Remember “Pin Up Girl”?
That was the name of the B-24 bomber Okey Edgell flew in for 13 missions during World War II.
Okey, 97, who lives in Fairmont with his wife, Arlene, was a tail gunner in the bomber that was shot down over Holland in the waning days of the fighting in Europe.
He had a badly injured leg and burns on both hands from trying to fight the flames that had roiled from the radio room to his seat in the tail gunner’s position.
Okey half-limped, half-crawled – right into the center of a patrol of German soldiers, who, Geneva Convention be damned, wanted to shoot him dead, right there.
He was about 30 seconds away from an impromptu firing squad when another group of soldiers showed up and began lobbying for his life, just as intensely.
Barely past his teens, the young man became a Prisoner of War instead.
Five weeks later, Hitler committed suicide in his bunker, an act that set the final unraveling of the Third Reich.
The war was over. The one in Europe, at least.
And Okey lived to tell about it.
Well, as it goes with The Greatest Generation, he didn’t really tell war stories.
This one, though, he told Arlene, because he was moved by the soldiers in the other uniform who argued for his life.
Of prequels and sequels
A contemporary friend of Okey’s was also moved, when Arlene told him.
Over the summer, he hired an artist buddy of his to recreate, on a panel of sheet metal, the distinctive nose art of that B-24 christened, “Pin Up Girl.”
At first glance, the art was a comedic take on the tradition of the time that pilots had of painting Rita Hayworth-styled glamour girl types on the sides of their planes.
“Pin Up Girl” was a cartoon depiction of a happy baby girl, with her diaper secured by an outsized safety pin – thus fastening the wordplay.
That same friend of Okey’s also arranged for a ceremony.
A U.S. Army captain presented the rendering in Okey’s driveway, with neighbors and members of area Veterans of Foreign Wars chapters smiling and giving a round of applause to the old crew member.
The story was carried on Page A1 in the Sunday, Sept. 3, edition of The Dominion Post.
Which is why Sam Mullett, in his kitchen in Morgantown that morning with his coffee poured and his paper unfolded … fell out of his chair.
Not physically.
He was emotionally taken, though, by how interconnected it suddenly became.
The first thing he did was call his brother Bill, in Charleston.
“You’re not gonna believe this. They’ve got dad’s plane on the front page.”
“Get outta town.”
“No, really. I’m looking right at it.”
Ringing up Bill was logical.
Because Bill was Pin Up Girl. Or, he was supposed to be.
Why we fight
It all turned out to be a cosmic coincidence, the likes of which only could have happened in the war that saw 16 million Americans in uniform.
“What are the odds,” Sam asked, “of two guys from the same part of West Virginia, in the same plane, two crews apart?”
Because while The Dominion Post was writing about Okey’s plane that morning, it was George Mullett’s plane, first.
Bill and Sam’s dad.
Before the elder Mullett left for Europe as a newly commissioned lieutenant with the U.S. Army Air Corps, he kissed his wife, June, and patted her belly. She was pregnant.
He ruffled the downy hair on the head of his toddler son, Sam, and said, “I know you’ll be a good big brother.”
George and crew had an inkling that the pending Mullett arrival might be a girl, so they did out the nose art on their B-24 accordingly.
He and June didn’t get Pin Up Girl.
They got Bill, instead.
And Jake, too.
“Twin bomber pilots,” the birth announcement read.
Halfway across the world, a father to now three, didn’t know that.
Lt. Mullett, soon to be Capt. Mullett, was too busy piloting Pin Up Girl through the worst of the fighting in the air war of the European Theater.
In all, the plane’s original crew logged 32 missions – exploding factories and swarming Messerschmitts, standard – including back-to-back runs during the tumult of D-Day, on June 6, 1944.
On Aug. 14, 1944, he made a quick note in his pilot’s logbook: “#32 That’s All Brother.”
The best years of our lives
George came home to his wife and sons in New Martinsville and completed his studies at WVU on the G.I. Bill. He was 25 years old, if that.
He became a teacher and eventually principal of Magnolia High School.
June was a registered nurse who worked at Wetzel County Hospital and later for a physician in private practice.
The twin bomber pilots followed their dad’s flight into education.
Bill is a retired counselor from Kanawha County Schools.
Jake, now deceased, was a beloved teacher and administrator in Monongalia County’s school district.
After earning an ROTC commission in college, Sam fulfilled that obligation on active duty in the U.S. Air Force and later worked as a staff attorney with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Successfully going 32 in a row with the Grim Reaper makes a guy trend the calm side in domestic life, Bill said.
“Dad never raised his voice,” he said. “He was always softspoken and measured.”
George talked sparingly about the war, his boys said.
“He might tell a funny story about a drunk crew member,” Sam said, “but we were kids, and we never heard about the bad things.”
Sometimes, a migraine-like headache would swoop in – and there might be a troubling dream every once in a while.
Last campaign
It would appear, though, his sons said, that the veteran left most the shadows of war behind when he jotted “That’s All Brother,” in that logbook.
On Sept. 26, 1985, George finally lost a battle. He waged it against leukemia for 10 years.
He was 65 and had just retired from his school principal job.
Sam and Bill are glad for the life of their dad, and for Okey’s life and the lives everyone else who answered the call.
The Rosie the Riveters, too, they said, who built the bombers.
Of course, they’re pleased that the B-24 named “Pin Up Girl” (Serial No. 42-94949) finally got her homecoming and full recognition, nearly 80 years after the fact.
They’ll always be awed, they said, by the West Virginia connection in that bomber.
Sam: “It was a big war, but it’s a small world.”
