09 Oct 306th Bomb Group Reunion 2013
10 of the 12 306th BG WWII veterans who were at the 2013 reunion
The 306th Bomb Group Historical Association held its annual reunion the weekend of October 3-6 in New Orleans. Our hotel was just a short walk from the National WWII Museum.
There were twelve veterans there, all who had flown out of Thurleigh airfield during World War II. Also in attendance were over one hundred family members. We are proudly known as the “Next Generations,” charged with keeping the history of the “First Over Germany” bombardment group alive.
Highlights of the weekend were the three roundtables that allowed our veterans to tell their stories. Pilot Walter P. Rozett remembered flying low over Buchenwald Concentration Camp right after the war had ended. To his horror he saw the mass graves of the men and women who had died there. “That made every mission worthwhile.”
John J. “JJ” Gaydosh, also a pilot, described his first and last missions. It was a lot harder to fly the B-17 in combat, he said. With all the gasoline and the bombs the weight caused it to be so much more sluggish than it had been during his training. On his last mission, at the end of the war, he dropped leaflets over Munich. “Stay here. The war is almost over, and you will begin to receive rations.”
Three of our 306th BG veterans tell us “how it was.”
Radio Operator George Roberts made some remarks about the movie Twelve O’Clock High. “It really portrayed what life was like at Thurleigh.” Flight engineer and top turret gunner Nicholas M. Sawicke actually lived through the months portrayed in that movie. He was one of the original airmen to arrive at the 306th BG and was the 5th to complete his 25 combat missions.
This is just a smattering of the stories, splashed with a few tears, and so valuable because they were told to us by the men who lived them. One personal highlight for me was meeting Roland “Ron” Lissner, a pilot whose B-17 force landed in Sweden. He arrived after my Dad left but he also ended up working at Strandvägen 7B, in the same offices.
The other was meeting in person the family of bombardier William D. Stevens, a member of the Matichka Crew whose B-17 I wrote about in June. It had ditched in the Baltic Sea in May of 1944, then years later was partially salvaged. One of the machine guns now sits in the 306th Bombardment Group Museum. The Stevens family was even able to meet Ralph Franklin, museum owner and curator, who had flown with his wife Daphne all the way from England for his 24th consecutive 306th BG reunion.
On our last evening Gailard “Red” Ketcham, ball turret gunner, gave us a fascinating glimpse of what it was like for an ordinary family to experience those war years. His father worked for Frigidaire, and in one week they went from making refrigerators to making machine guns, the same weapons that Red trained on.
The Association voted to have its 2014 reunion in Colorado Springs near the United States Air Force Academy. It will be an excellent opportunity for our veterans to talk to the new cadets there.
Yes, we can never thank our veterans enough!
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