As part of MPR’s “Portraits of Valor” series, MPR’s Evan Frost profiles Minnesota native Robert Eugene Holmstrom, who in WWII, flew top secret missions over Europe and never dropped a bomb.
Holmstrom’s Army assignment was secret low-altitude flights over Europe at night, dropping spies, supplies and propaganda to aid the resistance on the ground. The missions were kept secret for 40 years.
This is one of six profiles in series.
Click links below for other profiles in series:
https://archive.mpr.org/stories/2020/04/15/portraits-of-valor-dan-cylkowski-94-army
https://archive.mpr.org/stories/2020/05/22/portraits-of-valor-dick-kern-94-army
https://archive.mpr.org/stories/2020/09/28/portraits-of-valor-joe-stephes-99-navy
https://archive.mpr.org/stories/2020/12/30/portraits-of-valor-doris-97-and-richard-edge-96-navy-and-army
Awarded:
2020 MBJA Eric Sevareid Award, first place in Series - Large Market Radio category
Transcripts
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CATHY WURZER: Today is the 75th anniversary of V-E Day, marking Germany's surrender and the end of World War II in Europe. Here at MPR News, our photographer Evan Frost has been working for months on a portrait series with Minnesota veterans of the war, republishing the photographs every couple of weeks on our website. And they are stunning and poignant.
Today we have the portrait of Bob Holmstrom. He served in the Army Air Corps, flying top-secret missions. He was actually sworn to secrecy for 40 years after the war. Evan joins us right now with Robert's story Wow, I can hardly wait to talk to you. Tell me about Mr. Holmstrom. Where is he from originally?
EVAN FROST: So he was born Robert Eugene Holmstrom in Two Harbors, Minnesota on January 4, 1926.
BOB HOLMSTROM: And that was a coldest winter at that time. It was 50 below zero. That night, my mother told me I was born.
EVAN FROST: He had a pretty hardworking childhood. The family followed his father's work around the state. And they eventually ended up in Saint Paul where he graduated from Harding High School.
CATHY WURZER: So he wasn't from a military family.
EVAN FROST: No. What really got him interested in joining the military was his love of airplanes.
BOB HOLMSTROM: We lived right in Mounds Park right above the Saint Paul Airport. And I used to sit up on the bluff there and watch the airplanes take off and stuff. And I decided then I'd sure like to fly, you know.
CATHY WURZER: So how did he get into the service?
EVAN FROST: Well, when he was in high school his senior year, he was working afternoons at a meat packing business, wrapping pork to be sent to feed the troops.
BOB HOLMSTROM: I was working for a major in the Army.
EVAN FROST: His boss was a major in the Army who supervised him.
BOB HOLMSTROM: We got talking about the Air Force. And I thought, well, I still wanted to fly.
EVAN FROST: And he decided that he wanted to sign up for the Army.
CATHY WURZER: So Army Air Corps, tell us a little bit about that. I mean, where did he end up ultimately going?
EVAN FROST: Well, the Army Air Corps eventually turned into what we know nowadays as the Air Force. He spent most of his time at two pretty secret air bases in England.
BOB HOLMSTROM: We would fly for maybe six hours, eight hours up to 10.
EVAN FROST: He would fly missions over continental Europe, sometimes flying all the way to the Russian border and back.
BOB HOLMSTROM: And the airplanes were painted black so that if the searchlights hit us or something, they couldn't see us quite so well.
EVAN FROST: And until they got in the air, only the navigator knew where they were going.
BOB HOLMSTROM: I've seen Switzerland from 50 miles away lit up like New York City with all the bright lights. Otherwise, most of Germany and Poland and Denmark were all blacked out. The only thing you see was fires from the bombs that the British had dropped during the daytime.
EVAN FROST: He was trained as a nose gunner, meaning that he manned a 50-caliber machine gun in the very front of a B-24 bomber.
BOB HOLMSTROM: Set up a network that could look back and see the pilot, it was quite a sight being that far out in the airplane.
CATHY WURZER: Now, those, as you say, the B-24s were huge, huge planes. They were bombers. I mean, was he flying bombing missions?
EVAN FROST: No. They were filled with a ton of cargo, but they weren't actually dropping bombs.
BOB HOLMSTROM: We dropped everything from gasoline to first aid supplies to machine guns-
EVAN FROST: They were really supplying the resistance, people fighting the Nazis.
BOB HOLMSTROM: --to throwaway pistols, hand grenades, dynamite to blow up railroad tracks, most anything they needed to live with.
EVAN FROST: But he did talk about sometimes when they would actually be transporting spies.
BOB HOLMSTROM: We never got to see them until we had the engine's running. And a Jeep would run up with the people, and they would enter the airplane. And that would be it. You couldn't talk to them. Nothing. No.
CATHY WURZER: Wow. Wow. I'm sure the tales he had to tell you-- with the ear that you have, a really receptive ear, I'm sure it was really great for him to be able to talk to you about this. You've done a great job. Thank you so much, Evan.
EVAN FROST: Yeah. Thank you, Cathy. It was really an honor to talk to him.
CATHY WURZER: That's our photographer, Evan Frost. You can find his portrait of Bob Holmstrom and the other veterans he's profiled on our website, mprnews.org.