Issue 46.13
Dear Tricia,
Yes, I will add some things about your Grandfather. Yes we visited him at Seattle a few times and we exchanged Christmas cards. What I know about your Grandfather is what happened sixty nine years ago when we were flying bombing missions over Germany during World War 2. Your grandfather was the pilot and airplane commander of our crew number 5383. We lost many of our friends some on their first mission with watching bombers exploding or spiraling toward earth. I remember your grandfather was a great man, a true patriot, a born leader, a brave man (but not fearless) and my role model. No one that I knew at that time claimed to have no fear and if he did, he was either crazy or a liar. Proof of his leadership skills was the fact that he was group leader. The group leader was responsible for 36 bombers and 326 men. The fact that he volunteered for an additional 15 missions was proof of his patriotism and bravery. When we had finished our tour of 35 missions, and he was to start his extra missions, he asked me if I would join him. I thought about his offer long and hard and after 20 seconds I told him I thought I had used up all the good luck that I was entitled to, so I declined. I have thought about mynegativedecision10, 000 times since then and I still do. I continue to agonize over the fact that I let him down. He survived the extra 15 missions and I would have also. Once they briefed us all for a very long mission and they gave us boxes of K rations to take with us because they said we would not have gasoline enough to get back to our base in Polebrook and would have to land at newly liberated Brussels to gas up, sleep in our plane and return the next day. On our way home from the mission, our captain said he thought we could make it to our home base. He watched the gas gages for the numerous separate wing tanks so he instructed Sgt. Lewis our top turret gunner and engineer to transfer 50 gallons from number 5 tank to number 8 tank. Soon he said transfer25 gallons from number6 tank to number3 tank. Then he said transfer 10gallons from number1 to number 2 tank. Next ne said transfer 5 gallons from number 4 to number 7 tank. A B-17 burns 200 gallons of 100 octane gasoline per hour at cruising speed so what could 5 gallons do. We did make it all the way back to Polebrook and landed successfully but it was a good thing we landed on our first pass because after landing, we ran out of gas and had to be towed to our hard stand to park. All of the rest of the group landed at Brussels and all of our crew except for Bob Parnell, our pilot were disappointed at missing out on staying over night at the newly liberated and open and fun loving city. That would have been a needed break from Ariel combat and a chance to have some fun. Your grandfather was the only one on the crew who was married and he had two small daughters. On that day, your grandfather proved to be arrow straight. He often talked about his family back home and told us about his mother who worked on the B-17 production line and installed deicer boots on the leading edge of the bombers. These rubber boots were removed and discarded before a Flying Fortress flew its first mission. If not removed, there was a good chance that a boot could get tangled up with propellers.
Sam Wyrouck can be contacted at 801-707-2666.