I am looking for any and all information about my father. His name was William J. Metzger. He flew medium to light bombers in ww2. I was with him until I was 7 .. in Tokyo Japan. Sometime in 1950 when I was 7 he sent me off to Brooklyn NY to live with relatives. I saw him only a few times after that. He is gone now. I did not have much of him most of my life and i'd like to have something before my time comes.
He retired as a light Col. somtime in the early 60's. Worked for a while for the FAA flying DC 3's testing instrument approaches.
He had a brother named Charles Metzger who was also Army Air Corp during ww2. Uncle Charly is long gone now too.
I heard from someone long ago that my father flew the Berlin Air Lift. ( don't know if true )
I do not have a picture of my father. I obviously don't have much information about him. He moved on after sending me to Brooklyn.
I am 64 now and I want something of my own father before I die.
This might be him
http://www.aviationarchaeology.com/src/dbapi.asp?Pilot=Metzger%2C+William+J.&Submit7=Go
The date/type of plane and name are right?
 
If anyone has any information I would greatly appreciate it. I would really like to have a picture of my father.
 
This seems a bit 'out there' doing this... but if i can end up with info or even a picture then i don't care if it is.

William J. Metzger, Jr.

Bill,
 
Here are a couple of links that might be helpful:
http://www.archives.gov/veterans/evetrecs/
If you go to the bottom and click on the red bar "Request Military Records", you can submit an online request as next of kin at no charge. I just recently sent in a request and was advised by one of the members of this forum (I can't say enough good about the helpful members of this forum) to put "Compiled Record of Service" in the comments field to yield the best response. Several have been very successful with this type of request. You do have to mail in a sheet with your signature on it within a month of submitting the request. The form is generated at the end of the request and can be printed off for mailing.
 
There are also several free, searchable databases at Archives. Go to the following link and type in your father's name. I did this and came up with a few records, but you would know best which of the records might be for your father.
 
http://aad.archives.gov/aad/series-list.jsp?cat=all
 
Good luck on your search,
Sandy (Lynn) Martin
daughter of 1st Lt. Forrest Edward Lynn, 39th FS, 35th FG, 5th AAF

William, if you go to this site http://aad.archives.gov/aad/series-list.jsp?cat=WR26 and search for William J. Metzger you will get 8 hits. Check hits according to knowledge of your father's year of birth etc., maybe this will help you further.
Regarding the serial 43-45950 listed at Aviation Archaeology this might be a typo error, as the USAAF contract for serials
43-45935/46115 was cancelled. The serial is not found in major book about C-47's made. However, the Accident Report might contain information vital to your reserach, as the crew names etc will be listed there, and your father's military service number (Officers had different numbers beginning with O-).

deefeater,
 
I got the full accident report.
 
The aircraft number was 43-45950.  I am really sure this was my father.
If he was ferrying C-47's I guess he was a Combat Cargo pilot instead of Light Bomber pilot. He was a captain about that time I am pretty sure. I was with him just before this time in Tokyo. Looks like he wing tipped a truck at night on the taxi way.
 
rgds,
Bill

Flight Officers had a serial number that began with "T". Mine was T-133093.

Art Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
Bombardier on B-26 Willie the Wolf.