Norma Jean Ford Beard was born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania in June 1944. Her father was a B-24 pilot [Annotator's Note: her father, US Army Air Forces Captain Eugene Ford, piloted a Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber]. Her mother was raised by Beard's great aunt who took her in when Beard's maternal grandmother died during the Great Depression. The family was split up at the time. Her father was from Latrobe. His parents split up soon after getting married. He was raised by his grandparents on a farm near where Beard's mother was living. They started dating in high school. He graduated from high school in June 1941. After Pearl Harbor, he enlisted. He always wanted to fly. He was first assigned to military police but then qualified for B-24 mechanic school. After that training, he was accepted for flight school and trained in Arkansas and Tennessee. Ford then married Beard's mother after receiving his wings. He had learned a lesson from a friend who was demoted after getting married prior to receiving his commission. That unfortunate individual was shot down over Germany and executed by the local population. Ford went on to fly 44 missions before he was killed. Beard survived by living with extended family when her mother had to gain employment. Her mother was a widow with two babies and no resources other than living with relatives and becoming employed. She remarried in the fall of 1950. The two children rejoined her and the family relocated to the Pittsburgh [Annotator's Note: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania] area. Their step-father had served under Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] in the 11th Armored Division in World War 2. His outfit had stumbled on the Mauthausen concentration camp [Annotator's Note: in Mauthausen, Austria]. He made a point of photographing the camp in detail to document the story in case there might be a cover-up.

Norma Jean Ford Beard only knew that her father was a pilot and was killed until she was 13 years old. [Annotator's Note: Beard's father, US Army Air Forces Captain Eugene Ford, flew 44 missions in a Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber before he was killed in action.] There were photographs that she assumed were him display by her mother. Beard was very small and not tall enough to see them. She did not know what he looked like. She knew his name and her paternal grandmother who came to visit. The children had a difficult time living with their step-father. Beard's brother had an especially tough time with him. They had been spoiled by their grandparents while they lived with them. Their new step-father was a strict disciplinarian. He was a carpenter who had built bridges for Patton [Annotator’s Note: he was an engineer in the 11th Armored Division under US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.]. He did not earn much salary so the family had to grow a garden and hustle to make ends meet. Times could be tough for Beard along with her parents and three siblings. Times were easier for youngsters during the 1950s regarding security and relative peace of mind compared to the youth of today. Nevertheless, Beard had to aid her mother with child rearing duties at the early age of eight. Her mother had laborious chores of her own to take care of so she needed her young daughter's help. That type of help for the parents was expected of all the youngsters around.

Norma Jean Ford Beard lost her father in the war. His remains were only recovered recently. [Annotator’s Note: Beard's father, US Army Air Forces Captain Eugene Ford, was a pilot and flew 44 missions in a Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber in the 15th Air Force before he was killed in action. His remains were recovered from the bomber's wreckage in the summer of 2016.] Information was difficult to find until she went online with the 15th Air Force and conducted research. She had experience with research that benefited her. She received a document from Val Miller [Annotator's Note: Miller was the bombardier aboard Ford's aircraft] who was the surviving bombardier on her father's lost flight. Miller did not know Beard's father because the last ten missions Ford flew were with pick-up crews. Ford was about to be promoted to captain. At 21 years old, Ford led boxes [Annotator's Note: a bomber formation] with his leadership and flying skills. He was flying the B-24 "Tulsamerican" which was the last B-24 built in the Consolidated plant in Tulsa [Annotator's Note: Tulsa, Oklahoma]. The city of Tulsa took great interest in that particular plane. Beard was at The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] to promote a documentary related to its discovery and background. After having significant maintenance work done on it, the bomber's mission was to attack a synthetic oil facility in Poland. The 15th Air Force concentrated on energy, oil refineries, and railroad connections. Ford did not fly the first mission on Ploesti [Annotator's Note: Ploesti, Romania] but he flew many later missions on the targeted oil fields. Beard learned through Miller and other veterans she met through the 15th Air Force reunions, that her father was leading a box of six aircraft piloted by green [Annotator's Note: inexperienced] pilots. Their training had not been as extensive as their predecessors had received. They were flying through a heavy weather situation through mountains on 17 December, at the same time as the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. Ford spread his formation and moved them apart from the rest of the boxes. The Germans likely intercepted the uncoded radio transmissions and were waiting for the green pilots. None returned to base. Beard was later accosted by one of the survivors. She knew why her father had chosen his tactic. When the Tulsamerican limped over the mountains back to an emergency landing base in Croatia, the front landing gear did not lock into position. A belly landing was impossible on the steel runway because the plane would have blown up. The crew circled the field until fuel was exhausted. The plane pitched left and ditched into the sea [Annotator's Note: Adriatic Sea]. Seven of the crew survived. Miller was one of them but he had a limp for the rest of his life. Others were injured in the crash. Captain Ford, the flight engineer and navigator were lost. Some of the survivors said that the bodies of the flight engineer and navigator were seen floating away. Her father's remains were found under the aircraft decades later. Beard would have preferred to leave her father's remains undisturbed. The Tulsa Air and Space Museum has prioritized locating the plane. Croatian sport divers initially located the plane and a Woods Hole exploration vessel recovered some of the remains of Beard's father and some of his possessions including his wedding ring. Beard now has the ring in a safe deposit box.

Norma Jean Ford Beard was anticipating the discovery of her father's remains. [Annotator's Note: Beard's father, US Army Air Forces Captain Eugene Ford, was a pilot and flew 44 missions in a Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber in the 15th Air Force before he was killed. Captain Ford's remains were recovered from the bomber wreckage in the summer of 2016.] The search for his plane had been ongoing for a while. She spent a summer with her paternal grandparents when she was 13 years old and learned details about her dad. [Annotator's Note: Ford died in December 1944, six months after Beard was born.] It helped her through a particularly stressful time in her life. Her brother died years prior to the discovery of their father's remains. Her brother had been a diesel mechanic in the Navy and served two tours in Vietnam. Beard worked to have both her brother and father buried at Arlington [Annotator's Note: Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia]. She fulfilled a family obligation by accomplishing that. Her husband has become a mission expert on her father's fatal flight. There is also a crew of very knowledgeable amateur historians who have a minute by minute study on the final flight. Beard has felt that the remains of her father should have been left undisturbed. She discovered that when her father first went to Italy, he trained B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] mechanics on the B-24 because there were not enough men trained on the B-24 [Annotator's Note: Ford had initially qualified as a bomber mechanic on the B-24 before being accepted in B-24 flight school]. Beard found one of her father's ground crew members who said Ford could always be depended on to help solve aircraft problems. Beard struggled with Arlington on arrangements and at one point she thought she would just scatter his ashes over Edwards Air Force Base [Annotator's Note: in Edwards, California] which is the spiritual home of test pilots. She felt her father was one of them since her mother once mentioned that to her. Intellectually, she understands trying to recover remains but she also thinks they should be left undisturbed. When she found that pirates in the Pacific were gathering steel from sunken warships without regard for any of the remains, she formed a different opinion.

Norma Jean Ford Beard feels museums are important to show the cost and not just the glory of war. All the veterans that Beard knew were troubled or injured men from the war. One man committed suicide. The crew members of her father's plane [Annotator's Note: the Tulsamerican; a Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] spent years trying to find his family. [Annotator’s Note: Beard's father, US Army Air Fores Captain Eugene Ford, was a pilot and flew 44 missions with the 15th Air Force before he was killed when his aircraft crash landed in the Adriatic Sea. His remains were recovered from the bomber's wreckage in the summer of 2016.]. He had only flown with the crew for the one mission. By 21 years of age, he had flown 29 combat missions. He had an air of authority and maturity that impressed his crew. The survivors were relieved to find the family. Val Miller [Annotator's Note: Milleer was the bombardier aboard Ford's aircraft] who survived the crash was one of the most impressive individuals Beard has met. She has heard some very impressive speakers like Dr. Martin Luther King who spoke at her baccalaureate. She would match Miller with any of them in terms of character and intelligence. It makes Beard wonder what her father would have accomplished had he survived. Beard ends on a high note talking about a reunion of family members at an airbase in Vietnam during that war.