| Description | His experiences as a B-17 ball turret gunner in the European Theater during World War II; his experiences as a prisoner-of-war of the Germans. Enlistment in the Aviation Cadet Program, 1942; his decision to become a bombardier, 1943; bombardier training, Ellington Field, Houston, Texas, and Laredo Army Air Base, Laredo, Texas, 1943; circumstance leading to his decision to become an aerial gunner, 1943; advanced gunnery school, Lowry Air Force Base, Denver, Colorado, 1943; additional gunnery training, Kingman, Arizona, 1943-44; combat crew training, Pyote, Texas, 1944; his decision to volunteer as ball turret gunner; stationing at Thurleigh, England, June, 1944; raids to V-2 rocket sites at Peenemünde, 1944; relations with British civilians; on-base activities; raids against German transportation facilities; comments about German flak; his plane shot down, July 20, 1944, on a mission to Leipzig; eye surgery in a German military hospital in Chemnitz; solitary confinement and interrogation at Frankfurt; incarceration at Stalag Luft-IV, Gross Tychow, Germany, 1944-45; routine camp life; comments about prison camp guards; transfer to Stalag Luft-I, Barth, Germany, 1945; liberation by Soviet troops; postwar medical treatment and recuperation. |
