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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Mr. John W. Hart

Enlisted in the United States Air Force on February 10, 1943. After six-week basic training in Miami, Florida, I was shipped to Denver Colorado for a six-week training session in aircraft armaments (50mm machine guns, bomb sights and bomb racks). From here, I headed to Yuma, Arizona for six-weeks of gunnery school and air-to-air target practice. I received my flight wings and diploma from gunnery school and was then assigned to the 463rd bomb squad in Dyersburg, Tennessee.

I met my skeleton crew that consisted of a pilot, co-pilot, navigator, flight engineer, radioman, and bombardier. We received a new B17 to train on for several weeks. We then flew to Lakeland, Florida for advanced training, then to Savannah, Georgia to get the plane combat ready and get the remainder of our crew, and then to West Palm Beach, Florida for deportation in early March of 1944.From Florida, we flew to Trinidad, then two stops in Brazil, then two stops in Africa, then to Tunis, and then to our final destination of Foggia, Italy.

Our first couple missions were to hit railroad hubs, factory buildings, oil refineries, and troop movements. On the majority of our missions, squadrons of P-51 or P-47 fighter planes escorted us. We encountered resistance most of the time and sometimes it was heavy. During one exchange, we were exchanging fire for about 20-minutes. During one mission, we received about 200 flak holes in our wings and fuselage. That took five days to repair.

Our one mission was supposed to be to Toulon, France to a German U-boat base. Our lead navigator miscalculated and took us over Anzio Beachhead at about 1,200 feet. Our whole squadron was hit pretty hard by enemy fire. We had to turn back and crash-landed in Naples, Italy. Our landing gear collapsed and we belly-landed. Everyone on board survived and I received a Purple Heart for leg injuries I incurred in the crash. Our plane was damaged beyond repair and I had to be assigned to another crew.

With the new crew, it was more of the same type of missions. We hit dry docks, railroad yards, troop movements, oil fields, and airfields. We were again met with moderate to heavy resistance, but our escorts kept enemy planes at bay most of the time. On one mission our electrical system was damaged and I was stuck in the belly turret. The waist gunner hand-cranked the turret to get me out.

At the conclusion of my last mission, I had logged 233 hours and 32 minutes of combat flights. I was then promoted to T/Sgt. and returned to the states in September of 1944. I then served as an instructor in armament school in Denver, Colorado. With the excess of troops returning from combat, the services had to find jobs for the returning soldiers. I then did a stint in an Army Hospital and was later assigned to fight forest fires in Oregon. I was discharged in November of 1945.

I am currently a member of the WWII Air Museum that is located at the Reading Airport in Reading, Pennsylvania.