7. This Week's Stories and Requests for Help We try to post stories and
comments from our readers each week. Send your story to newsletter{at}tias.com
and we'll publish it in an upcoming newsletter.  We *love* to hear your
stories!  If you have a story you'd like to share, tell us about it and if
you have any photos, we'd love to see them!  Send us an email to
newsletter{at}tias.com so we can share your story with the rest of our
readers.

Here's a reprint of a story submitted in 2002 - well worth printing again. 
Do you have any interesting stories to share?

I am into metal detecting private homes so one day I approached the door of
a likely house just outside Chicago.  A man answered the door in his early
60's and we struck up a lively conversation about the property and its
history.  He was an only child and both parents had passed away and we
quickly became friends.  I had not even begun to sell on eBay yet but was
always interested in antiques and especially World War II items.  He took
me to a closet off a bedroom on the second floor and inside this small
closet was a shoe box full of letters from a soldier overseas, his sterling
wings, as well as one photograph of the plane he flew in.  You see, my
friend was only about 7 years old during 1943 when this family friend was
sent overseas as a waist gunner on a B-24 bomber stationed in North Africa.
 I bought the box lot from him and about a year later I put the picture up
on eBay along with a war bonds poster I got from him as well thinking that
it might induce a slightly higher bid

I could hardly read the name of the plane but guessed that it was Kadley's
Harem.  The auction was only a couple days old when I received a phone call
from a rather excited man.  He asked if possibly the name was Hadley's
Harem instead of Kadley's Harem.  I inspected the photograph under a
jewelers loupe and sure enough it was!  It turned out that the plane was
involved with the ill-fated attack on Ploesti on August 1, 1943.  The pilot
and two other crewman never made it home.  The photograph that I had of the
plane matched perfectly an old faded, torn copy that the man had.  The copy
he had came from a widow of one of the surviving crewman and was believed
to be the only one.  Mine was identical and in perfect condition, having
been kept in a closed shoe box for 57 years.  I quickly canceled the
auction and donated the picture to further the research efforts of the man
who contacted me along with the silver wings.

And all the letters? Well, most of them were from Christopher Holweger, one
of the few surviving crewmenfrom that ill-fated flight and helped to fill
in some gaps in the narrative of the history of that brave crew.  Who could
have known that a small box of old letters and one photograph would mean so
much?  I feel honored to have been a part of restoring the dignity and
honor to the crew of Hadley's Harem.-Blessings, Eric Seavey
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--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Dada-2