Joel T Hartmeister

Joel was a B-25 Combat Pilot in the B-25 Mitchell Medium Bomber in the 321st Bomb Group, 445th Bomb Squad in the Mediterranean Theatre during WWII.  This was the 20th Combat Mission for this B-25 #42-64590, Lt Hartmeister and his Ship and Crew were SHOT-DOWN in the Adriatic Sea on 8 Oct. 1943, flying Combat against the AXIS Powers. Mission, the  Airdrome on the mainland of Greece. (Air Offensive Balkans)

A/C No. 42-64590 (MACR-1307 missing crews – at sea) 8 Oct. 1943/42-64590 arrived in July 43 and it was on its 20th mission when it went down on 8 Oct 43.

A/C No. 42-64590 (MACR-1307 missing crews – at sea)
P Hartmeister, Joel T., 2Lt
CP Frey, Ernest A., 2Lt
N None
B Flynn, Thomas H., S/Sgt
E Kerbow, Joseph E., S/Sgt
R Wright, Warren D., T/Sgt
G O’Neill, Phillip W., Sgt
F Chaney, Kenneth (NMI), T/Sgt

About Lt Hartmeister;

OSS/SO operatives that had been stationed in various parts of Greece throughout 1944 confirmed assessments repeatedly in their final reports to Cairo....
  
Lt. Joel Hartmeister, was a former airman shot down over Greece and recruited into the OSS by Woodhouse and Wines, eventually ended up working as
the American liaison in western Thessaly. In his final report he questioned the Allied wartime commitment to EAM/ELAS. "My feelings are that we have
created a more or less Frankenstein monster in Greece which will make demands and be difficult to bargain with in the future. The guns and ammunition
that has [sic] been supplied to the andartes [guerillas] will never be given over to any other force."
 
342 MacVeagh to US Department of State – 28, October 1944," (NA Microfilm Publication M1642RI, roll 83, frames 646-647); OSS Record Group 226, NARA,
College Park, MD. 343 NARA, RG 226/154, 39/580, "Lt. Joel T. Hartmeister: Report of Activities in Greece – Undated."

   Joel was born in Ohio and lived in Wyoming, but he spent part of the year in Phoenix, AZ.  Crew Chief Fred Lawrence visited him there a few times and Fred said that Joel made some great stew!  He also said that Joel was into Antiques and he had one spectacular thing Fred admired, a small tool chest with old tools in it. 

    I believe Fred said that Joel was an Architect. (conversation in 2009)

Barbi Ennis Connolly 321st Bomb Group Historian in the 57th Bomb Wing.  PRINCESSBARBI_B25@msn.com