WWII Bomber Crewman Now Has Keepsakes From Plane’s Wreckage

Two fragments from a World War II bomber named the Bim Bam Bola -- which crashed in the Swiss Alps in 1944, five weeks after the invasion of Normandy -- were presented to a surviving crew member Monday during a ceremony in Newport Beach.

Bernard Stelzer, a gunner on the bomber, and his wife, Edith, received the wreckage from Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), who has been helping Stelzer in his efforts to get pieces of the wreckage.

“It was wonderful; I was taken by surprise. I had tears well my eyes. I didn’t know what to say, it’s such a wonderful thing that my great-great-grandchildren can have that can be treasured for life,” Stelzer, 83, said from his Laguna Woods home. “It makes me feel wonderful to have a memento to know that my suffering wasn’t in vain.”

How the Bim Bam Bola crashed is uncertain. The son of one crew member now dead says it was shot down as it returned from a mission to bomb Munich.

Stelzer says the captain ordered the crew to bail out before the bomber reached Munich; somehow, the plane had become separated from the rest of its flight. Stelzer parachuted safely but was captured by Nazis and held as a prisoner of war for nearly a year.

The plane crashed on a hillside near Prattigau in eastern Switzerland.

Monday, Stelzer was given two fragments of the B-24 Liberator bomber’s gas valve mounted in finely polished dark wood. The silvery, foot-long cylindrical pieces were among the wreckage recently unearthed by the Swiss government.

“We believe he may be the only living survivor of the crash, because we haven’t been able to locate anyone else,” said Cox, who contacted the Swiss and German governments to coordinate efforts.