- Well, I've known about Burleigh ever since I was little, probably- - [Interviewer] Like he was always there?

- It was like he was always there.

My mom always talked about him.

So probably, you know, my earliest memory, when I was five, six, probably, because she always talked about her family, and always included Burleigh.

(soft piano music) - We started out financially well off, but the Depression caught us, when I was about in the second grade.

- Every night we had our family meal together, and around the big oak table in the kitchen, where everyone sat.

He loved mashed potatoes, always would clean up all the mashed potatoes, and the steam from hot mashed potatoes.

And I can see him sitting at the table.

- They'd gotten in trouble in school.

He and Ralph would have to go sit by Uncle Donald, because Uncle Donald was the one that never got in trouble.

And he was like the perfect one.

- He had the football and came at me head first, and right into my, knocked the wind right out of me (laughs).

- And then there was the time that she says she remembers that, she remembers Grandpa yelling in the morning, "Where's my car," because apparently he'd run it into the ditch the night before.

- He had a wave in the front of his hair, right like that, and standing in front of the mirror combing that wave.

It had to be just perfect before he walked out to school in the morning (laughs).

- He and my other brother Ralph, during the high school years, met two girls from an adjacent town, and they were back and forth all the time.

- Her name was Elva Murray.

They used to call her Chuckie, and on the side of the pictures of the planes is "Chuckie."

Yeah, and we always called her Chuckie, yeah.

(rousing newsreel music) - [Narrator] The greatest double-cross in history.

Jap envoys talk peace in Washington.

Jap planes, without warning, bring war to America.

Our great Pacific outpost in the Hawaiian Islands is ruthlessly bombed, as Japan's perfidious declaration of war.

Death and destruction unleashed on a nation at peace.

But overnight, this nation was united in an all out determination to avenge the hideous assault on American lives and property.

- [Madelyn] When the news came over the radio- - [Announcer] Pearl Harbor.

- We knew that was going to be life-changing, because we knew that our brothers would be involved.

- Don, the oldest brother, volunteered and went into the U.S.

Army Air Force.

The middle brother, Ralph, wanted to get in, but because his eyesight wasn't as good, he wasn't allowed to.

And so he enlisted in another civil service.

And the youngest brother, Burleigh, wanted to be in.

And he always wanted to be a Air Force pilot.

- From the day after Pearl Harbor, he never thought about nothing except getting what he had to have to get into the Air Corps at that time.

- And he was the only one of the five of us who did not take college prep.

And so he had to have advanced math and he wanted to fly.

They wouldn't accept him.

So he saved his money from working on a farm, that's the work they could find, went into Boston on the train, picked up the advanced math, so he wouldn't be drafted into regular, and he joined the regular Army Air Force.

- And then on May 20th, 1942, he began his bootcamp, and went off and took his training for bootcamp.

And after the bootcamp, he was chosen to serve as a fighter pilot.

And being a fighter pilot was a very big honor.

So he went to training out in Arizona, came back to Westover, Mass., Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts, and then out into New York State, and learned to fly the P-47, the Thunderbolt.

[Announcer] - America's newest fighter plane.

The P-47 Thunderbolt has left the drafting boards and is now in mass production.

A four-blade propeller absorbs the terrific power of its motor.

(rousing newsreel music) Thousands of rounds of ammunition are stored in its wings.

The test pilot climbs aboard, fits his oxygen mask, and he's ready for a flight.

(motor rumbles) - I can remember in high school, when he came home after pilot's training, and then he went to Holliston High School, and he spoke at this ceremony with his uniform, and had his wings.

- In October of 1943, he married his high school sweetheart, Chuckie, and he, the next month he flew off to England, to be part of what would become the invasion force of France.

He was part of the Ninth Air Force, the 362nd Fighter Bomber Group, the 377th Fighter Bomber Squadron.

- And he was stationed in Kent, England, which is very interesting because our ancestors came from Kent, England on the Mayflower, from Kent, England.

- [Announcer] Like flying bullets, they streak across the sky.

Thunderbolts in name, they pack thunderbolts of firepower.

(motors rumbling) - In February, 1944, his first mission was to attack a place called Pas-de-Calais, across the English Channel.

The Americans' goal was to convince the Germans that they were gonna attack north of Normandy.

And so they did these runs on Pas-de-Calais, north of France, north of Normandy, so that the Germans would think that's where coming, and they would set up their defenses there, and have all the reserves there, so that when eventually the Americans would attack, down in Normandy, the Germans wouldn't be prepared for it.

- [Announcer] June 6th, 1944, and the greatest armada in military history is assembled in England for an assault on Hitler's Fortress Europe.

For this long-awaited D-Day, the Allies have assembled 12,000 planes to protect the surface force of 4,000 ships, all under the Supreme Command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who has British General Montgomery at his side.

- His role on that day was to be a fighter pilot escort for the C-47s.

C-47s were those group of planes that flew over the Normandy beaches, those five beaches, and flew behind the lines, to drop paratroopers behind lines.

And so that's what he did.

He escorted those planes on that day.

I just can't imagine what that was like on that day.

When early morning, when they flew out to get these troopers behind the lines before the American troops landed on those beaches.

(artillery booms) - [Announcer] The Allies have complete control of the air, and cover the surface forces as Allied troops pile into landing craft, to hit the coast from Cherbourg to Le Havre.

As they prepare to move in, 500 warships lay down a withering barrage.

(artillery booms) Troops move in aboard LCTs and LSTs, and it's the beginning of the end for Hitler's dreams of world conquest.

German.

- Okay, fellas, roll out.

We have a mission this morning.

Breakfast in half an hour.

- We expect heavy flack batteries at a place where we make landfall here at (indistinct), about a mile south of Corse.

Now, while you're crossing the coast and when you're over air drones, you are advised to take evasive action.

Now then, when you got to the target itself- - Burleigh's squadron was assigned to fly a mission to destroy a railroad bridge, in a place called Briouze, France.

Now Briouze, France was this small town between Paris and and the French coast.

It was an evening attack when it happened.

And they flew in formation, and he was the fourth in formation.

The goal was to come in with single planes at a time.

They would dive bomb the bridge.

They would let off their machine guns and drop their bombs on the target, the bridge, and then go up.

He was fourth in line, in doing that.

And when he came down, he apparently went down a little bit too low, and the bomb ahead of him, and that plane, the third plane, dropped off and exploded.

And the bomb blast went up far enough that it disrupted the plane that Burleigh was in, and Burleigh instinctively and training-wise, naturally pulled up, and he pulled straight up into the air, and there was smoke, it says in the records, coming from his plane.

And the, something, probably the explosion totally disoriented Burleigh, such that when it pulled up, his plane stalled.

And he went down to the left and crashed, and immediately down and nosedived into a farmer's field, and exploded.

- My father was out mowing the lawn, and I think my sister Bev was out with her, and they saw the car.

- And you knew when there was a telegram, at that time, during the war, that it wasn't good.

- They immediately called up to my aircraft.

I had to land immediately, and go in to see him.

And he, unfortunately he had to tell me about my brother being killed.

And just complete shock.

- On my father's side, they're very quiet, and especially the men are very quiet men.

And we, and both my sister and I, and the boy, we didn't talk about it too much right then.

But of course it hurt so deep.

But I didn't say anything.

I went back to work and didn't say boo to anybody about all this.

About two o'clock, my father came into work to take me home.

He thought I should be home with the family.

- So Burleigh's plane crashed about a mile and a quarter, just north of the bridge, and went down in this field called Le Plessis farm, a regular working farm.

And it crashed essentially in the middle of the field.

And there were a number of witnesses who saw the crash that night.

And a cabinetmaker recorded in his diary after that night that he went out to the field, and he observed that the plane was there, and the plane tail was sticking out of the ground.

And, but he couldn't get very close because the plane was in flames.

All this aviation fuel was burning.

And so he couldn't go back.

And so the next thing, first thing in the morning, he came back, and two of the farmer boys from this farm came out with him and they, they were able to get close enough to the plane.

And they found a bracelet that said "Lieutenant B.E.

Curtis" on it.

And so they took that bracelet, and they found parts of Burleigh's body.

And this cabinetmaker went back to his cabinetmaking building, and he built a little casket, one foot by three foot, not very big, but big enough for what he had found, and he put Burleigh's remains in that casket.

And he buried it about a hundred feet north of where the plane crashed, on a little ridge.

And he put part of the propeller in the ground, and put "Lieutenant Burleigh, B.E.

Curtis" onto that, on a cross there on the ground.

And they buried him there.

- There were two separate groups of military forces that went in to search for my brother's remains.

The first group found them and moved him somewhere.

And it's not clear in the material that's sent to the family.

So, when the second group came in, met together with the French people again, to go to that spot where they saw him go down, the aircraft remains were there, but no body parts that they could identify, nothing that they could tie to a body.

So then the military, from that point forward, through the remaining part of the war, until the special forces were formed later on, he was carried in a Missing In Action status.

- I used to dream that he was in a hospital someplace and that he'd come home.

But you always have that wish, especially that first year when you don't know.

- My father was desperate for information, carried on heavy correspondence with the military.

And they did their best to identify my brother's remains, and they could not do it.

Their family home was in a little cul-de-sac, in Holliston, Massachusetts.

And they created a memorial at the end of the street that is there to this day, in Burleigh's memory.

- But my father, every birthday of my brother Burleigh, February 24th, he always bought my mother a dozen Carnation, pink carnations, to honor his birthday (cries).

When I think of it.

(somber piano music) - They had such great faith.

And I remember Grandpa used to wash our kitchen floor on his knees, and would sing these old hymns.

And then I remember Grandpa would be in the rocking chair reading his Bible, for a long time.

And I remember Grandma, her sweet spirit.

They had every reason to be bitter.

So I remember those things, and I always say, they lost their son in the war.

They can still sing hymns.

They can still read the Bible.

They can still be positive and sweet and loving to others.

I say, wow, wow, what great people.

(light piano music) - In 2012, the U.S.

government sent a team to Normandy, and they felt that they had recovered the crash site of Lieutenant Curtis.

In 2015, History Flight, the non-profit, got involved, and we sent Dr.

Chet Walker, who is a ground specialist, and with a magnetometer, and with a History Flight cadaver dog, who specializes in recoveries up to 70 years long, he investigated the site and determined it was time to do a recovery.

- By then all the above-ground evidence had gone.

It was now, had been used by wheat field and a corn field.

There was no evidence of the plane there anymore.

And they began to dig.

And so for three weeks, they, volunteers, forensic doctors, anthropologists, archeologists, surveyor geologists, contributed 3,100 hours to find the recovery of Burleigh Curtis.

- I lay out a grid as a surveyor.

They fill in the grid with the metal detectors.

And then we determine where the actual crater is, based on the circle of materials we found.

All that material that comes out of that excavation goes through screens.

And every piece of it is shaken.

I run what we call a wet screen, where I have a lot of water, high pressure water.

But we had one young 12-year-old, and he reaches in and he pulls out this clump and he holds it under, and he holds it up, and then the dog tag.

I told him what it was.

He started dancing around the camp.

That boy will never forget that incident.

'Cause he just pulled part of an American hero out of the ground.

- They found the engine.

They found numerous 50-caliber bullets.

They found insignia from the plane.

They found identification numbers from the plane.

They knew it was the right plane.

They knew it was Burleigh's plane.

They found oxygen masks.

They found two dog tags.

They found a silver bar of a first lieutenant, which he was.

They found four British coins of the 1940s.

They found a pocket watch, and they found hundreds of bones, that identified that this was Burleigh Curtis.

- Then my sister and myself got a telephone call, December 18th, 2018, from this wonderful colonel in Fort Knox, Kentucky.

I think I was right there, in that chair, and, the colonel says, "I've got the best of news for you."

And I said, "Are you gonna tell me that they recovered Burleigh's remains?"

And he said, "I am."

And I said, "Oh, my Lord, after all these years."

(somber orchestral music) - It was if he's coming home at last, and we're gonna put him beside Mama and Papa.

And, you know, very deep, very emotional.

Even now (cries), I think of it, you know.

- Burleigh's name didn't come up in my mind that often.

When I got that telephone call, then from that point forward, almost daily, one thought would lead to another.

Why, why was he taken so young?

(plane engine hums) (somber orchestral music) (officer speaks indistinctly) - We didn't know if we could be at the Portland Airport, but finally Cherryl said, "Mom, we're gonna go."

And I said, "If you're going, I'm gonna go."

(plane engine hums) - [Officer] Present, arms.

(somber orchestral music) - [Officer] Present.

- Present.

- [Officer] Arms.

Order.

- Order.

- [Officer] Arms.

- Ready, step.

- And then when we, they let us go over and put our hand under, you know, just brought some flood of memories (cries), yeah.

(somber orchestral music) (plane engine hums) - To me, Uncle Burleigh was a hero who I never knew, an uncle who my father loved so much, he named me after him.

I never knew him, but I live with him every day.

(rain patters) (mournful bagpipe music) - [Officer] (indistinct) Halt.

- What is beautiful to know, he's up there beside my parents.

And my sister is buried there, and Burleigh is there, with my grandmother and my grandfather.

(rain patters) (gunfire echoes) ("Taps") - [Cherryl] And then letters started to come.

"Thanks Burleigh Curtis, for your courage and passion to your aircraft orders.

You have saved so many lives that we are indebted to you.

Know that your sacrifice is not in vain.

We carry your memory in us, and you stay alive more than ever in the grateful heart of French and Normans.

Thank you from the heart."

"What courage he had to come, and risk his life away from his family.

Courage to meet the challenges to defend democracy and freedom, and sincere thanks to the heroes who gave their lives for our freedom.

We never forget."

This is one of my favorite letters.

And I'll end with this.

"In the papers, I discovered your story of Lieutenant Burleigh Edward Curtis, and I remember that day.

I was 15, and I lived with my mother and my brothers and my sisters in Briouze.

We were in our farmhouse with our mother, and this is what we heard.

'One of those planes crashed,' and that was the plane of your uncle.

This day is engraved in my memory forever.

And I am now 90 years old.

Thank you to all those young soldiers who gave their lives to save my beautiful country."

- Why dear Lord, did my poor brother Burleigh, lose his life at the young age of 22 years old, and here I am, spending 33 years in the Air Force.

Not a day of combat action.

Retired from the military, 1945, still living at the age of a hundred years and a half.

Could not the dear Lord of given a few of my years to my brother?

- I'm so grateful I've lived long enough, and I have the mental acumen to assimilate it and analyze it and ponder it, and mourn it, and celebrate it.

That's what life is all about.

(light piano music)