Issue 14.13
I have gained information from Eighth Air Force flyers that have been shot down over Germany and how they fared. Without exception, my combat crew members and I were fortunate because we completed our assigned thirty-five missions without being shot down over Germany. For sure we have had some close calls.
At the completion of our thirty-five missions, our pilot, Robert Parnell came to me and said “The Squadron Commander, Jimmy Stewart, came to me and asked me if I would fly an extra fifteen missions as Squadron leader and also any of the crew that would join would be welcomed.” I am sure Parnell was asked to lead the Squadron of twelve B-17’s was because of his vast experience of flying B-l7’s.
He was an instructor in that field for one year before being assigned to crew # 5383. The reason for that was our crew was a hard luck crew. After our months of training as a crew, and now time to fly overseas, our then pilot and bombardier decided that they didn’t want to go on to do the dangerous thing that we were all trained to do. Quigley our then pilot went AWOL and spent the rest of the war behind bars and Weinstein had an uncle with an important rank in the pentagon that turned him into a mess officer. It was then that Lt. Robert Parnell was made crew #5383’s new pilot and Lt. Carlotta was made our bombardier. Parnell asked me if I would join him for the extra fifteen missions. I was the lower ball turret gunner on the crew and I knew they take out the ball turret of the lead B-17 and replace it with a radar dome but he said I would have the tail gunner position. Lead tail gunners are sometimes pilots or co-pilots because they are the eyes of the squadron for the lead pilot. It did not take me very long to give him my answer. I said “I think I have used up all of the good luck that I am entitled to”.
Actually, Parnell should have been the one who declined to do this new request because he was older aged twenty five and he was married and had two children while I was nineteen. We were all promised to be given a promotion of one grade which would make him a captain and I would be Tech. Sgt. Our radio operator, Wally Sanchez, signed up. If one was planning to stay in the military, then this could be a good deal. Those next fifteen missions was almost their end because on one mission their plane took a bad hit by FLAK that tore a gaping hole in a wing and flaming gasoline left a trail of fire for two hundred feet which burned off one horizontal stabilizer. They made it to the closest Allied field where they landed.
Ever since that day when I left for home which was 68 years ago, I have questioned myself for letting down that man whom I respected and loved. A nine or ten man crew is made up of men who ate together slept under one roof, played cards together and risked their lives together are as close together as blood brothers. If I had it to do over again I would stay with him. Those who flew those extra fifteen missions were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. I then went on the only ocean cruise of my life which was a troop ship, The Argentina, on which it took us two weeks to cross the Atlantic in a convoy. Every evening at supper time, The Destroyers would go around the convoy like mad dropping depth charges. This was a ship carrying flyers going home, wounded men going to hospitals and soldiers in lockup cages. The ocean was very rough and all of the ground soldiers and even sailors were sea sick but not one flyer got sick.