Flying with Jimmy Stewart: The Story of a B-24 Pilot in the 445th

This incredibly complete grouping belonged to Lieutenant William O. Shank who flew B-24's for the 445th Bomb Group in the 701st and 702nd Squadrons. Born in Ohio in 1924, he was commissioned in May of 1944. Upon completion of training here in the States, his crew shipped out overseas in Jan of 45 bound for Tibenham, England. There they would join the 445th BG. Shank flew 11 combat missions over Germany, several of which he flew deputy lead to Jimmy Stewart's lead. Shank spoke of Jimmy as being "...very well thought of. On Saturday nights, he would drive around to all the bars and taverns in town to pick up his crew members so they wouldn't miss curfew. He ate in the dining hall with everyone else and refused to leave the control area until all squadron members landed their planes." Shank last spoke to Stewart during a book signing in New York.

Shank’s wartime service was over on a fateful day in April of 1945. Returning from a training mission, they lost an engine while flying in solid cloud cover. Unfortunately, it was the engine that provided the vacuum necessary for the flight instruments to work.  The aircraft went into a spin and became badly damaged during the spin recovery. They lost the entire left vertical stabilizer and also most of the left half of the elevator.  While attempting to make an emergency landing at Thorpe Abbots, they were waved off by the control tower because the runway they were lined up on was too short.  To avoid the village of Thorpe Abbots, Shank had to turn into the dead engine.  The aircraft stalled and crashed outside the airfield, killing 3 and injuring 6 others. Horribly injured in the crash, he had to undergo quite a bit of plastic surgery to his face.
After his release from the military, he went back to college and practiced Law until his retirement. He passed away in 2011 in Illinois.

Being in the USAF myself, she said she wanted me to be the caretaker and carry on the story of her heroic father. This grouping has over 200 original documents chronicling his service from his enlistment to mail from the 8th AAF association. His Air Medal, original aviator sunglasses, a set of mini-wings, association membership cards, certificates, his laundry bag complete this making it the most complete grouping I own. All of his flight and pilot logs provided much insight to the amount of time and training put in before a crew could ship out to a theater. I will let the photos speak for themselves. Thanks for looking!