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MT Pilot who flew Goering dies

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jonoMT View Drop Down
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    Posted: March/23/2011 at 11:59

This caught my eye in this morning's paper, not only because it was an interesting story, but the son-in-law once took me on a tour of Montana Rail Link's engine rebuild center in Livingston. His son died in his twenties while sailing to Hawaii. (I knew him in college). And his wife died a few years ago. She couldn't have been very old. I guess it just struck me because of the unexpected connection and the tragedy the son-in-law has been through.

Mayhew "Bo" Foster, a World War II Army pilot who transported the one-time heir to Adolf Hitler for interrogation in an unarmed, unescorted plane, has died. He was 99.

Foster died Monday night in a Missoula nursing home, son-in-law Roy Korkalo said Tuesday. A cause of death was not immediately given.
 
Foster served as brigadier general of the Montana National Guard, was awarded the Silver Star for valor as an artillery air officer and received the French Legion of Honor for his service in World War II.
 
But his mission flying Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering was the highlight of his military career. The head of Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe had surrendered when the war ended in Europe in 1945, and Foster flew him from Kitzbuhel, Austria, to 7th Army headquarters in Germany for interrogation before turning him over to stand trial at Nuremberg.
 
Goering weighed more than 300 pounds, and Foster told The Associated Press in January he had to take a larger plane than he normally used for reconnaissance missions.
 
"I had the impulse to turn the plane over and see if I could shake him out but he was wedged in like a champagne cork," Foster told his wife, Virginia Lou Foster, in a letter written soon after the mission.
 
Foster said Goering was relaxed during the 55-minute flight, avoiding any talk of Hitler or the war and instead pointed out the sites below them. "He acted as though he was going on a sightseeing tour, or really as though as I was going on a sightseeing tour and he was showing me where he grew up," Foster told the AP.
 
Goering was found guilty of war crimes at Nuremberg, but killed himself by swallowing a cyanide capsule before a hanging sentence could be carried out.
 
Foster returned to the U.S. in October 1945, having flown 70 reconnaissance combat missions. He was awarded the Silver Star after spending five hours taking fire above the battlefield when the 36th Division made an amphibious assault landing in southern France in 1944.
 
He returned to Montana and was appointed lieutenant colonel in the Montana National Guard, then was promoted to brigadier general of the Guard, a rank he held from 1963 until 1971.
 
Foster was awarded the French Legion of Honor in 2009 for his "personal, precious contribution to the United States' decisive role in the liberation of our country during World War II," according to a letter from French Ambassador Pierre Vimont.
 
Foster was born Oct. 9, 1911, in Richmond, Va., and graduated from Yale University in 1937 with an English degree. He married his wife Virginia in 1940 and they had a daughter, Susan, who died in 2007.

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BeltFed View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote BeltFed Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March/23/2011 at 13:25
Excellent
Great story Jon.
Thanks for sharing.
Life's concerns should be about the 120lb pack your trying to get to the top of the mountain, and not the rock in your boot.
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helo18 View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote helo18 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March/23/2011 at 19:45
Excellent Very cool

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ed Connelly Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March/23/2011 at 20:36
 
 
                 Excellent
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mike650 View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote mike650 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March/23/2011 at 20:45
Excellent
“A hunt based only on trophies taken falls far short of what the ultimate goal should be.” – Fred Bear
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