This Sunday, May 14th at 2:30 pm, the museum is hosting a free public forum to explore the mysterious history of U.S. Air Force Pilot Wilson Montague of Wake Forest, whose P-51 Mustang Fighter went down in a field in Reicholzheimer, Germany on March 1, 1945.
Montague had been shot down, and local villagers witnessed the crash. One of those witnesses was the father of Peter Weimer, a German journalist who has spent years researching the air disaster and trying to locate the family of the pilot, who died in the field that day and was buried in Reicholzheim. Although Montague’s body was later exhumed and transferred to the United States, the villagers never forgot his story.
The event intrigued Weimer, who combed through documents in the German archives, wrote to agencies in the U.S., and plumbed every possible resource until–more than seventy years after the crash–his investigation ended in Wake Forest, where the extended Montague family still resides.
Members of that family were able to visit Germany last April. That’s where this photo was taken. Montague’s brother Bobby (center) and great-nephew Allen Massey (right) met Weimer there, posing beside a plaque erected at the crash site.
Now Weimer is visiting Wake Forest and on Sunday at 2:30 pm will give a presentation at the museum. The forum, which is free and open to the public, will highlight his journey unraveling the mystery of that historic afternoon more than seventy years ago when his quiet village was touched by war.
All are invited to attend.
Wake Forest Hero in WWII Germany: A Journalist’s Search for Clues
- WHEN: Sunday, May 14, 2017 at 2:30 pm
- WHAT: Free public forum
- WHERE: Wake Forest Historical Museum, 414 N. Main Street, 919-556-2911
- WHO: German journalist Peter Weimer and the family of Wilson Montague