Childhood friend of Shep's, first name revealed 4-26-63 show and mentioned again on the 1-6-65 show.
According to Shep's book, "In God We Trust - All Others Pay Cash"
"I turned back to Flick who was checking the cash register.
'Too bad Schwartz couldn't have been here,' I said.
Flick grunted, busy with his change counting. We both knew that Schwartz had been shot down over Italy. They never found him."
A search of the National WWII Memorial website for the name Paul Schwartz of Hammond, Indiana brings up an Honoree Page by his brother Douglas.
[Thanks to Gary White for the info]
Fan Comments
[ Courtesy: Steve Glazer - 08-09-2015 ]
Paul LeRoy Schwartz -- born on July 16, 1921, in Chicago to Paul Larsen Schwartz and Hilda H. Kriewald -- was raised in Hammond at 1299 Colorado Avenue and later at 6810 Arizona Avenue. Soon after graduating from Hammond High School in 1938 (a year ahead of Shep), Schwartz held several jobs -- including helper at a piano company, as well as mail boy and steelworker at the steel mill -- to support completion of his first year of college. On January 29, 1942, Schwartz enlisted at Fort Benjamin Harrison, outside Indianapolis, as an aviation cadet in the U.S. Army Air Corps. Successfully completing his training, he was commissioned as a navigator and assigned to the 772nd Bomb Squadron of the 463rd Bombardment Group (H) in Europe. In early 1944, First Lieutenant Schwartz was flying strategic bombing missions in a B-17G Flying Fortress attached to the 341st Bomb Squadron of the 97th Bombardment Group (H) out of Amendola Airfield, Italy, as part of the 5th Wing of the 15th Air Force.
On the morning of March 19, 1944, Schwartz and nine other crew members had taken off in their B-17 from Amendola as part of a 230-strong bomber armada headed towards the Austrian Alps for Klagenfurt air depot, where the Germans produced Messerschmitt fighter aircraft and other war materiel. At 10:35 in the morning -- while flying in clear skies at an altitude of 3500 feet, about three miles off the coast of Manfredonia in eastern Italy -- Schwartz's aircraft was struck by another B-17 to his right in formation. That plane immediately broke into two pieces, caught fire, and crashed into the Adriatic Sea. Schwartz's B-17 banked sharply to the left, spun out of control, and crashed into the sea and burned. There were no survivors of the mid-air collision; however, one parachute was seen to open at about 500 feet. Only four bodies were ever recovered, but not that of Schwartz. Although the aircraft-casualty reports were classified at the time, Schwartz's mother, then living in St. Louis, Missouri, was subsequently notified of her son's death, with very few details provided to the family.
Shep was incorrect in writing that "Schwartz had been shot down over Italy." (In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, at page 263.) Schwartz's family was also unaware, until just this year (2015), of the circumstances of his death. The details were apparently not officially declassified until some decades after the war.
The name of First Lieutenant Paul L. R. Schwartz is inscribed on the marble Tablets of the Missing located in the chapel of the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery in Nettuno, Italy, not far from Anzio Beach
Fan Comments
[ Courtesy: John Wetzel - 08-09-2015 ]
I just listened to a tape my brother recorded back in 1976 of Shep doing a speech at a ham radio convention at the Playboy Club in Vernon, NJ. In his hour long monolog he talks about his 9 year old friend who also had a ham licence - Schwartz. Shep said his call sign was W9KPY. Sure enough I looked it up in a 1940 book and it comes back to Paul L Schwartz 6810 Arizona Ave Hammond, In.
