Belle G. Naimer and her fiancé were killed in separate WWII plane crashes. Belle saw the world thru her army service and encountered a fascinating journey that ended tragically.

Belle G. Naimer was born in Newark,[i] New Jersey to David and Lina Naimer. The couple had immigrated from Romania in 1899 and married in Manhattan, New York in 1907[ii]. They became United States citizens in 1906. Waiting for Belle at home were brothers Harry and Gustave “Gus.”[iii]

The family moved around a good bit for that era. Harry, Gus and Belle were born in New Jersey. Belle’s family moved to Canada in 1915. A baby brother, Jacob “Jack” Naimer, was born in Canada in 1918. Around that time, David, now a U.S. citizen, complied with the WWI draft registration by visiting the American Consulate General in Montreal, Canada. He noted his family lived in Montreal where David had his own waist business. At that time, “waist” was another name for a lady’s blouse. His company was called the Manhattan Waist Company.[iv]

By 1920, the family of five was living in Los Angeles, California.[v] The family was living in a home they owned. David was supporting everyone by working as a manufacturer of “ladies’ waists,” Lena kept house while the three oldest attended school. While the whole family spoke English, Lena and David were also proficient in their native language of Romanian.[vi]

Belle graduated from high school and then took office jobs.[vii]

HER LIFE BEFORE MILITARY

By at least 1933, Belle had returned to the East Coast with her family, and they were living in New York City.[viii] When Belle is 25, she loses her mother who is 49. She dies on June 25, 1936, and is buried in Queens, New York.[ix]

In 1940, as we head to the war years, the family is in New York and Belle is the only woman in the house. They are living in a rental house in the Bronx. The family has lost Lena, so David is taking care of everyone as a widower. He’s working as a salesman of wholesale blouses. Brother Harry, who finished college, is an accountant. Brother Gus, who graduated from high school, is selling insurance and Jack, also a college graduate, is a textile technician in the garment industry. Belle is a secretary for a silk house.[x]

Sometime in the early 1940s, Belle heads north and moves to Suffolk, Massachusetts where she works as a stenographer and typist. According to newspaper articles, Belle’s father said she had been engaged to an Army Air Force lieutenant who was killed in a plane crash in Europe while in route to the front. Her father did not remember his name.[xi]

HER MILITARY STORY

As the call goes out for women to enlist, Belle steps forward and enlists in Boston, Massachusetts on March 2, 1943. She becomes a WAC entering the Army Air Corp as an aviation cadet. Her service number was A-116702.

Before serving overseas, Belle served as Assistant Post Sergeant Major at Kelly Field in Texas.[xii] She was sent overseas to serve in New Guinea.

Another New Guinea stationed WAC was Ruth Coster, whose daughter talked about that time with the Bakersfield Californian newspaper. It was reported the WACs slept in tents protected with barbed wire as protection from Japanese soldiers on the island. The ranking female officer in each tent was issued a firearm as additional protection.[xiii]

HER LAST DAY

The WACs didn’t just work hard, they also had fun. Coster’s daughter remembers stories of picnics with pork and beans, sausages and bourbon.[xiv] On one particular day off, the girls in the office decided to play tourist.

With a day off to spend, Belle joined 23 other Army personnel for a site-seeing trip in a transport plane.[xv] Colonel Peter J. Prossen was the pilot. Prossen was the chief of maintenance for the Far East Air Service Command. Others on board were:

· Major George H. Nicholson

· Major Herman F. Antonini

· Major Phillip J. Dattle

· Captain Herbert F. Good

· Captain Louis E. Freyman

· Lieutenant Lawrence F. Holding

· Lieutenant Robert E. McCollom

· Staff Sergeant Hilliard Norris

· Corporal Charles R. Miller

· Corporal Melvyn A. Weber

· PFC Melvin A Mollberg

· PFC George R. Newcomer

· T/3 Marion W. McMonagle

· Staff Sergeant Laura Besley

· Sergeant Helen G. Kent

· PFC Eleanor Hanna

· PFC Alethia Fair

· PFC MariamC Gillis

· PFC Mary Landau

· Corporal Margaret Hastings

· Lieutenant John B. McCollom

· Sergeant Kenneth W. Decker[xvi]

Corporal Margaret Hastings described the day in The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper months later. Hastings’s boss was Colonel Prosson, the pilot. She reported the eight WACs were excited for a chance to fly over the legendary area nick-named “Shangri-La.” The pilots who had flown over the area came back with many tall tales of the sights they had seen – or imagined they had seen- from native’s the size of fictional Paul Bunyon to native women who looked like movie stars.

The WACs filed into the camouflage-painted plane first and the men filled in around them. Hastings said she took the first seat but when she realized she didn’t have a good view, she moved to the last seat near the back door, near Eleanor Hanna and opposite of Laura Besley who she recalled winking at during takeoff.

The plane, taking off from Santini Airstrip, flew at 9,000-10,000 feet for 55 minutes before arriving over Hidden Valley. It only took a few minutes to cross the valley. The plane was in a climb. Suddenly the plane was shearing the tops off tall, jungle trees.[xvii] The plane shook fiercely, and suction drew the walls inward. Upon impact with a mountain, the tail section broke off and the plane burst into flames.[xviii]

The plane crashed into a 4-mile thin but 25-mile-long jungle surrounded by the Oranje Mountains. The only gorge that serves as an entrance to the valley is cut off by a mountain wall running at direct cross angles, according to a Pittsburge Sun-Telegraph article. It is believed the wall was hidden by clouds when the plane crashed.[xix]

Only three people survived the crash including Corporal Margaret Hastings, Lieutenant John B. McCollom and Sergeant Kenneth W. Decker.[xx] Hastings and McCollom crawled out of the torn tail. Decker, with a head wound, was thrown out of the front of the plane. McCollom heard screaming and went into the burning plane and pulled out two women, Eleanor Hanna and Laura Besley. It was too late to save Belle or any of the others.[xxi]

Eleanor Hanna died the first night in the jungle, May 13, 1945.[xxii] Laura Besley died during the night of May 15, 1945, at Balim Valley, Dutch New Guinea which is now Papua New Guinea, Indonesia,[xxiii] presumably from internal injuries.[xxiv]

The crash happened in the nearly inaccessible Owen Stanley Mountains of Netherland New Guinea.[xxv] The survivors buried Belle and the others at the crash site.[xxvi] It was three days later before the survivors were spotted.[xxvii] They had hiked through the jungle to a rock clearing so they could be seen.

The three survivors suffered burns and shock,[xxviii] and eventually two had developed gangrene. Decker had deep back wounds[xxix]. They were trapped in the jungle for 47 days, were delivered a walkie-talkie, food and medical supplies by parachute. Eventually, a medical team and other help parachuted in to tend to them.

An airborne funeral service was held at 11,000 feet above the wreckage site with Jewish,[xxx] Catholic, and Protestant rites. Volunteer service members parachuted into the area then hiked to the wreckage. Belle’s body and the others were then deemed impossible to move so were buried properly at the crash site. Twenty crosses and the one Star of David, for Belle,[xxxi] were dropped into the jungle.[xxxii] The crosses and Star of David were placed by the volunteers on the graves.

Another team, that parachuted in, built a landing strip to support a glider. It was hacked into the jungle. It took several days to create. After the injured were deemed well enough to make a three-day hike through the jungle, they were moved to the landing strip. For several days, failed attempts were made before the glider rescue worked. The glider was then lifted aloft by a C-47 with a grabline.[xxxiii]

At the next Friday evening services, the Synagogue at Base “G”, Hollandia, the appropriate service was held for Sergeant Belle Naimer by Rabbi Joseph T. Weiss of New York City. The Kaddish was chanted in memorial by members of her faith.[xxxiv]

Sergeant Belle G. Naimer’s body remained buried near the wreckage in the New Guinea jungle for the next 14 years until it could be recovered for a proper burial. According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspaper, the army believed at first it would not be able to retrieve the body from the rugged mountains. [xxxv] Many years after the crash, men sent by the Army traveled by plane, boat, and foot, traveling over mountains and through jungles, to reach the Hidden Valley.[xxxvi]

Belle’s body was recovered and buried at the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.

COMMENDATIONS

World War II Victory Medal

American Campaign Medal

Army Presidential Unit Citation

Army Good Conduct Medal

Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal[xxxvii]

HER GRAVE

Belle Naimer remained on the mountainside until 1958 when an American Search and Recovery team recovered and identified her body.[xxxviii] On June 29, 1959[xxxix], she was reburied at the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri. Her grave is located at Section 70, Site 16187-89.[xl]

MEMORIALS

Sergeant Belle G. Naimer is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing however her name is noted with a rosette which indicates her remains were eventually recovered. The Walls of the Missing are in the Manila American Cemetery in Taguig City, Philippines.[xli]

RESEARCH NOTES

Belle’s mother’s name is spelled differently on different documents. For example, her marriage license spells it Lina but her registration with the United States Consulate in Canada it is spelled Lena.

ABOUT THIS STORY

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3 and on TogetherWeServed. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.

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