Official Website of the

389th Bombardment Group (H)

A SALUTE TO EARL ZIMMERMAN
565th SQUADRON RADIO OPERATOR, "TIDAL
WAVE" PARTICIPANT, MEMBER OF ORIGINAL CADRE

By Kelsey McMillan - 389th Bomb Group Official Historian

     A military career defined by devotion to duty, dangerous jobs, cloak-and-dagger intrigue, exotic locales, a bit of romance, and uncanny luck. . . No, it isn't James Bond. It's intrepid USAF veteran Earl Zimmerman.
     As a boy in Chicago, Earl's wildest imaginings never came close to his true-life adventures in the Air Force. In fulfillment of Uncle Sam's proverbial promise, he saw the world. From humble beginnings as an enlisted private to heavy bomber radio operator/ gunner, from international spy and special investigator, to security consultant and forensic expert, Zimmerman's professional life sounds like a “007” movie without the harem and perfect martinis. His civilian career after the Air Force was no less fascinating. With a loving family, hundreds of friends, craftsman hobbies and decades of service to veterans organizations, his personal life has been equally fulfilling.
     Earl Zimmerman joined the 2nd Air Division Association and attended the first Norwich convention in 1963 when the library room was dedicated, and went on to become president of the Association from 1976-77. He served as the 2nd Air Division Association’s Vice President in 2005 and 2006, and was elected President again in 2007. He also served as the 389th Bomb Group Vice President to the 2nd Air Division Association June 1975 to September 1981.
TOP PHOTO: Zimmerman at State College of Washington in Pullman, training to be a radio operator in 1942. BOTTOM PHOTO: At Denver during the 389th's operational phase training, spring 1943.

     Zimmerman began his military career in June 1942 with basic training at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, and then headed west for gunnery training at the Las Vegas Aerial Gunnery School. Five weeks of intensive training left little time for fun in "Sin City." Then it was off to radio school at State College of Washington in Pullman. Lots of pretty girls there too, but again it was work, work, work for three months. Zimmerman next reported to Davis-Monthan at Tucson, Arizona where the newly formed 389th Bomb Group was assembling personnel. Operational training followed at Biggs Field in El Paso, Texas, and Lowry Field, Denver, Colorado. A final outfitting for combat gear at Lincoln and they were on their way to England in June 1943.
     The combat crews had barely unpacked their Class As in Blighty when Wing HQ began preparing a special order for the 389th; not a mission field order but yet more movement orders. There were big plans in store for the untested warriors. They would be farmed out to the Ninth Air Force to support the invasion of Sicily, and to participate in a legendary raid. But first, the combat crews practiced special formations and extremely low altitude buzzing in England for two weeks without yet knowing the purpose. During a formation practice on June 24, 1943, the ship on which Zimmerman was flying clipped wings with another ship, forcing both into emergency crash landings. Earl was pinned in the wreckage by the collapsed upper turret, and had to be chopped free with an ax. He suffered no serious injury, but his navigator was killed, and his bombardier's injuries were so severe he was sent home. There was little time for grieving and adjustment, however, as the combat crews departed England for their temporary home in the Libyan Desert six days later.
     Zimmerman's third mission from the North African base was Operation TIDAL WAVE, the audacious and hellacious low-level attack on Hitler's oil refineries around Ploesti, Rumania. Zimmerman's crew was fated for trouble at the outset and they knew it - they had drawn the worst gas-guzzler in the 389th's fleet. Long before they reached the target, the ship had consumed fuel they would need to get back to Benghazi. So it was no surprise when they were forced to land in neutral Turkey on the route home. Zimmerman's crew and several others were interned in Ankara at an infamous Turkish prison camp; better known as the four-star Yeni Otel.

     Earl passed the time learning Turkish, playing softball with foreign correspondents and embassy personnel, and watching spies trade secrets during seven course meals at the sumptuous Gar restaurant. But it wasn't all easy time. It was here that Earl suffered his most traumatic experience - being forced to dance with the unattractive daughter of the ambassador at an embassy party.
     The internees were allowed hobbies to occupy their time and Zimmerman bought a short-wave radio. He listened to coded BBC broadcasts from London, and then penned a poop sheet with the latest news for the boys. The U.S. military attaché happened to visit once and got excited when he saw Zimmerman taking down code from his radio. He asked, "Could you set up a radio station at the embassy?" T/Sgt Zimmerman said he could and advised that the ambassador might get all the equipment he needed from a signal battalion in Cairo. Soon after, Earl and an assistant set up a clandestine radio station at the embassy. The signal reached all the way to Cairo and Earl was regularly assigned duty in the code room.
     Zimmerman “languished” six months in Turkey until it was his turn to escape to Cairo. He was flown back to England as the guest of Field Marshal Montgomery aboard his personal C-54. Earl rejoined the 389th Bomb Group at Hethel and resumed flying missions. Additionally he was responsible for the orientation and shepherding of replacement crews, and occasionally pulled station defense duty in the AAA pits. In July 1944 he left Hethel for temporary duty with the Carpetbaggers in Leuchars, Scotland, flying missions to drop supplies and agents over Norway, and returning in October 1944.
T/Sgt Zimmerman and his bride June Courteney of Norwich married March 24, 1945.

     Shortly after he returned to England in January 1944, he bumped into a lovely young girl he had met at a Red Cross dance in Norwich back in June 1943. She blushed with embarrassment when she recognized him as the Yank who had asked her out and she had stood him up. All was sorted out and they enjoyed many dates thereafter. Earl and June Courteney were married in the Norwich Cathedral on March 24, 1945. The bridegroom nearly stood up the bride, however. The day before his wedding, all passes were unexpectedly revoked and personnel restricted to base. The 8th Air Force had just launched Operation VARSITY, a massive supply drop mission delivering canisters to the Allied ground forces crossing the Rhine River. Thanks to Earl's good reputation and a softhearted first sergeant, he managed to sneak off the base and keep his most important date with June. They were married 61 years until June passed away in April 2006.
     On November 21, 1944, the 389th suffered a tragic loss when two of its bombers collided in mid-air during formation for a mission, and crashed near the village of Carleton Rode. It was a very personal loss for Zimmerman. His buddy, Harold "Tom" Thompson, the flight engineer from his original crew, was one of the 17 men killed in the accident (see accident reports: Brooks 42-50452 and Rhine 44-10513).
     The All Saints' Church at Carleton Rode installed a stained glass window and plaque memorializing the men who were killed. In 1990 Zimmerman initiated a campaign to raise funds to purchase bells for the church's bell tower, which had been without bells for centuries. Norwich's newspaper, The Eastern Daily Press, reported in its April 27, 1999 edition:
     "Bells ring again after 250 years. American war veterans to a Norfolk village on Sunday for the dedication ceremony for its recently restored church bells. When the tower of All Saints’ Church, Carleton Rode, near Attleborough, collapsed in 1855 the bells were sold off to help pay for repairs. But Earl Zimmerman, of the 389th Bomb Group kick-started a fund-raising project to have bells installed in the church to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Mr. Zimmerman said 26 American airmen had been killed in two mid-air collisions over Carleton Rode.
     'Their memorials are in the church and one of the men killed was my engineer, so I felt obliged to do something,' Zimmerman said.
     It took villagers eight years to raise enough money to undertake the £50,000 project. The Millennium Commission also gave a £23,000 grant. Former church warden Doug Hartley, who worked closely with Mr. Zimmerman, said, 'I didn’t think I would ever hear the bells ringing again. It is all down to Earl and the work he has done.' The Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Rev Peter Nott, conducted the service, his last engagement before he retires."
     A master woodworking craftsman, Zimmerman later built two solid oak tables for the rectory of the Carleton Rode Church in memory of his friend Tom and the other men killed in the November 21, 1944 mid-air collision.

PHOTO ONE: All Saints’ Church at Carleton Rode has this stained glass memorial to the men who were killed in the mid-air collision of two 389th bombers on November 21, 1944. PHOTO TWO: (photo by Clifford Hicks) Zimmerman at the All Saints’ Church in 1999 for the dedication of the new bells in PHOTO THREE to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. PHOTO FOUR: Earl Zimmerman stands on the lawn of the Rectory of the All Saints’ Church at Carleton Rode with a propller blade from one of the bombers involved in the mid-air collision of November 21, 1944. The blade was discovered and unearthed by a grounds keeper in 19?? who had been plowing the same group for more than 40 years.

     Zimmerman was among the last group of personnel to leave the 389th airbase in June 1945, or as he puts it "I turned out the lights at Hethel." He was discharged in August and returned to Chicago where he got a job with the Western District of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
     The life of a railroad man was too sedate and unchallenging for Zimmerman so he rejoined the Air Force in March 1947. He was assigned to Headquarters, 509th Bomb Group at Roswell, New Mexico where he was in charge of ground station radio operations. The Zimmermans arrived just in time for the media frenzy over "The Roswell Incident." UFO sightings were in the news elsewhere in the country, and a Roswell rancher's discovery of a crashed weather balloon brought unwanted attention to a top secret Air Force project. In nearby Alamogordo, Project Mogul researchers were experimenting with high-altitude balloons to detect expected Soviet atom bomb tests. Periodically they would launch a string of balloons carrying electronics and a radar reflector constructed from sticks and tinfoil. You know the rest; an ill-conceived cover story that an alien space ship had been captured. Earl refers to this as the time "when the little green men were landing," and he laughs at the conspiracy theorists who still believe the government is hiding alien bodies and a flying saucer.
     As the Cold War intensified, the armed forces urgently needed men with distinctive talents and character, men who were suited for the kind of jobs you would never find in a manual of occupation specialties. The mission of the Office of Special Investigations was, and continues to be, the detection of worldwide threats to the Air Force, and the identification and resolution of crimes impacting Air Force readiness or good order and discipline. It's clear the OSI knew what they were about when they began recruiting Zimmerman in 1948; they finally got their man in 1949.
The Zimmerman family living in England in the 1960s - wife June, son Miles, daughter Roberta. From appearances Zimmerman was just another U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant stationed in England with his family after World War II. Secretly he was an OSI agent who frequently slipped across the English Channel to do a little spying for Uncle Sam in the Cold War.

     The next fifteen years as an OSI agent consisted of intelligence and counter-intelligence work, surveillance, investigations of embezzlement, treason, and counterfeiting, and even hunts for rumored caches of Nazi gold. Between 1951 and 1955 the Zimmermans lived in Norwich, with Earl giving every appearance of a normal family man, while zipping over to the Continent or points east from time to time for a bit of spying. Earl's wartime lessons in the Turkish language came in handy on several occasions too.
     Zimmerman's forte was safe-cracking and lock-picking, having learned the fundamentals in OSI training. In 1955 his skills were elevated to elite status at the University of Vienna Institute of Criminology under the tutelage of Professor Roland Grassberger, Ph.D., world-renowned criminologist and master locksmith. Dr. Grassberger's course, "Psychology of Criminal Interrogation and Scientific Criminal Investigation," was a requisite for crack law enforcement and espionage agencies all over the world.
     The OSI put Zimmerman's breaking and entering skills to good use at home in the U.S. too. In one case he made a late night break-in at the Pentagon office of a suspected spy. Agents needed a duplicate key so they could enter the man's office at will. Zimmerman narrowly escaped detection when a patrolling guard failed to notice the hole where the doorknob had been. Zimmerman was on the other side holding his breath and his hand over the hole.
     After retiring a Master Sgt from the U.S. Air Force in August 1964, Zimmerman worked as an independent security consultant. He was in great demand by prosecutors and insurance investigators as an expert witness in locks, safes, theft, and breaking and entering. Earl has a daughter, Roberta (who arrived at Roswell about two months after the little green men); a son, Myles, who was born in Norwich in 1954; and four grandchildren. His family and friends admire him as a hero, a leader, and a role model, and cherish him for his big heart, fun-loving spirit and gentle good humor.

POST SCRIPT
     In May 2007 this writer had the privilege of being escorted through the OSI exhibit at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio by former OSI agent Earl Zimmerman himself. The museum staff was very fortunate to have Zimmerman’s assistance in creating this exhibit, which includes a set of the lock-picking tools he used during the Cold War, various other items from his “spy kit,” and surveillance photos he shot while tailing personnel suspected of passing classified information to the Communists.

BOTTOM RIGHT PHOTO: Former OSI agent, Earl Zimmerman at the OSI exhibit he helped create for the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. TOP RIGHT PHOTO: Some of Earl’s safe-cracking and lock-picking tools, and other “secret agent” type gadgets on display at the USAF Museum. LEFT PHOTO: A panel in the OSI exhibit displaying some of the photographs Zimmerman took while staking out the drop point of suspected communist spy.

     While Earl was telling me the back stories behind the items on display, a group of men and women officers in uniform entered the exhibit, escorted by two men who appeared to be museum staff. As one of the men was presenting a talk to the officers, I approached the other civilian and asked if they were giving a guided tour. He replied that they were giving a tour to a group of OSI colonels, District Commanders, who were in town for an annual OSI Commanders Call. Pointing to the young men and women, I asked him, “Those are OSI officers?” He said they were “You see that white-haired gentleman over there?” I said, pointing to Earl. “He was one of the charter members of the OSI, and he helped to create this exhibit. Well, this fellow got excited and made a bee-line to Earl. It wasn’t long before all the officers were crowding around Earl, asking questions, discussing the exhibit, shaking hands with him, etc. It was pretty neat coincidence and a cherished experience for me to watch the respect flow from these young Air Force officers to retired M/Sgt Earl Zimmerman.