Working So They Are Never Forgotten

During each of those successful missions from Guam to Japan and back in a B-29 Superfortress, the crew dropped 40 bombs, each of which separated into 30 clusters of napalm, Chovelak said. According to the Japanese government, those missions sometimes killed upward of 100,000 people, he said.

Those were experiences they'd never forget.

"The sight and the smell, it is difficult to comprehend," said Chovelak, shaking his head as he shared his stories from the comfort of the living room in his Naperville home. "We hit them every way. It was devastating. It borders on an inhuman way that these people were killed."

Historian in the making They also were experiences the crew wouldn't recount together for another 40 years.

The 29th Bomb Group didn't hold its first reunion until 1985, and as it turned out, that reunion provided Chovelak with 23 years worth of work to keep him busy.

Veterans of the 29th Bomb Group made the rounds at that initial reunion and realized that, while they remembered the names of the fellas on their crew, and even knew what had become of some of them, they knew very little of men who served elsewhere in the group. Even worse, many knew nothing about the 21 crews whose planes were lost in action, Chovelak said.

"We got to the point where we looked at one another, and we really, really felt like we didn't take care of our guys," he said. "In the military, you better take care of your buddy, because tomorrow he may take care of you, and just the fact that we didn't take care of our buddies, that's difficult."

So at that reunion, Chovelak grabbed pen and paper and set about doing right for his old buddies. That simple act turned him into the 29th Bomb Group's historian, a position he still holds today.

At 83 years old though, he has set out to find permanent homes for his vast collection of materials pertaining to the 29th Bomber Group - a collection that occupies a significant portion of his garage.

Earlier this fall, the 29th Bomb Group held its 13th reunion in Washington, D.C. It wasn't their final reunion, Chovelak said, adding that it made it sound like a wake or a funeral. Rather, he said, it was their "fare well" reunion - one last, pleasant celebration of their shared experiences before heading their separate ways.

For Chovelak, this trip was important for another reason, though. He and those who have helped him over the years gathered with Rep. Judy Biggert at the Library of Congress, and he presented to its curator a package that was near and dear to his heart.

"There was no way we could honor these people except for one thing," he said. "I had a copy (of the files) of all 2,500 men (who served in the 29th Bomb Group). All of them. I have a copy of all of their files scanned and put into a hard-bound book, and I have taken that and given it to the Library of Congress.

"Many of these people will never know this," he said. "Their families won't know, either, but all of their names are there for posterity."

Something 'I have to do' But what of the rest of his collection?

If arrangements can be made for it to be preserved and displayed to his liking, Chovelak intends to donate it to the U.S. Air Force Museum at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio.

Handing these materials over isn't a decision he is making lightly. It isn't necessarily something he wants to do. He just believes it is time to do it.

"Me and my people will no longer be here in a short period of time. It has to be done now," he said. "If I don't do it now, who is going to do it? It is going to be in a pile somewhere. So I have to do it.

"But, more importantly," he added, "the young people out there are not getting what our nation stands for."

Chovelak said young people today need to understand the real-life significance of a little joke military personnel would tell toward the beginning of World War II.

"When the military says you've gotta do this or you've gotta do that, and you say, 'I don't want to do that,' they'd say, 'Well, you better start learning German or Japanese," he said. "You've got to stand up for your country. You have to honor your country."