Profile for Jimmie Reed Henry (Pilot - B-17 Bomber, WWII)
2nd Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Corps
8th Air Force, 390th Bomb Group, 569th Squadron
Jimmie Reed Henry was born on March 6, 1925 in Gore, Oklahoma and moved to Washington D.C. with his family in 1940. When the United States was drawn into World War II, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps (and was less than truthful about his age when he did - he was only 17 years old!). He received preflight training at Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Alabama, and went on to complete his full course of training at Chanute Field, Alabama, Salt Lake City, Utah, Dowhurst, Texas, Gulfport, Mississippi and finally at Langley Field, Newport News, Virginia. He and his crew were then sent to Framlingham Air Force Base outside of London, England, where he was assigned as a pilot of a B-17 to take part in one of the largest military bombing operations of the war. He managed to fly 35 missions over Germany without losing a single crew member or sustaining injury to himself (his planes, however, were quite another matter!). On a weekend pass to London, he met and eventually married Barbara Reade-Hill, a marriage that bore two children (Jacqueline Henry and Eric Reed Henry) and lasted 54 years. He received an honorable discharge in 1946 and went on to become a successful builder in Montgomery County, Maryland. He and Barbara retired to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in 1985, where he succumbed to Alzheimer's Disease on February 10, 2000. The memories that were the last to grow dim were of his experiences at the control of that "Flying Fortress" so long ago. He remains a source of great pride to his family.
".. .1 always meant to ask about the war. ..and how you navigated wings of fire and steel,
Up where heaven had no more secrets to conceal,
And still you found the ground beneath your wheels - how did it feel?... "
From "Bang the Drum Slowly" Words and music by Emmy Lou Harris