I’m told, and I have read, that only one in ten service men actually see combat. When you get involved in a bull session with a bunch of veterans, you would think that everyone had been on the front line. And, when you talk to those who have seen combat, sometimes you get the impression that they were all heroes; those who had the toughest time, talk the least.

About the Royal Air Force---I agree with Winston Churchill, “Never have so many owed so much to so few.” The RAF defeated the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. If the Nazi’s had won, think how much more difficult to invade Europe. Causalities would have been horrific. It took more than two years to build up the men and supplies for the Normandy Invasion (June 6, 1944). Some British observed the Americans are, “Over paid, oversexed and over here.” I have nothing but respect for the courageous English people. Many G. I.’s brought home British war brides. Luckily we spoke the same language……….or did we? A druggist there was a chemist, fenders were wings, gas was petrol, hoods were bonnets and Cockney accents sounded like another language. I can understand the French better and I didn’t speak French. Many loyal Americans immigrated to the U.S. following WWII unfortunately many immigrants today; don’t have the same respect for American heritage.

Chattanooga had two winners of the nation’s highest award in WWII. Charles Coolidge won the Medal of Honor for his heroic action in leading a heavy machine gun unit against a large German advance. He didn’t win a Good Conduct Medal and he told me why. He seemed a little embarrassed about it so I offered to swap my good conduct medal for his MOH. Desmond Doss earned a MOH as a medic in the Pacific Theater. He saved many lives at great personal peril. Desmond’s first wife died several years ago and is buried in the National Cemetery here. Later, their dog died; his wife loved that dog. Desmond knew that it wasn’t legal to bury animals in the National Cemetery; but he secretly buried the dog near his wife. Unfortunately, he didn’t bury it deep enough. Later the caretakers came by and saw four little legs sticking up out of the grave.

The Medal of Honor Museum is headquartered in Chattanooga. I am still on the Advisory Committee. The nation’s first and largest National Military Park and the National Cemetery are here; these are just part of the reasons Chattanooga is a good location for attracting military reunions. Just as important is the fact that Chattanooga is a patriotic city (e.g. Annual Armed Forces Day Parade and news media provides great coverage for veterans groups). I love my country; Bettye and I were married on the Fourth of July. My daughter Candie and Jeff were also married on the Fourth of July. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the younger generation loved their country as much as “The Greatest Generation”?

I flew 28 combat missions in a B-26 Marauder as a Radio Operator-Mechanic-Gunner over Europe. BUT, notice this is a big BUT, these missions were late in the war and didn’t compare to those earlier in the war in risk or conditions. My hat is off to those “early birds”, both the British and the Army Air Corps. Let me make it perfectly clear, that I am no hero and never claimed to be. However, I am proud of the fact that I flew combat. It’s macho to think “I wasn’t chicken”.

Although I kept a flight log, I won’t report each mission, just a few of the highlights or lowlights.

The 17th Bomb Group was the oldest medium Bomb Group in Europe. Several other groups were formed out of the 17th, so its slogan was “Daddy of them all” This took on a different meaning in France.

Nearly all of “Doolittle’s Raiders” who took the war to the Japanese homeland first were volunteers from my 37th Squadron. After being promoted to General, Doolittle was designated the wing commander in North Africa, and then was promoted to head the 8th Air Force in England.

Our current base was near Dijon, France. Headquarters was some Counts’ Chateau. We were in pyramid tents, nearby. Top turret gunner, Ed Donnellon, engineer gunner, Dean Fredendall, and I were together with a couple of others. We had wooden floors, army cots, and a make-shift stove, fueled with 100 octane gas; we were pretty comfortable.

My first mission was with a mixed air crew, not my whole crew. It was on ‘ABroad for Duty’. Patriotic? No. A beautiful “Broad" (girl) was pictured on the nose. We were to drop 8 five hundred pound general-purpose bombs on the Marshalling Yards at Haverstein, Germany. This was a “BAT” Mission to bomb by radar but we had a malfunction and didn’t drop at all. “BAT” missions enabled you to hit the target when you couldn’t see the ground due to cloud cover.

This was one of the lowlights, but my recollections are limited because I got air sick, very airsick (another lowlight). I was prone to do this when I had not flown for a while (in this case, three months). This was embarrassing; not at all like the glamour you have seen in all those patriotic WWII movies.

Missions were usually flown in early morning, so they would wake us up in the middle of the night---three or four AM. We would eat breakfast; hop a truck for the flight lines where we were briefed for the mission, assigned parachutes, flak suits, airplanes, etc. Every plane would be given a thorough “pre flight” inspection. My job was to check all the radio and communication equipment.

Our Dijon’s Airfield had been heavily bombed and most buildings destroyed. Runways were steel mats; this made it harder to get up to air speed.

Earlier in the war, it was learned the hard way that B 26’s were not good for low level bombing. It was not safe. One mission lost 11 out of 12 planes. Consequently, most of our missions were flown at 11, 000 to 14,000 feet. And temperatures would be -5 degrees to -20 degrees C. Even though we wore fleece lined jackets, pants, and boots, we got pretty darn cold. I flew between two open windows at over 200mph. After one mission, I could not walk for a while after returning because my feet were nearly frozen.

We wore three pairs of gloves, skin tight silk, then wool, then leather. My hands were always cold, so I would take the wool and leather gloves off and put my hands inside the flight suit on my bare leg. I still have cold hands and feet today. In an emergency the silk gloves would keep my hands from sticking to the freezing guns.

I would take off in the radio room and move to the waist as we approached enemy territory. Our waist windows were low to protect our underside (we didn’t have ball turrets on B 26’s). If someone used the relief tube, they were supposed to warn me or I would get a shower from the open windows.

I had a 50 caliber machine gun on both sides. These would each fire up to 850 rounds per minute. Ed Donnellon was just above me with twin 50’s in the top turret. Dean Fredendall had twin 50’s in the tail. Sam Ciacio, bombardier, had a 50 in the nose, and Bill Snead, pilot, and Tom Owsley, co-pilot, had two fifty caliber package guns on each side of the plane. We were well armed.

Tactical targets were ammunition dumps, airfields, bridges, marshalling yards, etc. We carried four thousand pounds of bombs. The types of bombs would depend on the target. One mission we had two, two thousand pound bombs, but we usually used smaller bombs. When we couldn’t drop for some reason, we would find a “target of opportunity” or salvo in a nearby lake. Since we flew in large formations, I had little responsibility as a radio operator (unless we had to leave the formation). However, waist windows were open and I also served as an observer and photographer to report rail concentrations, anti-aircraft positions, and especially bomb effectiveness. On some missions, I would have a K-20 camera to take pictures.

When we would bomb an ammunition dump the concussion from explosions would jolt the airplane and smoke would ascend quickly thousands of feet in the air. On one mission, I understand, three gunners bailed out, thinking their plane was hit. With my windows open the concussion was kinda like a pillow softly hitting me in the face.

After each mission, we had “debriefing”. Each of us reported what we saw. We were offered a shot of whisky or cognac. I never accepted the offer until my 20th birthday, the crew wanted to drink a toast in my behalf. I downed a shot and tried to say “What was that?” but nothing came out, I couldn’t say a word. On the way to my tent, I threw up (another low light). Also embarrassing, but I never was much of a drinker.

Missions were usually four to five hours, but from reveille to debriefing it made a pretty long day. Of course we did not fly every day.

When we had missions, the cook would let aircrews order what they wanted for breakfast. One volunteer who liked to cook, would sometimes ask what we would like special on our return (for example, cinnamon buns). He just liked to cook. One day we had “southern fried spam”. I never thought I would go back for seconds on spam, but I did.

Our ‘intelligence’ wasn’t always intelligent. We flew several missions though “flak free alley”, then discovered 125 anti aircraft guns there. One mission, we were briefed to expect 50 ME109’s and 100 jet fighters but never spotted one. We didn’t complain. That many fighters could raise havoc. We sometimes had no fighter escort, and when we did, just a few P-47’s. Most Allied losses were due to flak, not fighters.

The two types of flak were barrage and tracking. A lot of guns aimed at one place caused you to fly through a barrage. Tracking was when the Germans picked your plane as a target and stayed on you until they got you or you were out of range.

We were introduced to both kinds of flak on my third mission. This was the first time our entire crew flew together (on the “Slick Chick”). The target was the marshalling yards of Heidleberg. We had incendiary bombs. The flak was heavy to moderate and a lot of planes were damaged. I remember watching the tracking flak getting closer and closer to the next plane and feeling sorry for the crew. I didn’t realize that the Germans were doing the same thing to us.

We took hits in the rear bombay and one engine. Suddenly both engines cut out and we turned up on our side. It looked bad for a bit but the engines came back and we caught up with the formation. It turned out that it wasn’t enemy action, Sam didn’t get the bombay doors closed and the engines were overworked. When we were on our side, I put my chute on, moved my guns, and was ready to bail out. Ed asked me later if I was going to leave him behind. I had not been told that I was supposed to help him out because of his 85 pound flak suit. Our first mission as a crew made quite an impression, at least on me.

We earned our first Air Medal when we demolished a seven span bridge at Kochendorf with 500 pound demolition bombs. The bridge rose up on one end and sunk like a stricken ship.

About “Saucy Suzie”, I can’t document this, but I understand, that our commanding officer was offered new B-26’s or twofers (two old B-26’s rather than one new one). He accepted the old planes and some were questionable. When we drew the “Saucy Suzie”, Tommy had to pull the wheels out from under us---we were headed for Canal Number 5. This happened more than once. We flew this plane on its one hundredth mission. We flew three other airplanes on their 100th mission. After the German surrender we learned that there were many new B-26’s in Europe unused.

Every plane had a name and a number, but I don’t remember all we had. One was so warped that it burned most of the gas before we reached the fighter rendezvous. We turned around and went home alone. The formation went on to the target and almost beat us back to the base.

Normally a full strength group would be 48 bombers but, we sometimes had 64. Apparently our CO was bucking for something. It must have worked. The 17th Bomb Group earned its second Croix de Guerre and its second Presidential Citation, the latter was for our mission on Swienfurt, Germany.

We had the Saucy Suzie again and barely had enough gas to get home. We had to land ahead of the formation. The day after we flew its 100th mission we almost landed in Canal #5 again. (By the way, we considered bottling water in Canal #5 and underselling Channel #5).

(This is an excerpt from Bob Elmore's new book, "A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to the National Cemetery." The book is $10 in softback, $20 in hardback. Copies are available at the Bicentennial Library downtown, Wally's (on McCallie), Senior Neighbors, The Racket Club and the Brainerd Trophy Shop. All proceeds, not just profits, go to the Chattanooga Area Historical Association. For more information, call 629-1366.)