People gather together for the memorial service of the crash of the B17 on its 80th anniversary in England last month. Courtesy photo

SHEPHERDSTOWN — Recently, a story that was 80 years in-the-making was completed.

It all began on July 19, 1944. The air war in Europe was raging. An American B17 on a bombing run to Germany crashed and burned six weeks after D-Day on a farm near the English coast in the county of Suffolk. Eight members of the crew were killed in the crash. The name of the plane was Little Boy Blue.

Then, skipping forward to June 2024, was the Internet Age. A woman named Cary was reading the Shepherdstown Community Facebook page and saw a message from a man in England looking for Frank “Doc” McCluskey, who lives in Shepherd Village. She notified Doc and a conversation was begun.

The message was from a man named Stephen Honeywood, whose family has farmed the same land for more than 200 years in a little town called Thurston, in Suffolk. He told Doc how, 80 years ago this year, on July 19, 1944, a plane crashed on the family farm and one of the American crewmen on that plane was named John McCluskey — Doc’s uncle, who he never knew.

It turned out that the townspeople of the little English village of Thurston never forgot the day that huge American plane came down in flames on a field near their village. They never forgot the sacrifice of the young Americans who perished on that day.

Honeywood said that he had reached out on Facebook, because he was getting in touch of the families of those who perished on that day to invite them to a memorial service in Suffolk, commemorating that day and the crewmen’s sacrifice. It had taken a great deal of research to locate relatives and descendants eight decades after-the-fact, but the effort was worth it, as they were planning to unveil a moment on the crash site on the 80th anniversary.

Doc and his wife, Melanie Winter, quickly made arrangements to go to England for the ceremony. When the time came, they flew to England, spent a few days at Oxford and then journeyed across the island past Cambridge on to Bury Saint Edmunds and Thurston.

After a night in a 300-year-old country inn, they were driven to the crash site. On a beautiful summer’s day there was a crowd of more than 100 people gathered for the ceremony. Several family members of the crewmen were there, with memories and mementos. There were flags of both nations, representatives of the US. Department of Defense, The Royal Air Force, archeologists, historians and archivists at the site.

“The field where the plane made a huge crater is now a wheat field,” Doc said of the location. “Every year, when they turn the soil they still find pieces of the plane.”

The ceremony was conducted by the local Anglican bishop and the townsfolk attended in their Sunday best. There was a band that played both “God Save the King” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Prayers were made and poems were read, honoring those who have served. Other families attended and stories were told about the young men, who long ago gave their lives fighting the forces of authoritarianism and hatred.

John McCluskey was the oldest of four boys. Doc’s father, Frank, never got over his brother’s death. The whole McCluskey family suffered a blow on that day, which turned into generational trauma. But finally, at the unveiling of the monument, healing and remembering took center stage.

It had been a long journey from the skies over England in World War I to the community Facebook page of the quiet little Corporation of Shepherdstown. Yet, 80 years later, thus ended the last journey of Little Boy Blue.