Bombers recall WWII heroics

Thursday, Sept. 14, 2000 | 11:13 a.m.

Not everyone who played an important role in the Allied victory over Nazi Germany on D-Day fought at Normandy.

Some men, like the pilots and crews of the 464th Bombardment Group, were hundreds of miles away, crippling the German war effort by leveling oil refineries and factories in Germany, Romania, Czechoslovakia and Austria. The much-unheralded B-24 Boxcar bombers that flew those missions were no less important to the ultimate triumph.

"You had to look at the whole picture, not just the battle waged on the beachheads," said 79-year-old Larry Deck, a tech sergeant engineer/gunner during World War II and a crew member of the B-24 bomber that was named the Repulsive Raider.

"Our role in the diversion was important because it diverted German fighters to us and away from the beach. And we also got to do some heavy damage to the enemy."

Deck, a retired union newspaper printer from Hutchinson, Kan., was shot down on his 22nd mission and evaded German troops in Yugoslavia for several days before he got back to Allied lines to fly again. In all, he flew 51 missions.

Deck's story was not unlike that of many other members of the Army Air Corps' 464th, which was comprised of the 776th, 777th, 778th and 779th squadrons. About 185 of them were at the Gold Coast hotel-casino this week, participating in the group's 16th reunion -- an event that is held every two years in cities nationwide. The reunion concludes today.

The 464th from April 1944, to May 1945, lost 138 planes on 210 combat missions, including the July 1944 destruction of the oil refinery at Ploesti, Romania -- a key installation that had long kept Hitler's war machine in operation. Eleven months earlier, 54 American bombers from another group were lost in a fiasco over Ploesti.

"I'm convinced that if we did not take out Ploesti and Hitler's other oil refineries we could have lost the war," said Les "Stoney" Garner, 81, a tech sergeant and radio operator/nose gunner aboard the B-24 Ol' Iron Ass that saw action over Ploesti.

Garner, a retired retail wholesaler from Greenville, N.C., flew 50 missions, walking away from one plane that crash-landed on an island off of Yugoslavia.

Trained in Idaho and based in Italy, the 464th flew what was called heavy bombers. Although its B-24s could fly higher, faster and farther than the popular Boeing B-17s, it was the Flying Fortresses that got much of the glory during World War II and after.

Actor Jimmy Stewart flew a B-17 and the seasoned Memphis Belle, which was the subject of a hit motion picture, also was a Flying Fortress. Why the B-24 Boxcar was not as showcased remains a mystery to those who flew them.

"For whatever reason, it was the Army Air Corps' decision to give the B-17 more publicity," said Gene Taylor, 77, a lieutenant and lead bombardier on the White Mike B-24. "But the B-24 was a fine plane -- a workhorse. We carried 2,000-pound bombs, which was something the B-17 could not do."

From 1939-45, 19,256 four-engine B-24s were manufactured by four American companies, including the Ford Motor Co. Only two of those planes are known to be flight worthy today, and the B-24's role in World War II remains merely a footnote.

Taylor, a retired medical administrator for two hospitals in Bend, Ore., flew 50 B-24 missions. Deck, Garner and Taylor all received the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. Their group received 10 Battle Stars and two Presidential Unit Citations.

Many of the more than 2,000 men who served in the 464th were killed and are buried in Europe. Those men, Garner insists, "are the true heroes. We are just the lucky ones who got to come home."

Betty Karle, historian for the 464th, says the group's chaplain, John Eastwood, wrote 980 letters informing families of those who were missing or dead. Her family got one.

"My brother, John James, got injured while training a crew and didn't get to go," Karle said. "He wrote that that news would put our fears at ease, but he said he would have rather gone over with his crew. He later got a new crew and he led them on Ploesti."

Ten days after Ploesti, over a Nazi-operated Czechoslovakian oil refinery, the bomber named after the popular cartoon character Little Lulu, was shot down on its 50th mission. James was among those killed.

Deck, Garner and Taylor say the government needs to do more for today's aging and ailing World War II veterans.

"We are dying off at a rate of 31,000 a month," Garner said. "Medical costs are high, and there are so many who need help."

Deck said: "The existing VA (Veterans Administration) facilities need to be improved to give proper care to veterans. And, I'm not just talking about us. The veterans of Korea and Vietnam also are getting old and will need better health care."