Nebraska State Fire Marshal Training Division: Fill & Download for Free

They were all very dangerous … story of my dads first mission.Teen Age Air Warrior - My father as a B-17 Ball Turret Gunner, WWII EuropeS/SGT. Eugene H. Hall, USAAF 8th AF, 1st Air Division, 401st Bombardment Group (H),England, 1944-1945More also at:Teen Age Air Warriorhttp://teenageairwarrior.blogspot.com/I thought I would put this up about my father ...it's an interesting story that has gained significance to me as I have grown older. My father was born in 1925 rural Iowa. His parents were of very modest means, struggling to raise three young boys when tragedy hit. In 1929, my father's father was killed in a car accident. His mother, now a widow with no means, was left to raise three young children alone during the Great Depression. The oldest of which, my father, was just four years old. To say things were tough is an understatement. When WWII started, my father, a country boy from Iowa was anxious to see the world. The glamorized images he saw in the theater news reels and the promises of the many armed services recruiting campaigns were feeding a young boys imagination about the world beyond Iowa. They were irresistible and at 17 he enlisted under a promise to become a fighter pilot. Unfortunately, the promise was not real.Quickly, it was becoming clear, things were not going to work out the way he planned. Instead of flight school to become a pilot he was directed to gunnery school where he learned the bare essential skills required to operate the twin Browning M2 .50 caliber machine guns found in the ball turret of a B-17. Not the glamorous fighter pilot job he had hoped for ... and worse yet the survival rate for the aircrews were terrible.From "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner". This is a five-line poem by Randall Jarrell published in 1945. It is about the death of a gunner in a Sperry ball turret on a World War II American bomber aircraft.From my mother's sleep I fell into the StateAnd I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.Explanatory note:A ball turret was a Plexiglas sphere set into the belly of a B-17 or B-24, and inhabited by two.50 caliber machine guns and one man, a short small man preferably. In this poem, the gunner was tracking with his machine guns a fighter that was attacking his bomber from below, he revolved with the turret; hunched upside-down in his little sphere firing his dual .50 caliber machine guns. The fighters were armed with cannons that fired explosive shells, designed to take down a flying fortress. As often happened, the ball turret gunner could take a direct hit from one of these cannon shells. The end result was always death, there wasn’t much left from a direct hit, the remains were removed with a steam hose.Sperry Ball Turret, Some notes on being a ball turret gunner:A poem that speaks the truth of the gruesome reality. In my case they didn't do so well on their cleaning as I could still see bits of flesh imbedded in the cracks of the ball turret from someone who didn't make it through their 25 or 30 or 35 missions. With a 4% attrition rate in 1943 your life expectancy for 25 missions was essentially zero... that's what the math shows you ... as the tide of war in Europe started to favor the allies and we began to dominate the air-war the attrition or loss rate per mission improved . The leadership being aware of this had started to ramp up the war in the Pacific by drawing down resources in Europe. We were told our crew would drop from 10 to 9. The choice of who was to leave the crew left to us. We choose S/Sgt. Robert Milhone, who was then assigned to another crew. This was the reason I ended up in the Ball Turret, everyone else in my crew was bigger than I was. The other changes were that the missions for a tour of duty went from 25 to 35. This was to take advantage of the lower loss rate by extending the number of mission we saw in combat which kept the odds of survival just as ugly as they were in 1943.In late September of 1944, our crew assignment came through. We were to fly a new B-17 from Lincoln Nebraska to the UK as a replacement crew. Our route from Lincoln first took us to Grenier Field, New Hampshire. There were now a total of 59 B-17's and one B-24 that left that night as a heavy snow storm was arriving. Our next stop on the way was Goose Bay Labrador for refueling. The formation then flew out over the North Atlantic and over Greenland to our next destination, Meeks Field, Iceland where we would have a layover of a couple of days. Then from Iceland to Holyhead Wales where we would get final deployment instructions within the UK. Up until recently I had never even flown before, so you can imagine what a young boy was feeling, traveling to another country 1000’s of miles away from home and anything familiar. Flying in a brand new state of the art Heavy Bomber, a spectacular B-17. My confidence buoyed by the bonding and trust we shared between us as a crew. The past couple of months of working as a crew gave us all some sense of belonging. The truth was that it was a totally new experience for all of us, without a parallel to compare it to. It was an exciting and terrifying time all at once for all of us. The weather for our trip to Europe added to the terror, it was a rough ride. There was intense solar activity which made for amazing northern lights with some added St Elmo’s fire we could see dancing over the leading edges of all the aircraft in formation with us.There were nearly 5 dozen B-17’s in route with us, all flying in formation as we had been trained to do back in the states. Most of the crews we had never met before but there were a few friendly faces and even a couple of guys I now considered friends. Guys that I had spent a lot of time with prior to our crew assignments as we had shared a common course of instructions in our initial training and gunnery schooling. The new B-17’s were in great shape but we were warned that there had been some mechanical problems with the new planes in the past, they were making them like gangbusters, so not all of them got every bug worked out during their post-production flight testing. So we kept our eyes and ears open, and so far so good, we were on schedule with no surprises. Over Greenland we received a brief distress call from one of the aircraft in our formation. All we knew was what we heard briefly on the radio as they dropped from formation over Greenland at 29,000 ft. Total loss of power on all 4 engines, they were never heard from again. As the aircraft dropped from formation it immediately went silent. Some sort of catastrophic electrical failure is all we could figure, well that is what we were guessing. It was a tough way to start, we had lost one crew, and I had lost my first friend to the war, "Popolarian". He was a member of the ill-fated crew. This was my first taste of the cold reality of the war. It was the first of many tastes that would change me forever.We landed the Aircraft at Meeks Field incredibly hard, just about broke the new aircraft in half and us as well with it. The aircraft struts it seems had not been pressurized correctly, so we effectively landed the aircraft with the struts riding against their stops. The mechanics at Meeks Field couldn’t do anything about it. The required tools they needed were at the bottom of the Atlantic, the victim of a U-boat attack the week previous. So we had a rough take off from meeks and an even rougher landing to survive awaiting us at Holyhead.We arrived in Holyhead and received our instructions to report to Deenethorpe for our permanent crew assignment, we were told to hitch a ride on a military ground transport that was heading that way. Imagine my surprise when they took our shiny new B-17 away. I had thought that was our newly assigned aircraft, apparently we were just brief care takers in charge of its delivery. Once we arrived at Deenethorpe and had a summary introduction we were assigned sleeping quarters. I made the brief acquaintances of a seasoned crew who was enjoyed giving the new guy a friendly hard time. It was not unexpected as they pointed to the only bunk available, an apparently loathed top bunk..... They said all the new guys get the top bunks, you will earn the right to a lower bunk soon enough though. They were ok guys, I could tell I would like them and I felt comfortable with them almost immediately. Well at least as much as I could, having just arrived and still reeling a bit from it all while trying to shake off a nagging sense of shock that kept creeping over me at times. Apparently they were getting ready for a mission, they all had to be up at 3:00 AM, which was the routine. You could sense some apprehension in their manners and conversations between each other but I didn’t know them. I didn’t know how I would feel exactly before my first mission, but I that wouldn’t last long as my first mission was only a few days away.The next morning a lieutenant came in and informed me that I could pick a lower bunk now if I wanted to. The boys I had met the night before were all believed to be dead, lost over Germany, taking a direct flack hit, they dropped from formation on fire, spiraling wildly down through the clouds. The fire and smoke from the aircraft leaving an eerie glowing trail as they slowly disappeared from site.... no chutes were reported. Obviously I didn't see them myself, but in my 35 upcoming missions, I saw so many others, way too many others. I know what it was like for them, I know what it was always like for all of us.J. A. Roadman Crew " Baby Lu " aka " Grin'n Bare It " United States Army Air Forces 8th Air Force 1st Bombardment Division 94th Combat Bombardment Wing 401st Bombardment Group (Heavy) 612th Bombardment Squadron TOP ROW LEFT TO RIGHT 2nd Lt. Henry W. Compton – Copilot 2nd Lt. James P. Whitlock - Bombardier F.O. Robert H. Knuese - Navigator 1st Lt. Julian A. Roadman - Pilot & Crew Commander BOTTOM ROW LEFT TO RIGHT S/Sgl. Alfred Elchisak – Radio Operator S/Sgl. John H. Landers – Engineer & Gunner S/Sgl. Earl R. Hill - Waist Gunner S/Sgl. Donald S. Wood - Tail Gunner S/Sgl. Eugene H. Hall – Ball Turret Gunner IAW Stars & Stripes December 8th, 1944:The Roadman crew is featured as " The youngest Heavy Bombardment Crew flying in the European Theater of Operation (ETO). " The crew’s average age was 20, whereas the average age for American servicemen in WWII was 26. Photo Taken: 23 Nov 1944 Photo Courtesy of National Archives.42-39993 - " Hell's Angel Out of Chute 13"My first mission was nearly my last.It could have been right out of a Hollywood movie. A new crew on its first combat mission is accompanied by a seasoned officer flying copilot. In our case, it was Lt. Ralph W. (Rainbow) Trout who I met again at the 1980, 401st Reunion in Savannah, Georgia. Rainbow upon seeing our crew he exclaimed, "You almost got me killed on that mission!"Sunday, October 15th, 1944, my first mission…. and it scared the hell out of me. The mission briefing took place at 0300 hours, and all operational aircraft were airborne by 0704 hours. My crew was assigned to the Lockheed B-17G S/N 42-39993 Hell’s Angel Out of Chute 13. The target was the railroad marshalling yards in Cologne, Germany.The 401st provided three 12 ship squadrons to make up the 94th Combat Wing "A" unit. The Group also led the 1st Division on this mission, with Colonel Bowman as Air Commander. While the Lead and Lows Squadrons were forced to bomb using PFF (radar) techniques because of heavy cloud cover, but some of the crews were able to see and confirm the strikes on the Cologne marshalingyards through the occasional break in the clouds. As we approached Cologne with 10/10 clouds under us the sky filled with black puffs of flak, some so close by that the plane would buffet from the exploding flak with a loud WOOF! Our PFF (radar) told us that Cologne was hidden by the clouds below us. Suddenly the clouds opened and what I saw was an image from my 4th grade geography book at the Orange Township School in Waterloo, Iowa. An aerial view of the dark medieval twin towers of the Cologne Cathedral. Next to which was a railroad suspension bridge that connected to the railroad marshaling yards across the Rhine River.Cologne CathedralAs a ball turret gunner, I had an excellent view of the squadrons bombing runs. Being strapped in a glass ball on the underside of a B-17 gave me a unique vantage point and a very unnerving one when being fired upon from below. I could see the bomb bay doors open on my aircraft with all the details intimately and to a lesser degree I had the same view for all the aircraft in the squadron. At the bombardiers cue all the aircraft would release their bombs onto whatever doomed target we had been assigned. Below me now I could see enormous clouds of spray ensuing as the bombs did their damage and the bridge came down into the Rhine.The flak began to intensify with notable accuracy as the plane lurched suddenly. We had taken a direct hit in the number 3 engine. Looking from my vantage point, I could see the underside of the wing was coated with oil. Now smoke and oil were increasing and then fire started streaming from the engine as we dropped like a rock out of formation at 25,000 feet down through the clouds below. We managed to regain control and leveled off at 5000 feet, a bit too close to the now clearly detailed farmland below us. First Officer Knuese, our navigator, announced that we were over unoccupied France. With that relief and the reduced altitude we removed our oxygen masks and started to tour the damage. Then, a few minutes later, a somewhat more excited First Officer Knuese announced that he had made a mistake – we were not over France, but instead we were heading back into Germany! Our wounded B-17 labored to make a U-turn, we were losing altitude. We had to make the aircraft lighter, so anything that could be thrown out of the B-17 was thrown out onto the fields below. If we were lucky and did not get shot down in the next few minutes, we might make it all the way back ... across the English Channel and back to Deenthorpe.We arrived, hours after everyone else, noting that our crew was reported as shot down over the target – no parachutes. A tradition at our airbase and as well at many others, was to give each man was a shot of whiskey to help settle our strained nerves before we were debriefed. With the whiskey’s warmth still soaking into me, I reflected upon the events of the day. I was just 19 by 2 months and found myself facing my own mortality for the first time. At that moment a chilling awareness crept over me... "I didn’t think it was possible for me to make it through my tour of duty alive.”One of my dad's planes he flew in "Ice Cold Katy" flying over the German V2 Rocket Research Establishment at Peenemunde in late 1944.Ice Cold KatyExcerpts from crew Commander Julian Roadman’s account of the mission:“No. 3 engine was struck by flack and caused a massive oil leak. The oil flowed to the rear and down onto the red hot super charger and caught fire, I shut off that engine's ignition and fuel and pushed the feather buttons however there was insufficient oil left to feather the propeller. The prop wind milled at dangerously high speed while the oil pressure slowly dropped. Fearing that the engine would seize from lack of oil, I ordered everyone into their parachutes and the navigator and bombardier to the rear of the ship. I then attempted to force the over speeding propeller to break away from the ship by diving and putting the engine back into operation, but the engine did not seize. We were flying alone and returning to England in a strong headwind. I was flying the ship at 115MPH (just above the stall speed) because of the over-speeding propeller. Our experienced co-pilot, Rainbow Trout recommended that we bail-out, as we were in jeopardy of being intercepted by enemy fighters at any time. However there were no enemy aircrafts in sight and we were heading for friendly lines. The ship was holding together and maintaining altitude albeit at a minimum speed and we had sufficient to fuel to reach England. Hence I reasoned that we were not yet in sufficient danger to abandon ship. Conditions did not deteriorate further and we landed at Deenthorpe an hour after the rest of our formation. I was told the ship's damage included about 400 flack holes.”More to follow ….B-17G #42-106992 "Baby Lu" aka "Grin'n Bare It" of the 612th BS/401st BG, Deenthorpe, April 1944Deenthorpe UK airbase in the winter of 1944The 40lst was the first Bomb Group (H) to be activated with the all new B-17G model aircraft. Deenthorpe is located 80 miles north of London and 4 miles southwest of Corby, Northhamptonshire and 9 miles North East of Kettering in Northamptonshire. The base was officially opened for operations on November 24, 1943 and was known as USAAF Station: 128 when home to the bombers of 612, 613, 614, 615 Squadrons of the 401st Bomb Group who flew 255 combat missions from here losing 95 B-17s between December 1943 and June 1945. For a year from June 1945 the site was used as No. 11 Recruitment Centre by the RAF. It was also used for many years by the Royal Observer Corps.In 1944 the southeastern part of England was known as East Anglia and was saturated with airfields both British and American. Deenthorpe is in the far northwest section of East Anglia aka (Bowman 7). There were 72 American bases in operation (Freeman 154) and on averaged there was an airfield every 5 miles making it the heaviest concentration of air activity in history.The various B-17's and their crew jackets that my father flew missions in.A colorized version I did of 42-39993 - " Hell's Angel Out of Chute 13"

Since I was a2a, I believe I did find and follow my passion. And my comments on Quora have been quite personal, so I have decided I should attempt something autobiographical, and this draws from it. The following will address “Why and how?”In brief, I would say my passion was pursued incrementally, not identified until I was 20, and required a relatively long learning curve to realize. I grew up thinking I would be a mechanic like my father, until a school counselor told me that I could go to college during my senior year. Until them, my familial conception of higher education was a high school diploma. I had been assigned to advanced courses in high school, but didn’t study, since I seemed to be getting by. Once realizing that irremovable grease under my fingernails was not necessarily my destiny, I started looking for some way to fund an education. Enlisting seemed to be the only viable alternative.I enlisted in the USMC before graduating and left for boot camp within five days of graduating high school; predominantly for educational benefits, with some consideration made to participation in life events, to include participation in the war for my generation. I guess I did fairly well, relatively speaking, and got promoted to Corporal when I was first eligible. I volunteered to go Vietnam (signing a waiver of my right to not go, since my brother was there), and then got deployed with a Battalion Landing Team embarked on Navy vessels. While in port, non-commissioned officers were assigned temporary duty as Shore Patrol to supervise personnel on brief leave in the Philippines, identified by an arm band marked “SP,” and armed with a night stick. I found that guiding to cooperative drunks and confronting the belligerent drunks was interesting, and my passion was starting to form.When I began looking at getting admitted to college near the end of my enlistment, I found that the Univ. of Nebraska at Omaha was within commuting distance of where I had lived, and that they offered a Criminal Justice degree; which at that time was the relatively new field, and my passion was identified. I was released from active duty after two years, and went to college on the GI Bill (which still required part-time employment to cover the bills).At one point, I became discouraged about the existence of height requirements in police work in the early 70s, and changed my major. But after some reflection, I decided that pursuing work in criminal justice was what I wanted to do, and I needed to commit to it, so I changed back and my passion was becoming more concrete. I got a black belt in Tae Kwando, and an instructor. As a class project, I created my own ride-along program with a five-man department in a city surrounded on three sides by Omaha. I became the only part-time sworn officer on the department, but was not offered a full-time position when one came open.Before graduating, I got turned down when applying for several police positions, and was disqualified from others due to height requirements that were still in effect. I graduated from college in 3½ years with a criminal justice degree and a relatively poor GPA (2.79 I think); since I was ignorant of how important GPA could be.I was turned down for USMC Officer Candidate School because I needed a waiver for height (minimum requirement was 5'6," and the person measuring me at the physical lied and wrote 5’4,” instead of my real measurement of 5’2½”), but I’m sure my GPA didn’t help. And then I got rejected by multiple police departments. I left Nebraska ignominiously, and went to live with an uncle in LA, CA. I worked briefly for a private investigator, and I’m not sure if I was fired or not, but I was ill-equipped socially to meet the demand of sitting in a bar and soliciting information on marital infidelity. I was losing hope. Although, much of this turned out to be a lucky break in retrospect, or else I would have been deprived of a rewarding career in federal law enforcement, and caught up in a small town/small pay career.I felt somewhat desperate at that point, which led to my reenlisting as a Corporal with the specification that I would be assigned to a counterintelligence position. However, the Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton Provost Marshal (the military police chief in the largest Marine Corps base) somehow got wind of my existence and demanded that I be assigned to the Military Police, since he far outranked everyone in the counterintelligence unit (a Colonel compared to a Captain, 0-6 vs. 0-3). This was actually where I wanted to be, but that assignment had not been available as an enlistment option.After a few months, I was standing my usual post at a remote one-man gate to the base when the Provost Marshal stopped by. He asked how things were going, and I told him I thought I was capable of something more than my then current assignment. Not long afterward, I was assigned to attend the San Diego Sheriff’s Department Academy, which allowed three Marine MPs to attend a regular academy session, one from Camp Pendleton, one from the 3d Marine Division, and one from Marine Recruit Depot, San Diego. The Sergeant from San Diego got cut from the academy class for insubordination, and I graduated first in the class. I had finally recognized the need to excel academically. Although I was helped by the fact that class standing included other skills (physical fitness, firearms, defensive tactics, tactical procedures, and instructor evaluation).That accomplishment led to meritorious promotion to Sergeant, and assignment to the Criminal Investigation Division.The preceding facilitated my getting commissioned through the Enlisted Commissioning Program. That led to my being the first unrestricted officer assigned the primary Military Occupational Specialty of Military Police Officer directly from officer training (to the best of my knowledge). I was assigned as the Administrative Officer for the Military Police at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, CA, for about two acrimonious years, being brow-beaten by a senior female officer who had the Provost Marshal wrapped around her finger. I was seriously undermined and marginalized. One incident that led to my being seriously reprimanded by the Provost Marshal involved my having reprimanded a Staff Sergeant who worked for the female officer, and also happened to be a Medal of Honor winner. He was twisting the handcuffs and inflicting pain on the wrists of on an otherwise cooperating enlisted man who had been apprehended for a minor offense; which I identified as an unnecessary use of force. My annual performance evaluation virtually ended my potential for a career as an officer.Then I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time with the right experience, when a local position opened. I was assigned as an active duty special agent (criminal investigator) in the primarily civilian Naval Investigative Service (now Naval Criminal Investigative Service or NCIS). My success in solving cases and ability to write led to a civilian special agent position. I later applied for and was promoted to a technical specialist position.I also applied for and was denied a position as an FBI special agent. Presumably, this was due to a pending law suit on a real estate sale necessitated by my transfer to Headquarters that was not resolved in my favor until the following year. But I was also told by a former co-worker who gave me a favorable reference that he had been contacted on three separate occasions to verify his positive impression; and it was his conclusion that another former co-worker had bad-mouthed me (apparently attributed to that person’s son being denied a special agent position with NIS). In my experience, a few people will be vindictive for no discernable reason beyond jealousy or personal aversion.I left the technical investigative specialist position after two years, since I found I was ill suited and returned to a field investigative position, where I performed investigative duties well enough to be placed in a supervisory position. To the best of my knowledge, I was the first NIS special agent briefed into SEAL Team 6 operations in the early 1980s to investigate fraudulent activities within the team. The apparently unfettered freedom to seek out new and innovative training scenarios led to misapplication, misappropriation, and misuse of authority (power corrupts). I shortly thereafter received a promotion of sorts as a Resident Agent, and the investigation continued, resulting in in LCdr Richard Marcinco (the creator of the team) being convicted and imprisoned.My previous counterintelligence technical training (CIA) and investigative experience got me a position as a special agent with the Customs Office of Internal Affairs. That position allowed me to recruit two former NIS technical investigative specialists who were more technically competent than I was, but my writing ability on numerous agency directives led to a promotion within a year, and then another promotion to regional program manager within the next year.The last promotion was granted in spite of being under investigation for pursuing the questionable orders of the Assistant Commissioner for Internal Affairs; which eventually led to a few days off without pay, and a transfer out of Internal Affairs, a demotion and transfer for my supervisor, and a transfer for the Assistant Commissioner. Lesson being, loyalty has its limits.Even after that, I got a Master’s degree (4.0 GPA) in a Customs sponsored program, on government time and primarily at government expense. I also acquired a PhD while still employed, after recognizing the my voluntary reduction in grade to avoid being transferred (my wife at the time indicated she would not move again). I also began teaching CJ graduate courses before retiring; which continued for 5 years, after retirement.I held multiple positions (summarized in my profile). I retired as a senior special agent for the Dept. of Homeland Security (which subsumed Customs and Immigration), with a six figure annual government retirement annuity. I was neither a “star” nor a power broker, just a consistent performer who was not without faults, and not without transgressions for which I had to answer. I was usually “creative,” which led to problems, consequences, and on one occasion, an admonition from the Special Agent in Charge to not “push the envelope.”My retirement has been peaceful, pursuing multiple volunteer efforts included being a representative of a program of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, and being a member of the Auxiliary to Texas Children’s Hospital, spending many years volunteering in the Emergency Center, and serving as a board member and past president.As to “Was it worth it? Yes.According to Seligman (2002), psychological research on happiness indicates that achieving a goal seldom results in sustained happiness, wealth has a low correlation with happiness (at least in a wealthy democracy, although other researchers indicate that there is an optimal income for producing happiness, see below), and even health has a low impact on happiness. Research also indicates that hope and optimism are key to success in life. Dissatisfaction with life results from dwelling on past negative events, and insufficient appreciation and savoring of past positive events. Positive emotions (e.g., pride, fulfillment, satisfaction) about past success and accomplishments can evoke happiness.Activities that provide gratification, as opposed to pleasures (e.g., sex, comfort, humor), make for lasting happiness. Presumably, gratification is analogous with recognizing one’s passion. The components of gratification are said to have the following characteristics:The task is challenging and requires skillWe concentrateThere are clear goalsWe get immediate feedbackWe have deep, effortless involvementThere is a sense of controlOur sense of self vanishesTime stops (p. 116)"Emotional well-being (arguably an analogue of happiness) rises with income, but there is no further progress beyond an annual income of about $75,000,” said Dr Miriam Tatzel, from Empire State College, State University of New York. … Several studies have determined that people's basic psychological needs include competence, autonomy, positive relationships, self-acceptance and personal growth. Research has shown that rather than meeting these needs, the pursuit of wealth reduces the time spent on more personally fulfilling activities and social relationships.Dr Tatzel added: “Materialism is bad for consumers' wellbeing. ‘People's wants escalate as they tire of what they have and they want something else, which in turn leads to more consumption. The larger the gap between what one wants and what one has, the greater the dissatisfaction. Less materialism equals more happiness.’ Dr Tatzel also found that thrift boosted wellbeing. She said: ‘This means conserving resources as well as money. Frugal people are happier with life in general.’” Miranda Prynne, 15 Aug 2014http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/11036879/Money-can-buy-you-happiness...but-only-up-to-45000.htmlSee: Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment.

My dad is 92, he is still alive and has many bits of his experience in several books. My dad flew 35 missions over Germany as a ball turret gunner in B-17’s while stationed at 401st in Deenethorpe uk. He said as a ball turret gunner you experienced the war alone … all by yourself strapped into a glass ball looking down at the war below you. it was very terrifying as many things could kill you, not just being shot or hit with flack. you could freeze to death if your heater suit lost power, you could get scrapped off the bottom of the plane during landing if the hydraulics were badly damages and the manual override became jammed. During his first mission he noticed some skin and hair in the metal seem cracks of one of the previous ball turret gunners who had been killed in the ball … they missed a spot when they hosed him out. They were listed as shot down with no chutes on his very first mission. The recovered below the cloud deck and arrived nearly 3 hours after the last bomber had landed at Deenethorpe before them.Teen Age Air Warrior - My father as a B-17 Ball Turret Gunner, WWII EuropeS/SGT. Eugene H. Hall, USAAF 8th AF, 1st Air Division, 401st Bombardment Group (H),England, 1944-1945More also at:https://www.facebook.com/tennageairwarriorhttp://teenageairwarrior.blogspot.com/I thought I would put this up about my father ...it's an interesting story that has gained significance to me as I have grown older. My father was born in 1925 rural Iowa. His parents were of very modest means, struggling to raise three young boys when tragedy hit. In 1929, my father's father was killed in a car accident. His mother, now a widow with no means, was left to raise three young children alone during the Great Depression. The oldest of which, my father, was just four years old. To say things were tough is an understatement. When WWII started, my father, a country boy from Iowa was anxious to see the world. The glamorized images he saw in the theater news reels and the promises of the many armed services recruiting campaigns were feeding a young boys imagination about the world beyond Iowa. They were irresistible and at 17 he enlisted under a promise to become a fighter pilot. Unfortunately, the promise was not real.Quickly, it was becoming clear, things were not going to work out the way he planned. Instead of flight school to become a pilot he was directed to gunnery school where he learned the bare essential skills required to operate the twin Browning M2 .50 caliber machine guns found in the ball turret of a B-17. Not the glamorous fighter pilot job he had hoped for ... and worse yet the survival rate for the aircrews were terrible.From "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner". This is a five-line poem by Randall Jarrell published in 1945. It is about the death of a gunner in a Sperry ball turret on a World War II American bomber aircraft.From my mother's sleep I fell into the StateAnd I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.Explanatory note:A ball turret was a Plexiglas sphere set into the belly of a B-17 or B-24, and inhabited by two.50 caliber machine guns and one man, a short small man preferably. In this poem, the gunner was tracking with his machine guns a fighter that was attacking his bomber from below, he revolved with the turret; hunched upside-down in his little sphere firing his dual .50 caliber machine guns. The fighters were armed with cannons that fired explosive shells, designed to take down a flying fortress. As often happened, the ball turret gunner could take a direct hit from one of these cannon shells. The end result was always death, there wasn’t much left from a direct hit, the remains were removed with a steam hose.Sperry Ball Turret, Some notes on being a ball turret gunner:A poem that speaks the truth of the gruesome reality. In my case they didn't do so well on their cleaning as I could still see bits of flesh imbedded in the cracks of the ball turret from someone who didn't make it through their 25 or 30 or 35 missions. With a 4% attrition rate in 1943 your life expectancy for 25 missions was essentially zero... that's what the math shows you ... as the tide of war in Europe started to favor the allies and we began to dominate the air-war the attrition or loss rate per mission improved . The leadership being aware of this had started to ramp up the war in the Pacific by drawing down resources in Europe. We were told our crew would drop from 10 to 9. The choice of who was to leave the crew left to us. We choose S/Sgt. Robert Milhone, who was then assigned to another crew. This was the reason I ended up in the Ball Turret, everyone else in my crew was bigger than I was. The other changes were that the missions for a tour of duty went from 25 to 35. This was to take advantage of the lower loss rate by extending the number of mission we saw in combat which kept the odds of survival just as ugly as they were in 1943.In late September of 1944, our crew assignment came through. We were to fly a new B-17 from Lincoln Nebraska to the UK as a replacement crew. Our route from Lincoln first took us to Grenier Field, New Hampshire. There were now a total of 59 B-17's and one B-24 that left that night as a heavy snow storm was arriving. Our next stop on the way was Goose Bay Labrador for refueling. The formation then flew out over the North Atlantic and over Greenland to our next destination, Meeks Field, Iceland where we would have a layover of a couple of days. Then from Iceland to Holyhead Wales where we would get final deployment instructions within the UK. Up until recently I had never even flown before, so you can imagine what a young boy was feeling, traveling to another country 1000’s of miles away from home and anything familiar. Flying in a brand new state of the art Heavy Bomber, a spectacular B-17. My confidence buoyed by the bonding and trust we shared between us as a crew. The past couple of months of working as a crew gave us all some sense of belonging. The truth was that it was a totally new experience for all of us, without a parallel to compare it to. It was an exciting and terrifying time all at once for all of us. The weather for our trip to Europe added to the terror, it was a rough ride. There was intense solar activity which made for amazing northern lights with some added St Elmo’s fire we could see dancing over the leading edges of all the aircraft in formation with us.There were nearly 5 dozen B-17’s in route with us, all flying in formation as we had been trained to do back in the states. Most of the crews we had never met before but there were a few friendly faces and even a couple of guys I now considered friends. Guys that I had spent a lot of time with prior to our crew assignments as we had shared a common course of instructions in our initial training and gunnery schooling. The new B-17’s were in great shape but we were warned that there had been some mechanical problems with the new planes in the past, they were making them like gangbusters, so not all of them got every bug worked out during their post-production flight testing. So we kept our eyes and ears open, and so far so good, we were on schedule with no surprises. Over Greenland we received a brief distress call from one of the aircraft in our formation. All we knew was what we heard briefly on the radio as they dropped from formation over Greenland at 29,000 ft. Total loss of power on all 4 engines, they were never heard from again. As the aircraft dropped from formation it immediately went silent. Some sort of catastrophic electrical failure is all we could figure, well that is what we were guessing. It was a tough way to start, we had lost one crew, and I had lost my first friend to the war, "Popolarian". He was a member of the ill-fated crew. This was my first taste of the cold reality of the war. It was the first of many tastes that would change me forever.We landed the Aircraft at Meeks Field incredibly hard, just about broke the new aircraft in half and us as well with it. The aircraft struts it seems had not been pressurized correctly, so we effectively landed the aircraft with the struts riding against their stops. The mechanics at Meeks Field couldn’t do anything about it. The required tools they needed were at the bottom of the Atlantic, the victim of a U-boat attack the week previous. So we had a rough take off from meeks and an even rougher landing to survive awaiting us at Holyhead.We arrived in Holyhead and received our instructions to report to Deenethorpe for our permanent crew assignment, we were told to hitch a ride on a military ground transport that was heading that way. Imagine my surprise when they took our shiny new B-17 away. I had thought that was our newly assigned aircraft, apparently we were just brief care takers in charge of its delivery. Once we arrived at Deenethorpe and had a summary introduction we were assigned sleeping quarters. I made the brief acquaintances of a seasoned crew who was enjoyed giving the new guy a friendly hard time. It was not unexpected as they pointed to the only bunk available, an apparently loathed top bunk..... They said all the new guys get the top bunks, you will earn the right to a lower bunk soon enough though. They were ok guys, I could tell I would like them and I felt comfortable with them almost immediately. Well at least as much as I could, having just arrived and still reeling a bit from it all while trying to shake off a nagging sense of shock that kept creeping over me at times. Apparently they were getting ready for a mission, they all had to be up at 3:00 AM, which was the routine. You could sense some apprehension in their manners and conversations between each other but I didn’t know them. I didn’t know how I would feel exactly before my first mission, but I that wouldn’t last long as my first mission was only a few days away.The next morning a lieutenant came in and informed me that I could pick a lower bunk now if I wanted to. The boys I had met the night before were all believed to be dead, lost over Germany, taking a direct flack hit, they dropped from formation on fire, spiraling wildly down through the clouds. The fire and smoke from the aircraft leaving an eerie glowing trail as they slowly disappeared from site.... no chutes were reported. Obviously I didn't see them myself, but in my 35 upcoming missions, I saw so many others, way too many others. I know what it was like for them, I know what it was always like for all of us.J. A. Roadman Crew " Baby Lu " aka " Grin'n Bare It " United States Army Air Forces 8th Air Force 1st Bombardment Division 94th Combat Bombardment Wing 401st Bombardment Group (Heavy) 612th Bombardment Squadron TOP ROW LEFT TO RIGHT 2nd Lt. Henry W. Compton – Copilot 2nd Lt. James P. Whitlock - Bombardier F.O. Robert H. Knuese - Navigator 1st Lt. Julian A. Roadman - Pilot & Crew Commander BOTTOM ROW LEFT TO RIGHT S/Sgl. Alfred Elchisak – Radio Operator S/Sgl. John H. Landers – Engineer & Gunner S/Sgl. Earl R. Hill - Waist Gunner S/Sgl. Donald S. Wood - Tail Gunner S/Sgl. Eugene H. Hall – Ball Turret Gunner IAW Stars & Stripes December 8th, 1944:The Roadman crew is featured as " The youngest Heavy Bombardment Crew flying in the European Theater of Operation (ETO). " The crew’s average age was 20, whereas the average age for American servicemen in WWII was 26. Photo Taken: 23 Nov 1944 Photo Courtesy of National Archives.42-39993 - " Hell's Angel Out of Chute 13"My first mission was nearly my last.It could have been right out of a Hollywood movie. A new crew on its first combat mission is accompanied by a seasoned officer flying copilot. In our case, it was Lt. Ralph W. (Rainbow) Trout who I met again at the 1980, 401st Reunion in Savannah, Georgia. Rainbow upon seeing our crew he exclaimed, "You almost got me killed on that mission!"Sunday, October 15th, 1944, my first mission…. and it scared the hell out of me. The mission briefing took place at 0300 hours, and all operational aircraft were airborne by 0704 hours. My crew was assigned to the Lockheed B-17G S/N 42-39993 Hell’s Angel Out of Chute 13. The target was the railroad marshalling yards in Cologne, Germany.The 401st provided three 12 ship squadrons to make up the 94th Combat Wing "A" unit. The Group also led the 1st Division on this mission, with Colonel Bowman as Air Commander. While the Lead and Lows Squadrons were forced to bomb using PFF (radar) techniques because of heavy cloud cover, but some of the crews were able to see and confirm the strikes on the Cologne marshalingyards through the occasional break in the clouds. As we approached Cologne with 10/10 clouds under us the sky filled with black puffs of flak, some so close by that the plane would buffet from the exploding flak with a loud WOOF! Our PFF (radar) told us that Cologne was hidden by the clouds below us. Suddenly the clouds opened and what I saw was an image from my 4th grade geography book at the Orange Township School in Waterloo, Iowa. An aerial view of the dark medieval twin towers of the Cologne Cathedral. Next to which was a railroad suspension bridge that connected to the railroad marshaling yards across the Rhine River.Cologne CathedralAs a ball turret gunner, I had an excellent view of the squadrons bombing runs. Being strapped in a glass ball on the underside of a B-17 gave me a unique vantage point and a very unnerving one when being fired upon from below. I could see the bomb bay doors open on my aircraft with all the details intimately and to a lesser degree I had the same view for all the aircraft in the squadron. At the bombardiers cue all the aircraft would release their bombs onto whatever doomed target we had been assigned. Below me now I could see enormous clouds of spray ensuing as the bombs did their damage and the bridge came down into the Rhine.The flak began to intensify with notable accuracy as the plane lurched suddenly. We had taken a direct hit in the number 3 engine. Looking from my vantage point, I could see the underside of the wing was coated with oil. Now smoke and oil were increasing and then fire started streaming from the engine as we dropped like a rock out of formation at 25,000 feet down through the clouds below. We managed to regain control and leveled off at 5000 feet, a bit too close to the now clearly detailed farmland below us. First Officer Knuese, our navigator, announced that we were over unoccupied France. With that relief and the reduced altitude we removed our oxygen masks and started to tour the damage. Then, a few minutes later, a somewhat more excited First Officer Knuese announced that he had made a mistake – we were not over France, but instead we were heading back into Germany! Our wounded B-17 labored to make a U-turn, we were losing altitude. We had to make the aircraft lighter, so anything that could be thrown out of the B-17 was thrown out onto the fields below. If we were lucky and did not get shot down in the next few minutes, we might make it all the way back ... across the English Channel and back to Deenthorpe.We arrived, hours after everyone else, noting that our crew was reported as shot down over the target – no parachutes. A tradition at our airbase and as well at many others, was to give each man was a shot of whiskey to help settle our strained nerves before we were debriefed. With the whiskey’s warmth still soaking into me, I reflected upon the events of the day. I was just 19 by 2 months and found myself facing my own mortality for the first time. At that moment a chilling awareness crept over me... "I didn’t think it was possible for me to make it through my tour of duty alive.”One of my dad's planes he flew in "Ice Cold Katy" flying over the German V2 Rocket Research Establishment at Peenemunde in late 1944.Ice Cold KatyExcerpts from crew Commander Julian Roadman’s account of the mission:“No. 3 engine was struck by flack and caused a massive oil leak. The oil flowed to the rear and down onto the red hot super charger and caught fire, I shut off that engine's ignition and fuel and pushed the feather buttons however there was insufficient oil left to feather the propeller. The prop wind milled at dangerously high speed while the oil pressure slowly dropped. Fearing that the engine would seize from lack of oil, I ordered everyone into their parachutes and the navigator and bombardier to the rear of the ship. I then attempted to force the over speeding propeller to break away from the ship by diving and putting the engine back into operation, but the engine did not seize. We were flying alone and returning to England in a strong headwind. I was flying the ship at 115MPH (just above the stall speed) because of the over-speeding propeller. Our experienced co-pilot, Rainbow Trout recommended that we bail-out, as we were in jeopardy of being intercepted by enemy fighters at any time. However there were no enemy aircrafts in sight and we were heading for friendly lines. The ship was holding together and maintaining altitude albeit at a minimum speed and we had sufficient to fuel to reach England. Hence I reasoned that we were not yet in sufficient danger to abandon ship. Conditions did not deteriorate further and we landed at Deenthorpe an hour after the rest of our formation. I was told the ship's damage included about 400 flack holes.”More to follow ….B-17G #42-106992 "Baby Lu" aka "Grin'n Bare It" of the 612th BS/401st BG, Deenthorpe, April 1944Deenthorpe UK airbase in the winter of 1944The 40lst was the first Bomb Group (H) to be activated with the all new B-17G model aircraft. Deenthorpe is located 80 miles north of London and 4 miles southwest of Corby, Northhamptonshire and 9 miles North East of Kettering in Northamptonshire. The base was officially opened for operations on November 24, 1943 and was known as USAAF Station: 128 when home to the bombers of 612, 613, 614, 615 Squadrons of the 401st Bomb Group who flew 255 combat missions from here losing 95 B-17s between December 1943 and June 1945. For a year from June 1945 the site was used as No. 11 Recruitment Centre by the RAF. It was also used for many years by the Royal Observer Corps.In 1944 the southeastern part of England was known as East Anglia and was saturated with airfields both British and American. Deenthorpe is in the far northwest section of East Anglia aka (Bowman 7). There were 72 American bases in operation (Freeman 154) and on averaged there was an airfield every 5 miles making it the heaviest concentration of air activity in history.The various B-17's and their crew jackets that my father flew missions in.A colorized version I did of 42-39993 - " Hell's Angel Out of Chute 13"