Mayhew Foster

Who was Mayhew Foster?

Mayhew Y. "Bo" Foster was an American soldier who flew captured Nazi war criminal Hermann Göring from Austria to Germany for interrogation by the 7th Army. For his actions in World War II, Foster was awarded both the Silver Star and the Légion d'Honneur.

At the end of the war, Göring surrendered to the Allied Powers in the Bavarian Alps. On May 9, 1945, Foster transported Göring back to Germany on a 55-minute flight in an unescorted, unarmed L-5, a larger plane than the L4 he normally piloted, because Göring weighed more than 300 pounds. According to China Daily, in a letter to his wife, Virginia, written at the time, Foster describes his first impression of Göring as "effeminate [and] gave me the creeps . . . Several times I had the impulse to turn the plane over and see if I could shake him out, but he was wedged in like a champagne cork."

Foster said that Göring, who spoke some English, avoided any talk of Adolf Hitler, with whom Göring - as the commander of the Luftwaffe - had fallen out of favor as the total German defeat neared. "He acted as though he was going on a sightseeing tour, or really as though I was going on a sightseeing tour, and he was showing me where he grew up. I had a .45 in a shoulder holster, but he couldn't reach that. But neither could I, because I had two hands controlling the plane."