Nebraska town remembers fatal World War II plane crashes

Melvin Klein miraculously survived. His family journeyed to Milligan, Neb., for the memorial ceremony.

Jennifer Jorgenson
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

Minnieklein_andreagreer
Courtesy of the Klein Family
Minnie Klein and her daughter, Andrea Greer, visit the memorial markers in Milligan, Neb.
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WESTON - Mom and daughter live next door to each other on top of one of rural Oregon's quiet hills. It's a simple life for Minnie Klein and her daughter and husband, Andrea and Lynn Greer, but it wasn't always.

Oct. 25, 1943, is a day the family will remember forever. At the time, the late Melvin Klein was a second lieutenant in the Air Force and loved to fly.

"My husband's first love was flying," Minnie said.

It was this love that took him into the air as a copilot of a B-24 Liberator that afternoon from an air base in Fairmont, Neb. It was routine formation training, but Melvin was not scheduled to be on the flight. During lunch his commanding officer asked him to fill in for the scheduled copilot who was unable to make the flight because of an illness. Melvin agreed.


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