{"id":1037,"date":"2017-12-20T18:06:19","date_gmt":"2017-12-20T18:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/?page_id=1037"},"modified":"2018-01-01T13:13:29","modified_gmt":"2018-01-01T13:13:29","slug":"gerhard-john-heller","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/people\/gerhard-john-heller\/","title":{"rendered":"Gerhard John Heller"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gerhard John Heller was a classmate (Class 44-D) of Tom’s in Primary Flight Training<\/a> at the Thunderbird II Army Air Field<\/a> outside of Phoenix, Arizona.<\/p>\n

\"Gerhard<\/a>
Gerhard John Heller (bottom row, center) at Thunderbird II AAF during Primary Flight Training, 1943.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After graduation in November, 1943, they both were assigned to Basic Flight Training<\/a> at Lemoore Army Air Field<\/a>. Shortly after starting their training at Lemoore, Gerhard John Heller was killed in a training accident, on December 19, 1943. Of this, Tom writes (in his letter of December 23, 1943):<\/p>\n

I witnessed my first fatal airplane accident on the afternoon of my birthday. A boy that came with us from Thunderbird and who lives in L.A., he stalled the plane at about 150\u2032 in the air when he was taking off, and spun in. They don\u2019t know what happened because they couldn\u2019t find anything wrong with the plane, he probably pulled it off a little to (sic) fast and when it stalled he didn\u2019t get the stick forward. One thing about such things even though they are awful tough on one person is that it makes about 200 safer pilots here at L.A.A.F. His picture is in the book I am sending you, under squadron III photos, I have his name checked it is G.J Heller. From what one of his buddies told me, he was to be married in L.A. Christmas Day and had a special leave for it.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Gerhard was born Gerardus Heller on January 8, 1923, in Los Angeles, California. His father, Gerardus, was 39 when he was born, and had emigrated to the United States from the Netherlands. The father was a furniture maker, and lived to be 91, passing away in 1974.<\/p>\n

Gerhard’s mother, Susanna, was 25 when Gerhard was born. She had emigrated to the United States from the Netherlands. She lived to 1990, passing away at the age of 93.<\/p>\n

Gerhard had one brother, Henry, who lived to age 90.<\/p>\n

\"Captain<\/a>
Captain Gerhard John Heller (Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After discovering this information about Gerhard Heller in Tom’s letter, and on the Ancestry.com website, I decided to try to forward this information on to any surviving relatives. I sent an exploratory email to the person who posted Gerhard Heller’s name on the Ancestry.com website. Below is the exchange, which provides more information (published with the author’s permission).<\/p>\n

\n

December 20, 2017<\/em><\/p>\n

Like you, I am new to Ancestry.com.<\/em>
\nI’ve been writing up the collected wartime letters of my Uncle Tom Cartmell, who was an Army pilot during WWII. I’m not finished with it, but you can read some of the material at “A Young Man went off to War.” (http:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m writing because in his letters, he mentions your relative, Gerhard John Heller, as they were fellow student pilots in Arizona and California in 1943. My uncle wrote about the sad circumstances of Gerhard’s death in a training accident, but noted that the incident made all 200 of the student pilots in training safer. I’m including a link to Gerhard’s page (http:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/people\/gerhard-john-heller\/<\/a>), which includes a photograph of him in training.<\/em><\/p>\n

My uncle did not survive the war either.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you would like to post Gerhard’s photograph on his entry in Ancestry, feel free to do that. The photograph came from their class yearbook, and is in the public domain.<\/em><\/p>\n

Best wishes, Mike Hughey, MD<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

December 20, 2017<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh my gosh….you have no idea how much this means to me.\u00a0 \u00a0My dad passed away earlier this year and his 90th birthday would have been December 24. My dad was only 15 when he lost his only sibling and it scarred him for life. He particularly did not like the song, “I’ll be home for Christmas” as it reminded him of his brother and the painful loss at a time of year meant for celebrating. As I’ve heard the song myself this year, I have been brought to tears at the reminder of not only my dad, but his beloved brother.\u00a0 And now you send this, one day after the anniversary of Gerhard’s death….I am simply speechless.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Thank you so much. I’m going to share this with my sisters and will definitely add the photo to ancestry.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

This is so very cool….thank you again.<\/em><\/p>\n

Have a blessed holiday season!<\/em><\/p>\n

Shari Myers<\/em><\/p>\n

https:\/\/youtu.be\/V00ijhaLVqY<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gerhard John Heller was a classmate (Class 44-D) of Tom’s in Primary Flight Training at the Thunderbird II Army Air Field outside of Phoenix, Arizona. After graduation in November, 1943, they both were assigned to Basic Flight Training at Lemoore Army Air Field. Shortly after starting their training at Lemoore, Gerhard John Heller was killed … Continue reading Gerhard John Heller<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":55,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1037","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1037"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1054,"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1037\/revisions\/1054"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/55"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}