OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – On this Flag Day, buddies, household and fellow navy are remembering a really particular veteran in Northwest Oklahoma Metropolis.
Airforce personnel performing a full navy funeral for the passing of a 100-year-old World Struggle II veteran that embodied the essence of America’s biggest era, a person that fought for that flag throughout two oceans within the air and on the bottom.
William Bonelli was a real American hero.
“He was a good and honorable man who served his nation,” stated Bonelli’s daughter, Geralee Wooden.
KFOR was fortunate sufficient to spend a while with Retired Lt. Colonel Bonelli again in 2017. He advised us how he enlisted within the Military Air Corps again in 1941 and was despatched to Hickam Subject in Hawaii to service planes.
Bonelli was there on responsibility that notorious morning in December.
“I might see the purple ball on the facet of the fuselage and I stated to my buddy, ‘I ponder who these plane belong to,” stated Bonelli in 2017.
Three years after Pearl Harbor, Bonelli discovered himself within the skies above Italy, piloting a B-17 because it made bombing runs over German targets. Bonelli dodging flack because it obtained too shut for consolation a time or two.
“I’d say inside an inch of the household jewels,” stated Bonelli in 2017.
“He was wonderful – how he was in a position to maintain an viewers in his hand as he would recount these tales,” stated Wooden.
Geralee stated it took her father till his final years to be snug telling these tales. Reminiscences of fellow fliers misplaced haunted his goals.
“There’s hardly an evening that I do not get up in the course of the night time,” stated Bonelli.
However Geralee says Bonelli saved numerous lives whereas within the skies by making his bombing runs barely completely different from the sooner waves, so his squadron would keep away from taking direct hits.
“Nonetheless delivering, nonetheless heading in the right direction, however just some hundred toes off. He did what he needed to do, that is why he was a lead pilot, a command pilot,” stated Wooden.
In all, Bonelli served his nation for 53 years within the Air Power and with the FAA.
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In his a centesimal 12 months, he lastly misplaced a battle with most cancers.
William is buried subsequent to his spouse who handed in 2003.
Air Power personnel and household spent Monday remembering the person that gave a lot.
“He was a tremendous man and I used to be fortunate to be his daughter. And as my dad would have typically say, thanks on your curiosity in all of our veterans,” stated Wooden.
Bonelli’s household tells Information 4 that they’re working with a manufacturing firm on a documentary about his life so extra People can know his unimaginable story.
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