Liberator tail-gunner remembers his service

Antipodean Andy · Nov 12, 2008

Veterans Day 2008: World War II tail gunner recalls B-24 missions - Grand Rapids News - The Grand Rapids Press Online - Michigan Newspaper - MLive.com

CASCADE TOWNSHIP -- Like many who served in World War II, Floyd Oglesby never regarded himself as especially brave.

"I probably was scared all the time," recalled Oglesby, 84, who lives in Cascade Township. He was a tail gunner with the Army Air Corps' 445th Bomb Group.

"But I guess you get off the ground and you hope 'it's not me.' "

He wonders what went wrong on Sept. 27, 1944 -- a month after he completed his military service.

Thirty-five B-24 Liberator bombers lifted off that day from Tibenham Airfield in England and headed for a mission over Kassel, in central Germany.

Just four made it back to base after an air battle claimed the greatest number of losses for a single group in U.S. aviation history.

But the disaster was barely known back then, as higher-ups told the survivors to take a few days off. They suggested they not talk about it.

"I really didn't know about it until I got back and read books," Oglesby said.

Glen Arbor resident Linda Alice Dewey, president of the Bay County-based Kassel Mission Historical Society, believes it is time the story be told.

"Nobody knows about it. It deserves to be out there," said Dewey, who has signed with a New York agent to compile a book about the disaster.

Dewey has contacted the office of U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, and the Department of the Air Force to unearth more information about what went wrong that day.

"There are questions that need to be raised," Dewey said.

She is the daughter of Capt. William Dewey, who piloted one of two planes that made emergency landings at another airfield in England. William Dewey, who died in 2007, founded the Kassel Mission Historical Society.

For Oglesby, firing a .50-cal. machine gun at the back of a B-24 at 30,000 feet would have seemed as remote as the moon as he grew up in Iowa.

Oglesby graduated from Mason City High School in 1941 and went to California seeking adventure with a buddy. He found a job in a Lockheed aircraft factory.

In March 1943, he was inducted into the Army. Not long after, he convinced a military interviewer that he would be a good fit for the Army Air Corps.

"That was a glamorous place to be," Oglesby said.

He is convinced his assignment was due to his work for Lockheed but confessed his job there merely consisted of smoothing the burrs off aluminum parts for P-38 fighters.

Oglesby later learned his California buddy, Bob Gamble, crashed and died in his first mission on a B-17.

Oglesby had his own way of coping with the fear that rode with him on every mission. He tucked a picture of his high school sweetheart, Gwen, and a small bible into a pocket.

"I wasn't all that religious, but I said, 'Well, let's give this a try,'" Oglesby said.

Each time he landed safely, Oglesby marked off one more mission on his mental tally sheet, getting ever closer to the 30 missions needed to complete his duty.

"I was always scared. I remember the first one. I thought, 'Maybe this is the end,'" he said.

Oglesby was part of the huge bombing force that prepared the ground for D-day, June 6, 1944.

"I had never seen so many bombers and fighter planes in the air at one time," he wrote in an account of his war experience.

The Kassel mission also was intense as the bomber group rumbled toward the railyard and locomotive works there.

According to numerous accounts, a navigation error sent the bombers about 30 miles beyond its target and separated it from the fighter planes in their formation . The error also put the bombers in an area of German fighter bases.

An estimated 150 German fighter planes swarmed into the bomb group, opening fire with 20-mm and 30-mm cannons. They tore the B-24s apart.

In an account of that day, William Dewey wrote that he had just dropped his bombs "when all hell broke loose."

His B-24 began to shake from the firing of his tail guns, waist guns and the impact of enemy shells.

"As our plane continued to shake, my co-pilot ... pointed out his side window at B-24s in the other squadrons going on fire and enemy fighters exploding."

In a few minutes, 25 B-24s went down in flames and smoke, along with more than two dozen German fighters. Others crashed in France or Belgium.

Grand Rapids resident Bud Koorndyk, 88, piloted a B-24 with another bomb group the day of the Kassel mission.

"We knew they were devastated. We didn't know the particulars," Koorndyk recalled.

But he knew he would probably fly again the next day. So he knocked back a shot of whiskey before he headed for debriefing. "It was just to calm your nerves. It's just part of war. It's part of things that happen.

"The next day was another story all its own."

Oglesby made his 30 missions not long before that day, departing England the month before.

He would marry his high school sweetheart after the war, raise four daughters and move on to a career as a high school history teacher, counselor at Kellogg Community College and mayor of Battle Creek.

Oglesby realizes how lucky he is to have those experiences.

"I guess I was glad I was not on that mission. When you see a plane shot down, you see it go out of formation and pretty soon you don't see it anymore."
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