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Larry Carpenter
1141 Holiday Lane
Estes Park, CO 80517-7412
August 3, 2000

Dear Larry,

Know you should never start a letter with an apology, but I do apologize for being so long in answering your letter and getting information to you. It has been a very busy summer for one thing and I have been trying to locate memorabilia of 1944. I have an album filled with pictures, that have always been in the bookcase, but I can't remember where the rest of things are. I will find them but it may take awhile.

I don't recall that there was ever an obituary about Bud. My parents chartered a plane and flew to Fairbury after I called them about the crash, his parents came by train and we all went back to Chicago via train. The funeral was at Edison Park Lutheran Church in Chicago and he was buried there at Mount Olivet Cemetery. I'm I sure there were notices in the Chicago papers, but I don't remember keeping any copies. He was not very well known around here, and I was too devastated to think about putting anything in the newspaper.

Barbara, we call her Bobbie, has been fascinated by the Web site, and she is interested in every detail. Mother and Dad Bohle were very special people and we were close to them all of their lives. Dad Bohle died in 1950, Mother Bohle sold their home in Skokie, Il. and moved to Fort-Lauderdale, FL. Bobbie and I lived with them for nearly two years when I went back to graduate school at Northwestern. Sister Bohle came to visit us every summer and we visited her many times in Florida. When she could no longer live by herself, Bobbie and I went to Florida and brought her back to Britton so we could take care of her.

I was a widow for seven years. I married Ulrich M. Henehan, Jr. on July 7, 1951. Bobbie adored him, and he was a very good stepfather to her. Ulrich and I had five children and the six of them are very close. Ulrich died March 14, 1989. He was also an Army pilot and was in the Air Force reserve for 28 years.

This is more than you wanted to know about me, but the Bohles were very special people. Bobbie has only one blood cousin, Kathy, Leroy's daughter and this week they are on a trip to Pennsylvania together.

I could fill pages with stories about Bud Bohle. He was an outstanding individual, one you would never forget. I met him at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. Having a November 1 birthday made him a mid-year student in Chicago, so he came to St. Olaf at the beginning of the second semester, Jan. 1938.

Bud worked summers for Bausch and Lomb and during the summer of 1940, they offered to send him to Denver for a six months very specialized training in Optometric instruments (only 16 from all over the U.S.) He thought it would be better than a college degree. Also if he had a job', we could get married when I graduated in '41.

We were married September 1, 1941, in Aberdeen, SD and lived in Chicago. He was ready to enlist the day after Pearl Harbor, but I talked him into waiting to see if the Army Air Corp would take married men for pilot training. The Corp lifted the ban on married men as cadets in January 1942. He came home with the papers for me to sign the day after it was announced. I had to sign away all dependency, but I did and he went into the first class that took married men.

His first station after graduation was Brooks Field for Dive bomber training, the next was Savannah, GA, then Drew Field in Tampa, FL. From Tampa, Bud was sent with a group to Alaska. Their mission was to knock out Japanese installations in the Aleutians. They were gone 2~ months, but they were not supposed to talk about it, so I know nothing about that. When he got back from Alaska, we were stationed at Lakeland, FL, where he was switched to P 5ls. He had always wanted to fly fighters so he was very happy. We were only at Lakeland a short time and the group was sent to Galveston, TX.

He was made a squadron commander and ordered to Bruning, NE. I was seven months pregnant, so the Dr. said I had to stay in Galveston or go to my parents' home in Claremont, SD because Bruning had no medical facilities for dependents. That is where the Claremont address came from. I stayed in Claremont until Barbara was 2~ months old and Bud had found an apartment in Fairbury, NE. I had been there two months at the time of the accident.

I was told later that Bud had had dinner and was walking down the flight line, when Stan Meadows called to him and asked him to ride along up to Pierre, said he was coming right back.

I wasn't expecting Bud home on August 3 because on the 2nd, he had had a blowout on one of the tires on our car. He rode to the base with a friend the morning of the 3rd. When I took the tire to be fixed, they said it couldn't be done until the 4th. Because of tire rationing, you couldn't buy a new tire, or even a used one. It had to be vulcanized. I called Bud and told him. . He said he would stay at the BOQ that night because he wanted to see his "boys;' night fly and he'd be home the next evening.

On the morning of the 4th of August I was busy washing diapers by hand (no laundermats in Fairbury in those days--no disposable diapers either) when a friend who lived in Hebron came to the door. She realized when I opened the door that I hadn't heard about the crash. Her name was Fay Hill. There was only one phone in the apartment house where we lived. It was an old house made into apartments. The phone was in the hall upstairs. Fay went upstairs and called her husband at the base. He told her they were still waiting for word if there were any survivors. Imagine how difficult that next hour or so were for her. A call came for her and of course she took it upstairs and when she came down, she stopped in the doorway and was crying. I went over to her thinking she had had word that her husband was going overseas or something and I'll never forget her words, "Oh Dee, : it isn't me, it's you.

And that's how I learned of the death of Robert Kenneth Bohle. He was a wonderful, caring husband and I truly thought my world had come to an end. Bud always said if he was ever killed in a plane crash, it wouldn't be the plane's fault, it would be pilot error. He loved all types of aircraft. They had been having problems with converting the new pilots to P47s. Something about the weight of the engine made the control work differently. Wish he could have seen the aircraft of today:

Will send you a better picture when we find the photographs. Don't know if you can use the enclosed. The one of Bud on the flight line was a favorite of mine. Jerome N. Davis was his best friend and his wife, mine. When we got to Tampa was the first time the guys could live off base and we shared an apartment. When Bud was killed the Air Corp sent Jab from Galveston to Chicago and he stayed with me until after the funeral.

Bobbie called Tim Mertz and had a long talk with him about your visit to Naper and we are going to get together. Bobbie and I are planning a trip to Naper before her school starts the last of August. I called the friend I was visiting in Estes Park and asked her if you could call her if you were interested in hearing about Bud from someone other than a relative. Her name is Elva Connelly Read. When I told her your name, she said she wondered if you were the Larry Carpenter who used to help her try to save her trees. Her first husband, AI, was also a pilot. We lived in the same house in Bonham and in San Antonio. Her number is 586-2978.

I started this on August 3 because I promised myself that I would have written you by that date, but I've had so many interruptions I'm two days behind already. Will keep in touch with you and .let you know of our visit to Naper. Thank you for all you've done.

Sincerely,
DeLores Bohle Henehan