My cousin Russell was four year older than me. He was always my good friend and treated me like a wonderful older brother.
          When still quite young, Russell's Aunt Emma, his Father's older sister and my Mother, would put me onto the Hartford Trolley, only after being assured that it's Motorman would be sure to let me off at the Elm Hill Stop. Their Stop was Newington's first after leaving New Britain.
          And of course, there waiting for me, with big smiles on their faces, would be my big Cousin Russell and his little brother Kenneth whom we all called ~ (one syllable).
          After jumping down from the Trolley, it was just a short walk up around Elm Hill from this Trolley Stop to what was then my Uncle Eddy's House.
          My first memory of Uncle Eddy's house was his old touring car resting up on blocks in his front yard. Wide eyed, Russell assured me that everyone who had a car also did this so that they could keep them in "good shape" through the winter, He said that this also helped to keep the tires good. Russell also said that the radiator water had to be drained to get it and the car's engine through the winters without being split apart by ice. The car had a crank for starting and Russell told me that if you cranked it the wrong way it would break your arm.
          Early one freezing cold winter morning when we all were a little
older, just to the West and down below their Trolley Stop were several lines of tall trees which were followed to the west below by a rather large swamp. I can remember that my cousin Babe had a BB gun while Russell had a 22 and that day we went to shoot squirrels. We didn't bag any that time,
because in the swamp, I fell through the ice up to my neck. This brought on much laughter in getting all of me out and also, by the time they helped to get me back up to their house. It was not a little task, since my clothes had become frozen and increasingly became, as stiff as a board by the time we
all got back up to their house and into the warm cellar under their house. Recalling things about Russell presently, There is one thing that is :
strange, because for all of the time that I had known him, he had had a
round brown mole on his chin beneath the right side of his lower lip. However, now viewing his photograph that is included with The New
Britain Herald's Article there is no mole what so ever. I suspect, perhaps, that The Army Air Corps found some way to remove it before Russell had this picture taken...
          I'll say this for sure, that Russell was always 'crazy' about flying.
He owned many "Big Little Books." Russell's were mostly about WWI 'Dog Fights', Fights between twin winged planes fought high up in the skies
above France and Germany. Russell often liked to read them out loud to me whenever I stayed over. And now I remember it well how he would go through the motions of flying and filling in all of the machine guns firing noises; all the engines screaming and then even their final waves or salutes between victor and vanquished; their tail spins; their going down in flames; their planes crashing into the ground; or if "lucky their forced landings; or their mid air crashes. The Germans machine gunning the trenches; Our planes bombing train tracks and blowing up supply trains, etc.
          Russell always wanted to grow up to become an American Fighter Pilot. Indeed, had he survived the Schweinfurt Raid plus just one or two further Missions, Uncle Eddy told the Family at one of its gathering, that Russell was hoping to enter a US Army Air Corp Training School for becoming a Fighter Pilot.
          As a child, I would spend my summers with my Aunts, Uncles and my Mother when she would take some few weeks of vacation off from her
work. The Family always camped at Hammonassett State Park's Megs Point Long Term Camping Grounds. We camped there from the day after school closed until the day before school opened. As for me, I managed to spend 13 entire summers there, all prior to Pearl Harbor and WWII's beginning for
our own Country.
          The last things I can remember about Russell was after he had gotten his little Model A Ford Coupe, was that he would drive down to Hammonassett to see me to take me for some fun filled "joy rides".
          Russell in 1940 was 17 and I was 13. What great fun we had together, driving around the camps and also out along Connecticut's shore roads. Together we went: swimming, fishing, clamming, hiking, or blue crabbing, or just soaking up the sun, down on the beach And all this fun unfolded during those last two Summers before December 7th, 1941. In 1940 after Russell had become old enough to get a part time job and $35 to buy his little old black and red striped Model A, Ford Coupe, he also earned enough money additionally to buy the some 18 cents a gallon gasoline and the some 20 miles to the gallon of travel that it provided., so that he could drive down from Newington on Friday after work or after sun up on Saturdays, and then back up home again on either late afternoon on Sundays or before the crack of dawn on Mondays. All these good times then
 unfolded during those last two golden summers enjoyed just before World War Two also started for us with the Japanese December 7th Sneak Attack upon Pearl Harbor.
          During that very last summer of 1941, I also began to notice that Russell had begun to notice girls and strange as it then seemed to me that girls too, seemed to be also looking more and more at him, laughing and giggling a lot more than what I as just a 14 year old boy then thought
normal. Yet as I look at Russell's photograph now, and thinking back to
then, indeed he truly must have been a very good looking young man to young ladies.. To me, Russell was a kind, thoughtful and wonderful member of our overall family but most of all; he was my best boyhood friend.
          And oh yes now I just remembered that Russell also used to build model airplanes, He would explain to me exactly how he built them. What
he liked best were his flying models. Some would actually fly. Others he had hanging from his room's ceiling. This hobby lasted until he enlisted into the Army Air Corps on December 28, 1941 just exactly three weeks after Pearl Harbor and just six months after he had graduated from Newington High School.
           Thinking back has also brought back an early memory of being at a real air plane race with him. I believe that he, Babe and I went by Trolley all the way from Newington to Hartford and then to East Hartford's Braynard Field, where we, as well as crowds of others came to watch an airplane race. There we watched some very noisy low flying little planes make some very tight turns around some pylons. I recall that one of the small planes making what seemed to be very tight turns had colors just like a black and yellow bumble bee. Just how we got back to Newington? I recall that our Uncle David Ahlgren also went and that he drove us all back to Newington after the race... I'll need to think about this some more since all this is only a hazy memory now.
           Wow wee: just now and along with such memories the following one also just popped back into my memory to one long ago day when Russell took me to meet his Irish Grandmother and Grandfather. I remember that they were very kind to me and that they lived next door to a Fire Station that was up on Stanley Street in New Britain; not far from Allen Street; and just across from ST. Mary's Cemetery.
           I was then also pretty young, but I can now also remember how truly proud those two elderly Dolan's were of their Son Father Kenneth Dolan and who was, of course also Russell's Uncle and his Mother who was my Aunt May's Brother.:           At that very same time, they made time for me to show me around the Fire House next door and letnie pet the next door Fire House's Dalmatian Dog.

In October 1943

 [and four months before I myself had passed the Navy's V-5 Test; and enlisted into the Navy being sworn in three days after turning 17, and hoping to become a Navy Fighter Pilot; and thereafter in June of 1947 choosing a Commission in The USMCR rather than in the Navy]: Uncle Eddy phoned to tell his Mother, my Grandmother Amanda Ahlgren, thath~ had just received a Telegram that Russell was missjng in Action.

After that phone call we all prayed a lot, and all too soon cried a lot.

   T. Sgt Russel1 Ahlgren and just 20 years old: Killed In Action during - --

our October 1943 bombing raid Of Schweinfurt, Germany's ball bearing
center.

          For more, I hope that Russell's other friends and relatives as well as my own memories of him. which have not yet surfaced could all also become saved as a part ofVANSS' "Forget Me Not" Project.

          £. Sgt. Russell Ahlgren deserves no less than having our own precious memories of him remain preserved for future Americans to appreciate and
to honor.

          Russell has always remained close to my own heart ,and it sure would be nice to enjoy his friendship again over there, when my life ends here.                                                          "

Sincerely,

Alan L. Robertson, Sr.
A US Veteran Advisor to VANSS February 16, 2005.