Tom Lowe, Mary Lowe, and Roger Lowe

00:03 Hi, my name is Tom Lowe. I'm 57 years old today is Saturday June 13th, 2020. I'm in Tacoma Washington and I'm talking to my mother and father married.

00:20 Mom

00:21 Hi, I'm Mary Lowe. I am 79 today is Saturday, June 13th, 2020. I'm in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I am with my husband, but we are both talking to our son song.

00:40 And I'm Rodger Lowell and I to live in Salt Lake City and it's the 13th of June 2020 and we're talking with our son top.

00:59 Okay. Well, we've had the opportunity for more self-reflection and we're looking at our lives and of course you and your sisters and brother are such a big part of our lives. And so we were thinking about you and and all the many years you spent finding out what happened to my mother's and you're

01:32 Beloved brother Leonard who joined the Raf in 41 and was reported missing in action in 42 and never to be heard of Again by any of us until your years of research to find Leonard. So we just have some questions about your motivation for or those years of research and also for tracking down Leonard's the last days.

02:03 So that's what we'd like to talk about today.

02:10 What motivated you to?

02:13 To do this this year's course. I don't suppose you didn't realize it was.

02:19 Of effort and work to get this done even to the present day now what in the world?

02:31 Well it really Mom it was it was your book you wrote a sort of a family history before there was ancestry.com. He went out and interviewed dad's mom Eunice and your mom Harriet and kind of put together concentrating on your side of the family concentrating on a history of the family and where we all came from and you know, we should drive back every summer to Iowa which is we're all basically from and we would go back and every once in a while somebody to mention Leonard and how he was this Lively person and at dinner tables, he would keep the food passing around and just sounded kind of like a jokester and but that he'd been killed during World War II and nobody knew where he was. I don't think anybody even really knew he was a pilot there was all kinds of just misinformation about where you've been and what he done in any way you wrote this book and there was this whole chapter on Leonard that

03:31 I have never seen it was a story that grandmother had written your mom and and it was it was information that I've never heard before and all the sudden. I realized oh my gosh, there's like there's more history here that I really know and there must be more information than we know of.

03:48 So a couple of phone calls later and all of the sudden grandmother was we don't know where she was keeping this stuff seem to just sort of appeared and it and it started did that over the next decade we would end up with new photographs and all the sudden another letter would show up in another you know, so anyway my motivation for really finding Leonard was to put a. At the end of the sentence for both Harriet and her sister Catherine and then ultimately that would go out to the rest of the family. But but it just felt like she still had this long to find out what happened to her little brother. You're still write a great desire to

04:33 Just to know and for years they thought the maybe somebody knocked on the door and it would be Leonard because they know.

04:43 Well, I also think now that we know the story there was a lot of denial too. And I think that happens a lot in death, especially a death that doesn't have a closing doesn't there's nobody there snow will memorial service in like that happened so many times in World War II, you know, but there was just no there was just no Final Chapter. So I think that that's that's why you know, there was a lot of conjecture about maybe he was taken prisoner and he would come home someday and so it just it kind of seemed to go on and on even on those family trips.

05:21 Yeah, so how did you even start this process that I know? You didn't know what go on that long but working says yeah, so it started in basically 1996 and we were just her to coming into the dock, page and you know, we were still on dial-up and it seems like that's Dark Ages back then but but I figured that there had to be some kind of information out there about Leonard and about these guys that have gone off to war and so I started poking around and kicking things around in and it took I was about three 4 is about till 2000 that I finally started getting there are some web pages starting to go up that that actually had list of missing and list of people that have done things and

06:21 I should back up just a little bit, you know in some of this information that grandmother supplied end up with a photograph of him standing in Bakersfield last photo of him and a bunch of other guys outside a hanger in Bakersfield, California and again started scratching your head, What how did he end up in Bakersfield with an airplane and just

06:51 Get down for real. I started opening the book and then we got the letter that they actually got from the common Commonwealth War Graves back at the back in the day saying that he was missing in action and a list of him as the pilot of the bomber. They were flying and then all of the men that were on board and all of them listed as missing in action and presumed dead, which we the family never seen before it was his little box. And so then we knew that there was some record of him in the RAF so fast forward to than 2001-2002 and all of a sudden, you know, all of us are online and there's lots of web pages now going up and I got a hit for Leonard O'Hara listed on the walls of Runnymede, which is this Memorial outside of Windsor Castle in England and it basically commemorates all of the missing in action men that were on board

07:51 All of those bombers that used to go over to Europe and bombed the German facilities and bases and so and his name was listed as one of the missing and so would that was our first started like, oh my gosh, we found something, you know, and then that sort of fell into

08:11 Where did the bomber crash in and where did he fly out of and how did he end up in London? And how did you know? How did this all come together?

08:21 And we then got all of these letters. I forget how many you remember how many there were like 15 letters 12. Yeah, 15 or 15 letters. Actually that he had written during his time. It might have even been more than that, but then he'd written during his time away from home away from Iowa and Iowa casino in Des Moines, and it was a very tight community and lots of great friends and and in that time between 1996 and 2002 you and I'd gone to talk to Lee about Grady his great grade school friend and learn some stories about them and discovered that Leo actually was in the Infantry in London trying to get ahold of Leonard. They're over there at the same time. It was after Pearl Harbor

09:13 Bring my back to Leonard story. We then I just got then there was a I started writing letters actually to try to find out you know, where he was and how he got there and and just continue researching it all online. I don't know. Did you have another question? Sorry.

09:36 Could you

09:40 Well, I just thought maybe it might be good to go over some of his you know his.

09:51 When he was young.

09:53 You know, he had a plane that didn't have a plane that crashed or something that he has some of his exploits. That's not it up with broken arms and legs and they had a Hill Called roundhouse Hill that used to ride down on a wagon and crash and he was always bruised and broken several bones during his lifetime and but they were his two sisters Catherine in area would be walking home and he'd be swinging in the trees above them and they just a fun-loving guy and I think he always had that sense of adventure inside himself and when he decided he was going to go do something. He didn't want to stay in Iowa. He wanted to broaden his Horizons and he took a job in Washington DC and

10:53 He's working it working out there and somehow he was a big baseball fan huge baseball fan and we have this photograph of a baseball field in Washington DC with this up Banner in the Outfield that said flying lessons $10 or whatever it was. And so I'm guessing that they were at the baseball field bodies in Kennesaw this cuz you never had any interest in flying before he got to Washington DC and we're guessing that they took the flying lessons out of beaconfield out there and which is now a shopping mall, but they got together that there is three or four of them and they bought a taxi and they were running the taxi to make money and then they somehow got enough funds together to buy a Cessna airplane and they started doing air shows up and down the Coast to East Coast and we have this postcard from them actually from Cuba they gone to this Cuban Air Show.

11:53 And and I had a good time down there and he talks about flying over a hundred miles worth of open water and hope he doesn't become sharkbait. And anyway, there was a lot of by then we're talkin 1930-1940 41 and he the war machine started to go and Hitler starting to invade Europe and you're starting to see things in London and he mentioned a couple times in his letters and doing research on young Pilots back in the day, you know, the Brits had this airplane called the Spitfire and it was a it was a hottest plane in the world at that time. And any pilot who is worth their salt at all. Wanted to fly Spitfires just because they were the fastest the most maneuverable and and it just sounded like the coolest the best thing you could do.

12:43 Now that time before World War II, we as America we were trying to stay out of the war and nobody there was a big movement to stay out of the war and Roosevelt had come up with this thing through Canada called the Lend-Lease program and it was for a while there. It was illegal for Americans to go to Europe and try to get into the war. So the way you could get into the war was you cross into Canada and then go across the new submarine infested waters to London and then and then join the join the cause so it was a guy named Clayton night started this program for the RAF because they needed more pilots with young American pilots and Leonard somehow ended up signing up for that. I'm assuming because because he was in Washington DC so is very accessible and probably one of his friends discovered it.

13:37 They end up in Bakersfield training to fly for the RAF starting out in Twin wing stearmans. And then they moved to 86 has to really fast airplanes for training and then they took a train they got all their training done. And that's where that photographs from that original photograph. It's all of that class standing in front of Bakersfield Hangar one of those guys named we go over and years after the war he hooked up he wrote a book called Spitfires and warm beer and kept his Memoir took a lot of photographs. You have to report aggressive Leonard on the field and it was that class and we and one other guy are the only ones dong Yan are the only two that survived. That class the other guy said not everyone was killed, but they were wounded and sent home or

14:37 Mental issues because of what they experienced then anyway, after after graduation, they came back through Iowa. And again, we got a newspaper article that have been hidden. I think Katherine actually had the newspaper article. Sister but it was a picture of Leonard with a couple of his classmates Middleton and another guy and they were heading into London on their way. And so was the last time they would actually see their brother and they took trains across the Canadian border and there's a little I don't want it was illegal at that time or if it was legal. I think we were getting closer and closer to joining the war and Roosevelt I think was relaxing those laws. And so but anyway, they ended up in Halifax and boarded the boat and Leroy Governor through his journals right about that trip across the Atlantic and the storms and there was a ship that was actually sunk by a submarine.

15:37 And quite the adventure just to get to to London. So they

15:43 Ended up

15:49 Before he went down.

15:52 Well first, I think I think he joined to fly the Spitfire now. I think that's what he wanted to fly. I don't think he went over to fly bombers. I don't think he went over to do that. So when they arrived in Liverpool on Christmas Eve, they 1941 it was right after Pearl Harbor they had that they got off the boat and they lined them up in the hallway. All these guys from America and they said the guy Captain walk down the hallway and he said, all right, all you on the Left Flank Spitfire value on the writer flying bombers and Leonard ended up being on the right.

16:32 So he went through a series of trainings learning how to fly the big the big beast. So he flew Wellington's he never flew Lancaster and one of his first missions was on Wellington on one of the Thousand Palmer Raids, you sue these giant that you know by then we were well past the Blitz from Russia from from from Germany over London. So Britain was well into the war and so they had the machine for the going but but they still need two pilots and America was just starting to get into war. So these guys came in as RAF Royal Air Force and the ones that went to fly Spitfires ended up being part of the eagle Squadron the Sand Eagle Squadron and and was until late in 1941 1942 that they you know transferred over to the

17:32 States Air Force all those guys and and Leonard was actually in the midst of transferring when he went down. Anyway, they they trained then basically for about 9 months and he did go on several sorties over Europe through the flag. Can we have a letter? I think they were bombing ass in one night and one of his letters back home and wait, there is some letters that were redacted a little bit but but he talks about a mission that he went on and he said he's lucky to still be walking around. So he said I was his story. I'll tell you around the campfire someday. I'd love to know what happened on that bomber that night. But but they were pretty horrendous raids and as Our Friend Martin for Jones who is a historian for

18:19 Leonard squadron at the RAF said you know these guys were taking the fight to that you to the Germans every night. So in several several places threaded to get to the Flying the stirling bomber and Stirling bomber was meant to be one of their biggest, you know, it had a huge payload and but as they got to the end of building it they had to shorten the wingspan in order for it to fit into the current hangers. They had no hangers go for it. Oh my and so the plane couldn't couldn't get above 10,000 feet basically because of its wingspan. And so it was kind of a flying death trap in a way and the guys after several missions realized what was going on in it cuz they were just, you know, kind of cannon fodder being solo. Where's the Lancaster and the Beast

19:19 Continue no could get way way up, you know, and so these guys were playing right into it and

19:36 How many trips did you make to research this?

19:44 Well, we are.

19:51 Sure in 2003.

20:00 C S Spring of 2003 I had met Martin Ford Jonesy's the historian Leonard and move through several squadrons in his training and he ended up with Squadron 15 ultimately and they were based out of out of a Air Field air and ended up contacting Martin and he invited us over to London to see him and meet his wife and tore some of the bases that Leonard have been based out of and and ultimately I wanted to stand on the tarmac that he last touch the Earth on and

20:38 And we decided at that point to that we wanted to go with at that point. We've discovered where the bomber crashed as well in the Netherlands and it was on its last last mission for S&M. It's already been shot down according to all the paperwork rediscovered through the RAF or to the Museum of the air museum over there. And I'd run into this guy named Garett swynenberg who was instrumental in the Netherlands. There was a huge Lake they're called the Iceland mirror and the ice the mirror was full of water that time after the war they built Dykes like they do in the Netherlands in a drain this part of the world and turn it into farmland. And before they could allow the farmers to go and farmland. They had to remove all of these Old World War 2 relics and make sure there weren't still incendiary bombs and their bombs in there that she knows you can blow yourself up killing your field.

21:38 And so Garrett was in charge of getting that all taken care of and we had several conversations on the phone. And so anyway, we went out and garroted set up a meeting with the farmer which is where Leonard farmer and actually come down. This guy named Pete. And so we went out when did Pete and we got to walk on the field and there are still parts of the bomber. They were coming up in the field at that time and I went back to the barn and peed handed me the yolk the steering wheel basically from the bomber that afternoon and so is really amazing to stand where the plumber to come down and hold the oak that Leonard had his hand on, you know, when it when it went in on that raid there was only two bombers. It actually did not come back. The other Palmer is completely shut down in the North Sea and there's some conjecture that the two of them run into each other possibly, but but we'll never know anyway, so we went to Amsterdam we did all of that and I really wonder

22:38 A person named Pete wisdom. They could have been nicer showed us nothing but hospitality and we bought back over to London and Matt Martin and we went through all the fields and and ended up standing on the tarmac that to Leonard took off of from last time and and just a quick story We standing on the field there. It was there was a light Breeze blowing all day long and we kind of walk to somewhere might have been staying in the officers quarters and walked around where they used to store the ammunition where the bombers used to be parked and it's an operating field now and it's just sort of local have airport not a whole lot of traffic but standing I walked out into the center of the runway in each other was knowing coming in the Lander take off and standing there and literally this blast of wind came down the runway and hit my wife and I Barbara and and Martin turn to us and said that was Leonard really amazing is so pretty cool.

23:39 How to sew

23:43 That sounds just like it was Leonard. I would you feel

23:47 As is it was just kind of I just kind of felt like it was a little hello. So you think finding me is pretty neat but yeah rather moving

24:04 I don't know how to put it. It's one of those things that there's really no words to describe.

24:12 Yeah, bring my eyes right now.

24:19 So then we wanted to I wanted to try to write all this down and and put together curology and Anna book for everyone and we've been shooting a little bit of video now and then and just doing doing little bits and Bobs here and and there was just so much material that I Found You by Marty clown the base has he been to the whole trip across the Atlantic and it just seemed like such a great story. So I started compiling it all and the more I got into it tomorrow felt like I needed some kind of ending for a two cuz we still we do the bomber was there.

25:06 And so then I contacted the Commonwealth War Graves and I wanted to find out if where these guys might be buried, right?

25:16 And so from their eye they send me a list of the graves of the guys that they knew were you know that they found the bodies washed up on the shores at the lights come here. And so they had it was three of the guys they actually had names of four of them. Actually. I'm sorry, there were seven on board the the bomber when it went down and for the guys that names on the other three Leonard being one of them, we're still missing and so they said that three of the guys were buried those three that they knew the names of repaired at a place called new Eastern Cemetery in Amsterdam, and the fourth guy gunning Evans was buried at Heart of it cuz he washed up a couple days later or earlier at forget I get a little confused at times but

26:10 And so we went back to Amsterdam and visited the graves and so is Colin Forrester and

26:20 Shoot

26:38 Best laid plans, right?

26:48 I thought I had it marked.

26:57 Well

26:59 Anyway

27:04 Where did it go?

27:12 All right. Well anyway, we found out where they are and then there were two unknowns. One of them was a pilot officer and an American and I remember standing there in 2003 and saying I wonder if this could be Leonard and I and we took photographs and there's another grave of so that we had the three that were known to unknown one guy at the end name Johnson from South Africa and and then evanswood br7 Sky out in heart of it and we went and visited his grave as well.

27:58 Same way we came back to the United States and I started compiling all the stories in the books and photographs and put together this little thing and so I was around 2008/2009. I think I got it all done and send it out to the family.

28:14 I kind of shelved the whole project cuz I kind of felt like well, we can't you know, really figure out what happened to Leonard. I don't we never knew we could talk for a while. Maybe he was still there in the farmland and then we got a call from the local TV station in ystad which is the little town right next to the farm and they wanted to do a story about Catherine about the family and how we've been out to discover and stand on the place. We crashed and all of that and Catherine and her son decided to go out and be a part of that and they interviewed her sitting in the field and that little documentary ended up winning an award for a great story, but it was very much a closure for her. She she said specifically that she felt like she could finally say goodbye to her brother and with tears coming down her eyes and rather moving.

29:14 Moments on video and and we also got to take Harriet to Runnymede another man grandmother and experience that she got to see her brother's name S10 marble on the walls. They're running Mead and lay a wreath on the on the stone and very moving moment for the we were all there with that as well. Movie moment for the whole family to to see that I got three my kids too. And so is that that's really that was sort of indication or or something that I really wanted to achieve which was give them closure. So so beautiful moment. So in 2016, we got a note from a guy named. There's a huge Community out there still researching all of these bombers and all of these missing man and all the stuff and the website called Pat's

30:13 And the guy annually post new information. It's amazing. What's happening is is there's a lot of people like you like us who are looking for the relatives and discovering their graves and discovering how they participated in this Liberation from these Nazis and just as just an amazing thing that the internet has allowed us to do basically from our living rooms and and and then if you have the wherewithal to go and visit these things and it's it's it's such a great thing to do. So this guy named Nico quack men who is just a what-do-you-call-it up. He's just a historian on the side. He doesn't do this as a profession you just does it because he in in in the Netherlands they really do you honor their War dead. So every May 4th day, they they have celebrations and they pass on these stories and what took place during World War II.

31:13 How they were imprisoned and they pass it on to generation to generation so that it's not forgotten. And so Nico is really taking this up as his cause and in 2016, he reached out to me and I have a small website and help finding leonard.com and and they he found me through that and he said I think I found your great-uncle had a course, you know jumped on the phone and talk to him and and he brought us we all you know, you me and Kathy and Dave and Barbara we all got on a plane and went back to the Netherlands because of the evidence that he discovered and standing in a in a bar next to New Eastern Cemetery before we walked in he laid out how he did come across new German documentation again, this stuff is all becoming public knowledge as time goes on and where they're more documents that keep coming out, but I think

32:13 Also Springs like this guy who like Nico who continue to dig so he found these German documents basically from the cemetery and found out that the Unknown Soldier in 1947 had been exhumed and written about and then put back in but he was an American pilot still had his American bomber jacket on still no name though for the guy buried in that grave, but he is also gone through some of the cemetery stuff up in heart of it, which was north of movies from Cemetery. You said there's a little island before they drained it and turn it into Farmland little Hill out there where the bodies actually washed up on and those bodies then were stored at a morgue there and then distributed throughout the experiment in the area to be buried will all those guys ended up coming ashore together. So colon and Evans and then the guys kind of came up on shore there.

33:13 And through the German documents from new Eastern Cemetery because they were in charge of everything back then and these documents from this little island out of this year. We've determined that that unknown Grey the movie starring is actually Leonard and and we also found Mumford. We think and rethink Johnson. There was a Johnson on bomber on Glenn as well. We think the Johnson is mislabeled. We think it's his Johnson totally different guy.

33:43 So we walked from that bar and I remember giving you a bouquet of flowers to rest on the unknown grave of your great uncle uncle my great-uncle.

34:05 You gave so much to our family by your years of research in a perseverance in in finding Leonard who was just so unknown meant so much to Mother your grandmother that she got to lay that read never happened without you and Catherine who took a bottle of holy water to bless a skews me Leonard's grave so much for all you did for all of us.

34:45 And I just wondering with all of this what what of all of your journey and travels in and what you found out about Leonard.

35:00 What what do you want your children to remember about you and Leonard about this whole process?

35:09 Well, I think I think that our our fight goes on there is a when we were standing and Runnymede with Grandmother a Harriet with the in 2003. We got notification that my cousin Curt had been killed in Iraq, and he too was a volunteer and you know, I just what I want to do is just kind of continue that sense of volunteering and working for the good cause and inserting stealing that that that these things are worth fighting for and work time for now. You can have all kinds of conversations about Kurt and stuff, but but he did volunteer and he was doing it for for what he believed and so, you know

36:06 We as as hairy as grandmother was laying that wreath. The guys were knocking on our relatives door about hurt. And so anyway, I think that's I think that's part of part of what this is all about you and I just felt like we are I owed it to those guys to to Leonard and stuff to find him and tell his story. So what I want to do now and continue to do is try to get his name put on that headstone. We're talkin to the US Air Force were talking the war Graves commission over there. I also am hoping and praying that one of these families of the the guys that were on that bomber with him will reach out some day looking for their relatives. We we've tried many ways and try and find them and still haven't heard from them either. I I would love to talk to them about what their stories are from there, you know, uncles and brothers and all that. So

37:06 But time goes on Garrett is gone now and

37:10 Grandmother is gone now and Katherine's gone now and so many year are leaving and will those stories are going to be gone forever. So I'm so glad that I got to tell them what happened to their brother before they departed themselves. So they're all together now members of our family and the fact that we that Kurt was we were notified about Kurt.

37:45 I meant there's there's so much to say about that the tradition of the family in in making sacrifices and and living what they say. They believe in your truth is in there volunteering and in your desk, but we're just so grateful.

38:07 Thanks. It's been a labor of love.

38:17 Thanks, Mia.