PAPER ROUTE

Some years ago when my sons were growing up, they had a
paper route of the local news. When they were sick or busy
there were times when I made the "Paper Run" for them. It was
nothing to compare to a "Paper Run" I went on in 1944 when I
was flying as a aerial gunner with the Eighth Air Force in
the Army Air Corps.
We fell out for briefing and found out that there would
only be three B-17 Flying Fortresses on this run. We were to
carry large cardboard tubes of propaganda leaflets to be
dropped over Kiel, Germany. This was a manufacturing city for
fuel for the rocket bombs and planes that the Germans had
begun to make and launch on Great Britton. The leaflets were
warning the civilian population that we would at a later date
saturate the city and vicinity with bombs to wipe out the
installations named.
While we were going into this target many others were
bombing other parts of the Third Reich. We had no fighter
escort so as not to draw attention to those three lonely
planes. Needless to say we were trying for all the altitude
we could get. By clawing at the thin air we managed to reach
just over 31,000 feet by the time we got to the target. We
dropped our load and returned to our base with out loss. We
took several days to unwind after that experience, but the
papers were delivered and on time.
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