We boarded a troop ship sometime in late March 1945. It was probably in the port of New York City or Newark, but I have almost no recall of the boarding, the ship, or the arrival in England. I recall a little of the voyage, and I have an undated letter I wrote home, saying that we arrived safely, and that I didn't get sea-sick. It was apparently written in March 1945. I might add that we were given a daily evacuation drill, we were one of maybe 20 ships in a convoy, and that we were on constant alert for German submarines (none showed up).

My next letter dated April 8, 1945, from England, gives a little more detail on the voyage including the weather, which was pleasant. It doesn't say anything about the port of debarkation. None of my letters during that period give any location beyond England, France, or Germany because that information was secret.

However I do remember the name of the town in England nearest the staging area where we lived. It was Bishop's Stortford, about 30 miles north of London. I was there when FDR died, which I think was April 12, 1945.

I got to visit London at least once during my stay in Bishop's Stortford, and I believe that I left there sometime in late April 1945, bound for my combat unit, somewhere in Germany. My next letter is datelined Germany, dated May 1 1945, and says I visited Paris on my way to the combat unit.

I can vaguely remember Paris, but I didn't notice any wartime damage there; London was severely damaged. when I got to my destination in Germany, I found that it was an airfield near the city of Mannheim near the Rhine river. We lived in tents surrounded by a dense green coniferous forest.

Sometime around May 5 1945 I went on my first combat mission. Since the German army and air force had completely collapsed by then, there was no opposition of any kind. We flew south a few hundred miles to the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, and each of the 10 planes in the squadron dropped a bomb on a truck convoy going up one of the canyons. It may have been headed for Berchtesgaden.

The next day we started out again, but were diverted to escort a surrendering German pilot and airplane to our airfield. We all got behind him. Our flight leader went up alongside him and, using hand signals, told the German pilot where to go. He landed safely and shortly thereafter we also landed.


The truck convoy bombing mission and the pilot escort describe the sum total of my combat experience in WWII, because that afternoon (it must have been May 7) we were told that the war in Europe was over.