B-17 pilot honored for World War II heroics — 67 years later
That youthful feeling of invincibility was part of what helped Elmer Wulf, Hugh “Robbie” Robinson and their crew survive a Valentine’s Day, 1945, assault on their B-17 bomber and an emergency landing in rugged terrain during World War II.
The other factor in their survival: Wulf’s heroism.
Wulf’s wife, Jane, of Naperville, was presented Friday with the Distinguished Flying Cross, a prestigious military aviation award honoring her late husband’s skillful flying and selfless actions as he helped 10 crew members escape their damaged aircraft before making a crash landing.
Robinson, Wulf’s co-pilot that day, said Wulf kept the damaged bomber in the air after it lost first one of its four engines and then a second and third.
When the plane was running on its lone remaining engine and got dangerously close to the mountains below, Wulf ordered his entire crew to parachute out before he made an emergency landing.
Robinson said Wulf’s actions were driven by a belief they could survive and a strong desire not to get captured by the Germans.
“It wasn’t time to go, that’s all I can say,” Robinson said Friday in Willowbrook after a ceremony presenting Jane Wulf with the Distinguished Flying Cross. “But we weren’t captured and that was the one thing we didn’t want to be.”
Although Wulf received the award 67 years after the bombing mission over Brux, Czechoslovakia — and two years after his death — he deserved it all along, said Wendy Salberg, a case worker in U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert’s office.
Honors such as the Distinguished Flying Cross usually are given by a service member’s supervisors soon after the heroic event, Salberg said. But because that didn’t happen in Wulf’s case, it took the nomination of one of his crew members and three years of correspondence between the Air Force and Biggert’s office to bring him the recognition.
The initial recommendation came from crew member Charles Majors, said Wulf’s son, David. Majors was a radar operator and the 11th member of a crew that usually numbered 10.
He flew with Wulf only once, but Majors was the one who decided Wulf should be honored for his quick thinking, talented piloting and lifesaving actions during that mission.
“It would have meant a lot to him and also even more to us because he really deserved it,” Robinson said about the award, a cross-shaped medal hanging from a red, white and blue ribbon.
Opening the small box containing the cross, Jane Wulf marveled at the medal’s beauty.
“You have to look closely to see it’s not a cross — it’s crossed propellers,” she said. “It’s elegant.”
Receiving the honor, even two years after his death at age 89, brings Wulf into the company of famous pilots such as Charles Lindbergh, whom Biggert said was the first to receive it.
“The Distinguished Flying Cross represents heroism at its finest. The Air Force awards this cross to those who, in combat, demonstrate heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial fight,” Biggert said. “So there’s no doubt that on Feb. 14, 1945, Elmer’s bravery knew no bounds.”
Celebrating the award presentation Friday with Jane Wulf, 84, were her sons, Mark and David, three grandsons and a nephew. All praised Elmer for his determination during the war.
“Every mission they went on, I don’t know how they made it alive,” Mark Wulf said.
During the Valentine’s Day mission to Czechoslovakia, with the B-17 “Me and My Gal” taking on anti-aircraft fire and steadily losing engine power, Robinson said Wulf’s expertise as a pilot kept the crew alive — scattered across the mountains, suffering from concussions and far from their base, but alive.
Wulf deserves his hero’s recognition, Robinson said, for “taking the time, waiting to get every one of us out, and then flying this thing into the ground.”