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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Ms. Mary E. Baxter

Charles E. Stanley, Sr., was born in Venus, Pennsylvania in 1922. He and his six siblings grew up on the grounds of a rural natural gas pumping station, where his father O.D. Stanley was an engineer. Charles attended school in a one room schoolhouse and completed high school when he was 16 years old. He attended business school until WWII broke out.
Charles enlisted in the Army Air Corp and was trained as a B-24 Liberator bomber pilot. Lt. Stanley and his crew flew bombing missions over German targets from the 15th AAF base in Italy. On a bombing mission over the Blechammer synthetic oil refinery on October 13th, 1944 his plane was severely disabled by enemy flak. Unable to make the return trip to Italy, the crew was forced to bail out over Romania and was MIA for a few weeks. The entire crew returned unharmed to Italy, where they resumed their bombing missions. On December 2nd, 1944 they were again shot down over the same target and forced to bail out of the plane. This time the crew parachuted into German-occupied Yugoslavia and were befriended by a group of Tito's partisans. During their eight weeks MIA in Yugoslavia, they met up with other American crews and traveled together 120 miles on foot through snow covered mountains to the Adriatic Sea. From there, they were flown back to Italy. Charles was awarded the Air Medal and the entire crew returned home from the war safely.
Upon his return from Italy, Charles married his fiancée, Mary Alice Schmitz. The bride wore a wedding dress sewn from Lt. Stanley's parachute. Charles attended Canisius College on the GI bill and majored in Accounting. He became an accountant for National Fuel Gas Company in Buffalo, N.Y.
In the 1960s, companies were starting to computerize their systems and were looking for technical support personnel. At National Fuel Gas, the accountants were all given aptitude tests - the ones with the highest scores were sent to IBM training classes to become COBOL computer programmers. Charles became one of the very early business COBOL programmers and was eventually promoted into management.
After his retirement in 1986, Charles continued to enjoy an amateur interest in aviation. He collected aviation and aerospace books and frequently visited air shows and aviation museums with his five children and many grandchildren. He also kept in contact with some of the men from his WWII crew. His son Charles, Jr. is writing a book about the crew's experiences, which includes interviews with some of the men.
In May 2002, Charles was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross by Governor Pataki at the dedication of the New York State WWII Memorial in Albany, N.Y.
On Memorial Day weekend 2004, the last weekend of his life, Charles attended the dedication of the National WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C. He also toured the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport in VA. A few days later he died suddenly at home. He is buried in Hemphill Cemetery in Chicora, PA.