Memorial Day ceremony depicts veteran’s tailspin

The remarkable story of a Wisconsin tailgunner who survived a four mile fall to the earth in the shotup tailpiece of a B-17 Flying Fortress over Germany during World War II was retold in a Walk In Their Shoes lecture on Memorial Day in the Edgar Public Schools auditorium.

John Armbruster, author of “Tailspin,” told the tale of Gene Moran, a Soldier’s Grove native, who fell out of the sky without a parachute into a tree. He explained his capture by the Nazis and his 18 month confinement as a German prisoner of war.

Moran was part of a crew of nine flying with a group of other American bomber airplanes over Germany in 1944 when his plane inexplicably left the formation and was prey for Nazi fighter planes. The Germans riddled Rikki Tikki Tavi, the name of the B-17, with bullets, both hitting Moran, disabling his parachute and, eventually, causing the craft to disintegrate into pieces as it fell to the ground from above the clouds.

Crew members were Benny Cipresso, Linwood Langley, Donald Curtius, Jesse Orrison, Waltyer Reed, Sam “Pee-Wee” Amatulli, Anderson King and Edmund Sweno. Moran, resigned to dying as he plunged to earth in the tail end of the airplane, said the Catholic Rosary. The chunk of airplane hit a tree, breaking Moran’s fall. Moran slid out of the wreckage suffering broken ribs, shattered arm bones and a busted skull that exposed part of his brain.

Armbruster, a history teacher at North Crawford Schools, Soldiers Grove, who worked 11 years on “Tailspin,” told Monday’s audience of about 100 that nobody really understands how Moran could have survived his fall.

“I have no rational explanation,” he said. “Gene emerged from the tailpiece of the plane and was blind due to G force pushing blood into his eyes. He thought he was dead, but then he could feel the ground and twigs.”

Armbruster said Moran was saved by a pair of Serbian physicians at the POW camp who sewed a flesh plate from a deceased Russian soldier over his exposed brain with rudimentary equipment to prevent infection and save his life.

After the war, Moran returned to Soldier’s Grove, married and the couple had nine children. For decades, however, Moran played a local Santa Claus who reeked of Old Spice cologne and Blatz beer and never detailed his war experience even to his own children.

Moran’s fortunate fall was covered by the Associated Press during the war based upon eye witness reports and Moran’s children had access to these news clippings, but no other narrative. His children pestered their father for more of the story. “There are some things that will never go into any book!” the elder Moran reportedly exclaimed in refusing to share his war story.

At a fish fry meal at the County Gardens Tavern in December 2010, Moran, now 85, agreed to allow Armbruster write up his story into a book. The author recorded Moran expounding on how the Rikki Tikki Tavi was shot down and his subsequent imprisonment.

One amazing detail of the story, recalled Armbruster, is that a German pilot flew within feet of Moran’s B-17 and repeatedly motioned for him to jump from the airplane to save himself. He didn’t and within moments a squadron of German fighter planes tore into the Rikki Tikki Tavi.

Armbuster visited Germany where a 75th anniversary of Moran’s unbelievable fall was commemorated with speeches.

He said the current German population holds no grudge against the American fighter pilots during World War II.

“That was the only way we could get rid of Hitler,” one German national told Armbruster.