Hitch Hiker: Part 1

War As My Fathers Tank Battalion Knew It

When I launched War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It, I intended it to be mostly about tanks. But the title is misleading, and I'm the person who came up with it. About half of my work comprises interviews and conversations with veterans and families of my father's 712th Tank Battalion. , and I thought, well, there are a lot of people who are interested in tanks. But there are also people who are interested in D-Day, and prisoners of war, and Marines, and air battles, and Gold Star families, and World War II in general, and those interviews comprise the other half of my work.

This and the next couple of episodes are about a B-26 Marauder named Hitch Hiker, and its tail gunner, John Sweren. In 2010 Bob Levine called and invited me to breakfast. Bob, incidentally, is the subject of the episode "Good News, Bad News." He and his wife, Edith, both had covid-19 and both survived. (Edith has since passed away.) The French historian Christian Levaufre was visiting Bob on his way to the 90th Infantry Division reunion, besides which, Edith was a cook right out of Bon Appetit, so how could I refuse?

During the breakfast, Christian remarked that he had some pieces of an airplane in his suitcase.

I was like what?

Pieces of a B-26 that crashed in France during World War II, Christian explained, and during his visit he was going to deliver them to family members of some of the crew.

John Sweren of Mesa, Arizona, was the tail gunner on that crew. On July 28, 1944, the plane took a direct hit from flak and the tail section broke off with John in it. It was his 58th mission. Three of the six crew members were killed and three survived. Christian had a copy of an interview with John done by Brett Schomacher, who sat beside John on a plane and was fascinated by his story. When I read Schomacher's interview, I wanted to interview John as well. I planned a trip to Mesa, Arizona, in conjunction with a visit to my mother's cousin Janice Lahr in Tucson. Janice's late husband was Herb Lahr, whose father was Bert Lahr, the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, but that's another story.

I interviewed John over two days, and eventually published the interview with the title "Merry Christmas in July" for Kindle and, thanks to the miracle of print-on-demand, in book form available at Amazon.

There is a lot more to come from my interviews with the 712th Tank Battalion, but I've decided to include more of my general work as well. I hope you'll subscribe to the podcast on your favorite platform, and subscribe to my email newsletter at myfatherstankbattalion.com. I'm Aaron Elson. Thank you for listening. And reading!

War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It

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