the family, Janet and Duane were eventually successful in finding the tailgunner, who cried when he answered the door because he didn’t think anyone cared any more. She sent her son to Florida, where, in a City of Ft. Myers Memorial Day ceremony, he was recognized and awarded a lifetime KMHS honorary membership. He passed away the following year.  

Janet recently passed away. But before she did, she went on to search and find many more of our veterans’ families. 

We will miss Janet, and we are grateful for the work she did to recognize her uncle and other Kassel Mission veterans.