Home : World War II : United States Army Air Forces :Memories Of A Non-HeroAs the United States prepared to go to war, I was employed by a metal fabricating company which built industrial equipment such as paint spray booths, industrial ovens, dust and fume collection systems, and general fabrication items. As the war clouds formed we provided facilities to help convert Detroit's factories into the "Arsenal of Democracy." Under the direction of General William Knudsen at the War Production Board, all industry was required to support preparations for war. Some of our customers were: Chevrolet in Buffalo and Tonawanda, New York; Packard in Detroit; Nash/Kelvinator in Kenosha, Wisconsin and Allison in Indianapolis (aircraft engines); GM Aeroproducts in Vandalia, Ohio (airplane propellers); and Chrysler in Detroit (tanks). As a result, whenever my draft number came up, the company manager would write a letter explaining how important I was to the war effort and I would be deferred. Eventually an old colonel at the induction center told me, "We won't take you this time, but we'll get you the next time." Since my younger brother was already in flying school and I was embarrassed at having my mother having to explain to her friends how important I was to the war effort, I told the colonel "Let's get it over with." I was inducted into the service on June 4, 1943 and entered into active service at Ft. Custer, Michigan on June 18, 1943. From Ft. Custer I went to Lincoln Air Base, Nebraska for basic training. Doing open order and close order drills and calisthenics in what had been a Nebraska corn field soon whipped us into shape. Everyone qualified with the carbine whether they could hit the target or not. At Lincoln I was offered an assignment to teach English to Spanish-speaking draftees of Mexican descent. I didn't feel this was much of a contribution to the war effort and turned it down. While at Lincoln there were several outbreaks of food poisoning. One was so widespread that there was not enough room in the base hospital to accommodate all of the patients. The medics came to the barracks to treat us. From Lincoln I was sent to Ordnance School at the Santa Anita Race Track in Arcadia, California. The race track had originally been taken over by the Army as a detention center for people of Japanese descent. Eventually the West Coast Command decided that this location was too close to the coast and moved the Japanese inland. The Army enclosed two areas of the grandstand and converted them into theaters. We had the pleasure of seeing many stars do their radio shows. Some memories are: Bob Hope with Frances Langford and Stan "Madman" Kenton, and Kay Kaiser and his Kollege of Musical Knowledge with Ishkabible. Our instructor at Santa Anita was T5 Raskirt. He told us that he had been offered a higher rating if he would move out with a combat unit. He was too smart to give up a sweet assignment - passes to Hollywood every weekend. One of our classmates was stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco. He was a bomb disposal man and would have to dispose of any unexploded bombs the Japanese might drop on the West Coast. This was a cushy assigmnent and he could work on the docks as a stevedore on weekends. There were a few jobs like that in the Army. At Santa Anita the horse stables were our barracks. Before we could go on weekend pass we were required to GI the barracks. Naturally we did not like the effort, so we would pour water in the horseshoe indentations in the macadam stable floors. When the inspector complained that the floors hadn't been cleaned, we would point to the water in the dents. It worked. While at Santa Anita I had a tooth problem. First a lieutenant tried to pull the tooth. He couldn't. Next a captain tried. He couldn't. Finally a major pulled the tooth. Fragments of the tooth were still working out of my jaw when I reached England. At the end of our training we did a week of KP where there were reportedly 5,000 troops to feed. And then we spent a week in the desert sleeping in fox holes. At night the field mice would come visiting, looking for any food that we might have in the fox holes with us. From Santa Anita I was sent, to a replacement pool in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Army had a theory that everyone was a potential gunner. In spite of being six feet, tall, I had to get into a ground-mounted ball turret, and shoot a few rounds at a target. Fortunately I never had to shoot in combat, because I always had difficulty identifying airplane silhouettes. While at Salt Lake there was a meningitis scare. We were confined to the barracks for several days.
After I was inducted into the Army I was told at every location that I wotild never go overseas - my eyes were too bad. From Salt Lake City I was shipped to Wendover, Utah where the 467th Bomb Group was in the third phase of training - really playing soldier - wearing helmet liners and carrying carbines. There were two master sergeants on the shipment to Wendover. They kept reviewing their medical records to make sure they showed that they had had syphilis. Apparently they wouldn't go overseas if they had had the disease. My stay at Wendover was brief and the Group was shipped out. The squadron commander, Captain Fred Holdredge, came around and said he would see us over there. He didn't tell us where "over there" was; perhaps he didn't know. Our executive officer was James Ritter. The train trip across the country to Camp Shanks, New Jersey was a miserable experience. I have never been able to sleep on a train, and the food from the field kitchen was barely edible. At Camp Shanks the Army suddenly realized they were shipping me overseas without the required two pairs of GI glasses and the gas mask inserts. In England, at Sy Deneroff's mail call I received sets of glasses for several weeks. We were loaded onto the USATS Frederick Lykes. The accommodations were similar to the old slave ships. The bunks in the hold were five high and the man on top was always seasick. We ate at tables standing up. As the ship rocked, the meals would slide from side to side. You never knew whose meal you were eating. The showers with cold salt water didn't do much to refresh us. The Lykes was a liberty ship which had apparently been built on an assembly line. In civilian life I had been an engineer in a fabricating shop, so I knew what reliable welds looked like. The Lykes looked like it had been welded by amateurs, so I was relieved when we made it all the way across with the boat intact. I was fortunate enough to pull deck watch detail. The main duty was to see that there was no smoking on deck. The glow from a burning cigarette could make us a target for a German U-boat. The advantage of this assigmnent was that it gave me an opportunity to get away from the stench in the hold. When we were part way across the ocean the ship broke down. Naturally, the convoy didn't wait for us. We were left in the middle or the Atlantic with a destroyer escort to watch over us. The ship was eventually repaired, and we proceeded to Scotland. I was on deck duty the night we reached the Firth of Clyde. There were submarine nets across the entrance. A voice from the darkness said, "Ahoy, Lukes, show your colors." Apparently there was some confusion on the ship, as no colors were produced. The voice became more and more nervous as the cammand was repeated. I was concerned that they might start shooting at us. Apparently the ship's crew got their act together and showed the required colors, and we proceeded up the Clyde. On the trip up the Clyde the ship yard workers lined the banks and shouted "Heighty hi" and we responded "Heighty ho." For some unknown reason, I have no recollection of the trip to Rackheath. At Rackheath we were housed in Nissen huts. These were arched sheet metal structures similar to American Quonset huts (prefabricated single-story steel buildings used throughout World War II by U.S. forces around the world. They were recognizable by their half-circle shape and rippled metal construction and were named after the town of manufacture, Quonset Point, Rhode Island). They were heated by a small coal-burning stove in the center of the hut. Coal was rationed at one small bucket per hut per week. Needless to say, that resulted in a lot of scrounging for combustible material to keep us warm. Some people rigged up a system to burn airplane fuel in their stoves. We ordnance people had access to heavy wax-impregnated bomb shipping bands. They provided a lot of heat in a hurry. Although Rackheath had been an RAF base, there was not enough pavement to satisfy the U.S. requirements. My first detail at Rackheath was laying concrete. The British shipped cement to the job site in semi-porous cloth bags. After a day of unloading cement from the lorries, there was no question about what detail you had been working on. The first U.S. detachment at Rackheath was the guard squadron. However, many of the members of the guard squadron ended up in the guardhouse. My next detail was with the guard squadron where I chased the prisoners around on work assignments. For the first time in my Army career I was issued a .45 caliber automatic. Needless to say I never told the prisoners that I didn't know how to use it. I got out of that duty as quickly as I could. Bruno Arena took the duty for the duration. The ordnance section was divided into two units. One worked days and the other worked nights - switching every week. We loaded bombs at night under blackout conditions. People from the Chemical Warfare Detachment were assigned to work with us since the chemical weapons were never loaded. The night crew was fed a meal at midnight. If there were fresh eggs for breakfast, we would stay up for our fourth meal of the day. One night it was so foggy that even the birds were walking. We knew the mission would be scrubbed, so we stayed on line knowing we'd have to unload the planes. We were incredulous when the planes started to take off. When two of the first planes crashed, the mission was finally scrubbed. On another morning we were called out to the line to unload two planes that had cracked up at preflight. During preflight the crew chief checked out the plane, including revving up the engines. This time a crew chief, who had been out pub-crawling the night before, forgot to set the brakes. The plane taxied across the hardstand and into another plane. Both were a total loss. It was a quick way to go from master sergeant to buck private. When we first arrived at Rackheath, we went to the air raid shelters when there was an alert. Eventually this became a nuisance and we would ignore the alerts. Officers were assigned to make the rounds to be sure that, everyone went to the shelters during an alert. The shelters were areas encircled by mounds of earth. There was no protection from a direct hit, but we would be protected from the blast of a near hit. The B-24 had not been basically designed to carry 2000-pound bombs. However, there was a special rack which could be installed to carry the big bombs. When our first mission carrying the 2000-pound bombs was returning, the tower called us to get off the runway so the rest of the mission could land. One bomb had failed to drop on farget and had been jarred loose by the impact of the landing and skidded along the runway. Since no one knew the condition of the bomb - armed or not - no one was anxious to pick it up. A sergeant told me to take a man and pick up the bomb. Obviously we were successful in taking it back to the revetment. Time-delay bombs were never fuzed until it was certain that the mission would fly, since the fuzes were equipped with a ratchet device which prevented their removal. Regulations called for an officer too fuze the time-delay bombs. In our section, the lieutenant would order some corporal to fuze the bombs. The most difficult bombs to load were the 20-pound fragmentation bombs. They were held together on wire frames in groups of six. This meant that each plane could carry 312 bombs. Each bomb was fitted with a light-gauge sheet, metal fin which cut up the hands of the people handling it. One mission carrying these bombs was intended to support U.S. ground troops. It was very disheartening, after working all night loading the bombs, to read in Stars and Stripes that the bombs had actually been dropped on U.S. troops because of a foulup in planning. The wind had blown the signal flares back over the American troops so the bombs were actually aimed at them. Ernie Pyle reported that the bombs rattled as they fell, a sound different from the usual sound of falling bombs. I read later that General Omar Bradley had opposed this operation, but the Air Force convinced General Eisenhower that it was a good plan. One rainy Sunday morning, we stood formation in the rain so the group ordnance officer, Captain (later Major) Paul Geske could receive a Silver Star because a mission had never been delayed by failure to have the bombs loaded on time. It is my belief that he earned this decoration in the officers' club, since we never saw him when the bombs were being loaded. On a rotating schedule I pulled CQ in the group ordnance office. Wing would call in a list of the planes to fly and the load they were to carry. I would write this information on a piece of paper and call the squadron ordnance people to pick it up. This seems like a crude system by today's standards, but it worked. The Group's 200 Mission Party was spoiled when a newly converted fighter pilot tried to buzz the field. He crashed and was killed near our PX. B-24 bombers were capable of carrying the following loads:
One mission included a propaganda bomb on one plane. We took some of the leaflets out of the casing. They were counterfeit German ration stamps. They were apparently intended to disrupt the German supply system by allowing some of the German citizens to get more meat than planned by the Nazis. We ordnance people realized that the requirements for our duties were a strong back and a weak mind. We were well-qualified. People whose narnes I remember are: George Allen, ? Allard, Charles R. Birdsong, Alfonson Bolenda, Orvin Brommer, Ernie Clyma, Daniel I. Coursey, Billy B. Davis, Paul Goldstein, Albert Hall, Sidney Kaplan, John Kotema, Bob Lang, "Tippy" Larkin, "Shorty" Maderios, Harley Norvele, Ralph J. Palmer, Carl Rogers, Dean Shuey, Harry Sobansky, Mike Soloboda. Most historians report that armorers loaded the bombs. At Rackheath the armorers serviced the guns, gun turrets, and bomb racks. Ordnance and Chemical Warfare people actually loaded the bombs at night under blackout conditions. One colleague compared our status to that of janitors in an office building. Everyone is aware that someone does the work, but they don't know who and don't care as long as the work is done. So far as I know, there was only one fatality among the ground personnel at Rackheath. When a mission was returning one evening, a German plane mixed in with our formation and dropped a bomb at the end of a runway. A member of the Quartermaster Detachment was killed. Orvin Brommer of our group suffered severe injuries to his arm when a pulley used to hoist bombs into the bomb bay was improperly installed and a cable dropped on his arm. Since chemical warfare was never used, the chemical warfare people were assigned to work with us, loading GP bombs. Pulling KP was a very enlightening experience. Almost every day, mess sergeant John Upchurch would take off for town with a generous supply of butter or some other goodies from the mess hall for his lady love. Our ordnance officer was Merle H. Brown. He had been a master sergeant in the regular army and became an officer at the beginning of the war. He maintained the regular army attitude. Other officers knew that, whenever it was his turn to be officer of the day or convoy officer or some other special duty, he would be away on pass. He got on the ball during a period when there was an opening in the TO for a captain. When the promotion went to the armament officer, Lt. Brown reverted to his old ways. We had a battle station during air raid alerts. It was a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on a pipe stand. I could never figure out how we were expected to shoot planes down with a gun equipped with a peep sight. Thanks goodness for the ATS GIRLS who were better equipped to protect England. My brother Don flew the B-26 bomber with the 9th Air Force in England. He managed to fly his plane, Pink's Lady, up to Rackheath from his base. The rationale which permitted this was that he brought their chaplain from his base to confer with our chaplain. I later received information from home that he had been shot down over France. He spent some time with a French family and was finally picked up by the Germans. He was put in a POW camp and finally liberated by Patton's army. He stopped in at Rackheath on his way home. The Germans used the first wartime missiles against England. The first missiles, the V1s, were small, unmanned, jet-propelled planes. When they were overhead they made a sound like an outboard motor. When the sound stopped, you knew it was coming down someplace. These slow-moving missiles could be spotted on radar and could be shot down by RAF Spitfires. The second missiles, the V2s, were larger and more sophisticated. These were rockets which traveled much faster than the V1s and gave no warning of their approach. As the war ended there was a race between the Russians and the Americans to capture the scientists who had developed the German rockets. Fortunately the Americans won. In a bomber operation it is difficult to identify a hero, so in the 467th the plane Witchcraft was the designated hero. For no apparent reason I was assigned to fly home on Witchcraft. I was very apprehensive about flying across the Atlantic in a war-weary B-24, but decided this one was probably airworthy since crew chief Joe Rarnirez and assistant, George Dong were also on the plane. The trip home proved to be much less aggravating than a trip on a troop ship. On June 12, 1945 there was one false start for home when we were headed for Iceland. We had to return to Wales because the crew received word that Iceland was weathered in. We finally flew to the Azores, Gander, Newfoundland, and then to Bradley Field, Connecticut on June 14, 1945. One of our ordnance people had a .45 automatic which he had intended to smuggle home. When the rumor circulated that there would be a strict customs inspection in the States, he turned in the gun. There was no customs inspection. After a month at home, we went to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. One day while we were killing time, Colonel Shower, minus any insignia, asked if we were "Rackheath Aggies." Although I had never heard the designation before, we admitted we were. He then asked how many of us were going to re-up for the new B-29 outfit. The silence was deafening and embarrassing. No one was going to volunteer. Fortunately, Harry Truman dropped the bombs and the war ended. At Sioux Falls I was put to work on a pants presser in the base laundry along with some Gernnan prisoners of war. Each pair of officers' pants was carefully pressed with creases down the sides. The Army planned to send the highpoint people to Alabama to he discharged. When the troops heard this, there was a near mutiny. The Army then decided to discharge us from Sioux Falls. I was discharged on October 23, 1945. Although I was never close to a battle, I was awarded the EAME Campaign Medal with six battle stars in addition to the Good Conduct Medal and the Victory World War II Medal. I have considered this a farce, but each battle star did count, for live points toward the 85 needed for discharge. I continue to be skeptical of military decorations. On returning home, I returned to my former job. Miss Connie Louis was still employed there, and we were married on April 28, 1945 and still are. We have three sons, three daughters-in-law, five grandsons and three granddaughters. After changing jobs several times, I went to work for the Ford Motor Company as an environmental engineer. I retired in 1985. We live a quiet life of retirees in St. Johns, Michigan.
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