LeMaster, Edward B. Papers

Airman, U.S. Air Force, 1950-1953

The papers of Edward B. LeMaster include correspondence, military records, printed materials, and other items relating to his service in the Air Force during the Korean War.

Size: Less than one linear foot (approximately 800 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: The donor has given their copyright in these papers to the United States of America. Records created by employees of the U.S. Government as part of their official duties are also in the public domain. The copyright interest in other documents in the collection presumably belongs to the creators of those documents or their heirs.
Processed by: Randy Sowell (2024).

Edward Bennett LeMaster III, whose nickname was “Ebbie,” was born in Jacksonville, Florida on December 9, 1928. He attended the University of Georgia before enlisting in the U.S. Air Force in 1950. LeMaster served as a radio operator aboard a B-29 bomber during the Korean War. On the night of October 31, 1952, his aircraft was returning from a bombing mission when its engines failed, and it crash-landed in the ocean approximately ten miles from its base on the island of Okinawa. LeMaster was one of only three crewmen who survived the crash. The other eleven men on board were lost at sea. Rescued along with the other two survivors, LeMaster was hospitalized with injuries sustained in the crash. Subsequently, he and his family corresponded with the families of the crewmen who were killed. LeMaster, who received the Air Medal for his military service, left the Air Force in 1953 with the rank of staff sergeant, and pursued a career in the resort hotel business. From 1960 to 1972, he served as president of the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. LeMaster died at his home in Florida on November 10, 2005.

The papers of Edward B. LeMaster include correspondence, military records, printed materials, and other items relating to his service in the Air Force during the Korean War. The correspondence in the collection mostly consists of letters from LeMaster to his mother and other members of his family, written during his military service from 1950 to 1953. Also included are letters to LeMaster from his mother, from other relatives, and from friends, as well as correspondence with the families of men who were killed in the crash of a B-29 bomber in October 1952, which only LeMaster and two other crewmen survived.

Some of the letters were written while LeMaster was stationed at air force bases in Texas, Louisiana, and the state of Washington, but most were written during his tour of duty at Kadena Air Base on the island of Okinawa in 1952-53. LeMaster sent many letters to his relatives and friends in the weeks preceding and following the B-29 crash. His letters relate his daily experiences and also express sorrow over the loss of the other crewmen, concerns about the safety and reliability of aircraft at the base, and his eagerness to come home. (Some letters in the collection are undated, but they contain information that makes it possible to determine approximately when they were written.)

The military records include an official report, casualty reports, and statements concerning the B-29 crash, as well as personnel records relating to LeMaster’s military service. The printed materials include “Love, Ebbie,” an edited collection of LeMaster’s Korean War letters that furnishes more information about his life and his years in the Air Force.

Photographs pertaining to LeMaster’s military service have been transferred to the Truman Library’s audiovisual collection.