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I enlisted in the Army Air Force in September 17, 1941, which was to later become the
U.S.Air Force. Enlisted in~the Old Post Office Building in Pittsburgh.
I vies first sent by train to New Curmberland, Pa for several days for some Basic [raining.
From New Cumberla~id, 1 was sent to Keesler Field in Biloxi, I;Iissis~ippi, a brand new
Air Base still under construction. Here we lived in tents for a~rhile until the barricks were
finished. I was here for about six ~~~onths and finished Basic Training and went to School
to study ~ir Craft I:I
tJhen I was finished at Biloxi, about 50 of us ;~ere sent to the new Glen L.~'Iartin Bomber
plant in Baltimore v]~ere they v~ere starting to build the new B-26 Medium Bomber called
the "IIarauder". Here we vrent to School instructed by Civilian teaclers or engineers.
trom B ~ltimore we left by train under sealed orders and ended up in Ohio at P&~tterson
Field. IIcre we fl: st saw the huge B-19. ~Jow, Big as a house. . This is where vre first
real. y worked on the B-26, worked in shift~ around t he clock. One hell of an Air Base.
From here we were sent to an Air Base at Barksdale Field, i.' Louisiana, another beautiful
Field, a real peuce time Base. This is where I got i~y first air ti~r~e in the B-26 and I loved
it. 7'Je trained here f~r about four montI-~s, flying ~nd do~ng r.Jainten~nc -~ork, also
modifying the planes somewhal;. ~Je had our first bad loss here toc By this time ~ ;;as a
crew chief and one day my plane till7616 with Lt. Parsor as pilot was up training and for
some still unkno';m reason the whole tail fell off and they went straight down into t;he
sv~amps at LakE! Charles. No on~ got out.
IJe left Barkedale Field in early Fall and were sent to B'ler Field in Indiana. Here
oNrerseas crews ~-~ere set up and we were all assigned to brand new planes sent in
from Omaha, iJebraska, where IIartin hac3 another plant building them. ~'Je got Ship ~
117375~nd the cre~v was as follows: PilotRobert W. Gray, Co-Pilot- R.W.Moore, a no
good Bastard, Bambadier & tiavigator- James lJ.Forte, Fli£ht~ Engineer & Crew Chief-
Me,
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Tail Gunner- C.E.Sox, Radio Operator ~ GunnerW.T.Weeks, Top Turret Gunner- Sgt.
Rotolo. Our plane was desiginated as a lead ship as it was the one in a flight of sixteen that
carriedthe new and 'lighly sectet Nordon Bomb Sight clnd was the only one equipped with
an ~utomatic Pilot.
~Je left Baer Field on November 1G, 191~2 on our Wly c~verseas. lew to i Aol riven Field
in i.Jest Palrn Beach Florida, a se~re n hour fli- l-~t . ~le laid over here on the 17th. H ?re I
cl-~ nged ci fuel pump ind had the oil charl:;ed, lL~I; quarts in each enr ine, rust like
breaking in a new car.. On November 1~3, 1942 v!e left Florida and flew to Borenque
Field in Porta Rica One Beautiful place. Stayed there over the l~th and on the morr~ing of
the 19t] we left for British Guiana in South mnerica. This was an ei~;ht hour flight, and the
field s ?erins to be just cut out of the jungle. ~s soon as 1 got out of t he plane, some
surprize! I~$et Louie I.cCollugh from Cheswick. That night he took rne to their NCO Club
and had a good time.
()n the morning of November 20th, we left British Ouiana for our next leg, headed 1 or
Belen~, Brazil. Arrived after about six hours in the air. Ship is runnin~ fine, no trouble so
far. The following ri~orning, November 21st we left Belem ~nd headed for Natal in South
America, field is right on the east coast. This trip toot about seven hours too. Ilere I had to
fix a broken oil line after dark using a flas)~ light, worked out o.k. liere we also got rid of
all our winter n~,eds such as heavy flight clothes and all our de-leer equipment. This had
all b;,en put in back in the States to fool c~riy would ba ener,~y a'-,ent, ma~e ~he~i think
we were going, north.
Wp left !4ata1 on the mornin£ cf Nover,~ber 22nd. and headod fot Ascension Island, a
little dot of Volcanic Rock in the miudle of the Atlantic and 1500 miles from here, and all
over ';ater. Before we left Natal we dumped off the ~two~ gunners and sent thern on ahead
by transport so we could carry all the gas possible which is 1472 Gallons. This just leaves
~ and the three officers on board. ~ vc~ry tiring fli~ht of nearly ei~rht hours, but we arrived
o~k. Some hell of a place just a bare red dirt strip, no trees or anything else. Island was
discovered on Ascension Day in 1501, hense it's name. .Je just stayed over night,
refueled, full tanlcs .nd left the morning of November 23rd. for another 1500 mile hop
across more water to the African Gold Coast to ~ town cal~'ed Accra. Ilere we met our two
gunners that went ahead but they do r~otrejoin us, they continue by transport to our final
destination. i˘lhen we l~nded at Accra, we stayed there for about two vreeks, as this is as
far as our present orders took us.~
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Finally on December 2, 1942, we left Accra for Roberts Field in the free Republic of
Liberia~. Ehile at Accra, I watched a Lockheed Lodesta: take off, lose control and smash
into the end of the runvray and blow up, no suvivers. hs we were getting ready to taxi out
onto the runway for take off, a C-47 cut in front of us and took off in a big hurry. After we
got airborne, we saw why. One of our ships that had ' just talcen off, lost his engines for
som~ reason a nd went into the sea. Ina minute or so it all caught fire, and only two got
out, the co-pilot and the Crew Chief, T?Sgt Tisdale a~d he was very badly burned. He and
the co-pilot got to shore somehow and were sent back to the states to the Hospital. Three
days later I was told, the tadio Operators body washed ashore, still stepped in his seat.
The C-47 that had taken off ri~;ht ahead of us was out there dropping life rafts, but by this
time there so much fire that all the rafts fell into the fire. ~'Je went on and al'ter ten or so
minutes, ou'~ left en~ine suddenly quit cc~ld. The left wing dropped ~.nd ~'e started to
~11 to;~ards the wat~?r but Lt. G'-ay ~;ot c:'ntrol of
t a~d as fast ~s tI:e engine quit, it startec apain ~:J(i r,n ilri~ht f'ro~ there on. '~Je ~ere told
th~t some one at A~xra had p~ su~-~;ar Qn our .~s tanlcs. '~fter c~bout five hours we
landed at Roberts Field O.K. Here we gave both engines a good going over but could find
no reason for the engine quitting as it did. Later that night we took the ship down to a g~s
pit to re-fuel and on the way'back, Gray got off the concrete taxi strip and hit the left prop
on the concrete, so I cut about the s~me amount off the opposite blade and it was ok for
balance.
The next day, December 3rd. 1942 we were getting ready to take off. Captain Viclcers
'-~nd his crew got off first, we were second and Bombrack, with Lt. 7dright was to be
third. This is the first tin~e we have checked our tires as we were t old that enemy agents
had a small explosive device that they would put into cuts in the tire, like a needle and when
they heated up, like on take off they would blow out the tir e. Also at this time Sgt. l~eeks
asked to ride in the tail, the i irst time, so I rode in his seat up front. There were no seats or
seat belts in the tail section. hs we started down the runway, the speed got up to around
130 miles per hour when we all heard a big bang. I thought ~n engine had b;tck fired, but
at the same time I saw Lt. Gray cut the suitches, and Lt. lIoore open the escape lIatch. Our
left main ~ir e had blown and we were off the runway on rough ground and all we could do
was to ride it down to stop and hope it did 'nt care fire or blow up. Fortunately it did not
~nd we finally came to a stop with the nose wheel in a ditch and everythin~; busted up.
S~t. T,Jeeks ~ad bailed out onto the concrete
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He had been battered up pretty cgood with loose r,~aching guns c~nd our Putt-Putt. ~nd
;;as pretty bcldly hurt. We a got out O.K. Lt. I]right and Bombrc~ck in the third ship,
~ll7d82 or course did not take off the tower called Captain Vickers alre~idy on the ;~ay,
and he came b ~ck in too.
After somi long talking and looking the ship over, Bombr~cL Sgt. Sinqu~field and r-~yself
decided thc~t it ~as too bcldly busted up to even ~ry r e ~a-'rincrr ~nd Capt~in Vickers,
havi~:g the most ~ anlc c~greed so he sicrrned the ship over to the lIilitary at Roberts F ield
and told us to ~ait there for Air Transport. The next day Captain Vickers & Lt. TJright left,
we watched thern take off and boy what a lonely feeling.. Right after this time the 31 9th
Group started c~rriving on their way up front and anyone who needed spare parts took it
off our ship, though I had taken off the voltacge regulators as they were cilmost
in~possible to get ancl very much needed. I moved into a long brick building with the
()fficers and some guys who ;~'orked on the near by Firestone Rubber Plantation. Ate,
slept and played poker. All together we were here for neE~rly two rnonts, le~rned t;o fl~r a
Piper Cub (L*4) ~ent to nearby native villiages and also went to I4onrovia, the Capital a
few times. Here we watched the ncltives r~ake jewelry out of Gold ';hich seemed to be
abundant around there, all the natives had it c~s well as Ivory. I had a native make me a
pair of solid Ivory candle Holders and a oecklace . I gave the necklace to a ~ uy I met ~;ho
;;as on his ';~y b~ cl- to the States to ~ 1il to r~other but she never ~ot it so r~aybe he
~ecided to l eep ther~. I ke~'t the Candle ilolders and Mailed then~ -~o her r~yself and she
got thern alrigh:, now ray ~rife has them.
About this time I got an infection in rmy right foot, somelike Jungle Rot and I could not get
rid of it, could not walk or wear shoes . About ;~ll the li-?dical people could cio for ~ne
was keep Violet Jell ~on it and keep it ~rap~ed. This stopped n~y ~etting; ~round except on
crutches and one evening on rny way to chow on rmy
crutches, I ran~ into Lt. Iioore & some young Army Iiurse he ~ras catting arow~d with and
he dressed rne do~rn in front her because 1 did'nt salute hir~, big show for her but it
er~bal-resed hell out of her. After he got done t~l~in~;, I never did s.luto hiri, he asked ~:c
if I had anything to say lncl L said yes, "how would you like to go to hell". He blew a fuse
and said he ;-;ould have n~e Court ilarsh;;led an~t I said go ahead because he had to go
through Lt. Gray and Moore got Hell and Gray told him not to act like a Baby. This ended
whatever rel~tionship iloore and I had.
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()ne night in c~ b~ r i~n lIonro ~ia, the place was jcl~,-~ed ana only me and a couple of
other G.I's a colored r~;irl- came up to n~e and asked r~e where I was lrom. Jhen she
spoke to in En~lisl-~, I neclrly fell through the floor but th biggist surprise of all was when
she saicl she was from Pittsbur~;h! She was a lIissionary of al1 thinc- s.
About this time Scrt . i;leeks got ill, he never seemed the same after t he accident clnd one
night he died we think fram the crash. The good Lord n~ust have been watching over me,
for he and I had changed places in the plc~ne when it cr ~shed and this was the only time
we had done this and at his request too! lle died at '3:30 P.I`. on Ja~ary 23rd., 19L~3. The
next day we buried him in a little cenietary on a hill along side of some British flyers who
had gotten killed when their }3omber blew up on the runway one day. This was the only
thing that mar~ ed our time in Liberia. During this tirae too, A British Lockheed Hudson
loaded with Depth Charges was taking off for Sub patrol when the plane ground looped
and caught f ir e . They all got out except the pilot and when the plane exploded, it blew
parts of the Pilot and plane over a very wide area. IJever saw or neard such ~ blast, very
powerful Bon~bs. There were also five natives killed, one kid was
right beside the nos with a h-l~d fire extinguisher and all they found of him was h~s
Firestone Work 13adge. I helped clean up tI~e run way and I found the Pilot's Lungs, ( I
Stepped on them, all burn.d bl~cl' ), plrt of one fore arm and his lower jaw. Gruesome
sight . Then I took the clothes i was wearing a na burned them, couldn't g et the smell of
burned flesh out of them.
Right after this our Group C.O. came through with Sgt. I'Iorton our Line Chief. They
looked at our Bomber, now minus about seventy p~irts. I1orton sc~id t o junk it but IIajo~
Bol~en said to rne to try to fix it, as all ,-'l~nes ~jere b;~:ly need d at the ~-ront. Ho;: the
hell can I fix it! But when the Old 1i~an speairs, you listen! They stayed afound for a ~:eek
or so ma1;in~' sor,re re;'airs on their o~vn plane a nd finally left ~nd I started to try to fix
the "Texan". .~7e got a ~ruy who flew a C-1~7 to take back down to Accra where I spent
several days stripping busted B-26's f~ our plane and got them all back to Liberia,Towed
the plane into a nose hanger and started to work, while waiting for a whole new Plexigl~iss
nose from the States. One day while working on it, President Roosevelt stopped at the field
to r~ fuel, on h~s way home from Casablanca Conference. ~ did not bother to go out to see
him. He had a brand new C-54 or DC-6
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After some weeks, we ~ot tl-~e plane repaired and fired up the t~n~;ines cl!ld tne Darnn
thin~ ir.-iniediately cau~ht f ire and burned out a lot of wiring, guess L screw somethi~lg
up huh? iiJe ~ot the fire out vrith no other dan~age, but I had no wire. Some days before a
Pilot had belly landed a P-40 on the grass c~lonsdide the runway and since it was just
sittingr there, ~ took ten or twenty feet of wire from it, not knawing the Pilot was still
around, but by the time he founc3 it out, I had all that wire installed in my plane,tough titty!
He was mader than you know what ! I also took his Battery. The next time vre tried the
engines, they were ().K. so vre ran it so~'rn the runway a couple of tir.~es without acutally
taking off. It seemed O.K. so Gray decided to take it up, but he r.: lde r.le stay on the
~round, said there ,~ras no point in
maybe all of us ',ettin~r kille :L. I -.;ent up in the Tower ~ind watched him through Field
Glasses and it see~ned to be alrip;ht .nd he daic3 it was ~,hen he came down except for a
few bad instruments, but we can not do anything about thetn, we ilaVe no spares so we
will do without. The next day went up ap;ain but this time I ~rent alon~ bec fuse L ~lanted
to watch the instrurlents .-~s Tv~ell as cverythi.l~ else. ~Je were up lbout 3() ~inutes l~:d I
be~ ~n to get; ~ little concer'~ed bec ~;se I lcnew th~t the left ,rin£; ~v~-as a little out of
line, but Lt. Gray sure worked it over, dives, verti ;~1 banks and fast straight flying. I told
him that the left engine ';as throwing oil, it wasn't but I wanted him to ~;et it do;'n, he was
like k kid "~ith a new toy and it ;;as not desighed for this kincl of flying, so he startecl in
but buzzed the tower ab 3()0 r~iles per hour. The left wing stayed jon but it popped a lot
rivets out. iLlso tore up the de-leer boots on the wing so 'le had a sheet metal .T'an come
up from Accra, I took the Boots off ar~ he plugged up all the hol es .
On February 3rd.1'31~3 we finally took off for our next destination. In a way I hc~ted to
go bec-luse I liked Liberia a nd I knew we were in a ship we were not too sur e of, all by
ourselves, everyone else was long gone ahead, bad instruments ancl no Radio Operator
besides none of us ~new very much about the Radio. ~le were heading for a British Field
called Bathurst on the iJest Coast of Africa . tile got there O. K. but could not contact the
to;;er so we started in. ~ilhat we didn't know ~;as that they had heavy cables
stretch~dacross the runway to keep Jerry out, but at the 1c~st minute they dropped therr
do~n, Thanlc God!, then when ~ie did land I thought the landing ,ear h~d collaps<'cl
becluse we landed on our first .letal fat Runway and wh.t a r:~^cket! The British fed us
,'~ell and bed.led us down for the night. We re fueled and left at eight th'> next morning
for a long lon~; trip. Across the Sahara Desert to IIaraketch, re;~1 Arabian City. At briefing
before we left Bathurst, the British told us the trip v~as 1400 l'Iiles and we would have to
fly through a pass in the Atla$ mountains, the only ;~y
Page ~ 7
unless we went around and we might not have enough gas to go ar~und. The pass was
eight thousand feet trig h and the rest of the r.~ountains too high to go over the tops. He
said we couldn't miss the pass because it ~-~as right beside a snow covered peak.
Abut half way there we ran into a severe sand storm and could not seem to get out of it and
we were afraid of getting sand into the engines, several planes have been lost around here,
W~ finally got out of it at twelve thousand feet but since we had no oxygen, it began to get
to us and it was very cold up there. This where Lt. Iloore nearly killed us all. The engines
began to get too cold ancl he misre ~d the instruments. The oil prwssurr beg'~n to fall off
and the cylinder head temperature goincr; Zlp c~nd he adjusted
the flaps the opposite from what he should have. I told him but he didn't
i
believe me. It continued to get worse, s o I ~ust ad justed them myself and in
about ten r~inutes we were bcick to normal. By now he didn't care because he
didn't know what I was trying to t ell him.
T,Jhen we finally re ~ched the Atlas FIountains we knew we were in more trouble for there
were several snow Capped peaks! We flew aro~ awhile and talked a~bout landin~ ~t a little
e~i~ergency field below us, trying to ~round o: to fool: s~,me more tor the pass. Lt. Gi ~y
finally found it, we ~rere f i: ty ~,,iles off coul- se too l ~r ;:est of ~here we sI-~ould have
been. So ~re ,~ent tl~rou£ h, riot vt~ry r.uch room on either side c~nd ric;ht on the other
side was IIaraketch and we landc~d O.K. ~Je were here several days and went intr town
stayed at an ~rabian lIotel, had a real bath in ~ rea1 tub, good food and visited the lIarket
Place which is just like you se: in the movies. One thing that got r~e, they s old Fried Grass
hoppers which they were buying like crazy quite a delightful morsel I guess but '~ would
not try them. also here a Fakir with Cobras, flutes and the whole bit wanted to bless us (for
a fee of course so he put all our hands together, spit on them, pulled some of his hair out
and ~,~ix~d that in the dpit did a lot of jabbiering and said that no harm would come to c ny
of us. Ilow wrong that guy was!
,le left here after a few ~,~ore days happy to bc going, knowing that all the long flights .lre
behind us now, we hope. Our nexl hop is about 900 lIiles to Oran. Got here O.K. and
v~hat a hell hole! Been raining for ~l~ys and mud as far as you can see, everything is mud
and more mdt The field ;-;as jammed with P-39's and a ~uy told rile they were bringing
thern all back from the front and giving them to the Russians because the German M.E.
109's we~e shooting them down lige ducXs. They were being ~e;~laced with the ne,,;~er
P-38's which could take the 1i..E. 107 pretty good. We stayed here
Page tf ~
several days '~aitin: for a Navigcltor to take us onto Algiers, sor~eone who had made the
trip before. Right here it is too easy to get off course and end up over Germ. n held
territory. lJhen he arrived I could not believe my eyes. This Navi~ ator turne out to be the
same guy who had the P-40 that I stripped in Accra! How About that! Turns out he got the
P-40 fixed up then lost it over the Atlas I~Iountains but s ome how he got back ().K.
Lucky!
W,, stayed in Algiers sever~1 days too because we hc~d to t urn t ship over to a Depot who
would get it ready for actual combat. I slept in an old munitions roor~, little brick building
about ten feet square. No bed or mattress, just a pile of straw, s o one night I decided to
steal a cot from an empty Hospital Tent, but nearly got caugh t by the N.P' s so I gave up
on that.
We finally left and headed for Telergma, a little Arabian town with the Air Field just cut o!;t
of a wheat field. The day we arrived, I can't express the feeling I had re joining our outfit
after all these months
alone and wondering if we would ever get there. As we flew over the f fled it was almost
like coming home. It was a rainy very cloudy day and no planes were out on mission so we
came i-right in and one of the first guy along side the ship when I got out was my okd
friend Bonbrack, he had seen us coming and got a jeep ancl came out to meet us.
~ was shocked to find out how n~any of the guys were already dead, including our own
gunner Sgt . Sox and many others . Sgt, Hibbs had been killed too, so rather than try to set
up living quarters for muself, I moved into Hibbs place. all underground, with T/Sgt. Glen
IYilson
Also was happy to find dozens of letters waiting for me, rr~ost from I~Iom & Dad and
others at home. vie are now ih Combatl
