A Dream Fulfilled: Medal of honor recipient Forrest Vosler
He quickly demonstrated his bravery when, on his first combat mission, he saved the lives of two unconscious crewmates by repairing their oxygen supply while keeping enemy fighters at bay with one of the men’s guns.
Picture this: a young American World War II airman, blinded by shrapnel and badly wounded, his B-17 crashing into the English Channel, somehow manages to repair the ship’s damaged radio in time to send out a mayday call, saving his crewmates’ lives.
No, this isn’t a scene dreamed up by some Hollywood screenwriter; this is the actual wartime experience of Utica University alumnus and Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Forrest L. Vosler, who before starting classes at Utica had already lived a life seemingly pulled straight out of an action movie.
Born in Livonia, New York in 1923, one of four children, Vosler was a boy scout and a big basketball fan. After high school graduation in 1941, he worked as a drill press operator at General Motors in Rochester before answering the call to serve and enlisting in the Army on October 8, 1942.
Rising to the rank of staff sergeant, Vosler was deployed to Europe the following year with the 8th Air Force’s 358th Bombardment Squadron - “Hell’s Angels” - as an aerial gunner and radio operator on a B-17 Flying Fortress called The Jersey Bounce, Jr. He quickly demonstrated his bravery when, on his first combat mission, he saved the lives of two unconscious crewmates by repairing their oxygen supply while keeping enemy fighters at bay with one of the men’s guns. His actions that day earned him the Air
Medal for valor.
A few missions later, Vosler and his crewmates faced an even more daunting test as their formation encountered fierce anti-aircraft fire and more than a hundred Luftwaffe fighters during a bombing run over Bremen, Germany. As the fighters attacked, a 20 mm artillery shell hit the radio compartment, severely injuring Vosler’s legs. The aircraft’s tail was hit at almost the same time, seriously wounding the tail gunner and taking out the plane’s guns, followed by another strike that sent shrapnel into Vosler’s chest and eyes.
Despite his injuries, Vosler refused offers of first-aid and continued to fire back at the enemy. And though he could barely see, he managed to get the B-17’s damaged radio working well enough to send out a distress signal before the pilot ditched the disabled plane in the English Channel.
As the aircraft began to sink and several of the crew members prepared a life raft, Vosler, bleeding and nearly blind, somehow found the strength to keep the badly-wounded tail gunner from sliding off the wing and into the cold December waters. He grabbed the man around the waist, holding onto an antenna cable with his other hand until his crewmates were able to pull them both into the raft.
Fortunately, Vosler’s distress signal had been picked up by a nearby ship, which soon located the raft and carried the Jersey Bounce crew to safety. Without question, his remarkable bravery and steadiness under fire made all the difference that day. He would spend the next several months in Air Force hospitals in England before returning
stateside, where he continued his recovery and doctors were able to restore vision in his left eye.
It was during his convalescence in the U.S. that Vosler was invited to the White House to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt personally presented him with the nation’s highest honor for valor in an Oval Office ceremony on August 30, 1944.
After his discharge from the Army, Vosler became one of the founders of the Air Force Association and moved to Syracuse, New York where he got a job as a radio station engineer at WSYR and enrolled at Syracuse University in Spring 1945 to study business administration.
It was during his time at S.U. that he met his future wife, Virginia Slack. The two were married on October 28, 1945. Vosler took a job at the Veterans Administration in the late 1940s, where he served for the next three decades until his retirement. He and Virginia raised four children – two sons, Stephen and Jeffery, and two daughters, Sondra and Susan.
Sadly, despite his best efforts, Vosler’s eye injuries made university study extremely difficult. He dropped in and out of classes over the course of two decades, transferring to then-Utica College in 1956 before ending his studies in 1962 without a degree.
Vosler died of a heart attack on February 17, 1992 at the age of 68, shortly after he and Virginia permanently relocated to their vacation home in Titusville, Florida the autumn before. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, and as befits a bona fide war hero, lives on not only in the hearts of those who loved him, but in the living
monuments dedicated to his memory in the years since his passing. These include the Vosler Academic Development Center at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi and the Forrest L. Vosler Veterans Memorial Park at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.
There was a happy coda to his educational journey as well when in 2015 Syracuse University awarded him a posthumous associate degree of arts, crediting him for his persistent studies at Syracuse and Utica over 17 years. For this celebrated hometown hero, decorated for valor by the President of the United States, it was the fulfillment of a long-held dream and a fitting epilogue to a life well lived.
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