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| 1921 - 2021 |
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Here's an interview with the folks at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans.
Below are the medals my dad received for his service - the first four (Air Medal with 3 oak leaf clusters; American Campaign Medal; Europe-Africa-Middle East Campaign Medal; Victory Medal) were issued during the war; the last five (Combat Service; WWII D-Day; WWII Battle of the Bulge; American Defense; Presidential Unit Citation) are post-war commemoratives.
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My dad piloted and co-piloted C-47s during WWII as part of the Pathfinder (9 Oct 1944 - 4th Pathfinder Squadron 9th TC Group, Ninth Air Force) missions (dropping the 82nd and 101st Airborne paratroops, gliders, and supplies prior to D-Day), and as part of EATS (the European Air Transport Service) after the German Occupation My mom and one of my aunts (an Army nurse) joined him in Munich for awhile.
While he was stationed in England, most of the non-mission days were spent putting "flying time" in - one flight was carrying Supreme Court Associate Justice Frank Murphy to and from a meeting in Dublin.
The C-47 pictured above was co-piloted by my dad during the Varsity mission of 24 Mar 1945 and was on eBay for awhile during Spring 2005 (it didn't sell, so it's back with the company that owns it) - it's been refurbished, repainted, and flown in many movies, including A Bridge Too Far and Band of Brothers! The photo was taken at the Alexandria airport in Egypt. The plane has since been purchased by C. Paul Hilliard, president of Lafayette-based Badger Oil Corporation, and donated to the National WWII Museum in New Orleans.
The following picture shows one of the EATS C-47s.
The Pathfinder Mission survivors had a 2006 Reunion in Nashville, Tennessee (May 17 - 21) - here's a couple of photos from the event.
 My dad's standing at the far left. |  My dad's standing at the right, back, just SE of the prop tip. |
These pictures show some of the (light, CG-4A) gliders dropped off at Arnhem (the actual DZ was probably the Nijmegen area - there were a lot of gliders dropped off along the Eindhoven-Niemegen-Arnhem run) - my dad took these during the return flight; you can see the offloading tire tracks.
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During the Bastogne resupply drop (Mission 391-A) he was co-pilot on 42-93099. The plane took flak over Bastogne and dad and the pilot, Wallace Marley, kept the plane up until gravity won and they were forced to belly land sixteen miles north of Reims. Here's the (now declassified) official report from the Unit History. [Click on each picture for a PDF copy.]
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42-93099 was never recovered from that plowed field north of Reims and is considered "destroyed" by the AeroTransport Data Bank.
The C-47 (42-93605) shown below was flown by my dad bringing some POWs home (via England) from Germany.
That C-47 had a long postwar history:
Here's some more pictures that my dad took:
My dad also flew some of the first radar-equipped planes, with the audio A-N Morse Code systems - when you were properly aligned, the A and N codes merged into a steady tone.
Thanks to Dave Berry, Pathfinder Historical Consultant, for the C-47 histories!
Thanks also to Charles L. Day, author of SILENT ONES: WWII Invasion Glider Test and Experiment for offsite glider information!
