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--- In memory of Richard Wiens --- Published Thursday, Sept. 9, 1999 Quote for the Day ... "History's lessons
are no more enlightening than the wisdom of those who interpret
them."
The 10-man crew of the Lady Patricia (from left in front): Armorers "Mac" McLaughlin, and "Jeff" Jefferson, radio operator Fred Shellenberg (holding "Sparks" one of two St. Bernard mix puppies the crew found in a haystack and adopted), engineers Charles Meade and Walter Kraczyk, radio operator Richard Wiens, and (in back from left) the pilot, Capt. Daryl Mason, co-pilot Stanley Burda who brought his accordion, and navigators Hank Aarnwyne and William Germer, in Cerignola, Italy, c. 1944-45. "Lady Patricia" was a B-24 (behind the men) named for Mason's baby daughter. They flew as part of the 745th Squadron, 456th Bombardment Group, 15th Air Force. The Crew of the Lady PatriciaThis is a tribute to the crew of the Lady Patricia. Most of them are gone. A few are still around. One of them is my dad. They represent a great generation of men and women who did their duty under difficult circumstances. Many paid the ultimate price and never returned. Many more brought home memories that haunt them still, especially in their dreams when the years melt away. This is their story, my dad's, that of the crew of the Lady Patricia, and the story of perhaps thousands like them. Compared to them, the members of my generation -- Baby Boomers -- seem spoiled, untested, weak. (I omit from our group the men and women who served in Korea or Vietnam and never got the welcome home they so richly deserved. I put them ahead of us, as compatriots with the World War II veterans who came home in honor and glory, because they shared demands of duty we cannot begin to comprehend.) As self-absorbed Baby Boomers, we are also much more inclined to talk about ourselves when we should be listening. Especially now. These men and women, Tom Brokaw calls them The Greatest Generation, were put to the test, many just as they were coming of age. Their experiences no doubt determined the kind of people they became after the war. For many it would not be the only kind of war they would endure. Do you know someone Who Was There? When you get a chance, talk to them. Find out what they did. Listen, ask questions and listen some more. The world needs to hear what they can remember. One day it will be too late, and they will not be here to tell us. History books cannot begin to offer what one man or woman Who Was There can. "It isn't so hard to talk about it," my dad told me recently on a visit to my home in Poplar Bluff on the occasion of my daughter's 9th birthday. "But it is hard to think about it, especially at night. Sometimes you get real depressed about it. You can't help it." But talk about it he did at my urging. We visited for hours looking at photographs, a world atlas, old letters, medals, mementos. I asked him if he had ever read Catch 22, Joseph Heller's World War II classic that recently ranked No. 7 on a controversial list of the century's top 100 works of literature. He said that he had not. I read him my favorite passage among those I had highlighted in yellow ("Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three."). He liked it and began reading it, and eventually took my book home with him to finish. I took notes and showed him the detailed timeline I had constructed based on his earlier accounts. I had already written a little about my father's wartime experiences and was wanting to do more. An essay I'd written earlier, "A Random Act of Kindness c. 1945", had caught the attention of a book editor who expressed an interest in publishing the story, and I wanted to double check all my facts during my parents' visit. I told my mom on the phone to be sure Dad brought with him his Eisenhower jacket, his certificate of valor, his photos and his writing diary, things we last looked over together during an Easter visit at their home in Kansas City. That story occurred after his tour of duty in Europe, on a night in New Orleans when an anonymous benefactor spotted him in uniform walking along the street and treated him and three other servicemen to a night of dinner and dancing and a stay at the elegant Roosevelt Hotel. "There were a lot of things like that. It was everybody's story," he told me. "There were probably a thousand stories like that one. I can't believe the way these Vietnam vets were treated when they came home. It made me so mad. It seems like it was an entirely different country." The "Random Act of Kindness" was a pleasant story to recall, and it paved the way for other, more difficult memories. "You try to remember the good things," he told me, "but you know I had so many friends who didn't make it, like little Victor Hays who lived across the backyard from us. He was a year younger than me. We walked to school together every morning ... He joined the Navy and was killed at Pearl Harbor." Richard Wiens was 21 when he enlisted in the Army in January 1942 following the attack on Pearl Harbor the month before. He took three days of exams at Fort Reilly and was among those chosen for aviation cadet school. "It was like getting into West Point," he said, and was quite an honor for a boy from Kansas who'd completed just two years of college. Pre-flight school at Randolph Field in San Antonio, Texas, was packed with college-level courses in physics and math. "You went full steam from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. You didn't walk to class. You ran to class," he said. "I was there at Randolph Field the day they had the great big parade. I saw Roosevelt that day. Roosevelt came in and made a speech. They brought in guys from all the Army and Air Corps bases around. It was a big, formal parade." Many of his fellow underclassmen were West Pointers. He was keeping up with them and doing well. But a year later he was among a large group of fellow trainees, all with last names from the end of the alphabet, who were transferred to other areas. He was put in radio school but he already knew Morse code from cadet school. "I was what they called a forgotten airman," he said. The air force had advertised cadet school and induced many of them to enlist to become pilots. "They didn't tell us they really wanted air crewmen, not just pilots. I was classified as a pilot for almost two years. I had 27 solo hours." Many of them "washed out" as pilots to become mechanics, engineers and radio operators on flight crews. To him the decision had already been made as to who would be washed out. The instructor who took him up for a check out had him immediately set the plane back down, telling him almost as soon as it began that the test was over. "I got alphabetized," he said. "All my buddies who also washed out were W's, Y's, and Z's." His disappointment faded with the reality of war. That he did not become a pilot "might have saved my life," he reflected. "You never know." It helped that Daryl Mason, the pilot of his crew, expected everyone to take turns flying the plane. "He let everybody fly," he said. "We all got a chance to pilot. Everybody flew so we could switch off if necessary." One of his friend's brothers, a flight engineer, did in fact have to fly a B-17 back all by himself after his fellow crewmen all were killed in flight. During his training, he was married on furlough and brought my mother with him to California, where he was stationed at March Field and assigned to a flight crew. The crew trained for a year but the day they were called overseas my dad came down with strep throat and was left behind. He shipped out two weeks later with a new crew. He later learned that his original crew, assigned to the Eighth Air Force in England, was shot down over the English Channel and perished. His new crew was stationed in Italy with the 456th Bombardment Group of the 15th Air Force. He flew on 53 missions, the last of them during the Battle of the Bulge. The crew would rise at 4 a.m. each day to fly over the Alps toward their targets. Many did not make it back. He was discharged in August 1945 after the Japanese surrendered. "War is terrible," he told me. "It's inhumane. You'd have breakfast in the morning with one guy and watch him get blown up off your wing in the afternoon. No one should have to go through that." Before the war, the politics of the times weren't so different then than they are now, he said. He remembers a day in 1940 when he was driving to visit my mother. He had the radio on and "Roosevelt was saying 'Our boys will never fight a war on foreign soil.' I never forgot that," he said. Roosevelt was running for president with an antiwar theme but secretly pushing for America to get involved. "All the college kids were against the war, just like Vietnam. All these peace programs like 'America First' were being promoted in college. "Then it all changed overnight at Pearl Harbor," he said. "The next day was entirely different. We declared war on Japan, then Hitler declared war on us because of the Tripartite Pact between Germany, Italy and Japan." He and I continue visiting. My children are nearby, listening. I especially want them to know about their grandfather's role in World War II. His is one man's story yet perhaps in many ways it is every man's. I see my father rise up in the eyes of my 12-year-old son who does not know him well. Afterward he is glad to join his grandfather in a game of checkers. The next morning it was clear my father had not slept well. He said he had flown all night long in his dreams, in a modern stealth bomber instead of a B-24. My mother says that the first night he was home he leaped out of bed in terror in the middle of the night. In the weeks that followed my father's visit, my son has consumed one World War II video after another, movies including "Patton," "The Battle of the Midway" and various Time-Life videos, and he has dug out and looked through several related large books in our library. History has come to life for my son with the words of his grandfather. These are some more of the things he shared ...
This is one of a group of photos made with the B-24's turret camera. The men would unmount the camera from the plane and use it to take photos on their trips to town. Charles Meade took most of the photos and brought several undeveloped rolls to my father many years afterward. They remained in his desk until 1979, when I developed them for him and made prints.
• On every flight each crewman was supplied with a stash of gold seal dollars -- money they could use to help buy their way out of trouble if needed. The men were told to acquire native clothing, blend in and find their way to Athens. They were told in training to take the street car in Athens to the end of the line, where they would make contact with a partisan in touch with U.S. forces.
Bob Pilcher from Wichita had to do just that. His crew was shot down over Poland and made their way to Russia, where they met up with a spy who helped them acquire a German plane. They flew it to Athens and were taken back to their base to continue their missions. This photo shows Pilcher, on the right in civilian clothes, with a spy they befriended. The caption on the back identifies the man in the middle as "Paul," a Yugoslavian working under cover among Germans. Before enlisting, Dad and Pilcher had worked together on the night shift in a wood shop at Stearman Aircraft in Wichita, Kansas, crafting wings for the PT-13 biplane. They literally bumped into each other in Foggia, Italy, one day while both were on leave (but in different groups). They enjoyed a horse and buggy tour together though the city. • During training the flight crews were taught to eat European style so they could blend in. They were told to be sure to hold their knife in their right hand at all times. They were also shown how to hold their cigarettes and smoke European style so they would not be spotted as Americans. • • Below is a train the crew briefly stole for a joyride
in Foggia. The city was mostly deserted and the crew came
upon the train, its engine steamed up and running but no one
aboard. The U.S. had just invaded Italy and its government was in shambles. U.S.soldiers, MPs, helped restore order and run things. "Once I directed traffic in Foggia. Someone would just hand you an armband and say, 'You're an MP.' " • These Italian women are carrying wares on their heads. • This is a photo of the crew enjoying some time off
on the isle of Capri, a vacation they were treated to after
25 missions. • Once the crew was listed as missing in action for about two hours. "We were badly damaged at Rosenheim and couldn't keep up with our squadron." That day Fred Shellenberg became the only one of their crew to be wounded. He was hit in the face with flak. Altitude and the thin air made him bleed heavily, so the men thought he was badly hurt. "We opened the first aid kit and poured sulphur powder all over him and wrapped compresses around his head." On approach the crew fired flares from their beri pistol, a signal they had a wounded man on board. An ambulance was ready and waiting for Schellenberg when they landed. "They took him to the hospital. He didn't want to go. Three or four days later, he came back with a Band-Aid on his cheek. He didn't need any stitches but he got the Purple Heart." • Another time the crew was shot down over the island of Vis. All 10 safely parachuted out into a British mission. Parachuting was not something they had ever practiced. Dad was amazed his nylon parachute did its job. He saved it. My grandmother sewed it into a bed jacket for my mother when she was expecting their first child, my sister Barbara. • "Did I ever tell you about the time I dropped a fish?" This leads to a story about the crew's flight across the Atlantic, a stopover at the Azores where they slept in a cave, refilled the gas tanks and flew on to North Africa for a landing in Marrakech. "I was on the radio and dropped the fish, which is a weight on the end of a long wire used as an antenna. We were on code, tapping Morse code to the tower -- I was pretty good at Morse code; it just came naturally to me. I called for QLA, landing instructions, but I was so excited about landing in Africa that I forgot to reel in the fish. So we lost the fish. I got blamed for it. We had to layover a day in Marrakech while they replaced the fish. Then we flew to Tunis carrying extra gas tanks. We had a gas leak so we had to layover in Tunis for a week while they repaired our gas tanks. "General Rommel had just been kicked out of Tunis, and Rommel's officers had taken over a hotel in downtown Tunis. That hotel was empty. We stayed there, and I remember we used to go up on the hotel's roof garden and take our binoculars to look out on the beach." "When we first got to Marrakech it was the middle of the war," he said. The Germans and Italians were gone from North Africa but still occupying half of Italy. "When we landed in Marrakech, the first thing we saw was this great big fenced-in enclosure, and there were about 10,000 imprisoned Italians in there. Mussolini's whole Italian division had surrendered. Patton had surrounded them and cut them off. He was a genius, that guy Patton. He was crazy but a genius." Seeing all those Italian soldiers "scared me to death because there were thousands of them and only a few hundred Americans at this air base. You'd walk by and each guy would rattle his tin cup at you and say, 'Hey Joe, give me a cigarette.' Every American was Joe." But he hadn't needed to worry about an insurrection among the prisoners. "That's all Sahara Desert country. They didn't want to escape. Where would they go? What would they eat?" --- I am grateful for our conservation for it reveals the man my father is, a man who once rose to the occasion and did more than he ever thought possible. It is a time of which he is intensely proud. I think this has sustained him during some of the difficult times later in his life. Next year our country will dedicate a new veteran's memorial in Washington. "My name will be in there. I sent the form back to Bob Dole," he said. "You know I can go to the VA or the old soldier's home in Leavenworth any time. I can walk into Leavenworth any Saturday afternoon and have a beer..." And there was a time when nearly anyone nearby would have gladly treated him to one. Related Links: In our town, a veteran's memorial wall is being planned at the new Black River Coliseum, our city's 5,000-seat community center/performance arena. Some people are upset because they are charging for each name to be included. Seems to me we ought to be able to raise enough money to pay for them all. It's the least we can do. Webcurrents Catch of the Day: Visit a virtual play community at www.deepfun.com, where you can find a wonderful inner playground hosted by Bernie DeKoven, a game designer, the developer of the training program for the New Games Foundation, the author of a curriculum in children's games and The Well-Played Game. a book that helped to revolutionize how people play together. Thank you for visiting. Please drop by often... Julie Wolpers
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Julie Wolpers dba Webcurrent Communications |
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This
boy is Pasquali. He's standing at the door to his home in
Italy. Dad's crew used to take him some of their rations.
Pasquali's mother made the soliders eggs and chips. The men
made Pasquali a go-cart.
The
crew of 10 lived in two tents at their base within an olive
grove near Cerignola. They popped popcorn on a stove fashioned
from an old gas can. This photo shows one of the crewmen shaving
outside the tent.
"We
just jumped in there and drove it down the track. I don't
remember how far we went." Often the crew looked for
comic relief. "We were under incredible tension because
you knew you had to fly in the morning," he said. 
They
were angry at having their picture taken.
"The
air force took over the isle of Capri and made a service club
out of Count Ciano's villa. Ciano was a famous Italian airman,
the head of the Italian air force and Mussolini's son-in-law.
(The villa) was all black marble inside, if that tells you
anything about that guy. He had this big, huge bathroom and
everything in it, all the fixtures, the ceiling, the floor,
everything was black marble. The villa was built into a cliff
looking straight down into the Mediterranean." At Capri
my father was once again a victim of the alphabet. "They
assigned us beds and rooms and by the time they got to the
W's they were all out of beds, so I just got a cot." 
