75 Years Ago Today

Valiant63 said
Dad turned 18 in 1943 and was drafted right away and ended up serving on a B-24 as both a nose gunner and a tailgunner. He was fortunate enough to survive the war, but was on several different planes because they got shot to pieces or torn up by flak. Some of his flight crew did not make it back. He passed away in 2003 and didn’t talk a whole lot about war time stuff.

Daddy never talked about it, either. Never. I always asked him growing up if they ever shot anybody. lol He always said he didn't know, because he was always in the engine room. But I've talked to several WWII veterans since Daddy passed and they all said there was no way in hell he would have not known a 300 foot ship was shooting its guns or dropping depth charges. Looking through that ship's operations in the link I posted above, it's apparent that the little ship saw lots of action. I guess it's just something he simply didn't want to talk about.

He did tell me the story though about how they were tied off to the USS Missouri once passing mail and supplies. So I CAN at least share that.

He said the boys on the Missouri were on deck playing basketball while their little "tub" was bouncing around in the water so bad, they could barely stand on deck. lol Anyway, the Missouri got a call to go to some action while they were still tied together. Daddy said when the ropes got as big as they were, they called them "lines"...he said they were about 6" in diameter and there were at least four. As soon as they got the last bit of mail and supplies passed, he said the Missouri gave it full ahead and snapped all the lines like sewing thread. He said had they took off slowly, they would have just towed the Destroyer Escort. He said the ship was GONE from view in 15 minutes. Boys, I'm here to tell you, that's an over 800 foot long ship disappearing off the horizon in 15 minutes. That's gittin with it. Later on, they met back up with the Missouri and actually passed through the Panama Canal right behind it. I always thought that was pretty cool. Ain't no doubt the old dude saw the world and probably had a blast.