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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