D-DAY

I've heard it said, "Nothing good ever came out of a war
and I've made this statement myself many times. I wouldn't
take a million dollars for my experiences in what my
generation calls the "Big War", and I wouldn't give two cents
for any more of it. There are many personal stories that come
out of any war, so I've tried to put some of mine down on
paper so I could reminisce and maybe others would be just a
little interested. It is now some forty or fifty years after
"My War" as I try to recall some of the both serious and
funny highlight of things I saw and did. I was a twenty year
old gunner in a "Flying Fortress" (Boeing B-17 Heavy Bomber)
in the Eighth Air Force at the time of "Operation Overlord"
which we commonly call "D-Day" in the invasion of Europe.
On the day of June 6, 1944 we were, as usual, assembled
for a briefing before our mission which was to bomb ahead of
the landing troops in Normandy, France. Our officers went
through all the usual form of weather reports and forecasts,
our primary target, our secondary targets, our routes,
altitudes, times and destinations. With all this done in
detail then the question was asked, "Are there any
questions." One sleepy Sergeant in the back of the room
raised his hand and was recognized. His question was,
"Colonel, Sir, while we are doing all this, just what will
the German Air Force be doing?" A hush fell over the room.
You could have heard a pin drop if anyone had dared to drop
it. The answer was simply this, "They won't be there, son, We
will have so many of our planes in the air, there just won't
be any room for them."
The crew that I was with always flew in the number one
or number two position as we were of the "Pathfinder Group"
which meant that we had the "radar bomb-sight" used to bomb
targets that couldn't be seen through the cloud cover. When
we boarded the plane there were several officers who wanted
to fly as observers. We had a Major to go with us so I told
him he could have my gun in the left waist. He was glad to
get such a good observation point. I put a sleeping bag in
the floor of the plane and watched the war through an unused
camera port in the floor of the plane. Sure enough, we didn't
see any enemy planes in the air on that mission and found out
later that the German Air Force only put up two fighters in
the whole Normandy invasion. We made that mission without
firing a shot or being fired on. We dropped our bomb load
where we were supposed to and came home without incident.
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