War Time

Three years later, in December of 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and WWII was on.  The next month along with millions of other young men, I enlisted into the Army. I still remember those first few days. They were a whirlwind. It was fifty degrees on January 9th when I left home for the first time and boarded the train to Peoria for the swearing-in ceremony. From Peoria it was another train to Rockford, IL where we arrived at three in the morning and welcomed with the temperature below zero. In Rockford we took IQ tests, received our uniforms, and loaded back on a train for shipment to Jefferson Barracks in Missouri. We arrived there at midnight and were escorted into a huge tent with the temperature still below zero. The tent was loaded with hundreds of guys just like me, naked and freezing, waiting in line for the first of many medical inspections. The doctors poked and examined everywhere. I felt sorry for myself but more so for the three doctors who had to check us out.

My Basic training was at Jefferson Barracks and it ran a couple months longer than usual because of a meningitis case that quarantined the base.  In the spring I was sent to Radio school across the river at Scott Field in Illinois and in the fall to Radar school in Boca Raton, FL.   After a three-day journey on a steam engine train, we were glad to arrive in Boca Raton.  It was a dream.  Our “school” was a converted millionaire’s club.  It was also super secret, a court martial offense for even mentioning the word “Radar”.  It ended way too soon.  Around Thanksgiving 1942 I was shipped to Langley Field in Hampton, VA.  For the next year or so I was assigned to Anti-submarine patrol.  After Pearl Harbor, Germany had declared war on us, and the US was afraid of German U-boats attacking our East Coast cities.  I started flying as Radar Operator on a B-17 Flying Fortress out of Langley and later at Fort Dix, NJ.  I also did a stint in Charleston, SC hunting submarines.  While at Charleston I was sent to gunnery school at Tyndall Field in Panama City, FL for some ten weeks.

Returning to Langley Field, I was reassigned to a B-24 bomber with the newly formed 13^th Air Force 868^th bombardment squadron.  The plane and rest of the crew had just arrived from training in Pocatello, Idaho.  Our B-24 Liberator, a heavy long range bomber, had 10 crew members:  pilot, copilot, engineer (Meisenheimer of Florida), Asst Engr.(Bud Williams of Iowa), navigator, radioman, radar operator, nose gunner, tail gunner, and bombardier.  I was the Radar operator, a new secret technology.  We named our plane “Long distance” after the telephone calls home we all made while training throughout the US.  At Langley Field we practiced Radar-controlled low-altitude bombing (~ 1000 feet). We used 50-gal oil barrels floating in the sea as practice targets.  They were spread out over the Atlantic and our task was to use Radar to find each one and sink them.

With our training finally complete in Jan ’44, we headed for the war in the Pacific.  But we first had to get there, puddle jumping across half the world.  From Langley, VA it was to Louisville, KY then Memphis, TN.  On the next leg we had a big scare with an engine problem. One of the bomber’s engines began running wild.  It was bad enough that we all got into our parachutes and prepared to jump.  Luckily our pilot got control of the plane and we made an emergency landing in Oklahoma City, OK.  We flew on to Tucson, AZ for repairs but the problem never went away completely.  (Eventually the Army junked it for parts and we got a new plane named “Sunsetter” in the Pacific.)    In Tucson I forgot my wallet in the hotel where we were staying.  (I would sleep with my wallet under my pillow for safe protection.)  Luckily my pilot’s brother lived there and he was able to retrieve it for me.

From Tucson, it was on to Fairfield, CA and finally the Pacific.  Leaving the US we flew next to Hawaii, then an early stop on Christmas Island with an oil leak (somebody left the oil cap off), then to Kanton island, to Espiritos Santos, and finally to Carney Field on Guadalcanal.

Our bomber was part of the secret “Snooper” squadron using newly invented Radar to guide the modified B-24s.  Our group under commanding officer Col. Stuart Wright was the first of three to receive “Snooper” training at Langley.  The mission of the squadron was low level, anti-shipping strikes under the cover of darkness.  The parabolic antenna of this system was located in a housing that replaced the belly ball turret.  We flew lone missions at night that usually lasted 8-22 hours.  Flights were busy for me because the navigator would always be asking for secondary confirmation from my radar.  I used the Radar to spot all the islands we were supposed to fly over along the route.  Nobody on the plane wanted to get lost over the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

Our B-24 normally carried 4-1000 pound bombs.  Our targets were usually enemy ships.  We flew at night to avoid being seen by the enemy.  With the Radar though, I could “see” through the dark and guide the bombardier in hitting the ship and shutting down Japanese supply lines.  When we released each 1000-lb bomb our bomber would jump a thousand feet higher into the air.  We were forbidden to target heavily armed ships, like battleships and destroyers because the planes were too valuable.  (One crew on an early raid on Rabaul disobeyed orders and sank the heavy cruiser, Haguro, a flagship of the Jap navy.  Despite the threat of court martial, they received a medal.)

If no enemy ships were found we had secondary land targets such as airfields.  Our only daylight mission was to blowup a refinery (Balikpapan, Borneo) to deprive the Japanese of badly needed fuel.  We flew several Harassment missions over the Japanese stronghold of Rabaul.  We would fly over it all night dropping small 100-pound bombs so the enemy soldiers couldn’t sleep.  We also flew some crew rescue missions over the ocean but they were generally fruitless.  The ocean is huge and people floating in it are almost impossible to spot.

As McArthur’s Army leap-frogged across the Pacific, our bomber squadron advanced from Guadalcanal with them using New Georgia (Munda) as a new base, then in Mar ‘44 the Admiralty Islands (Momote Airstrip-Los Negros), then in late Aug ‘44 Noemfoor Island, off the neck of New Guinea (now Indonesia).  On long missions to the west we had a refueling stop on Halmahera Island, Indonesia.  The squadron moved there in Mar ’45 long after I had left the Pacific.

In August ‘44 our Snooper squadron flew nightly missions, 1900 mile round trip, from Los Negros Island to bomb the Palau group.  On one follow-up mission to Peleliu (9/44) in the Palau Islands, my navigator and I were surprised by all the “islands” we saw on the Radar as we approached.  The extra “islands” turned out to be Navy ships that were surrounding it in preparation for invasion.  Only the pilot had been forewarned what to expect.  We dropped 3-1000 pound bombs on the runway perfectly, earning us a citation.  We nearly got shot down though.  Having got caught in a Jap searchlight, we were thankfully saved by a well-placed shell from a Navy gun. It was a good thing because no Army Air Corps crew member shot down over Palau survived the war.

When we returned from a mission we would each get 2 ounces of whiskey.  Half the crew didn’t drink so I got double.

Conditions and sanitation were primitive on the islands.  At one point I got an infection in my navel and was put in the hospital on Guadalcanal for a while.  The doctors cured it using the new wonder-drug antibiotic, penicillin.  Because I missed the crew’s normal R&R, I was granted a rest leave in Australia.  I was fortunate because I avoided the missions to Truk Island (April, 44) where a lot of crews were lost.  The Navy ended up bypassing Truk.  I spent two rest leaves in Australia and loved it both times.

After our crew flew enough missions, we were to be sent back to the US.  Because of all the casualties at the time, we had to wait a month to get a boat back.  It was an unfortunate wait.  Once back in the US, I immediately took a train to St Louis for a much needed rest leave.  When I arrived I found out my father had just died a couple days before on Dec 14, 1944.

My next assignment was in Victorville, California, where we repaired and tested airborne radars.  But I was ready to get out.  My enlistment was indefinite for the duration of the war.  After the surrender of Germany, I found out my grade level was going to be released.  But I was about to be promoted and the new grade level was not going to be released anytime soon.  With the invasion of Japan looming I could be in for years to come.  So I went around to all the secretaries of the Captains who had to sign off on my promotion to find my papers.  When I found my promotion papers I convinced the secretary to lose them so I wouldn’t get promoted.  It worked.  I took the train to Fort Sheridan, IL north of Chicago where I was released on July 31, 1945; little did I know the atomic bomb would be dropped the next month ending the war.