A phone call...

...From my dad's co-pilot! To thank me for sending pictures! Meet my dad's co-pilot, Joe, standing next to my dad!

Left to right: my dad (bombardier) Frank, co-pilot Joe, pilot John and navigator Peter.

Joe is 91 years young and he talked my ear off with tons of stories. He and his wife of 60+ years live in Ohio.

Joe told me before they went overseas they were in North Carolina, then New York, then Florida. From there they flew to Brazil. From Brazil they were to fly to North Africa on a B-24. But the plane had something wrong with it, and a typing paper-sized piece of paper was taped to the side with red tape all around the edges of the paper. The message was "DO NOT FLY THIS PLANE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES". So they were delayed a day in leaving. Now I'm not sure if it was the same plane that got fixed or a different one, but the next day the B-24 they were leaving in had problems. Un-noted changes had been made and it wouldn't fly level and it took an extra 3 hours to get it to fly right.

Basically the story was they left Brazil at 8:30 pm to cross the Atlantic to North Africa. When they were approaching the airbase at Dakar, French West Africa, they got a big scare. Now, Joe explained, when you land a plane you fly in a pattern and you land into the wind. The pattern is divided into legs. There is a downwind leg, a short leg and the approach (into the wind). The B-24 has 4 engines. Number 4 engine stopped on the downwind leg. The number 3 engine stopped on the short leg. So they had engine 1 & 2 but they are on one side of the plane, which makes it want to fly in circles. Joe thought they would crash for sure. But the flight engineer was able to restart them so they could land safely.

After they landed they taxied over to refuel. Joe said that the fuel gauge on a plane is the same as on a car, they aren't all that accurate. Joe asked if I knew how they checked the fuel level. "With a stick?" I asked. Yes, he said, and there wasn't even enough fuel left to wet the end. The extra three hours added to the trip ran the tanks nearly dry. The flight engineer found enough reserve to restart the engines. They came close to ditching in the ocean.

Other miscellaneous things Joe told me were:

It took an hour for squadrons to all get into the air, into formation, and then up to the altitude they were to fly at for the mission.

The targets were heavily guarded with anti-aircraft guns. The puffs of black smoke were so thick at times it looked like you could walk across them. He said they called him "Holy Joe" because he prayed so much.

The oil pressure on a B-17 engine could drop suddenly for no apparent reason. You had to keep it at 80. If it dropped below 40 the propellers would loose their trim and would "windmill". (I don't understand that one yet LOL)

My dad was assigned group leader bombardier because he always did an excellent job at destroying his share of the enemy targets. I'm not sure exactly how Joe described the groups, but each squadron had groups of planes and the lead plane had the bombardier. The following planes had other crew members that weren't trained as bombardiers. The bombs were released by flipping toggle switches, so when the lead bombardier located the target and began dropping the bombs, the "toggle flippers" in the following planes would also drop their bombs.

Well, that's about it for the stories right now. At least they are getting written down this time! Today I took the crew photo above and made a copy at Walgreen's. It turned out well, much clearer than my printout. Now, tomorrow I am going to make more, because Joe wants to send one to the pilot John and the navigator Peter! And I have to make one for the archivist for the 99th Bomb Group Historical Society.

Wow. What a day.

Found!!!

I found the photos I had been looking for! I had gone through the large box of my parent's old photos over and over, and through the photo albums, and then countless boxes and drawers but could not find them.Then I picked up a small box and unfolded some tissue paper. Wrapped in the paper was an envelope with the writing "old photos from WW II". Sometimes you are just one small box away from loosing something rare.

This is my dad inspecting 100 lb. napalm incendiary bombs -- Photographed at Airbase -- Poltava, Ukraine, U.S.S.R. June 1944". A note was added: "Note the cigarette behind back, he has just discovered one of the bombs is leaking and is about to get out of there, fast."

Italy 1944. In this photo my dad is pictured with three other crew members. I am guessing a pilot and co-pilot plus another member. There are no names. Captions reads "Frank with his crew". My dad is on the left. I am hoping the co-pilot I am in contact with is in the picture. That would be too cool!

Italy 1944. The caption on the back of this photo reads:

"The best crew the 347th ever had -- right Frank?"

(my dad is not in this picture but it is a picture of his crew)

I'm sending copies of the photos to the 99th. They have an archivist who won't almost loose things in little boxes.

In other news, I did a little Christmas shopping today. I only found some of what I was looking for. Bought dad and I some chocolate. Well, that wasn't on my list. Gotta have chocolate! LOL

A letter!

I received an answer to the letter I wrote to my dad's co-pilot! It wasn't a long letter. He admits he has forgotten a lot, as WW II was a long time ago. But I was excited to hear from one of my dad's crew members.

He writes, "Your Dad was an easy going guy. Nothing seemed to bother him. Fighters, anti aircraft shells. He was always cool as a cucumber."

I grew up listening to my dad's stories. It's a shame no one wrote them down. I remember a few things, but not dates and locations. My dad told stories of returning back to base with the plane limping on one engine, barely keeping altitude and brushing the tree tops. That was over Italy. Another time my dad's parachute was hit by shrapnel (flak). It tore up the parachute but he was not wounded at all (I have the metal pieces with his medals). He also told stories of visiting Egypt and the Holy Land. He noted on his Mission list that happened in June 1944.

In other news, I had an orientation today for three new employees and mailed equipment to two more new people. I had to set up five laptops plus pack everything up. I'm tired of setting up laptops! The orientaion went well. Now I can rest.

Nice day and a "darn it!"

Today was sunny and mild. Temperatures have been hitting 60 frequently this month. We even cracked open a couple windows. Since it was so mild I decided to wash sheets and hang them on the line.

Do NOT, I repeat, Do Not Ever hang clothes on the line when your back yard is littered with crab apples!!! I didn't notice a flock of starlings flew in and feasted on them, and rested will full tummies ON THE CLOTHES LINE.

I went out to take the sheets down and ohhh crap!!!!!!!!!! Those little sheet sh*ters!!!! I had to wash them all over again and dry them in the dryer.

Aside from that it was a lovely day. Nice to see the sun all day long with it mild enough to enjoy it. Dad made yummy bread. He used white and whole wheat flour with a little oatmeal added. He also used honey and Agave nectar. It's really good!!

In touch with the 99th!

I emailed one of the contacts and got an answer. After we shared some info back and forth (well, you're not going to give out info to just anyone who finds you on a webpage, right?) he told me one of the 99th Bomb Group Historical Society members remembers my dad. In fact he was the co-pilot on many of the missions! He has agreed to us getting in touch. I have been looking for photos but I have not been able to find them. I'm not sure if my mom put them someplace or if they are gone forever.

Reflecting on my parent's past

I've been watching WW II in HD. I have wept a lot. It is gruesome to watch, yet I feel like I am seeing first hand what my parents lived through, especially my dad as a B-17 navigator and bombardier. I am amazed at the stories told and photographed by the people who lived to tell them. My dad flew 50 missions over Italy, north Africa and Europe. I tried to see if any of the planes were El Diablo but I didn't see the name. Later I decided to google it and actually found a book that mentions El Diablo. I found a couple mentions but not the 347th squadron which my dad was in. I also found The 99th Bomb Group Historical Society. More serching and I just found some basic history of the 347th. My dad used to tell a lot of interesting stories. Too bad no one ever wrote them down.

My dad standing in front of the B-17 El Diablo

Been awhile...been busy

I'm always busy after the conference but that work is done now. The weather has been very mild for November. Today we cleaned the carpet. The weather was still mild enough to open the windows for awhile and hang a few items on the clothesline.

My son-in-law in Australia bought me some books! "Learning PHP5" and "JavaScript". They are both O'Reilly books. I'll never be a serious programmer like John but I am having fun adding some functions to my PHP forms. Eventually I hope to understand how to work with MySQL database, which is also included in the PHP book.