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famous of these are Strategic Air Command and
Above and Beyond. Although his books and film
scripts were mainly about the Air Force, Ber-
nie Lay hated war from the bottom of his heart.
He loved flying.
When his 487th BG held its first reunion in
1967, Lay refused to attend. When pressed for an
explanation, he stated:
‘If I had a choice, would
I want to relive my wartime experience? Definite-
ly not. I couldn’t stand the excitement.’
He said that as he went through his earlier
materials and notes:
‘The trauma of resurrecting
these events … released such a freshet of buried
memories, an explosion of downright disbelief,
that I had to stop writing. My eyes were blinded
by tears.’
He retired permanently from the Air Force Re-
serves in 1963 and devoted himself primarily to
creative work.
He passed away on May 26th, 1982 in Los Ange-
les, but his grave will not be found there. In line
with his character, Bernie Lay donated his body
to medical research at the School of Medicine of
the University of California in Los Angeles.
His longtime friend Brinckerhoff W. Kendall
wrote after Lay’s death:
‘Beirne Lay was my old-
est and my lifelong friend. He did not find it easy
to relate to many of the St. Paul’s boys, but he
lived his dreams and he made it to the stars….’
When you look at the box of the B-17F ‘The
Bloody Hundredth 1943’ kit from Eduard, look in-
side the cockpit of Piccadilly Lily for the figure
behind the controls on the right. There sits the
dreamer and romantic Bernie Lay, in whose eyes
the horrors of the battle of Regensburg are re-
flected. The horrors of the story, which was not
forgotten in large part thanks to him.
Gregory Peck as General Savage in Twelve O’Clock High
Sources:
- US Air Force Research Agency, Maxwell, Alabama
- National Archives and Record Administration, College Park, MD
MACR 4750
Escape and Evasion Reports No. EE-939, EE-1511 (NARA)
German Report KU1815
- 100th Bomb Group Foundation Archives
- Lt Col Beirne Lay Jr. and the 100th Bomb Group Connection,
Michael Faley - 100th Bomb Group Historian
- Findagrave, Wikipedia
- Century Bombers, Richard LeStrange, 1997
- The Story of the Century, John R. Nilsson, 1946
- Aircrew Remembered Project (aircrewremembered.com)
Photographs without a specified source are from the 100th BGF
archive or the author’s collection.
Details of the kit contents can be found on our e-shop.
https://www.eduard.com/eduard/the-bloody-hundredth-1943-1-48.html
Ask your dealers! The kit is already sold out on Eduard e-shop!
Officially licensed by 100th Bomb Group Foundation, Inc.
HISTORY
INFO Eduard
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September 2024