Mel Eller always was a fighter.

The World War II veteran fought through 35 bombing missions over Europe. He fought to keep his crew alive, saving them on two occasions.

This year, the Susquehanna Twp. resident fought the most difficult battle of all: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Together, Eller and his wife, Barbara, fought government bureaucracy to obtain the Distinguished Flying Cross, the one military honor he had earned but never received for his acts of bravery.

Yesterday, Mel Eller's fight paid off. He was awarded the medal -- posthumously.

Eller survived every battle he fought in the war, but he couldn't beat ALS. He died Nov. 8, exactly one week before the Air Force confirmed that he would finally receive his medal. He was 81.

"He had no clue [that he was going to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross]," Barbara Eller said. "He was totally frustrated. He thought they were never going to do it. It meant so much to him that he had it, and it means a lot to me because I knew how much he wanted it. "

Wearing her husband's leather wartime bomber jacket, Barbara met with U.S. Rep. George W. Gekas, R-Harrisburg, yesterday to receive the medal, 57 years late.

The Ellers had been trying for nearly five years to get the Distinguished Flying Cross, but they faced countless obstacles. Mel Eller's Air Force personnel records were destroyed in a fire in St. Louis, so corroborating details of his heroism became a real feat, Barbara said.

The couple turned to Gekas for help. Gekas placed his staff assistant Suzanne Stoll on the job.

"Suzanne Stoll was unrelenting and persevering in her search for these documents," Gekas said. "It was a duty beyond the call of duty."

"We've gotten military awards for veterans before, but this was the most frustrating one," Stoll said. "It had to go through the Army Review Board and the Air Force Review Board. I called them and told them, 'You have to expedite this case because Mr. Eller is very sick.'

"They approved it, but it was after he passed away," Stoll said, choking up. "After all my hard work, I still didn't hit the goal."

Eller was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for two acts of bravery during his service as a ball turret gunner and armorer with the 392nd division of the 8th U.S. Army Air Corp.

On one mission, the plane's bomb-release mechanism failed to free the load of 14 250-pound bombs. With little fuel available and the threat of enemy fire ever-present, Eller's crew faced the difficult possibility of flying back to base with the heavy load of bombs still aboard.

Instead, Eller entered the bomb bay and manually released the bombs into what the crew thought was the English Channel. The crew was later reprimanded for dropping four bombs on French soil, but Eller was credited for saving the lives of the crew by lightening the load enough for the plane to return to base.

Eller saved his crew a second time when the plane appeared to have engine problems. Two crew-mates jumped to their deaths to avoid a crash landing. Eller, however, noticed the plane was recovering and convinced the rest not to jump.

His entire crew received the Distinguished Flying Cross during the war, but Eller missed his chance because he was flying with another crew when the medals were distributed. Yesterday, Gekas gave Eller's widow the honor the war hero had waited decades to receive.

"It is an American medal for a true American," Gekas said.

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