Bernard Edward Weigel was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin on May 2, 1923; his father, Louis, was a veteran of the Spanish-American War. Bernard Weigel graduated from high school in La Crosse in 1937 and enlisted into the Wisconsin National Guard (Battery B, 20th Field Artillery) in 1940 with his brother. After training with that group at Camps Beauregard and Livingston, Louisiana, he was transferred to an Army Air Force base in Jackson, Mississippi in early 1942. Weigel went next to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where he received training in radio operation. He then received gunnery training in Yuma, Arizona and combat training in Boise, Idaho. In mid-1944 Weigel flew across the Atlantic as a radio-gunner on a B-24 bomber. Upon arriving in England, he was assigned to 466th Bomber Group of the 8th Air Force. Weigel flew thirty-four missions as the radio operator-gunner for a B-24 and achieved the rank of technical sergeant. He and his crew bombed German oil plants, railroad yards, and munitions plants from August 1944 through early 1945. The crew's last four missions had them delivering fuel to General George S. Patton's 3rd Army; all four missions were unescorted and extremely dangerous. In April 1945 Weigel arrived in the United States for a furlough, and did not have to return to the European Theater. He was discharged in May 1945 and returned home to La Crosse. Following the war Weigel served in the U.S. Air Force Reserves from 1948 to 1952.
