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Also included in his book are photos and the dramatic story of popular Detroit TV weatherman Sonny Elliot, born Marvin Eliot Scholossberg, who also was a flier captured by Germans. Elliot was piloting a B-24J that was built at the Willow Run plant when he was shot down.
The mission was to bomb a factory in Gotha, Germany, “that produced ball bearings for the Messerschmitt ME109 fighters,” Mason wrote. “He and his crew dropped their bombs on the factory and started for home, when a German fighter headed straight toward them and shot them down. One of the waist gunners was injured, but the high altitude slowed the bleeding. … The crew attached a parachute to the injured man and pulled the ripcord as they pushed him out of the plane.
“Sonny was the last to bail out. He landed in a snow-covered field and lost his boots when he bailed out.” Running to a barn, which he found locked, he was stopped by an armed civilian, who turned Elliot in to local authorities. “Sonny and his co-pilot were sent to Stalag 1.”
Elliot lied to the Germans, and said that he was Lutheran, but “felt guilty about not being with his fellow Jewish people,” so he spoke to a chaplain, who “ordered him to keep his mouth shut,” Mason wrote.
Marvin “Sonny” Elliot was a weatherman on Detroit television until the 1980s, and hosted “At The Zoo.” Photo courtesy of Sonny Elliot, from “Michigan in World War II” by Daniel W. Mason (The History Press, 2021).
Later, Elliot adopted the name Sonny, vowing to remain sunny and entertain people instead of dwelling on the depressing aspects of his life. But he kept a journal he had bound in leather from a boxing glove and adorned with pilot wings marked with a K for Kriegsgefangenen, German for “prisoner of war.” He spoke about his experiences in an interview for the Holocaust Memorial Center, which is now in Farmington Hills. He died in 2012 at the age of 91.
Other local heroes highlighted in the book include former Gov. William Milliken, President Gerald Ford and Detroit Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell. TV game show host Bob Barker trained here, at the Grosse Ille Naval Base, but never saw combat. Barker later wrote, “The Japanese heard I was coming and decided to surrender,” according to Mason’s book.
But the Japanese had an effect on Michigan, news of which the federal government suppressed for morale reasons. Bomb-carrying balloons called Fu-Go landed in Byron and Farmington Hills in 1945. A resident found what he thought was a tin can in his yard near Gill and Eight Mile roads, and tossed it aside — until he read in the newspaper that anything suspicious should be reported. What he had found turned out to be a 5-kilogram incendiary bomb, according to the book.
Lt. Col. Matt Urban, one of the most decorated American soldiers of World War II, receives the Medal of Honor from President Jimmy Carter. After the war, he moved to Michigan, where he served as Recreation Director in Port Huron and Director of the Monroe Community Center. He died in Holland, Mich., in 1995; war injuries were believed to have been a cause of his death. Photo courtesy of the Holland Historical Museum, from “Michigan in World War II” by Daniel W. Mason (The History Press, 2021).
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