Bernard Wayne Rawlings
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Bernard (Barney) Wayne Rawlings (1920-2004) was the author of OFF WE WENT (1994), a World War II memoir, DEBRIS FIELDS (2001), a novel based on the downing of TWA flight 800, and other works.
Born in Hannibal, Missouri, he became a bomber pilot in the Eighth Air Force during World War II. He and his crew were shot down over Belgium in 1943. With the aid of resistance fighters in Belgium and France, he made his way to Spain where, after a brief incarceration, he was repatriated. His story is recounted in HALF A WING, THREE ENGINES, AND A PRAYER, by Brian D. O'Neill (McGraw-Hill Professional, 1999), THE LAST AIRMEN, by Roger Rawlings (Harper & Row, 1989), and his own memoir, OFF WE WENT.
Following the war, Barney Rawlings became a pilot for Trans World Airlines, ultimately becoming a 747 captain. He retired in 1987.
A year prior to his retirement, he and the surviving members of his World War II crew returned to Belgium where, in the town of Solre-St-Gery, a granite monument had been erected in their honor - and, by extension, in honor of all Allied air crews who fought for the liberation of Europe. The dedication ceremony included presentations by NATO, the US Air Force, and the Belgian Air Force, which conducted a fly-over by four Belgian jet aircraft.
