George Hitchcock, a 101-year-old veteran from Barrington Hills, piloted 27 B-17 bombing missions in the European theater during World War II. | Joe Lewnard/ lewnard@dailyherald.com
By Christopher Placek | Daily Herald
Kathy Rennie never got to meet her father, who perished in World War II when her mother was three months pregnant.
But through Rennie’s discovery of a 101-year-old veteran from Barrington Hills — and their friendship that has blossomed in recent years — she feels like she knows her dad a little bit.
Rennie’s mother spent years trying to find any of the five surviving crew members from the fateful Feb. 14, 1945, B-17 bombing mission over the North Sea between England and Germany. It was on that flight that four others — including Rennie’s dad, Sgt. Walter Mayer, a 30-year-old radio operator from a small town in Minnesota — had to bail after one of the plane’s engines caught fire.
Mayer parachuted into the cold waters below, and his body has never been recovered. He is still listed as missing in action.
Only about 15 years ago did Rennie learn of a museum in Tucson, Arizona dedicated to the history of her dad’s unit in the U.S. Army Air Forces: the 390th Bombardment Group. Officials there provided two names and phone numbers of possible survivors in his squadron, the 570th.
One number was disconnected, but Rennie was able to call and leave a message on the other.
“It was like about 10 o’clock, and we were in bed already, and I heard the phone ring out in the kitchen and this long message coming to us,” said Rennie, who lives in Bloomington, Minnesota. “So I ran out there, and it was him calling back — this man. And so then I picked it up, and we had a 20-minute conversation. And he told me that he was the pilot of the plane — the only one left. The pilot of the plane!”
The man on the other end of the line was George Hitchcock.
“She was so elated to find somebody who knew (her father), saw him, touched him, and that sort of thing,” said Hitchcock, who, as a 21-year-old captain, flew 27 missions in the European theater toward the end of the war.
George Hitchcock, left, struck up a friendship with Kathy Rennie decades after he piloted a war plane on which her father was aboard. | Courtesy of George Hitchcock
That phone call led to a visit months later at Hitchcock’s Barrington Hills home, subsequent trips by two of Rennie’s children, a FaceTime with other Minnesota-based family members, and plenty of other phone calls, exchanges of emails and Christmas cards.
Rennie visited Hitchcock again in 2023 just before he turned 100, and now they often talk on the phone twice a week.
“We became very good buddies,” he said. “She felt sort of close to me for some reason.”
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