aaron frank murphy who is the late grandfather of cnn s own chloe. the story details and writes about being shot down out of his b-17 aircraft and surviving months in a german prisoner of war camp. here we go with our reported chloe now live. what an honor. what an honor to be part of this. the story has been out there and this is a rerelease and it will be a miniseries. it has to be an emotional thing for you and your entire family. i don t want to cry. i was just saying my grandfather was a great human being and i grew up listening to the stories about my grandfather in world war ii but
you. well, first of all, it s so incredible to be here talking about this. so thank you. my grandfather, like you said, was a navigate of a b-17 in the bloody 100th, and he flew 21 missions. he was shot down on his 21th mission, while flying over muenster, german. two of his crew didn t make it. he parachuted out and he was captured. and he was a prisoner of war for 18 months. he was in the same prison camp as the great escape. i m sure some of you have seen the movie with steve mcqueen from many decades ago, and my grandfather said that that movie was actually pretty close to what it was really like. and he just had this harrowing these harrowing experiences. you know, he got the purple heart, the air medal, the p.o.w. medal. and i used to listen to these stories when i was a little girl. it wasn t until i was in my 20s that i really realized what he went through. and before my grandfather died in 2007, he decided to write a
full-time, nonstop, you know, mission, to do whatever i can to serve and honor. i want to say this, with worldr. war ii veterans in my family asn wells , maria, one of the great programs that we have at the gary sinise foundation is callei soaring valor. it is a partnership with the national world war ii museum in new orleans. american airlines who provideseu all of the travel.to we have traveled hundreds off world war ii veterans down to new orleans to see the museum for themselves.an it wass inspired by my uncle jk who served on a b-17 in world war ii, 30 missions over europe. i took him to the museum when he was still alive and when hess passeded away, i created this program at the gary sinise foundation to make sure that asn many worldda war ii veterans ass still have them, as possible,to can go to the world war ii museum, see the museum for themselves. we all actually record their