Steve Snyder, author of the award-winning book, “SHOT DOWN: The true story of pilot Howard Snyder and the crew of the B-17 Susan Ruth” makes a PowerPoint presentation at the Central Pennsylvania World War II Roundtable in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania on June 6, 2024.
Visit: https://SteveSnyderAuthor.com/
e e e good evening everybody how’s everybody doing tonight if you could please silence your cell phones take them out of your pocket put them on mute or turn them off for our presenter we’d appreciate that all right I think we’re getting everybody in the doors here we have a full house tonight it’s great to see everybody so if we’d start with Pledge of Allegiance if you’re able please rise with me and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance a pledge of allegiance to the flag States andice for all thank you please take your seats like to welcome everybody on this beautiful June day historic day obviously hope people people have uh saw the ceremony on TV this morning we’ll talk about that a little bit more later as always we’d like to recognize our veterans starting with our World War II veterans I know we have at least two I saw come in the door one right here and three veterans we have three veterans thank you four veterans four world or two veterans that’s outstanding thank you for being here tonight thank you for your service thank let’s say it again anybody on the beach from Normandy USS USS Bening not on the beach on close awesome thank you for your service as always we want to recognize all of our veterans and their families for their service um we want to thank everybody for their attendance and thank everybody online because we’re live streaming this as well so thanks for tuning in as always we have uh donations through the helmet committee when you walk out uh World War II helmets that you can put a donation into if you’re willing and we also have coffee mugs for sale out near the book uh table that we have books for sale as well book donations so this day in World War II history most people know that c dday invasion of Europe took place on the beaches of Normandy France and 4 100,000 Allied American British and Canadian troops were involved through that Operation Overlord but before that two years earlier Japanese forces retreated in World War II in the Battle of Midway the battle had begun on June 4th and also this day in World War II history in 1985 in Brazil authorities exume the body of do Dr Joseph mangle who was known as the angel of death of the Nazi Holocaust all right before we introduce our speaker we have some upcoming events the first most of you know about it’s World War II weekend at reading and I’d like to invite Rich up to talk about that thank you tank uh for those don’t know me my name is Rich Bor I’m a board member here I’m also tour guide coordinator at the Mid-Atlantic hair Museum in reading and this is the 33rd year that we’ve been putting on uh world World War II weekend which is uh to the best of our knowledge one of the largest if not the largest living history World War II living history events in the world so we’ll have over 1500 reenactors most of them are there tonight living in tents on the grounds over 200 military vehicles and 50 to 60 World War II airplanes and they’ll be flying all three days so it’s a three-day event Friday Saturday and Sunday we have two tickets the value is $42 a piece they’re good for any day at the show and I we’re having a raffle that’s tank as tank mentioned so it’s uh what is it uh $2 $2 for one three uh $5 for three and if you need to uh want to buy some and you didn’t have the chance before Patty’s going to have them and we’ll have a drawing at the end of uh the evening so uh thank you oh one other thing I just I just looked this up before coming over so tomorrow is going to be sunny mostly sunny and 8 81 Saturday is going to be sunny with some clouds and 82 and Sunday is going to be cloudy in the morning and clearing in the afternoon with a high near 80 so there’s no weather excuse not to be there thanks sir couple of events coming up and you might have SE them in the slides we’ll also post this on our Facebook page but on the 6th of July Heroes Grove Independence celebration is going to be at breit Bill Park in Harrisburg and then 19 to 21 July burbick uh Berwick World War II weekend in Burwick Pennsylvania about an hour from here at the end of July 26 to 28 July is military weekend at the World War II experience Museum in gettsburg and then 14 to 177 September is Army Expo over at the Army Heritage and educ UC ation Center in car Pennsylvania for upcoming speakers next month we have a couple things first of all it’s a very special event but it’s also the first Thursday falls on the 4th of July so we decided not to have the program on the 4th of July and we’re having on the 11th of July so just to highlight it’s the second Thursday next month and I know that conflicts with some other events and we apologize for that but this is a special event we’re going to have Tuskegee Airman here Dr Eugene Richardson who’s a pilot with Tuskegee Airman as well as Aaron Watkins who was a shinook pilot who learned to fly under a Tuskegee Airman and we also have Mel Payne the president of the ski chapter from Philadelphia going to be here so again not on the fourth you probably doing something else having barbecues and watching fireworks the following Thursday right here same time and then in August we have Harry Miller who’s a 740th tank Battalion member who was in a Battle of the Bulge and so that two great programs coming up with two World War II veterans and as you know we pressure uh those those we we really appreciate that they’re able to come and tell their stories to all of us and now for our speaker tonight Mr Steve steer Steve Snider is a graduated of UCLA he lives in Seal Beach California in 2009 he retired from Vision Service Plan after a 36 year career working in sales and Sales Management he then began his quest to learn more about World War II and the experience of his father who is a pilot in the B17 Howard Snider and he was the crew member pilot crew member of the B7 Susan Roth Susan Ruth it became his passion after four and a half years of dedicated research resulted in a book shot down which is going to be available and I’ll read an expert from that in a second it has received 25 book awards Steve is also president of the 306 bomb group historical Association and on the board of directors for the eth Air Force Historical Society he keeps a very busy schedule making presentations like the one tonight to all types of organizations and attending air shows all around the country and signing copies of his book so his book shot down the true story of a pilot Howard Snyder and the crew of the B7 Susan Ruth it’s an Amazon number one bestseller and recipient of more than 25 National book awards it’s set within the framework of World War II in Europe and recounts the dramatic experiences of each member of a 10-man B7 Bomber Crew after their plane piloted by the authors Steve Snider’s father was knocked out of the sky by German Fighters over French and Belgium over on February 8th of 1944 some men died some were captured and became prisoners of war and some men evaded capture and were missing in action for months before making it back to England their individual stories and those of the courageous Belgian people who risked their lives to help them are all different and all remarkable even before the dramatic Battle of the air and the subsequent harrowing events on the ground the story is informative insightful and captivating prior to the Fateful event the book covers the crew’s training their journey to England what life was like on the base as well as in London and in an English country side and the Perils of the a Air Force flying combat missions over occupied Europe and in Germany through personal letters oral and written accounts Declassified military documents and interviews all from people who took part in events that happened over 70 years ago even the German lofw pilot who shot down the aircraft the stories come alive adding to the feeling of being there there are more than 200 time period photographs interpers throughout the book he’s here in Pennsylvania to be part of World War II weekend by a raffle ticket at Reading and he graciously offered to speak to us tonight ladies and gentlemen Mr Steve [Applause] Snider thank you tank I really appreciate that I’m delighted to be here uh today I always enjoy coming to Pennsylvania because the my Snider ancestors are uh settled in Pennsylvania after coming from Germany in fact my fifth great-grandfather Simon Snider was the third governor of Pennsylvania and after which Snider County his names uh my presentation tonight is really in three parts the first part I talk about my dad uh before the plane was shot down then I talk a little bit about the B7 and what flying combat was like and then I talk about what happened to my dad after the plane was shot down and then following my presentation I have a little short 13-minute documentary that’s going to be shown as well growing up I knew the basics of my dad’s World War II history I knew was a B7 pilot he was stationed in England with the Eighth Air Force his plane was named the Susan Ruth after my oldest sister who was one year old at the time that he went overseas and he flew bombing missions over Europe and on February 8th of 1944 his plane was shot down and he was missing an action for 7 months but he evaded capture and eventually made it back to England but it was n until I retired as tank said in 2009 that I had the time to really delve into my dad’s War history in more detail my parents had kept a lot of material about the war years and I just wanted to go through that organize it and learn more details and there were two items that were really significant one was a diary that my do Dad wrote while he was missing an action about his plane being shot down which is absolutely riveting uh so much so that it was included in two books that were written on the left is uh the mighty eth by Gerald Aster it was about the Eighth Air Force who flew its first mission on August 17th of 1942 and the goals to hit military and Industrial targets to Nazi Germany’s ability to wage war uh the Eighth Air Force got its moniker the mighty E from noted historian Roger Freeman because of the number of bombers they could put up on missions which numbered into the hundreds and on uh December 24th of 1944 2,000 bombers hit targets around Berlin which is hard to even imagine to have 2,000 bombers in the sky at one time uh the other book was first over Germany was about the 306 Bomb Group that my dad was in it was written by Russell strong who was a navigator in the 306 and became his historian after the war uh the 306 had the model first over Germany because they were the first bomb group in the eth Air Force to hit a Target in Germany wilhams Haven on January 27th of 194 3 the other item that was really significant were all the letters that my dad had written to my mother that he when he was stationed in England and my dad was really candid in these letters he talked about what bombing missions were like what life was like in the air base what life was like in London and England at the time escapades of him and his crew and sitting down and reading those letter was just fascinating and I became fascinated with the story and it became my passion I started reading book after book about the air War over Europe one on the internet spent countless hours doing research downloading these classified military documents I want a on a quest to find relatives of all my dad’s crew to ask them what information they could give to me started going to reunions and finally three years into my research I just came to the conclusion that the story of my dad and his crew was so unique and so compelling that it needed to be told so I decided to write a book from the time I started my research the time the book was published was four and a half years I did something that was rather unique I formed my own Publishing Company cbes publishing LLC which is the name of the street that I live on in Seal Beach California and then I contracted with independent Professionals for all the associated services such as editing cover Design interior layout uh the book uh for the hard cover book uh the printers located in Michigan and then I use a fulfillment house in Indiana who stores the books and distributes them the first half of the book builds up to the day the plane was shot down and then the second half of the book is all about what happened a afterwards and it’s not just about my dad but it goes into detail about what happened to each member of my dad’s crew and also about the courageous Belgium people that risk their lives to help them but I wouldn’t have been able to have written the book if it wasn’t for two Belgium gentlemen on the the left to see my dad in his bomber jacket with Dr Paul deah that picture was taken in 1994 at the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Belgium and my dad’s plane being shot down and on on the right you see me with Jac L that picture was taken 20 years later for the 70th Anniversary these two men were young boys during the war and they saw firsthand atrocities committed by the Nazis against their family and friends and later in life they became local historians and they interviewed Belgium people and members of the Belgium underground about events that took place in involving my dad and his crew they documented their testimony and they gave me unbelievably detailed information about events that have been lost forever so I owe these two men a huge debt initially my dad didn’t go into the air force a result of the first peacetime draft in US history implemented by President Roosevelt in the fall of 1940 my dad went into the army in uh April of 1942 and he was stationed at Fort Lewis Washington and at the time the US military was woefully weak when World War II started they ranked 18th in military strength in the World Behind Romania and they were also very ill equipped as you can see by the World War I vintage uniform that my dad has on here three months later he married Ruth hemple at First Lutheran Church in Pasadena my mother was born and raised in Pasadena as one not as I was uh shortly after she graduated from UCLA where she was a classmate of the legendary Jackie Robinson when I went to UCLA I was a classmate of luel Cinder Kareem Abdul Jabar uh my dad was born in nor fork Nebraska and then he moved to California with his family prior to starting High School a few months later on December December 7th a date which will live in infamy Japan bomb Pearl Harbor in the United States was a war well my mother was very fearful the future was very uncertain so she decided to go up and see my dad uh in Washington over Christmas and nine months later Susan Ruth was born well my dad was worried how is he going to support his family has a new bride a baby on the way and he didn’t think he could do that very well on a private pay in the Army so he decided to volunteer for the Air Force where he could make more money especially if he could make it through pilot training and become an officer so he went through pre-flight training at sanana Army Air Base which is only about 20 minutes from where I live in California and then he went to the various stages of pilot training uh this slide’s a little busy but on the left hand side you see the three main stages of pilot training first you have primary training and then if you’re able to make it through primary you went into basic and pilot training was really tough 40% of the cadets that started pilot training washed out and they either became bombadiers Navigators or perhaps Gunners then after basic they went into advanced pilot training and that’s when they separated the pilots out they either went into single engine planes Fighters or twin engine pler uh twin engine planes which resulted in bombers or transports typically or uh the shorter Pilots went into Fighters because of their cramped conditions in the cockpit my dad was 6 foot three so they put him in twin engine planes but personally I think it was based on personality as well it seems to me fighter pilots are kind of cocky have a big ego Risk Takers independent whereas those bomber Pilots tended to be a little more levelheaded and uh team players here you see my dad in primary training at Santa Maria California this was a big day for him because it was the first time he soloed back then you couldn’t wear your goggles on top of your helmet until he had soloed and you see smoking a cigarette there I think everyone back during the war smoked cigarettes here you see the three different planes that he flew in Pilot training up top and basic I mean excuse me primary he flew a steerman Bane and then and uh the middle picture in basic you flew a volti Valley and the single wing plane and then Advanced Training down below a twin engine Curtis wri 189 he graduated from Advanced pilot training at Douglas Arizona in April of 1943 where he earned his uh commission as a second lieutenant in his Pilot’s wings and then he went on to transitional crew training where he learned how to operate a 4 engine B17 bomber and then from there he went to operational crew training where he learned where the various members of the team or the crew came together and they learned to operate as a team and then once deemed ready they were assigned overseas to the European theater of operations my dad and his crew reported to the 306 Bomb Group at thurl England which is about 60 miles north of London on October 21st of 1943 uh that’s what the base looked like back then the base is no longer there but the surrounding Countryside looks just the same it’s all rural farmland here there is a nice little uh Museum there though that holds a it looks small but it holds a tremendous amount of artifacts memorabilia and stories and information I’ve been there uh several times here you see the Insignia of the 306 Bomb Group in the E Air Force there were three air divisions the 3066 was in the first air division which was single B signified by a triangle then every Bomb Group had a letter designation for the 306 it was H so the triangle H was a designation for the 306 in addition to being the first bomb group to hit a Target in Germany the 306 was the longest serving Bomb Group in the eth Air Force as well they arrived uh in England in 1942 September and they stayed on until January of 1946 they were involved in the Casey Jones project was the aerial photo mapping of Western Europe and Northern Africa many of you have seen the 1949 uh movie 12:00 High starring Gregory peek that was based on a true story about the 306 Bomb Group the fictitious Bomb Group in the movie The 918th was derived by multiplying the 306 by three another distinction of the 306 is that their flight surgeon Dr Thurman Schuler was responsible for convincing h e bomber command General Ira AER to implement a mission limit in APR April of 1943 up until that time there was no Mission limit and the morale of these combat Crews were go was going into the tank because they realized they would never ever make it home they’d either be killed or be shot down and become prisoners of War uh Dr Schuler suggested a mission limit of 20 ACR said it at 25 but at least they had these combat Crews had a life at light at the end of the tunnel and something they could shoot for and had some hope of making it back home every bombb group had four bomb squadrons these are four bomb squadrons in the 306 in the upper left of was the clay pigeons so named by a journalist in England because they took more losses than any other bomb Squadron in the eth Air Force and my dad was in the lower right uh flighting figh and biting Squadron and they had one of the best records of and least losses of any bomb Squadron in the eth Air Force at one time they had the record of 42 consecutive missions without losing a plane and that was only broken after D-Day by the by that time the lofa had been wiped out here you see the ground crew I always like to point out the ground Crews the combat Crews got all the recognition and the glory but these combat these ground Crews were the ones that kept these planes flying after missions they’ stay up all night usually in very inclement weather uh repairing battle damage doing maintenance on the plane replacing engines replacing tires and they took great pride in these planes and they considered it their plane that they just loaned out to the combat Crews occasionally to fly missions so they were really the unsung heroes here you see my dad’s crew a B7 had a 10-man crew you see four offic officers that are kneeling in front my dad’s on the lower left and as he was the first pilot and as such the commander of the plane and the crew and then going across you had the co-pilot the Navigator and the Bombadier and then standing behind them are six enlisted men who were mainly Gunners five of these men made it back home but five of them did not that’s not the Susan Ruth that’s just the B7 that they took their picture in front of when they arrived at England I would like to point out the nose art on the upper left I love the nose art it’s interesting that uh the Air Force was the only entity that allowed their pain planes to be painted and named the Navy didn’t the Marines didn’t n did other uh countries but the Air Force thought it could help the morale of these young guys if they could personalize their planes and they were very creative in what they named and painted on their planes you know many times it was a cartoon character but more often than not it was a scandling clad or nude woman you after all these guys were in their late teens and early 20s and were very very young men uh the 306 uh Bomb Group flew b7s the first air division in and the third air division flew b7s the second air division flew B 24 liberators and it was nicknamed The Flying Fortress because of the heavy Armament they had in the plane they had 13 50 caliber machine guns that could put out a tremendous amount of Firepower and also the b7s could take a tremendous amount of D battle damage and keep flying every plane had markings on its tail to identify him again you see the triangle h of the 306 Bomb Group in the first air Division and that all also had a serial number on the tail that was assigned by the manufacturer the Boeing Company uh designed the B17 and produced 60% but Lai Vega and Douglas aircraft each uh produced 20% as well there were three different models of the B7 flowing in Europe first was the E model they only Built about 500 of those so it was quickly phased out by the F model and then it was replaced in the fall of 1943 by the definitive uh B17 model the G model which you can always tell by the chin turret underneath the nose here you see the crew positions on the plane again this is the G model with the chin turret you have the bombin ear in the nose and behind him the Navigator then the pilots above them the flight engineer and the Bombay and the radio operator ball turret underneath the plane two waist Gunners and then the tail Gunner the bombs uh hung up on racks in the bomb bay and it was really cramped in there this boy is only eight years old that cat walks you know 8 in wide so you can see how tight it is it was more cramped than a B7 than a submarine and occasionally on bomb runs uh these bombs would get hung up on the racks which would require one of the crewman either kick it Loose with his foot or get a wrench and knock it loose and when those Bombay doors are open he’s looking five miles straight down to the ground so that took a little courage to do that here you see the crew positions a little more more clearly this is the F model without the chin turret uh the the Bader’s first job was to drop the bombs accurately but in the G model when they were under attack he manned the chin the chin turret then you had the Navigator needed to know where they were and where they were going and went under attack he manned the cheek guns that were each side of the plane then above them you have the two pilots the first pilot in the left seat co- pilot in the right seat and you needed two pilots to fly these planes uh these missions were 6 to 10 hours of length so it was very Tire tiring both mentally and physically they flew in tight formation so they had to stay alert at all times or else they could clip a wing on a plane next to him or run into a plane in front of them and go down and also they had to continually fight the the turbulence uh during the flight they had the natural weather turbulence which we’ve all experienced in the commercial flight but they also had that turbulence of all those bombers being in s such close proximity to one another so the Wake turbulence and the props wash would just churn the air it’d be like trying to control the plane in a washing machine and above them you had the flight engineer he was man the top turret when they were under attack he was also called The Crew Chief and he was kind of the onboard mechanic and knew how everything worked and helped monitor all the instruments in the cockpit there were over 150 different gauges dials toggles and switches and the flight engineer would peer over the Pilot’s shoulders to help monitor engine per performance and fuel consumption and in the ball turret behind the Bombay you had the uh radio operator that was the most comfortable position on the plane he had a relatively spacious compartment and a chair to sit at and then then the most cramped position on the plane was the ball turret Gunner and again these missions were six to 10 hours in in length so being in that field position for hours on end was pretty uncomfortable then above the ball you have the two uh waste Gunners that was the most exposed position on the plane and then another cramped position in the tail uh tail Gunner my dad flew his first mission on November 3rd of 1943 to wilhelms Haven which was the first time the E Air Force had put up over 500 bombers on a mission and flying combat was amazingly dangerous and really brutal 26,000 men died in the eth Air Force which is more than the entire Marine Corps fighting in the Pacific another 28,000 men became prisoners of war after their planes were knocked out of the sky by enemy aircraft or uh uh an aircraft fire being a combat crewman in the eth Air Force in World War II was the most dangerous Duty in the United States military in World War II and it was dangerous from the time they took out to the time they landed uh there were about 40 bomb groups located in England an area called East Ang which was about the size of aont and on the day of the these uh bases were only about 5 to 10 miles apart so on the day of a mission you could have hundreds of bombers taken off all at the same time and back then there wasn’t any R radar there wasn’t air traffic control and usually the weather was socked in and you couldn’t see anything until you got above the cloud layer so midair collisions were not uncommon and airmen lost their lives then they had to form up individual planes formed into the three plane elements elements formed up into bomb squadrons bomb squadrons formed up into bomb groups bomb groups formed up into combat Wings combat Wings formed up into air divisions and all this took an hour to two hours before they could even begin their journey across the English Channel and then they had to fight the elements these planes weren’t pressurized so above 10,000 fet they had to go on oxygen or if not in a couple minutes they had passed out and could die and also it was extremely cold at the altitude they were flying it was minus 40 to 60 degrees below zero so frostbite was a huge problem one of my dad’s waste Gunners uh was in the hospital for two and a half months because of the seriousness of his frostbite injuries here you see a the combat gear that they wore this is a waist Gunner has his steel helmet tinted goggles his oxygen mask and he’s wearing a fla jacket that was like an apron that had metal plates in the front and the back to help protect him and his fleece like fleece line jacket pants gloves and boots and you see the white kind of strap around his waist that was parachute harness they didn’t actually wear their parachutes in the plane because it was too cramped so if they had to bail out they had to have their Woods about them to find the parachute to begin with and then clip it on hooks on the back of the harness and then bail out the next thing they had to deal with was enemy Fighters uh Germany had radar stations set up along the Continental coast of Europe so they knew when these bomber formations were coming and they’d send up their Air Force the loffa to intercept him here again you see a waist Gunner with his Flack jacket on you see all those spent cartridges on the floor of the plane which is like steepled on barbarians or Marbles and then you see Manning his 50 cal machine gun uh the ammunition for the machine guns came in belts of 27 feet in length so if a gunner fired the whole n the whole belt they said he fired the whole nine yards and some people think that’s where that expression came from at the beginning of the the war it was eth bomber command’s belief that these heavily armed bombers fled tight formations of 100 bombers could defend themselves from the loffa and they flew in what was called a combat box formation and this is the combat box of a wing and then within the box of the wing you see three boxes representing bomb groups then with each box of a Bomb Group you see three boxes representing bomb squadrons so the thought was that all this interlacing Firepower could ward off the LOF offer uh here you see the formation you know from the front from on the top and on the side it was a three-dimensional formation with a lead group a high group and a low grp but sadly these bomber formations could not defend themselves from the LOF Fafa and they took decimating to losses in the early years of the war in 1942 and especially in 1943 even though they implemented that 25 Mission limit it was statistically impossible to complete 25 missions the average number of missions flown before before being shot down in 1943 was only six and the losses culminated in the fall in October of 1943 when over a week’s time referred to as black week 148 bombers were shot down almost 1500 men the worst day was October 14th black Thursday when they sent 291 b7s to bomb the ballaran Factories at schweinf for and 60 of them were shot down 600 men lost 10 of the 15 be 17s of the 306 Bomb Group were lost that day well the Eighth Air Force was in shock there was no way they could sustain those losses and they discontinued flying into Germany for the remainder of the year it wasn’t until right at the end of 43 and the beginning of 49 when external fuel tanks were added to the P-47 Thunderbolts and the introduction of the P-51 Mustangs that they finally had escorts could take him all the way deep into Germany to the targets and escort them all the way back uh the P-51 Mustangs were particularly effective by the time D-Day rolled around June 6th they had wiped out or decimated the lofa and by the time dday rolled around the Allies had not only air superiority but Air Supremacy uh this particular P-51 that you see is owned by Tom Cruz that was in the movie uh top gun Maverick it’s uh they keep it at the ples of F air museum in California about 40 minutes from where I live the next thing they had to deal with is a enemy air was anti-aircraft fire this is a flack gun Flack was the abbreviation for the German W for aircraft defense Cannon and these were deadly weapons they fired 20 shells a minute and they were calibrated for the shells to explode at the same altitude that these bombers were flying and these shells were filled with all different shapes and sizes of razor sharp metal called shrapnel that would burst out hundreds of feet and easily penetrate the skin of these bombers it was so thin you could just take a screw screwdriver and just poke it right through it from a distance they look like innocent black Puffs but when these formations got into that killing field those Puffs got louder the explos explosions became deafening if a shell exploded near the the bomber it would just violently Rock the ship if a bomber was hit directly would basically just disintegrate and uh disappear it knocked off the wing that bomb would just plummet to the Earth my dad said even though it was so cold at that altitude he’d be sweating profusely and his clothes would be dripping wet uh from the adrenaline running through his body when they neared the target they reached the predesignated point called the initial point or the IP where they started their bomb run and at that time the first pilot gave control over the plane to the Bombadier who flew the plane through the nordon bomb site it was tied into the autopilot of the plane and it was a very revolutionary device at the time it was an analog computer that could calculate various factors such as the speed of the plane the altitude the speed was fly the plane was flying wind wind speed wind direction so they could accurately drop the bombs and they were very secretive about it too uh biters had take oath to defend this with their life but little did the US know at the time that the Germans knew all about it they had a spy Herman Lang in the NN bombsite Factory and uh knew everything about about it here you see the bombad here looking through the crosshairs of the bomb site when he released the bombs he’d yell bombs away and that would signal the first pilot to take control back of the plane and he make a big turn to get the heck out of there and go to another predesignated Point called a rally point where the bombers that made it through the bomb run tried to form up again and head back to their bases in England or once again they have to face enemy Fighters and not only that when they reached England they had numerous dangers they had to deal with uh the weather could be socked in they couldn’t even find their bases to land their bombers could be running out out of fuel there could be dead or injured pilots on the plane the plane might have uh absorbed a lot of battle damage engines out flight controls out and as a result uh crash Landings occurred frequently where more airmen lost their lives it was on a bombing mission to Frankfurt on February 8th of 1944 my dad plane dropped its bomb successfully but the Bombay doors got hit by Flack and they couldn’t get him back up and the result that caused the drag on the plane they lost air speed and they fell fell behind the formation heading back to their bases and they were singled out by two German ful wolf 190 Fighters and the ensuing Air Battle the Susan Ruth were shot down but both those ful wolf German Fighters were shot down as well one was piloted by sigf freed Merck his plane crashed and he was killed in the plane the other was piloted by Hans Berger who was able to bail out one day when I was doing my research my wife colinda saidwell why don’t you try to find the German pilot that shot down your dad’s plane and I’m thinking oh brother she’s so naive she has no idea what she’s talking about could be impossible but like a good husband I did what she told me to do and I found hansberger and fortunately for me became a a translator after the war so he speaks perfect English and I found out from Hans that the Gunners on my dad’s crew shot him down at the same time he shot my dad’s crew down they shot each other down and Hans gave me some wonderful Insight that’s in the book about what it was like to go up up against the mighty e Air Force I I mentioned that the book goes into detail about what happened to each member of the crew I don’t have time to go into each member of the crew tonight you’re going to have to buy a book to find that out but uh after my dad bailed out he came in down in these trees right at the French Belgium border and his parachute got hung up on the branches and he was dangling 20 ft off the ground and he couldn’t get down but fortunately for him a couple young Belgium men hry Franken and raon deran came to his rescue before the Germans got there uh this occurred early in the afternoon they went back to The Farmhouse got a ladder and a rope helped my dad down and they told him to stay put and hide because they thought it was too dangerous to move him during daylight with German patrols com in the area looking for these guys that had bailed out uh this is the tree that they helped him down down that’s hry Franken he sent this picture to my dad after the war and as T mentioned there was over over 200 time period photographs in the book you can visualize everything you’re reading about many that were taken by Belgium people either sent to my dad after the war from his helpers or that were provided to me sent to me from by Jack jacqu loo or Paul Delah so that night they took him to the Devan Farmhouse um that house is still there today uh uh those trees are in France the house is in Belgium so it’s right at the border and he only stayed there one night because again the thought that they thought it would be too dangerous for him to stay there any longer than that again with those German Patrols in the area so the next night a Belgium Customs officer Paul tillan came in a t tandem bicycle to take him to a safer location and they headed out in the middle of the night pitch black my dad said it was drizzling kind of miserable my dad had some shrap leg wounds in one leg so he can only pedal with his good leg and they came to a hill they couldn’t pedal the bike any further so they started pushing it up to the top of the hill when they got to the top of the hill there was this building there a little cafe Cabaret this is what it looked like in 1994 uh the light was on music was playing people were laughing and all of a sudden two German officers come walking out with two young French girls and one of them comes up to my dad puts his arm around him and ask him for a light for a cigarette my dad petrified he can’t speak German at that time he couldn’t speak French but Paul you know knew what they wanted and lit the the guy’s cigarette and they let him go in their way my dad said these German officers were too drunk as he used to say schnuer and too interested in these young girls to pay much attention to a couple guys pushing up a bike in the middle of the night and from there my dad was moved from place to place to place how long he stayed at any given location dependent on How brave the people were who lived there how dangerous the Belgium underground thought it was for him to stay there he might spend one night he might spend six weeks here you see my dad with some of his Belgium helpers he had many more than this uh but this gives you an example they stuck a beret on him to help try to blend in with the locals but he was 6′ three so quite a bit taller than any of the the local Belgium and the people who hid my dad or any down dman for that matter were unbelievably brave people they risk not only their lives but the lives of family and friends because of the German secret police found out about it that gapo that they’d be arrested tortured and either sent to a concentration camp or shot and some of the people who did help my dad and other members of my dad’s crew did meet that fate here you see a couple women that my dad stayed with for lengthy periods of time on the left is jzan be it was with her and her husband Maurice that my dad wrote his diary and on the right is Janette Gaden her husband was a captain in the French army who was captured in 1940 when Germany first invaded the lowlands it was a p for the remainder of the war and it was very stressful for my dad in hiding he was almost discovered several times and those are described in the book um but you know to begin with his plane was attacked it’s on fire he’s got a bail out he comes down in a foreign country he has no idea where he is doesn’t know what happened to his buddies on the plane can’t communicate with the US Military he’s being helped by totally Str by total strangers who can’t even communicate with one another my dad had a little French English dictionary and his a Escape kit and any of these people could be a collaborator and turn them over to the Germans uh I will talk about one uh time that he was almost discovered this was at the beu house in Chara uh at night time there was a loud pounding on the door and Maurice told my dad to get up on the roof and then he’d come back and get him once the Germans left the area well they never left the area my dad spent the whole night up on the roof and I’ve been in this house and you can’t see it from this angle this the photo but there’s a little tiny U window in the Attic that you have to squeeze through to try to get up on the tile rof roof which is really a steep steep pitch I can’t even imagine doing that but he was up there all night finally uh word came that the Allies landed at Normandy on June 6th and my Dad decided to get back into the fight uh unlike most Airmen uh he had that Year’s experience and in training uh in the Infantry so he knew how to fight on the ground and he wanted to join the French Resistance his uh helpers tried to talk him out of it because it’d be too dangerous you could die fighting you know being killed or if the Germans captured him he would have been shot on the spot as a terrorist but he felt there were other Americans fighting and and losing their lives their country and fighting for freedom and he thought it was his duty get back in the fight the safest thing for him to do and the most logical thing would just be to stay put hunkered down and wait till the US armies came up through France and liberated the area and I don’t know how many people would have made the decision that he did because that took a lot of courage and a lot of Bravery but he talked to one of his helpers into escorting him on bicycles down across the border into France and he hooked up with a unit of the fren resistance called the macki this is not the group my dad joined but it gives you an idea of what they look like uh the macki was small independent ragtag gorilla groups located all across France and their job was to harass the bru uh the Bruins the Germans uh they would uh disrupt Communications sabotage railroad lines assassinate German officers attack convoys and they got their directions from the British over the BBC through coded message mesages and my dad said the information they gave was unbelievably accurate if they said a German Convoy was coming down this road or this on this date at this time sure enough they’d be there and that was a result of the British cracking the German Enigma code and knowing everything that the Germans were up to this is the farmhouse in France that they they stayed at here you see my dad in front of it that picture was taken in 1994 and he stayed in that Tower where you see those two windows on What occasion it was early morning he just had his skibbies on shaving cream and he looked out the windows and saw a German Patrol coming up the road so he jumped out the these grain windows and the second story and then hi tailed it into the the woods and uh try to escape so he wouldn’t be be caught who took this picture and how ever got how I ever got back to my dad I’ll never know but this is my dad fighting with the French Resistance 80 years ago and there’s a number of encounters that are in the book of the the macki group attacking convoys which are are pretty thrilling they right there in front jumping out of the Jeep and the white light clothes uh finally word came that there were US troops in trone France it was September 2nd of 44 seven months after he bailed out he went into the Town Square went up to an Army Major it was an element of Patton’s third Army which come up through France after D-Day he identified himself they interrogated him to make sure he was who he said he was and then he uh caught a ride with a on a convoy taking German prisoners to Paris and then hopped on a transport and got back to England where he sent a Western Union telegram to my mother saying back at base fit as a fiddle Bank the money honey because he had all that back pay coming Belgium is a wonderful little country a lot of people don’t realize it’s divided in two the upper portion is called Flanders where they speak a dialect of Dutch Flemish and it’s rather industrial and more heavily populated and then the lower half is wallonia but they speak French and it’s all rural Farmland um I don’t think my pointer is going to work here but oh yeah right here is where uh really all the action took place where the plane came down actually my dad and the plane came down in Belgium and the other guys that were able to bail out came down in France and then were brought back across the border into Belgium either by Germans who captured them or the French Resistance and then my dad was heading in Chara for for a while and then that French Farmhouse for the macki group stayed in Tron France where he was liberated right around here the Belgian people are wonderful people to this day they are so thankful and so grateful for the Americans and the Allies coming to their rescue and liberating them from four years of Nazi occupation and Nazi oppression and they do a great great job of educating the younger Generations as well in 1984 Dr deah formed the Belgium American Foundation to remember and honor uh events that took place and they’ve erected a number of memorials in the area where they have celebrations but the big celebrations always surround September 2nd when this area of Belgium was liberated and they’re wonderful events this is a poster from the 70th anniversary of they last several days and they erect these these big tents it’s just a portion of one that sees hundreds of people and they have band concerts and dances and dinners and lunches and everyone has a fun time uh the local Volunteers dresss in Period outfits and the local beard Chim just floats and everyone has a grand time but they have solemn occasions as well when they have ceremonies at various memorials in the area uh this is the memorial at sron which is right at the French Belgium border where the US ninth infantry first crossed over from France over the warts River into Belgium to liberate the country all the villagers come out uh all the dignitaries local dignitaries make speeches uh the US military is there the 4 24th uh air base at Chev chevs comes down the Belgian military are there the French military uh the US ambassador to Belgium comes down with an Entourage they’re just wonderful very moving and emotional events and again you can see here you know those young people up in front in to you know signify and make the you know so they realize the importance of these events like most World War II veterans my dad didn’t talk a lot about uh the war until they erected a memorial to my my dad’s crew in 1989 in macis Belgium was right near where the plane came down and my dad and three other members of his crew that were still living at the time went over for the dedication and there my dad was reunited with all these Belgium people that hit him and Revisited these places where he was hiding and it brought it all back and he started talking about it here you see my dad at the day dedication the man with the beard is Dr deah my dad in his red white and blue tie then next to him is Janette gdin who I showed you in that earlier picture then next to her is nly tillan she was the wife of that Belgium Customs Customs officer Paul tillan a couple months after he helped my dad he was arrested by the Gestapo tortured sent to prison and narrowly escaped being executed but because of the torture he took and the beatings he took he died at a young age of only like about in his early 50s and then the man in a trench Cod trench code that’s the other man that held my dad down from the trees rayon deran I’ve Bel been to Belgium six times I made my first trip to Belgium in 1994 with my father and my my parents and that’s when it became personal for me because I went around and saw these places firsthand you see I’m on the on the the left my dad uh my mother Ruth and then that’s my other sister Nancy in the picture she was born while my dad was missing an action so that was really tough on my mom because here she’s back home she has a one-year-old Susan Ruth and an infant baby Nancy never knowing if she’d ever see her husband again on two of the occasions uh I’ve traveled on to Munich Germany to visit that uh German lofa of pilot Hans Berger who shot down my dad’s plane and we became friends he said it was unfortunate that they had to be shooting at each other but it was was war and he would always say we weren’t all evil Nazis now he was pretty much just like the US Airman he was 19 20 years old trying to do a job fighting for his country and trying to stay alive here we are in his apartment he has his fighter jacket on and you can’t really see his Iron Cross there but he shot down seven b7s and one Spitfire he was shot down three times himself uh the only reason I think he even made it through the war is that at the beginning of 1945 they pulled him out of combat to become a test pilot for the h hankle uh 162 single engine jet fighter that they were trying to perfect which they never did but I think that saved his life then here you see Hans and me we had to go to theit go brow house to have a cold one uh this is my dad and me at the World War II uh Memorial in 2004 I accompanied him to a reunion of the Air Force escape and evasion Society actually in the King of Prussia here and then we took a bus down to the uh Memorial it was before it was officially dedicated he wanted to see the memorial before he died that was the last trip he ever took uh he died three years later in 2007 uh he was wasn’t the last crew member to die but he was the oldest at 91 and today all the World War II veterans are in their late 90s or over a hundred at the end of the war there were 16 million veterans that as you can see from this graph it’s a little old but that’s been declining uh rapidly and now there’s only about a 100,000 of these men still with us there was no other event in history that affected more people than World War II 60 million people died Millions more were left were wounded Millions more were left homeless and displaced it changed the course of America and the world forever and the brave young men who fought and died for Freedom were without doubt the greatest generation and their sacrifice must never be forgotten it’s our duty to remember thank you thank you thank you uh we’re going to show a little 13-minute documentary and then after that I’ll be glad to take questions uh from the audience if you have any like most World War II veterans my dad didn’t talk a lot about the war growing up I knew the basics I knew it was a B7 team pilot his plane was named to Susan Ruth he flew bombing missions over occupied Europe and on February 8th in 1944 his plane was shot [Music] down I had a wonderful relationship with my father he was a tough guy you know kind of a non nonsense guy we compared him to John Wayne he was that type of character my parents grew up in an area with tough times they went through the depression and they were tough people as a result of That World War II came along and there was no other event in history that affected more people when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7th the country rallied they believed in their cause and they were willing to sacrifice all to achieve Victory flying combat was incredibly dangerous the average number of missions flown before being shot down with six for these guys to keep going up you know on mission after mission knowing that the next one could be their last took a lot of bravery and a lot of guts I got shot down on my eighth Mission I was up in the air and two FS came in and shot us they came in about 1:00 they just made one pass blew up two of my men were killed in the lane two evaded capture I was one of them and my tail Gunner was and then three of them got down safely but they were picked up by the Germans and they were interrogated and then they were marched out in the woods and shot the back the head three Bel Farmers saw the shoot open and they came running over and they threw me a rope pulled me up to the tree and got me out of the tree took me off into the woods and hid me they were different personalities of course some of them were Brave some of them were scared to death the ones that were scared of hiding they they moov you great quick the ones that didn’t wen’t scared I mean you might stay there six weeks they risked not only their lives but the lives of their family and friends if the German secret police the Gestapo found out about it it’d be arrested tortured and Nei sent to a concentration camp or shot and some of the people that helped my dad and his other members of the crew met that fate word came that the Allies had landed at Normandy on June 6th so he knew they’d be coming up through France to liberate that area his Belgium helpers accompanied him over the Belgium border into France and joined up with a unit of the French Resistance called the macki they would disrupt Communications sabotage railroad l lions attack convoys assassinate German officers and so he fought with them for a couple months the very first hours of the 2nd of September 1944 few Jeeps uh of the reconnaissance party of the 60s Infantry Regiment crossed the border and there the Belgian population were waiting for for the liberators they were waiting that for four long years and uh they saw the liberators coming in and they were waving they had was it was very happy days for the old people of Belgium word came that there were uh US troops in a nearby Village of trone France so he walked into the village into the town square up to a Army Major I dad identified himself and that ended his seven months of missing an [Music] action the Belgium people saw firstand the atrocities committed by the Nazis to this day they are so grateful and so thankful still for the Americans coming to their rescue and liberating them from Nazi oppression my father Paul De started the Belgian American foundation in 1984 it was for the 40th anniversary of the liberation of Belgium the gis had been killed deserved the right to to to be honored and to to receive homage from us because they give their life for for us every year they have ceremonies at these various memorials that they’ve erected in the area on the anniversary dat to those events but the big celebrations are always on September 2nd the anniversary day of the liberation of Belgium your father came the first time in 1988 I remember him when he came the the first time because we were very young so that was the Americans we had never seen Americans you know so that was a bit crazy in 1994 I took my first trip to Belgium uh with my parents there was an event there were hundreds of people in this Hall and we were a little late arriving my dad walked in and the entire Place stood up and started applaud him and it was really moving you know they treated him like he was the president of the United States I can never forget it I got a whole new appreciation for my dad because you know I knew these stories but you know you hear the stories but you know they’re not that personal to you which when you’re there and you seen these places where the events took place been in rooms where my dad was hidden and he was right here he climbed out this window to get up on this roof and the history is preserved right there the locals really saves my Dad’s life it’s a war we fought together he came here to liberate my country why would and I help him I corresponded with him from the time I got back to the States until they died they’re wonderful people they’re brave people I mean they risk their life to keep you from being captured my parents had kept a lot of material from the war there were two items that were really significant one was the diary that my dad wrot wrote while he was missing an action and the other item were all the letters that my dad wrote to my mother during the war that she had kept and sitting down one time manying several hours reading these letters and I just became fascinated with the story of my dad and his crew and it became my passion I just came to the conclusion that the story of my dad and his crew was so unique and so compelling that it needed to be told people needed to hear about it and so I decided to write a book shot down focuses on one crew and what happened to each member of that crewp that it just makes for a fascinating Story one that hasn’t been told all that the US military knew was that my dad’s plane was shot down by two ful wolf German Fighters and I just assume that’s all I’d ever know one day during my research my wife glund had said why don’t you try to find the German pilot that shot him down but like a good husband I did what she told me to do and I found hansberger he’s 95 years old now he lives in Munich Germany here’s a picture of picture of that’s pretty neat as your plane your picture and your autograph the young people of today they have no idea what our life was what the time was what what difficulty we had and that we were not all evil Nazis but we were people like you and me and we just grew up in in different spheres this feary your father and me met and shut I’ve been asked several times like well don’t you hate this guy that shot down your dad’s plane but uh no good for you from the very GetGo I felt a personal relationship with Hans he was 20 years old he was fighting for his country just trying to do a job and trying to stay alive and World War II was the defining moment of my father’s life really I think it’s the defining moment for any guy’s life who fought in World War II yeah and Hans is a part of my Dad’s life a part of his story and so uh I had no ill feelings toward HT and uh we become friends never thought that I’d meet the son of a guy I shut down yeah well I never thought I’d meet you either I know the the facts but more want to know the why or how he felt because I never asked him about it until it was too late yes I do he was a great man it’s too bad that I didn’t do all this while he still living we had a deep respect for the American troops who came and helped us we know that if they didn’t the world wouldn’t be the same today I’m trying to do now the same with my kids so I’d like them to to learn about that and first to learn respect towards the American who came and and did it and sacrificed for us I do think that we own them Liberty we it’s the L we can do uh it’s try to make sure they will never be forgotten as World War II fades in the memory of people lose sight of what took place what that generation fought for because you know the old expression if you don’t learn from history you’re going to repeat it they say that for a reason so it gives you appreciation for your freedom and maybe better appreciation for the people that serve and gives a better appreciation and value for your country so that that’s one of the reasons why I do what I do is to try to keep the memory uh alive [Music] [Music] [Music] so if anyone has any questions I’d be glad to uh answer them one thing I didn’t mention I hope to uh I’m going back to Belgium this fall for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Belgium and I had hoped to visit Hans one last time but sadly Hans passed away this last January 20th at age 100 so uh I won’t be able to see him again C you got me yeah there you go thank you that was really moving um I was just wondering if your sister Susan Ruth is she still with us yes uh Nancy’s no longer with us but uh Susan uh she’s five years older than me she lives in Scottdale Arizona can I ask how she feels about having a historic airplane named after her I don’t know sorry well actually there are more down there in the in the story that are involved um and who were killed and half of them were brought back to the States and uh half of them are still buried in uh in uh Europe one uh is buried at Arden American cemetery in Belgium and four of the men in the shot down story are buried in margar the N uh Netherlands uh American cemetery I noticed the one photograph of the uh grounds crew and I was trying to count the number and I got into like 28 or 29 but I don’t think I counted them all how many were in a typical ground crew to support the 10 people in the plane yeah in in that picture there’s a few more people than than we’re in the the actual ground crew but I think they was about 13 if I remember correctly um I wanted to say thank you for your presentation um I really appreciated the photographs of the uh what it looked like inside the plane like I heard of these positions before but I had no comprehension of exactly what the uh men went through and so I thank you for that I also just wanted to share that um um I had a runin with a Belgium veteran at the Harrisburg Airport 10 years ago uh and he walked up to me and thanked me profusely for the America’s help in Belgium um he brought me to tears I mean I’m not a vet I contributed nothing to that but he thanked me as an American um and I just wanted to share that with the group after what you said thank thank you I went back uh the second time I went to Belgium was in 2004 at the 60th anniversary my parents weren’t well enough to travel but it was completely embarrassing because they treated me like I was some you know World War II vet like and it was very unnerving you know because here I was just the son of the of the pilot and they’re treating me like I was a hero it was uh very uh I didn’t like it uh yeah first of all I want like other people said thank you so much for speaking to our group tonight we really appreciate it it was a really great presentation um you mentioned during your your talk um how thin the outer shell of the B17 was but of course it’s and as you stated it’s legendary for it to be able to survive so much so much battle damage so I’m wondering how what what was it about the plane that made it very durable and I also was wondering if you might want to comment on you know comparing the B17 and its service record to the B24 Liberator well the infrastructure of the of the B17 was really strong um even though the thin aluminum skin on it was was just I forget you know how much thicker it is than aluminum foil not uh but uh the infrastructure was really solid and yeah I I’ve go to gone a lot of these eight there for re unions you know and the the B7 guys and the B24 guys you know would get in these arguments and it’s true that the the B24 could fly faster um it it could carry a larger payload um but it could could not take the battle damage at all that the B17 could also could not fly as high as the B17 and if you ditched in like the channel or the North Sea in a uh B2 before it broke apart and the wings are on top of the plane so it just sank immediately where the B2 B17 as Wings you know on the side it would float and allow these guys to get out and the any pilot that I’ve talked to that flew a B7 Anna B24 said the B17 was Superior I’m Prejudice of course but question over here uh I have a similar Belgian story uh when I was a junior military officer in the Army in the late 1970s I was over in Europe uh for two weeks for a NATO conference and I’m in a g house in Germany and you know in a g house you sit next to whoever’s there and I’m sitting next to this uh this lieutenant colonel in the Belgian Army and we start talking and I told him that my dad was a ground crew chief on b7s during World War II and his eyes teared up and he grabbed my hand and he said when you go home you tell your dad I said thank you he said I remember as a Young Man the b7s flying over and they actually bombed my Village but we not we were not upset by that because we knew that what they were doing was going to bring freedom to us and I said my dad didn’t fly he was just a ground crew just a ground crew chief he was a ground crew chief and he said it doesn’t matter he was part of what freed us from the Germans so yeah the Bel that’s my memory of the thanks that the Belgium people had yes that’s what they’re like it’s amazing so I’ve been to a couple of uh museums with having the b7s and there was one that had plexiglass for the side Gunners now I know that came late in the war did your dad’s plane have the plexiglass covered to keep some of the weather Etc out yes the G model that came along in the fall of 43 had Plex of glass windows in in the at the waste guns also in the F model they were open you know can you can imagine what the wind like was Po in that also in the F model the two Gunners were right across from each other and they would bumping into each other so they they offset them in the in the in the G model uh my dad had just got a new G model that he flew the G model the last two missions up until that point he flew uh the F models but he went down in the G model thanks for your presentation uh were you able to discover any information on the wreckage of your father’s plane and also throughout his Saga was he able to hang on to any of his flight gear or any sort of U memorabilia from the flight um when the plane went down the Germans surrounded it because they they needed scrap metal and they they recycled it and so no one was able to get really uh close to the plane they did get uh some local Belgian people some parachutes that they made dresses out of baby clothes a wedding gown handkerchiefs uh they did get some plexiglass in fact they made little crosses that they sent to my mother and my grandmother which my wife and sister have now um but other than that no although on one trip to Belgium a Belgium friend of mine said he knew a guy that was a collector and he had pieces of my dad’s plane this guy couldn’t speak English the other guy his friend so I went over to their his his house and he has his museum with all this stuff and he gave me two pieces and I was ecstatic but then when I brought him well I brought a small piece back home the other piece was like this big I couldn’t get that on the plane so I donated it to the little Museum that’s there in Belgium but then I found out afterwards it wasn’t a B7 it was a Halifax so I was pretty disappointed about that but as far as mobilia my dad brought back a uh a handgun a Spanish uh Yama a 9 millimeter pistol that he he used when he was fighting with the resistance um this is his uh graduation ring from a advanced pilot training uh he does have uh he had some Nazi emblems and he got off uh uh uniforms that he dedicated to the museum he dedicated his Eisen hour jacket to the museum in Belgium I do have a a a German tank Sergeant belt though a Nazi tank Sergeant belt that they took off a uh tank Sergeant when they were attacked a convoy so I do have uh some nice memoral bilia with the amount of b7s we were losing in 1942 how did they ever keep up with production well the early years in 42 they had a real tough time you know supplying enough planes and that was a big problem that General Aker had that you know they they they didn’t have enough planes so they were more vulnerable because the formations weren’t that big and so it was just it wasn’t until 43 that they finally started uh getting the production up to get enough uh planes over there they had enough Pilots but at the beginning of the war they didn’t have enough you know bombers to send over there but gradually they were able to build up and then once the you know the production got roll and then they were just coming off the assembly line you know that’s the thing that overwhelmed both the Japanese and and the Germans is our production capability although the Germans really kept up with production their problem was they didn’t have enough fuel to fly the planes and all their experienced Pilots pretty much were were killed and these younger Pilots didn’t have any uh training time because they couldn’t waste fuel on training flights so these German Pilots toward the end of the war they would go up with just a handful of hours they’d be going up these against these us fighter pilots that had hundreds and hundreds of hours and so was a total mismatch my dad was a supply sergeant with 100 uh I’m sorry with the eth Air Force and uh I wonder if you would happen to know if a supply sergeant was assigned to a plane or or were they just general supply for the whole Squadron or I don’t know for sure but I would my guess would be that they before they they would have it be assigned to a squadron yeah so they’ handle that whole Squadron so my dad would never talk about the war and my sisters and I always wondered you were just a supply sergeant you you didn’t see combat or anything so why uh were you uh reluctant to talk about it but then over the years I’ve come to understand that they would know these me these crew members they would see a plane go over the horizon and crash and into a big Fireball and they’d see the planes come back with people all shot up in the plane missing wings and stuff so I understood finally yeah because you know a lot of those bomb bombers were not not a lot but significant number you know crashed on takeoff and lost the whole 10-man crew or these planes coming back you know injured or killed and they called it sweating out the mission you know all the guys back at the base they would wait for these bombers to come back you probably seen this in movies movies where they’ you know they sent whatever 20 planes out and they would count them to see if there’s 20 and then there’s only 13 and you know they did know those guys and had friends so it did affect them without a doubt yeah uh I was wondering how many people or how many of the crew uh bailed out with a parachute or did they all crash land no one was in excuse me no one was in the plane where it crashed two were killed in the plane and the other eight bailed out and something different happened to each one of those eight guys so we’ve been advertising masters of the year I know a lot of people haven’t seen it because it was on Apple TV and it was difficult to watch for some people but what was your impression of the show I imagine you’ve seen it oh yeah okay good yeah asked you that ahead of time I’ve watched everyone as as they aired um the the greatest thing I think they did was to show what it was like the flight combat missions the terror and the chaos in the plane uh when they were flying those missions between the flak exploding and and the enemy Fighters um some other things uh unlike Band of Brothers they couldn’t really they didn’t have that good of character development one thing that I didn’t really like is that they switch back and forth between this venue and that venue so it’s kind of hard to keep track and and also in the plane you know they have their uh oxygen Mass saw so you really can’t tell one guy from another and then they’re talking in their intercom which is kind of garble so you didn’t get that personal connection like with the banded brothers because you just followed them and got to know them so well uh and then they did certain things like they put in the tusky Airmen that did not fly with the Eighth Air Force there were with the 15th Air Force in in Italy but the thing that kind of threw me off to begin with was uh Austin Butler because I don’t know if many people seen the movie Elvis but he played Elvis in the move and he talked just like Elvis Presley In This World War II movie and I was going wait a minute good but it it was it was it was very good and then well they they really didn’t touch on what you know shot down is about and that’s all what happened about these guys that were shot down and miss seen in action for you know months and months and interacted with the resistance in the underground knowing that these guys flew together um they became family members did the surviving ones um did they also after the years go to the families of the ones that died and did they let them know or did they you know spend Christmas time with these families uh the the ones who were killed I I don’t know that I know the guy the five of the crew member that survived uh my dad you know they got together occasionally you know uh socially there actually his Bombadier lived in Pasadena not too far from my parents so they saw each other uh semi often I even met him when I was uh younger but you know when of your kids you go Steve come in and say hello to Mr Daniels and Mr muel and their wives so you go okay and you okay can I go back to my room now you know you just don’t appreciate this stuff until you get older but I’ve become friends with relatives of all the crew you know those that have survived and and those who were killed and so that’s very special and uh at the 70th anniversary of The Liberation and the 75th we had about 25 different people a group of about 25 relatives go over for those and participate which was really nice see uh when you were back in Belgium for some of the memorial Services did you get to the Henry Chappelle Cemetery yes that’s where my father’s buried oh yeah the cemeteries have been to well H hry Chappelle the Arden uh kville you know dday in Normandy the Netherlands American cemetery and then also the Cambridge Cemetery I can I can second your feeling the belgians are very grateful still yeah yeah you just get such a humble feeling when you visit those cemeteries and just row and row and row of you know of of grave markers yes like everyone uh thank you so much for the wonderful presentation and uh this is a little more of a I don’t know talk about tactics you’ve been to the reunions of the bomber if I’m not mistaken uh the British Air Force was really night you know they bomb they were pretty much primarily bombing at night where the Americans were that was a decision I believe that was made where Americans would do the daylight bombing or they felt because of accuracy did did you ever get any sense of any of that kind of controversy not really controversy but decision on that strategy of daylight bombing versus night well it was definitely a controversy um the British tried daylight bombing but they took too many losses they go but there’s no way we can bomb during the day so they started bombing at night and the British did uh area bombing or carpet bombing and they decided to bomb cities because they thought if they kill civilians that the civilian population would put pressure on the Nazis to to end the war but that didn’t happen and then when the Americans came and started B uh daylight bombing the British thought the we were crazy doing that and uh Church show was pushing no you got a bomb at night you got a bomb at night uh but then in uh Janu January of uh 43 at the C of a conference uh that had the British and the Americans Ira AER convinced Churchill that well if you bomb at night and we bomb during the day it’ll be around the clock bombing and the Nazis will not get any rest at all so Church thought like that idea so he goes okay then you guys can uh bomb during the day but you know the NN D bomb site was this revolutionary bomb site you know and before the war started they say oh they could drop you know bomb and a pickle Barrel but it wasn’t near that accurate when they were uh training in the United States they’re in Texas they’re in Arizona you know nice climate you know no clouds whatsoever they’re at 15,000 feet and they were really accurate in training in the United States but then when they got over there and you know the weather was horrible uh clouds you could hardly see anything and then you’re 25,000 ft and you got Flack exploding all over the place and enemy Fighters the accuracy went way way way down so the even the though the US wanted to do prec Precision daylight bombing there was still lots of collateral damage Mr Snider thanks for coming to talk to us tonight um so I kind of have a story where my wife and I we were in our early 20s and I saw my grandfather and she kind of prompted all this and it led to an interesting conversation we went down to uh South Florida to hang out with him one summer and it was just a random afternoon and uh uh she’s like let’s play Twister like my grandfather’s not gonna play Twister you know like I don’t know what you’re trying to do here so sure enough uh he he did he played like he took like the little color C code thing and spun it around and her and I would do the little contortions and stuff but it was kind of funny you just start talking and all of a sudden he starts talking about his first wife wait wait what you know he’s like he’s like yeah yeah when I was first married after I got out of basic like hold on what are you talking about you talking about Grandma he’s like no no no my grandfather had a warh bride who knew you know so it was like one of those things where you just kind of hear like a record scratch in the middle of like you know it’s like you know and it’s like timeout so I talk to my dad and his brother and sister and they’re like yeah you know they we had no idea either so it was just this random thing so yeah my my wife I can kind of relate to you about having your wife kind of PR you along and find out something new but I I appreciate you know the sentimentality you showed in the video there at the end I know for me I miss my grandfather immensely like I remember he’d call me when I was on deployment he came to see me got in the van drove 12 hours to come see me graduate from basic and AIT and all that brought the dogs everybody you know it was great to see him um you know when I when he called me when I was on deployment are you eating good yes sir are you warm yes sir trust me I’m plenty warm you know all sorts of things like that and you know and so when he passed you know I felt it personally and and so when I was in my late 30s my dad and brother and Si his brother and sister my aunt and uncle gave me a box of medals and a couple photographs of them and they’re like hey you know this this is for you and it’s like you get all these different pieces of his life like you’re looking at 20 some odd years of a military career here and there’s like a distinguished service cross which is still a mystery because I don’t have any record of him getting that it’s the second highest medal of valor but it is very worn so I don’t know how he got that but I’m finding researching him and now I’m I’m working on my great-grandfather who fought with the a in the first world war they’re still here with me you know and that’s great and I just you know I I I really felt your sentiment there when when you in your video it’s like for me it keeps them all alive I’m still there it’s still back in the 80s we’re still laughing and having a good time or having a snowball fight with my grandfather when I was a little boy and you know that kind of thing so thank you thank you for your effort and thanks for speaking to us tonight thank you that’s it’s nice very nice sorry my wife proud of me again um just curious what happened with your father after I I I we couldn’t quite put the pieces together what happened after he fought with the French Resistance and when he went back to England was he re recycled and sent back on missions again or was it after 45 and and the war was over good question uh they sent him back home to be a B17 flight instructor uh they had a rule that if you were shot down and aided by the underground you could not go back into combat because they thought if you were shot down a second time captured by the Germans and tortured you’d give up their identity of the people that helped you the first time you were shot down the only exception to that was Chuck Hager who person met with General Eisenhower and got back into combat one last question uh my dad was in uh he said about the b7s my dad was at Mountain Home Idaho and uh one of his jobs was he was the guy I think B24 or b26 I’m not sure which they would fly around the b7s and they’ put a Target out the back on a on a cable and let this Gunner shoot at the Target yeah and he had some stories okay we’re going to do the raffle before we do our gift and final announcements might need a hand here you mind taking one number out first all right it is 26911 056 winner One winner you need to validate that and our second ticket goes to 039 I have 039 I better check my pocket it’s not me somebody have 039 bill has it all right congratulations Bill well done all right he’s working there so he doesn’t need it he just Don and by the way Steve’s going to be at the air show all three days so you can get his book outside tonight signed or for the next three days ticket 012 012 last three digits 0 one2 it’s not me I’m in the 20s I think yeah one two one two all right never know are you got to stay here for a second I’ll hand it off to Chris to say thank you and give you a Parting Gift I’ll take that from you thanks for everybody for contributing in the raffle obviously those funds are going to good use for our program we appreciate it congratulations to all the Raffle winners I just have a few moments to keep your attention for at the end here I’m going to give a gift to the speaker and I have a couple closing remarks I’ll try to be somewhat brief uh Steve thanks so much for your presentation um I have our famous World Cup uh sorry not World Cup I’m a soccer fan though uh um World War II Round Table um a coffee mug and um it’s our new one actually uh our book guy who’s also on our board member Robin said let’s get the two-sided one the new one we have so we gave him the brand new one and uh the our old ones had just on one side with the logo so you you get the new one with both sides and thank thank and thank you so much for your presentation and your uh and your video and your PowerPoint uh nice to meet you tonight for the first time uh um and I don’t know if you guys knew this but Steve came all the way in from California so he had quite a h journey to make tonight uh or today actually he arrived yesterday but he’s here now so but um so thank you Steve uh you really added a lot to our history about the d7s and your father and and his Squadron and the history of the eth Air Force thank you thank you so much and like um like Jeff said Steve will be at um the air show I know a lot of you are going to go to it I plan to go to it probably a lot of you as well I know definitely some of you are you told me some of you but anyway you you’ll have a chance to say hi to Steve at the uh hanger at the air show if you go there this weekend as well um just a few more words um our next speaker oh thank you he’s gonna go he’s going to go in the back to sign some books then um yeah uh see will be at the back to sign some books just a few more words um next month uh July 11th as Jeff said Dr Eugene Richardson Tesa G irman I don’t know if you’ve ever had a Tusa G irman not that I can recall uh hearing about or being there for so I think it’s a new thing for us and that’ll be remarkable uh we also have August 1 uh World War to veteran arm US Army uh 740th tank Battalion only fighting at 16 because he went in underage in the Army 16 years old can you imagine fighting the first SSS paner division at SS Adolf Hitler division at 16 years old and coming out alive through that he’ll be there on August 1st for us and um thanks to all the veterans once again thanks to our founder and president first president Bill Jackson thank you sir and thank you for loyalty for always coming to our meetings as well um we want to also um thanks to all our board members thank you and our volunteers all helmet committee guys are in the back with the blue shirts on and uh the helmets and if you want to be so kind as to give us a ation tonight we’d appreciate that um not required but we would appreciate it if you can if you want to uh um help us out with our expenses um and so I would to wish you a good night and um if you go to the air show maybe I’ll see you over there otherwise I’ll see you next month thank you guys have a good night thank you
1 Comment
I loved this video. Very good recap of the book and story of WWII. The use of maps and pictures really helped bring the story to life. Since meeting you at the Lyon Museum a few years ago, I’ve followed your interviews etc on YouTube and this is one of my favorites. Thanks for all you do to keep the memory of these great vets alive.