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Ploiesti Tail Gunner!

O

OBIO

Retired SOH Admin
Deb sent me to McDonalds to grab lunch for us today. As I was leaving with our Big Macs and fries, an older gentleman wearing a WWII Veteran hat held the door open for a couple women leaving in front of me. He continued holding the door open for me....but I montioned him to come on in. As I do whenever I encounter someone who is a veteran of the armed forces, or who is currently serving, I gave him a salute and told him "Thank You". I shook his hand as I told him that his generation defeated the greatest evil the human race had ever faced. He looked at me as said "We lost a lot of men. We lost 58 bombers that day....that's over 580 lives lost." As he was saying this, his eyes glassed over with held back tears. Then he stood a bit straighter, his eyes hardened as his mind returned to that long ago day, and he said "But we got the job done." Then he said one word that stood out among all the rest. Ploiesti.

At that moment, I realized that I was talking to a man who was on the mission that was later to be called "Black Sunday". One hundred and seventy seven B-24s departed Lybia, carrying 1,726 pilots, co-pilots, navigators, bombadiers, gunners and radio operators. Fifty four planes and 532 men did not return.

I asked him what his job was on the Liberator....and he said that since he was the smallest man on the crew, he got shoved into the tail of the plane to man those guns. He said that it was cold and boring back there....and that he frequently fell asleep. The pilot would call back to him every so often to make sure he was awake. He said that he was wide awake the entire mission to and from Ploiesti....and for days afterward.

It was an honor standing in his presence, and the look in his eyes as he said "But we got the job done" is something that I will carry with me for years to come. My only regret....that I did not go back to the counter with him and buy his lunch. Only after I got close to home did I realize just what I had failed to do.....I failed to give back to this man who risked his life so many times fighting the greatest evil our world has known and ensuring freedom for all generations to come.

Tim
 
I met a Doolittle Raider that way Obio, although it was at the grocery store and not McDucks.

After the second time we met there, both times with my son, he invited us to his home to see his memorabilia. After a couple of visits with him and his most gracious wife , I deployed on one of my own assignments and I'm afraid that I lost track of him.

He flew on Plane 15.
 
Wow, what an honor Tim. :applause: Thanks very much for sharing your story with us. The WWII vets are an amazing group of fellas. Heroes all. :medals: Recently me and a group of fellow Southwest Airlines employees participated in an Honor Flight http://www.honorflight.org/ to escort the vets to visit their memorial in Washington DC. It was truly an honor for me to be given the privilege to push Jim's (US Navy gunner) wheelchair. It's a day I'll never forget. By the way, here's a video I was watching just yesterday. Kinda weird that Tim would post his story today. :icon_lol: http://archive.org/details/TheRearGunner

Brian
 
We were out having lunch one day and this older couple came in and sat across from us. The gent had a Pearl Harbor Survivor hat on. We finished before they did and I asked the waitress what their bill was going to be. She told us and I said add that and the tip to mine. I said if asked about it I told her to give him my card, it was one of the last I had that had made while in the Navy, on the back I wrote "thank you for your service and sacrifice, as a fellow Sailor it is my pleasure to buy you lunch, we always take care of our own. I and everyone of my Shipmates signed it including our rates.

When we came through the next week the waitress remembered us and told me that the old gent was a little embarrassed until he read the back of the card then he said he understood why I and my buds did that.
 
You did not fail him one little bit. Just letting him know that there was someone from your generation who actually is aware of what kind of sacrifices his made has to have made his day better.

Buying him a big mac isn't quite the same as buying him a drink.

So don't fret one little bit; you done good.
 
People talk about meeting actors and politicians and calling it a "brush with greatness", but I contend that meeting and talking with a veteran is a real brush with greatness.
 
I had a similar experience some years back when visiting Windsor, Ontario while back in the Detroit area to see the family. We stopped by a place in Windsor for a bite and I noted the inside of the place was cozy but a little dim, like it had blackout curtains. An elderly gentleman and his wife who were close to us asked me how I knew about blackout curtains; I mentioned to him my parents had told me about that many times, both in the states during WWII (my mom) and in Britain and then the continent (Dad - although in his case it was usually a blanket, groundsheet, shelter half or raincoat thrown over any opening or device in the field that could emit light). He said he hadn't heard that term since being in Britain in the RCAF during WWII. I asked him if he were with a Canadian squadron or wing in Fighter Command or Bomber Command's No. 6 Group (Bomber Command's all-Canadian heavy bomber group), and he expressed further astonishment that anyone who wasn't Canadian could know that. He was intrigued when I told him I had followed that for many years. What followed was a most wonderful discussion about life in Canada in WWII, his flight training on the great Canadian prairie, and then in a Canadian bomber squadron in WWII. Of course, this was accompanied by a lot of eye-rolling on the part of his wife and mine. There are fewer and fewer stories like this out there as each day passes. I would suggest to all our readers who come in contact with any of these men you gain as much from them as you can, if they are willing to talk about it, and record it somewhere before some revisionist gets his hands on the story and changes it out of all relationship with reality - because he's got an agenda to peddle. Also, check your kids' school textbooks as well and don't be shy about correcting the record where necessary. I have!:pop4:
 
This past October,...I had the privilege of meeting a gent who served under Patton. By chance encounter I had stopped off at my next door neighbor's place for a brief moment before leaving for a restaurant. My neighbor's friends (visiting from St. Louis area) where all senior citizens plus this fellow who would be in his lower 90's of age. After learning he had served under Patton I started to pepper him with questions. The usually questions...."did you meet Patton?"...."what did you think of him?"......"what was it like serving under him?" and so forth.
I had to cram all these questions in within a minute or two since we had to meet other persons at the restaurant. It ended all to quickly. I would have loved to have talked to him for a lot longer but not to be.
 
Reply...

Tim,

I have had found myself in a couple of those situations as well; there is a gentleman that I see in town twice a month for coffee and breakfast that I just happened to strike up a conversation with who served in the Pacific theatre. After our second meal together, I found out that my grandfather had operated on him as a medic on Okinawa, and had saved his leg.

I was unable to speak for about five minutes, and tears welled up in my eyes. It remains to this day one of the most defining moments of my life, and the closest I have felt to my grandfather since he passed twelve year ago.
 
Today, while at Walmart getting new tires put on the front of my car (back tires next week...paychecks only go so far!) I had a chance encounter with a USMC vet who was at Guantanamo Bay during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Very neat conversation that was! He was impressed by my general knowledge of things given my young (relatively at any rate) age. As is normal for these types of meetings, I wished we could have talked longer...but his wife was on one end of the store waiting for him and my wife was on the other end of the store waiting for me to stop bothering strangers LOL! Yeah, I have a tendency to talk to strangers....always have.....but then again I have my Dad's personality and belief that there is no such thing as a stranger, just friends we haven't met yet.

Tim
 
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