President's Message
by
Mary Pennebaker Truitt

The 390th Bomb Group Veterans Association held a wonderful reunion in Washington D.C. There were many surprises but most memorable was to have the Liberty Belle fly over the WWII Memorial and the next day have the B-17 available for touring at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. To top off the day the Liberty Belle took off while our group was loading the tour bus to return to the hotel. Many heartfelt thanks to Don Brooks and his Liberty Belle team.

At the reunion my husband Jim and I asked our veterans to have their histories recorded by Ray and Sally McFalone. Thanks to the enthusiasm of the veterans who had been previously taped by the McFalones in Tucson, we soon had veterans coming to us to schedule their interview. The response was so tremendous that Ray and Sally started taping from 8:30 A.M. to 11:30 P.M. Thursday through Saturday. The total number of veterans who were interviewed was 33. We want to apologize to the veterans who we couldn’t schedule as we ran out of hours in the day. Ray has emailed me to say that he would tape those veterans who live within 100 miles of San Francisco or within the Sacramento area. Ray’s email is ray@raymdfalone.com. Many thanks to Ray and Sally for their fabulous devotion to this project.

The 2006 390th Memorial Museum Foundation reunion is scheduled for March 31st and April 1st in Tucson, AZ. We will once again have a couple of choices of activities on Friday and then spend Saturday at the museum. Saturday night is the banquet honoring the wonderful volunteers of the museum. We will be taping histories over that weekend as well.

It is finally beginning to cool down in Tucson. Come and see the new exhibits at the museum.