94th Bomb Group Scholarship
94TH BOMB GROUP SCHOLARSHIP
IN HONOR OF FRANK AND DOROTHY HALM
The 94th Bomb Group Memorial Association established the Halm Scholarship Fund through The Benton County Foundations as a means of
honoring the contributions of two of its founding—and most dedicated—members, Frank and Dottie Halm. Frank and Dottie were instrumental in gathering together some 5,000 veterans and their families who share a link through the 94th Bomb Group. The 94th Bomb Group–Eighth Army Air Force flew 325 combat missions from May 1943 to April 1945. During this period, 153 aircraft were lost and two Distinguished Unit Citations awarded to the group. The scholarship became a part of the Military Science Scholarship Endowment Fund in January 2004.
FRANK HALM
Born June 8, 1922, in Whittier, California, Frank Halm lived on the family’s avocado ranch until he graduated from Fullerton Union High School in 1940. They moved to Cave Junction, Oregon, to a primitive farm—no plumbing or electricity—where the wood kitchen stove and a fireplace provided the home heating. Frank decided that rough farm life wasn’t for him, so he made his way back to California in 1941 and went to work for North American Aviation. When the war broke out, he applied for training as an Aviation Cadet, Army Air Force and enlisted in June of 1942. After flight training, Frank received his pilot’s wings and was commissioned on December 5, 1943. After B-17 transition school he was assigned a crew and they were sent to England in July of 1944 for service with the 94th Bomb Group.
Frank’s crew flew thirty missions before being selected for lead crew. Their last twenty missions were flown as formation leader. As a result of his lead crew experience, he was promoted to captain in January 1945, thirteen months after being commissioned. He was never shot down, but his aircraft was badly damaged once and forced to land in France. One of his crew members received a Purple Heart. Frank’s wartime decorations
included the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with Four Clusters.
After the war, Frank spent nine months in southern France, involved in photographing the North African coast. Frank’s next assignment took him to Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., for five years as an instructor pilot and an operations staff officer. He began work toward his bachelor’s degree at the University of Maryland off-campus program at Bolling. He was promoted to major, and in 1951 was assigned to USAF Europe Headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany. While an operations staff officer there, Frank made flights to Moscow and other European capitals.
Upon his return to the United States in 1955, Frank was assigned to the University of Maryland at College Park to complete his bachelor’s degree program. In 1956, Frank was reassigned as an assistant secretary in the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. He served here for two years, then was transferred for a two-year stint with USAF headquarters,
also in the Pentagon. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1959 and applied for graduate school. He earned his master’s in business administration from George Washington University in 1961.
Following graduate school, Frank was assigned to Denver’s Lowry Air Force Base as a missile site commander in the new Titan I system still being built, where he served in various positions. In 1965, he was assigned to Headquarters Strategic Air Command and promoted to colonel. After three years, he applied for an Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps job and was delighted to be assigned to Oregon State University. Frank and his wife Dottie arrived in Corvallis in 1968. Frank was rated command pilot, and while at OSU he was Professor of Aerospace Studies and the head of the Air Force ROTC program. He joined the Corvallis Rotary Club in 1968.
DOROTHY HALM
Dottie passed away October 19, 1999, at the age of seventyeight. Frank Halm established a new fund in her memory within the Military Science Scholarship Fund. See the next page for a more complete description of Dottie’s contribution to the 94th Bomb Group Association and the Corvallis Community.
94TH BOMB GROUP
MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION
The 94th Bomb Group Memorial Association began in 1974, after Frank had seen a notice in the Air Force Magazine. A small ad asked members of the Eighth Air Force to call a telephone number. Frank was among the first to reply and was asked to keep track of others who replied. On December 31, 1974, the first issue of Nostalgic Notes, the newspaper of the 94th Bomb Group Memorial Association, was printed, featuring a total of twelve members. By March of 1975, the number was closer to one hundred. And by the time of the Association’s first reunion in October of 1975, there were nine hundred people on the roster. Frank and Dottie put up some of their own funds to get things rolling, then asked each member to chip in three dollars dues to cover expenses. At the first reunion in Las Vegas, Frank was elected president. A board of directors was established to spread the workload. “We had such a variety of talents in the organization,” Frank recalled. “They’ve come forth and done their parts. All members travel to the reunions at their own expense.” Reunions were held every other year, at different cities— Las Vegas, Nevada; Kansas City, Missouri; Dallas and San Antonio, Texas; Orlando, Florida; Arlington, Virginia; Denver, Colorado; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Dayton, Ohio; Sacramento, California; Tucson, Arizona; and Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The final reunion was held in 1999 in Seattle, Washington.
Several groups returned to Bury St. Edmunds in England, where the 94th Bomb Group was stationed during the war. In 1976, a group returned to the old base and initiated plans to build a memorial. In 1978, they returned to dedicate the memorial, and later gave the city $15,000 to establish a perpetual care fund. The memorial lies just inside the Norman gateway of the Abbey ruins. A historic site, the Abbey is where the English barons met to determine how to confront King John before the creation of the Magna Carta. The memorial has been officially recognized by the American Battle Monuments Commission.
When the organization began, Dottie offered to help Frank put together the newspaper, Nostalgic Notes, until someone else volunteered for the job. After the first issue was distributed, people began to deluge Frank and Dottie with information. Someone suggested a history be written, and
one of the members, Harry E. Slater, helped organize the stories that the Association received and authored the history. The Association financed its publication, and the first 2,000 copies sold out quickly. Another 1,500 were printed, and this formed the beginning of the financial ability to take on other projects.
Frank was responsible for much of the “search and rescue” operation, trying to find the “lost souls” of the 94th who had not yet been heard from since World War II. They found about 500 people through the use of a CD-ROM directory.
As of 1999, they had accounted for more than 5,000 veterans of the 94th. One of the most demanding aspects of their full-time “job” was keeping up with all the correspondence that went along with publishing four issues of the newsletter each year. The final issue—the 100th—appeared with the closing of the organization in 2000. The Association officially disbanded that year, Frank explained, because by the nature of the membership definition—having served in World War II — many of the veterans were no longer living or were unable to continue attending reunions.
The Halm Scholarship is irreducible and will keep the memory of these veterans and their achievements alive long after the last 94th Bomb Group member is gone. The scholarship will be awarded to one or more AFROTC students at OSU’s Aerospace Studies Department for the student’s senior year.