11 Feb Kearney
At Kearney: pilot Charles W. Smith, co-pilot Merle P. Brown, navigator Charles L. Stevenson, bombardier Herman F. Allen
From Moses Lake, the crew moved east to Kearney Army Air Field in middle Nebraska for additional Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Training. Kearney was a heavy bombardment processing center, a “staging area” where the crews were prepared for overseas duty.
At a website for the Buffalo County (Nebraska) Historical Society, a crew member who was at Kearney at the same time as Herman described what it was like:
“The buildings were built to be used on a temporary basis … and they threw up the buildings very fast – almost overnight… I came during favorable weather conditions (September, 1943) and left before any of the big storms got started (November, 1943), so I didn’t experience any big inconvenience as far as weather conditions went. Our practice bombing range was between Broken Bow and Sumner. The Army moved people off their farms in that area. We had night and overwater flights, and kept practicing to put everything together.”
Herman’s crew member, Don Courson, remembers that at Kearney they “flew practice flights all over the country.” Once they flew to Galveston, Texas and somehow got lost out over the gulf. Steve, the navigator, said he didn’t know where they were. It was storming and lighting, so I can just imagine what they were thinking … brand new crew, finally able to put to put it all together, and they were lost. They finally found Dallas and landed there.
If I ever wonder what Herman was thinking in 1943 as he prepared to leave for combat, I only have to read his poetry.
Yet ere I keep that rendezvous,
Let me dream awhile,
For the road is long …
This final mile.
It was only yesterday,
A year, an age ago,
That I heard the call,
And prepared to go.
Holiday fever, marching bands,
All added to the air.
Seemed almost
Like a county fair.
Speeches and such by famous men
The glory of battle. Some spread!
But they forgot
To mention the dead.
Our dreams, our hopes, our fears,
Are really of ignoble fame,
When pitted against
Life’s ruthless game.
… Now I lie beneath the stars,
Alone, yet unafraid …
Dear God, I am ready
To join that Big Parade.
Herman Allen ~ 1943
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