After 81 Years, a Promise, and a Kiss
Thanks to a lighter collector’s club and assistance from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, a memento of a missing World War II hero returned home.
It started with a Facebook post in the Great Lakes Lighter Club group in 2019. Swiss citizen Rolf Gerster had posted a photo of a World War II-era Zippo lighter in his collection. It’s certainly an interesting item for a collector of vintage lighters or war memorabilia, but it meant something even more to one family. It had the inscription “Musashe 1943” and parts of a service number visible.
Vince Musashe said he found out about the post from his “cousin’s cousin,” but the lighter turned out to have a much closer connection. It was carried by Vince Musashe’s uncle, Army Air Corps Staff Sgt. Michael Musashe, who went missing in Europe during World War II.
According to a statement from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Musashe was one of ten crew members on the aircraft nicknamed the “Spirit of Wanette,” dispatched to bomb a section of Berlin in April 1944. The aircraft was damaged by enemy fire and changed course amid fog. Musashe shot down a German Messerschmitt 210 that attempted to attack. The “Spirit of Wanette” pilot ordered the crew to bail out.
Two of the crew were never found. Musas was one of them. The War Department issued a finding of death in November 1945, but Vince says his grandmother always believed that “the fact that her son was missing in action meant that he could still be alive.”
The family contacted Rolf Gerster after a meeting with the DPAA. He immediately agreed that the lighter should be returned to Musashe’s family and helped make the transfer as quick and easy as possible. Gerster is an army veteran, and Vince, who served in the U.S. Navy, believed that gave them “a common bond.”
The lighter has 27 hash marks, which Vince believes stand for the 27 missions Musashe flew.
When Vince received the lighter, he took it to the person he knew would want to see it most: his aunt, 95-year-old Virginia Zoller. Michael Musashe was her brother; the last time she saw him, she was in seventh grade.
“After 81 years, she did what she said she would do when he came home,” said Vince. “She kissed the lighter.”
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