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For more than 80 years,
myth and mistakes have defined the story of the Eager Beavers, who on June 16, 1943, became the most highly decorated air crew in American history.
In that version of the story, pilot Jay Zeamer is a renegade daredevil who no one is willing to fly with, so must put together a crew from a Dirty Dozen-style collection of "misfits and screw-offs," who then help him rebuild a picked-over B-17 carcass from the bomber graveyard just to have a plane of their own to fly. Only the dirtiest, roughest missions ensue, until their fateful and suicidal last mission together, in which they are jumped by anywhere from fifteen to a couple dozen Japanese Zeros, but miraculously and courageously survive and complete the mission.
There are aspects of the incredible true story in that telling, but much of it is the result of highly embellished accounts passed down for decades, and which came as a surprise to the crew members themselves, who certainly didn't consider themselves screw-offs, misfits, and renegades.
Just how do I know that?
For over 30 years,
I've been researching and writing about this historic crew, for both a feature screenplay and limited series breakdown, a website dedicated to the crew, and most recently a book, Zeamer's Eager Beavers: The Incredible True Story, now available in both paperback and e-book on Amazon. That research includes:
- Interviews of the surviving original crew members, their squadron mates, and by now almost thirty family members, who've generously given me their personal insights into the men as well as letters, photos, combat diaries, and more.
- Years of correspondence with numerous experts and authorities on everything about the war during that period, no matter how trivial, from the evolution of the air bases to Japanese squadron movements to the type of vegetation at different seasons.
- Collecting, either personally or through others, over a thousand pages of the archival documents and digital records—squadron morning reports and histories, individual flight records, official orders, newspaper and magazine articles, school records, city maps, you name it—that are absolutely essential to filling in the holes of memory, or correcting it.
All in an effort to make the real story of the crew, individually and as a crew, and the untold story of their theater of World War II—which as you can see from the photos below was literally and figuratively the polar opposite of the more famous European theater—as real as possible, and better known.
Starting in 2024,
I began a multi-faceted effort to change that, and in a big way. Not only did I adapt my website material to the book, I set out to make a video that would be the last word on the crew and their last mission, in a way no one else could do, and more realistically than even the History Channel could do in 2007 (though, again, with the legend, not the actual story).
When I began this project, other videos about the crew on YouTube—all well-meaning but all suffering from the same myths and mistakes—had amassed, combined, over 3 million views. I decided it was high time for me to do my own, and do it right. Not just tell the real story, but to tell it in a way no one had done since the History Channel.
To do that, I teamed up with the incomparable aviation artist Piotr Forkasiewicz. Using every photo of '666 available, other B-17s with similar camera and gun complements, and every personal testimony on the plane from the crew members, we put together the most authoritative reconstruction possible of the crew's famous B-17. You can see the result of those efforts in this teaser for the eventual video:
We plan to create several more clips like that to help illustrate what actually happened on that mission, to the best we can currently know—again, taken directly from the crew accounts themselves, some only I have—and as realistically as can be done short of a movie or miniseries. It will be the cornerstone of much more video content I have planned about the crew and their war.
Which is why we need your help.
As of 2026, those other videos have now amassed over TEN million views. That's 10 million people interested in the story of the Eager Beavers—and not getting their true story. The need for our video is greater than ever.
The problem is, we're not the History Channel. We don't have a team to work on this. We're two guys taking time between our day jobs, working on two desktops, to recreate the most highly decorated solo combat mission in history, and one of the most historic bombers in history down to the smallest detail.
We've accomplished the last part. But now we could use your help more than ever to accomplish the greater part.
To be clear: This GoFundMe is intended primarily to compensate Piotr for his amazing CGI work for the video, with the set goal representing that. As of 2026, though, as explained in my latest update, I am taking over the creation of the flight trajectories since they're the hardest part to communicate and the main bottleneck. So anything more to help cover the expense of the new computer and time necessary to do that is certainly welcome and appreciated, and will help ensure that as soon as possible we're able to get one of the greatest war stories never told—the TRUE version—the public recognition it deserves.
My profound thanks—and I know the families' as well, who've waited a lifetime to see something like this happen—to everyone moved to help me do that. And remember: even if you can't donate, which I definitely understand, just sharing this GoFundMe, and my YouTube channel, is a great help.
Clint Hayes
Organizzatore
