OBITUARY Else Helene Calderazzo January 5, 1929 – September 28, 2018 Else Helene Calderazzo, 89, born Else Helene Kahle on January 5, 1929 in Seschwitz , Germany, (Cieszyce, Poland), near the city of Breslau, Germany (Wroclaw, Poland) passed away 3:20 am Friday, September 28, 2018 in hospital from respiratory complications. As she quietly departed, her son held her hand and whispered into her ear. She wished for cremation and will be interred at Woodlawn Memorial Park next to her husband.
As a result of conferences of the ‘Big Three’ (Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin) at Tehran, Yalta, and the resulting Potsdam agreement, the Eastern border of Germany was moved 120 miles westward and ancestral German land was ceded to Poland and the Soviet Union. With only a moments notice in 1945 Else and her family; father, mother, four sisters and three brothers, and along with relatives, became part of the 7 million German refugees that were expelled from the provinces of Pomerania and Silesia. Her family moving westward eventually resettled in land that became East Germany, Communist Germany, or DDR/GDR.
The total number of German refugees in the expulsion is estimated to be 12 million. The added numbers who were expelled from other countries in Central and Eastern Europe allow historians to consider the expulsion to be the largest forced mass migration of people in the history of Europe. The resulting death toll of the forced migration is significant.
By good fortune Else found her way to Berlin with modest employment. It was there that she met her husband Louis of the US Air Force who was stationed there in 1949 for Operation Vittles better known as the Berlin Airlift which successfully ended the Soviet blockade of West Berlin by a continuous airlift of humanitarian supplies. At the start of the airlift 1,534 tons of food and 3,475 tons fuel were delivered daily.
Louis was awarded the Air Medal for his meritorious achievement during aerial flight. Due to strict US military protocol Louis was unable to marry Else in Germany. At the completion of the Berlin Airlift Louis was stationed at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama.
Else followed to Manitoba, Canada and was joined there with Louis where they were married in Winnipeg on January 29, 1952. They returned to Maxwell AFB where she received her American citizenship; one year later their son Mark was born. Else then traveled to England in 1954 with her husband after he volunteered for service in the 582nd Air Resupply Squadron.
She resided in a small cottage next to a rose nursery in farm country at the corner of present day A14 Cambridge Road and London Road, Galley Hill, near Hemingford Grey, Cambridgeshire. Louis flew from RAF Station Molesworth and RAF Station Alconbury in B-29 and made numerous flights in amphibious SA-16 on covert, early CIA, Cold War missions throughout Europe, Middle East and North Africa. The specifics of those missions remain secret and the loss of one hundred servicemen and associated aircraft remain unaccounted for.
Before leaving England Else took her son and traveled to East Germany to visit relatives. She returned to the USA in 1956 after her husband was reassigned to Mitchel Air Force Base, Garden City, Long Island, New York at the completion of the mission in England. Upon the closure of the base in 1961 her husband remained and was engaged in various official capacities for the Air Force.
Later, her husband applied for a reassignment; his three choices were Germany, England and Alaska. Despite letters of recommendation from his superiors to grant his request his next duty station was in Southeast Asia. In 1963 Else traveled to Bangkok, Thailand in a military C-118 (DC-6) MATS flight and after thirty-six hours of flying from Travis Air Force Base, California, she arrived at her new home.
Her husband was assigned to the 1170th USAF Foreign Mission Group (Special Activities Squadron, Detachment 2, JUSMAG) with C-47, 0-48948 (43-48948), at Don Muang (Don Mueang) Airport. Her husband flew routine liaison flights to covert US Air Force bases operating undercover of Royal Thai Air Force Bases throughout Thailand which were part of the ‘Secret Viet Nam War’ in partial support of the electronic battlefield of President John F. Kennedy and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara that eventually became Operation Igloo White. He made additional, routine flights to Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Viet Nam.
On special occasions, Else accompanied her husband aboard his C-47 to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand and Hong Kong. If Else was not touring the sights and shopping in Bangkok with her German friends she was discussing them at the Capital Hotel which was then leased in its entirety to the US Air Force. Her son studied abroad at St. Joseph’s College, North Point, Darjeeling, India; a boarding school established in 1888 during the British Raj and located among the tea plantations and nearby Himalayan Mountains.
Else returned to the US in 1966 and enjoyed living at Hamilton Air Force Base, Novato, California near San Francisco. It was a return to a previous assignment for Louis who served at the base in 1944. As a result of a history of medical conditions and not being able to fly her husband retired from the Air Force in July 1966.
While driving cross-country on the southern route I-10 on a return trip to his original home in New York, Louis and Else stopped at Orlando to visit military friends. The presence of McCoy Air Force Base was a deciding factor for his choice to make Orlando a permanent home. At the base Else was employed as a waitress at the Officers Club.
She became a familiar face to many visitors from the US military and allied military from many nations. After the base closure in 1975, Else was engaged in a series of employment opportunities. Her last position before retirement was banquet manager at the Harley Hotel in downtown Orlando.
While there she met many politicians, celebrities, and entertainers at the parties she organized and has many mementos from those events. Her husband, now a 100% service-connected disabled veteran, passed away in 1984 at 59 years old. According to his medical history it is highly suggestive that Louis, along with other military personnel, suffered from the effects of radiation exposure while boarding ships that were re-located to Kwajalein Island after an atomic bomb test in 1946 during Operation Crossroads, Test Baker.
The ships were positioned near ground zero at Bikini Atoll and were to be studied and used in research of radiation effects from the first underwater nuclear blast. Efforts at decontamination of the ships failed. They were deemed highly radioactive, dangerously so, and towed out to sea and sunk.
In retirement Else led a quiet life with various activities; bowling, visiting friends, volunteering and a fourth trip to East Germany. Else lived a long life and she watched all of her military friends slowly pass away; only she remained until Friday morning. She leaves behind a son and her relatives from a large family that still reside in Germany.
Her son, with multiple degrees and a student of critical languages, continues his interest in historical issues of the Middle East, Central Asia, and India. He has traveled extensively as an officer in the US Merchant Marine.
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