The legendary Checkertails were a sight for sore eyes when they arrived in Lesina, Italy, in March 1944.

Residents of the small Italian town had suffered under brutal and inhumane treatment by the Nazis during World War II. When members of the U.S. Air Force’s 325th Fighter Group — the Checkertail Clan — swooped in they were greeted as liberators. To this day the townspeople of Lesina remain grateful for the Americans’ role in liberating their town.

The Checkertails’ story is one local jazz musician Patrice Manget of Kalispell knows well because it was her father’s story.

For years her father, Lt. Col. Gerald B. Edwards, attended annual reunions with fellow comrades of the 325th, their families and friends. Manget herself has taken an active role in continuing those reunions.

Just two weeks before suffering a fatal heart attack in September last year, Edwards attended what would be his final Checkertail Clan reunion in Concord, Mass. His devotion to the Checkertails, named for the black-and-yellow checkered pattern on the tails of the aircraft they flew, was wide and deep, Manget said.

“Each year he reaffirmed the strengths and determination that carried them through the war to victory, and he came back refreshed and rededicated to the fights he had taken up on [America’s] behalf,” Manget said. “In his heart, in his soul, at the core of him he was forged for life by being a Checkertail and he never forgot.”

When it came time to dedicate a special memorial to the Checkertail Clan in Lesina earlier this month, Manget was invited to be part of the celebration.

“It was such an honor,” she said.

The push to establish a formal memorial to the Checkertail Clan in Lesina was led by Tom Ricci, whose father lived through those terrible months under Nazi rule during World War II.

“Before he passed away, he told me that it was his dream that the men of the 325th Fighter Group be recognized for what they did, bringing life back to his beloved Lesina,” Ricci said in a story posted online at warbirdsnews.com. “When the American forces arrived, life in the town was renewed and the soldiers were welcomed with open arms.”

The 325th was activated in 1942 and entered combat in April 1943, escorting bombers, flying strafing missions and conducting sea sweeps from bases in Algeria and Tunisia before being sent to Italy to continue helping out with the war. When all was said and done, the Checkertails were one of the most decorated outfits in the 15th Air Force’s Mediterranean Theater, Manget said.

“They helped destroy Hitler’s oil supply — no gas, no go — and D-Day would not have been possible or successful without the Checkertails’ accomplishments,” she said.

Manget and other Checkertail reunion organizers discovered in 2009 that British photojournalist Neil Pugh was working on a documentary of the Checkertails and had come to the United States to interview members of the 325th — including Manget’s father.

“I knew what my father did in the war, but I didn’t really know until I saw the film,” Manget said about the poignant documentary.

The film shows her father, at age 91, climbing into one of the famed “war birds” during the 2012 Checkertail reunion.

Little physical evidence of the Checkertails’ time in Lesina remains today, Ricci said. The temporary airfield, which closed in late 1945, has largely returned to farmland, with a few crumbling buildings left as a reminder of the war.

“The moment I felt my father’s presence was when I saw the Checkertails’ yellow paint on the floor of a building used for a machine shop during the war,” Manget said.

Over the past couple of years Ricci tracked down members of the 325th. He knew time was of the essence to get the memorial project off the ground because most World War II veterans are well into their 90s and their numbers are dwindling.

Among the group of 17 Americans — mostly family members of Checkertails — who attended the ceremony on May 16, was only one member of the Checktertail Clan: Col. John Gaston, 90, of Wyoming.

“We were blown away” by the hospitality shown by the residents of Lesina, Manget said. “It’s a day they’ll celebrate each year.”

The marble monument was fully completed after the ceremony, when officials applied the telltale yellow-and-black checkered sideboards.

While Manget’s father never lived in Kalispell, many of her other family members have called the Flathead home. Her mother, Helene Edwards, lived in Kalispell for 15 years, and Manget’s sister Geralene Thurnau also lived here for many years.

More information about the Checkertail reunions can be found on Facebook.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.