COMMENTARY>>War stories

By Chris Rumley
314th Airlift Wing historian

I recently had the privilege of spending some time with some World War II veterans from the 62nd Airlift Squadron. This group of veterans and their family members get together during the first week of December each year to reminisce. Just by being around and listening in as they talked to each other, I picked up little tidbits of history that otherwise might have gone unrecorded. Here is what I learned this year from “the guys,” as everyone likes to call them. I was talking with Jack Downhill, a tall, lanky fly-boy in his day, about the time President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited the 314th Troop Carrier Group at Castelvetrano, Sicily. If anyone was to play Jack in a movie about the airlift operations it would have to have been Jimmy Stewart. Jack has that same instant likeableness that draws people around him- I doubt he has ever met a stranger. All the squadrons had built their own Officer’s Club and each wanted the president to have his evening reception at their O’club. The 32nd Troop Carrier Squadron won the honor, but the 62 TCS doctor, who had a knack for such things, was called over to tend bar. Jack told the story,

“Dr. Mahoney was his name – he was called to go tend bar for the president. He came back and told us all about it. Apparently, after Mahoney served the president his martini- that’s all the president drank you know – the president, in the way he talked with that rising and falling timber to his voice, said, ‘Mr. Mahoney, this is the best damn Martini I’ve had since I left Washington,’ well that’s what he came back and told us all anyway – and you can just imagine it – he [Mahoney] was quite excited about it.”

Coincidently, the 314 AW recently came across a photo of the 314th’s World War II commander, Col. Clayton Stiles, escorting the president in a jeep specially designed for the occasion. It’s thebest picture of the event located to date.

Here’s another story I heard from several of the guys. In mid-December 1944, the Germans, taking advantage of some bad weather, attacked the weakly held Allied position in the Ardennes Forest. This is the battle we know as the Battle of the Bulge- named for the bulge in the Allied line created by the German advance. Finally, on Dec. 23, the weather cleared and air power entered the fight. The guys talked about flying in reinforcements and supplies to these hard-pressed Allied forces. On Christmas Eve 1944, the 314th transported reinforcements from the 17th Airborne Division to a small airfield in Belgium. After dropping off the paratroops, the guys pulled out their sleeping bags and spent that Christmas Eve of 1944 sleeping in their C-47s. As Chet Ross, a 62 TCS crew chief, remembered, they didn’t get much sleep, “It was so cold on the floor of those airplanes, and the sleeping bags were so thin,” he said, “that you had to lie on one side for awhile and then it would get so cold that you would wake up and have to flip over- and this went on all night, so we didn’t get much sleep at all.”

Lastly, I had the privilege of meeting for the first time and talking with David Mondt. He was 19 years old when he joined the Army Air Corps and had the nickname “baby.” When looking at his photo, with his leather flying helmet and jacket, you can see why. It’s hard to believe this young kid was flying combat missions and getting shot at by enemy troops, but he had a certain swagger that didn’t match his youthful looks. The guys like to tell the story of how they were in formation one day as a visiting commander conducted an inspection. When he came to Dave Mondt, he leaned over and asked, “Does your Mom know you’re over here kid?” Of course they all got a big kick out of that one – and still do.

The weekend was filled with stories like these and kept me busy writing in my notebook and running my recorder. These guys, “the guys,” of the greatest generation don’t always open up and let us know all the details of their war-time experience, but I am always thankful when they do, thankful to know them, and thankful to tell their stories.