HISTORY
Tens of thousands of Allied airmen were discovered at the
end of the Second World War in internment camps set up to
hold them. They were known as Stalag Lufts, and the airmen
freed from them at the end of the war immediately began writing letters home expressing their yearning to return to their
loved ones. Such a letter was eagerly anticipated from Elwyn
Righetti, or at least some news about him, by his family at the
family farm in San Luis Obispo, California. All they knew to
that point was that he had been shot down, crash landed, and
survived the event. Three weeks had passed from then and
the war ended, and they were still waiting. They waited for
months, and the months turned into years. No news or any
hints regarding his disappearance have come to this day. Lt.
Col. Elwyn Righetti, Commanding Officer of the 55th Fighter
Group, disappeared not far from Riesa without a trace….
take long for him to reach ace status and
not just for kills in the air. He was also
extraordinarily effective in wiping out
ground targets. In this regard, there was
no one better far and wide….
And then came his thirtieth birthday, on
April 17, 1945. This was accompanied by
more heavy bomber escort missions and
the search for air and ground targets of
opportunity on the return flights. Righetti and his wingman, Capt. Carroll Henry, attacked an airfield at Riesa with an
inviting line of enemy fighters parked
on it. He was making his fourth or fifth
pass and was running low on ammunition
when his Mustang, adorned with artwork
of an attractively slender grasshopper
with the name “Katydid”, shuttered under
the explosion of flak. He conducted one
more pass with his Mustang losing coolant and oil pressure before looking for a
place to “park it”. The forced landing was
successful, and he radioed to Henry that
aside from a busted nose, he was OK. That
was the last anyone heard from him…
Photo: Family collection via Jay Stout
Righettis’s combat career had been short-lived but intense. His arrival in England at
the beginning of September, 1944 was not
easy. His rank of Lieutenant Colonel was
indicated on his uniform, but no ribbons
were displayed testifying to any combat
commitments. He was a greenhorn with
the rank of a senior officer, equivalent
to at least a squadron commander. He
was also 29 years of age, older than the
average active fighter pilot. All of this had
its reasons. He was a flight instructor, and
one of the best available to the Air Corps
at that. For this fact alone, his requests
to be assigned to a combat unit ended up
in the trash bins of his superiors. By the
time he finally did go into combat, he was
a seasoned pilot eager to contribute to
the defeat of Germany. In fact, his was so
eager that he earned the nickname “Eager El”. He got his first kill on his second
combat mission. But for this quality and
the associated impetuousness that he
displayed, he was seriously reprimanded.
But he was a quick study, too. It did not
The Righetti family circa 1936. From left to right, Doris, Elwyn, father Guido, Elizabeth, mother Elizabeth, Ernie,
Maurice and Lloraine.
February 2023
Swiss, or More Accurately, Italian Roots
The Righetti family hailed from the Italian
speaking Swiss canton of Ticino. His grandfather on his father’s side, Francesco
Robertino Righetti settled in San Luis
Obispo, California, in 1873. At the time, this
town had a little over 2,000 inhabitants,
including a sizeable Swiss community.
Francesco worked as a farmhand until
he had saved enough money for a small
ranch of his own not far from Edna Valley,
where he gradually purchased property
around his. He married Erminia Bonetti
and she gave birth to a son Guido in 1882,
and three more children subsequently.
Guido helped expand the family’s dairy
farm and graduated from Armstrong Business College, and after several years in
the oil industry, he returned to the family
farm. He married Elizabeth Mary Renkert,
a woman with a French and Swiss background. Their first child, Elizabeth, was
born in 1913, and a year and a half later, on
April 17, 1915, Elwyn was born to them, followed by another four children after that.
Elwyn Righetti was then a farm child with
French and Swiss blood. His childhood and young adult life centered around
cows, stables, farm equipment and everything else associated with a hard farm
life. As his brothers and sisters, he helped out on the farm in any way he could,
though he did not see his future there,
despite having earned an advanced degree in cattle breeding from the California
Polytechnic College. He was a very lively,
temperamental youth. The school paper
“El Rodeo” from the time confirms Elwyn’s active participation in extracurricular
and social activities. His two year study
in the field came to an end in 1935, at the
height of the Great Depression when it
was very difficult to find meaningful work.
He worked as a truck driver and also as
a sales rep for dairy companies. He also
tried his hand at selling real estate and
cars at a local Buick dealership. His life
almost came to an end on September 9,
1938, when the twenty-three-year-old
Elwyn nearly drowned when, along with
hundreds of other men, he tried to fish
out of the sea free firewood that had been
thrown overboard by a stranded merchant
vessel. Unconscious and on the verge of
hypothermia, he was rescued, but it was
a very close call …
A New Passion
At that time, he had already developed
a keen interest in aviation, partly fed by
the frequent and well publicized establishment of records for endurance or
speed flights. However, an hour of flight training at the time cost some seven
dollars, and that was akin to a two day pay
for a laborer. At the aforementioned Buick
dealership, Elwyn was promoted to head
INFO Eduard
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