The pictures posted below are from the few I was able to bring home. We left Lincoln Nebraska in late Dec., 1944, and flew to Gander , Newfoundland in a brand new B-24 J. We left Gander after 2 days, including Christmas, and flew to the Azores. While in Gander, we spent a night at the Officer's club, and closed it! When we left, there was only one hat. Mine was gone. The one left had a card showing the owner's name, Col. Benjamin J. Davis. He was an outstanding Black officer who had commanded the Red tailed p-51s in the all black squadron in the support group for us. He was a West Pointe grad. I wish I still had the hat. We flew in opposite directions the next day, and I wore his hat the rest of the war, and I'm sure he wore mine.
From the Azores, we flew to Marrakech, North Africa, and then to Tunis. From Tunis to Bari, Italy where we said goodbye to our B-24 J, which we had expected to fly all our missions in. Ha!
We were trucked to Cerignola, Italy, where we flew all our missions. 757 squadron, 459 bomb group. I flew 44 missions, or 28 sorties, depending on how they were counted. I'll tell a few more war stories in my next blog.