The following is as an OCR scan which probably has some of the usual OCR 'typos' remaining.

Home (Zone of the Interior) Leave

March 13, 2003

Reading the latest THUNDER and the request for more stories brought to mind one of the most interesting places I slept during WWII - the MAURETANIA yes, I do mean the ocean liner - both going back to New York from England, and then coming right back to the ETO after a 30-day (heavenly) leave in the ZI. For the neophytes amongst us, that meant the ZONE OF THE INTERIOR - translated to the United States! But I digress ..........

I was a member of the 322n BG, 451st squadron and therefore the 3rd squadron of the Group to land in England - in May of 1943. I arbitrarily skip past our early well-known history (low level then switch to medium level) and take us into early spring of 1944. 9th Air Force headquarters was having quite a problem that we were all aware and a part of; namely how many missions should be a "tour" for the Marauder men????????? It was quite a puzzle and generated many many rumors; at first the number was 25, same as the 'glorious' B-17s, but they decided that wasn't fair, when our missions were 1/3 or 1/2 as long as theirs..So then we heard 30, then 40, then 35 then 50 then PANIC as usual!!

So in March or April some bright individual came up with the idea that at 40 missions, lets send the aircrews back to the ZI for a 30-day leave, if they volunteer to come right back for a second tour of at least 25 more!

There were of course, 2 problems: 1. to find crews with 40 missions or more and 2. to get them to come back for that second tour. This was a 'test' program for which they had 'high hopes'! I had 40 missions in by April 28, 1944 and when approached, LEAPT at the chance to be one of the 'guinea pigs' of this 'experiment!!

Dutifully, in May we received our orders and were on our way - to Manchester, where a few days later, we were taken to the port to board the luxurious MAURETANIA. Man, we thought we had died and gone straight to heaven (although God knew that none of us belonged there!! }!! There were 4 and 6 men assigned to a stateroom, the food on board was fabulous and the 5 or 6 days of our crossing evading subs was the closest thing to a luxury cruise you could get in wartime!

We were told during the course of the trip that there were 1400 on board including the crew. Obviously, the sleeping and eating were wonderful and comfortable!!

Needless to say, the 30-day leave was fabulous - it coming in the middle of the war. During that time, our mates were flying a little event called D-DAY, and that did give us considerable pause while living it up at home in New York. Comparing notes later, we all felt that we were very lucky to have missed it.

There is much to be said about why the 'test' was discontinued after the 2 group of men were given this leave. However that's another whole story and not the point of mine. After the 30 days, I did report back and was immediately assigned to transport back to the ETO and our Group.

By coincidence we were again assigned to the MAURETANIA -great joy and fond remembrance of our 'cruise'. But, one small difference - this time we were going TO the ETO and so were 14,000 - yes, FOURTEEN THOUSAND troops!!! I slept in a 6-deep bunk (2nd from the bottom) in what had been the beautiful bar not two months before! We 'dined' on almost-GI food which we were served in our mess kits! We were blacked out the entire 6 days and repeatedly reminded of the subs we were evading - wotta cruise!!!!

As 'contracted' for that nice sojourn, I did do 29 more 'trips' for what might have been called a "2nd tour".

Lester F. Stanford