Old Letters

Background: My dad's plane was shot down on its first mission over Gabes, Tunisia. My dad and two other crew members were injured and sent to a prison hospital in Naples, Italy before two eventually were sent to Camp 59. I don't know what happened to the third. The rest of his crew was captured and sent to a prison camp in Germany, so they didn't find out until much later what happened to those who were injured.

What follows is a copy of a letter the navigator on my dad's plane, Dick Hillis, sent to his father during the war, followed by excerpts from a letter my dad sent back in 1993 relating his experiences in Italy.  Dick Hillis sent these to me after my dad died. I'm posting it for nieces and nephews who will be reading the blog and any WWII buffs. The rest of you may wish to skip this entry!

(This letter makes it easy to imagine these young Americans on their way to their first and only bombing mission.)

Flight in a New B-17F Flying Fortress from the United States to North Africa

Our crew was formed in Boise, Idaho in September and early October, 1942. We had three months training in Boise, Idaho; Alamogordo, N.M.; Salinas, Kansas and W. Palm Beach, Florida for preparation for flying overseas alone by way of he south route. At this early stage of the war, our military did not want the Germans to know how many planes were being sent over for combat. Hence, no large formations of planes--just go quietly and alone.

We left Florida on or about January12, '43. The first stop for fuel was Port au Prince airfield, Puerto Rico, then on to Trinidad, off the coast of Venezuela, for the first night. The next day, we flew southeast along the coast of Brazil. On the way, we had a real good look at Devil's Island, the notorious French prison off the coast of French Guiana. Then on past the mouth of the Amazon River and the city of Belem, Brazil, to Natal, Brazil, the easternmost point of land in Brazil. Here our plane was checked thoroughly and after a couple of days, we headed across the South Atlantic Ocean for Bathurst, British Gambia, on the western Africa coast. The distance across the south Atlantic was about 1250 miles and we had enough fuel for about 1600 miles, so we didn't have a whole lot of room for error. Fortunately, the weather was perfect and the plane performed beautifully and hit our destination on the nose.

The airstrip at Bathurst was just a long runway hewn out of the jungle with a steel runway mat. We slept that night in primitive huts in hammocks. The natives cautioned us against the snakes that sometimes crawled into bed with a person for warmth, and suggested we keep our 45 caliber revolvers with us. The next morning, when we went out to our airplane, there was a group of baboons sitting on the wings.

We flew north from Bathurst across the Sahara Desert to Marrakech, French Morocco. On the way, we identified the town of Timbuktu, down on the desert. What a forlorn place! In Marrakech, we stayed in the best hotel in town which had been occupied by German soldiers two weeks prior. Then on to Oran, Algeria, on the Mediterranean coast. Here they stripped our plane of any extra weight and installed machine guns and ammunition. After a few days, we flew on up to our advanced base on the desert south of Constantine, Algeria. This was the 301st Bomb Group, 12th Air Force, and we were assigned to the 32nd Squadron.

The first thing was to dig a hole below ground level for our tent. The Germans had a habit of flying over occasionally and bombing the area. Anything above ground level was destroyed. We had a couple of days to get organized and then flew our first mission over Gabes, Tunisia, using incendiary bombs on a German airfield. The rest is history. We "bought it" as we were leaving the target -- a direct hit by anti-aircraft fire (flak). We lost number two engine and it was on fire. We began to fall back out of formation of the other planes and ME 109s came in and finished us off. Luckily, the whole crew got out but there were injuries.

Once on the ground, Italian soldiers rounded us up with a desert truck and took us to Italian military officers in Gabes. The injured crew members were taken for medical treatment, and the others were kept in a barbed wire enclosure until transported north to Tunis, Tunisia, and turned over to the Germans.

Excerpts from my father's letter to Dick Hillis.

...Well after I got separated from you guys, Horton, Thofern and I who were wounded and stayed in N. Africa for 18 days, and then went on a hospital ship to Naples, Italy. Horton had bruises as big as a football on his back leg acquired when he landed. It affected the nerve in his leg and he couldn't pick up his toes when he walked. Thofern got hit with flak in the head and back. It affected his eyesight. I had 2 broken legs.

We stayed in a hospital a few miles from Naples near Mt. Vesuvius. I left them in the hospital and went to a transient camp at Caserta and later transferred to a camp, Servigliano, in northeastern Italy about 35 miles inland from the Adriatic. Thofern later joined me.

In Sept. I escaped and spent a harrowing 9 months behind the lines. It was impossible to get across ... because the line was static all the winter of '43-'44. I tried 5 different times and was lucky to avoid recapture.

I learned to speak Italian quite well, and it helped a lot to keep me one step ahead of the Germans. Thank God I had Latin in school. The Italian peasant people were very good to me and housed me and fed me.

Finally on June 19, 1944 the Germans began to pull back and I was able to cross; I ran into the British 8th Army. A captain from AMG, who was way out in front of the infantry, took me under his wing, and two days later dropped me off at a British transient camp about a hundred miles south.

At that camp that night I ran into a truck driver who was hauling a B-17 wing and asked him if he knew where the 301st was. He said "Sure, they're at Foggia and I'm going there tomorrow and I'll give you a lift." So the next day he took me along with a British tank Sgt. and a South African Infantry Sgt. to Foggia. These guys were also escaped POWs.

We got to Foggia and I got to Group HQ where they greeted me with open arms. I stayed at Group for about ten days then flew home via Algiers, Casablanca, Azores, Newfoundland and New York. I arrived at N.Y. on the Fourth of July. I was happy to say the least.

Duncan and I are off to Rome in a few hours and the next few posts will be sent from the Freedom Trails in Servigliano!