Margaret, the youngest sister, was married to a New York City fireman named Thomas Bile, and the couple asked Peter to come live with them in Brooklyn. By the time he turned eighteen, Peter had a good job in Brooklyn, was paying a little rent to the Biles and had saved enough money to buy a used motorcycle.
Helen Stagniunas had striking good looks, and she was smart. Peter was attracted to her the first time they met. He thought she was the prettiest girl in Brooklyn. He also thought she was a little spoiled. Helen was the daughter of a tailor and the youngest of four girls. When she first met Peter at a friend’s party, Helen played it cool, although she was immediately taken with him. He was tall and had that rugged outdoor look about him. Peter Seniawsky just looked like a guy who could take care of himself, and Helen reasoned he could also take care of any girl he really cared about. When she ran into him again during a not-so-chance meeting, she accepted his request for a date.
As they dated through the summer of 1941, Helen came to understand something else about Peter. There was a restlessness inside him—not just a desire, but an actual need to test what he was made of. Once discovered, this part of Peter’s personality both excited and scared Helen. She was developing serious feelings for Peter and wanted to know that he was going to be around.
One night, as he walked Helen to her door, he reluctantly told her of a big decision he had made. He and a friend were going to take a tour of the western United States and perhaps Mexico—on a motorcycle.
“A motorcycle?”
“Yeah, I’m going to buy one,” Peter told her.
“And tour the country?” Helen frowned.
“Well, yeah . . . I . . .”
“Peter Seniawsky, if you buy a motorcycle, then you can forget about seeing me!” Tears glistened in Helen’s eyes.
Peter hesitated. God, she was pretty, but he would only be nineteen once, and if he did not go now, he never would. He went on to explain how much he cared for her, but the trip would last no more than a couple of months. He was not leaving for good. It was just something he needed to do. Helen had stopped listening. It would be several weeks before he and his friend would be prepared to leave, so he and Helen could still see each other. She did not think that was a good idea. They kissed goodbye and parted that night, not with anger but with regret.
Peter got a great deal on a Harley-Davidson that needed some repairs and soon he had it running like new. He took a solo trip on the Harley to Philadelphia as a shakedown cruise. By the first week of December, Peter and his traveling pal had stockpiled enough cash and even mapped out their western tour route, day by day. Everything was ready. They decided to leave in the early spring of 1942 once the weather turned warmer. On December 7, their plans changed.
Peter walked down to the local Army recruiting office and, catching his reflection in the glass door, he stopped and removed his glasses. As he entered he resolved to demand duty in the armored corps, thinking that he might still get the chance to drive a motorcycle. Less than a half hour later, he was back standing on the sidewalk in front of the recruiting station.
“Sorry, son. Your eyes aren’t up to par,” the recruiting sergeant had told him. It was a free pass, one many men would have gladly taken. But Peter did not want it and, in fact, was determined not to accept it. There had to be a way.
About two months after his rejection by the Army, Peter noticed an article in the newspaper that said the vision standards had been lowered. He was back at the recruiting office the next day. This time he passed the eye test, just barely.
“I want to get into the armored corps. I want to drive a motorcycle,” Peter told the sergeant in charge.
“No problem,” the sergeant responded. “Just sign right here.” If Peter had said, “I want to be a general,” there is little doubt the recruiting sergeant’s reply would have been any different.
The Army sent Peter first to Long Island for more testing, where they informed him that he had an aptitude for things mechanical. Next it was off to an Army base in Mississippi, where he breezed through the courses of the Army Air Corps Mechanics School. Upon graduation, he was enthusiastically looking forward to at least being part of a combat aircraft ground crew, servicing the fighters and bombers that would strike Germany and Japan. Where he ended up was Clovis, New Mexico.
On an especially hot morning, Peter walked into his commanding officer’s hut, determined to demand reassignment to some kind of frontline unit. Removing his cap, Peter watched as sand fell out of it. The tiny grains bouncing across the floor only strengthened his resolve.
“Sir, I’ve . . .”
The officer looked up from his desk and interrupted his chief mechanic. “Peter, I’m glad you’re here. I need you to pick out fourteen men from your company. They will be reassigned.”
“Reassigned?” Peter asked.
“Yes, I’ve got to provide fourteen men for gunnery school.”
“What kind of gunnery school?” Peter wanted to know.
“Fifty-caliber machine guns, I believe,” the officer said.
“Fifty caliber. You’re talking about bomber gunners, right?”
“I would think so.”
“How about putting my name down on that list,” Peter said.
The officer looked the sergeant in the eyes. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“Peter, you wear glasses! I can’t . . .”
Peter removed his glasses and shoved them into his pocket. “They don’t know that at the gunnery school, sir.”
The officer smiled. He certainly owed this young sergeant more than a favor or two. He had taken a group comprised mostly of slackers and underachievers, and he had kept them on the job and mostly out of trouble.
“You really want to go, Peter?”
“Yeah, I do.”
His commanding officer wrote “Peter Seniawsky” at the top of the reassignment list. Peter did not even ask where the gunnery school was located. It had to be better than the desert.
The sergeant and thirteen other enlisted men were soon on their way to Utah. When their airplane landed at an air base that had been constructed on the edge of the Great Salt Flats, Peter began to wonder if the locale was any better than Clovis.
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” he said to himself. “I’m going to be a bomber gunner. In a few months, I’ll be overseas.”
The former mechanics were all pleasantly surprised when they were informed that their gunnery school was miles from the air base. It was located high in the majestic Rocky Mountains, which bordered the salt flats. For the next few weeks Peter had a wonderful time. He learned everything there was to know about the .50 caliber machine gun—how to take it apart and put it back together, even blindfolded. And if the actual target practice was not that realistic, at least it was interesting.
The new gunners assumed they would be driven down to the air base, deposited on a B-17 and allowed to acquire some in-flight gunnery experience. During their first two weeks of training, what they got was a thrilling ride aboard an open mining car. The little car was equipped with a .30 caliber machine gun and rolled—or more accurately, careened—along a narrow-gauge track. On the descent, the occupant tried to hit targets, at least when he was not holding on for his life. After a few bumpy rides, Peter figured out it was impossible to hit the target under such conditions, except by pure luck.
What Peter enjoyed most was taking solitary hikes through the Rocky Mountain forests. On his day off, he would pack a couple of sandwiches and not return until after sunset. He imagined how the legendary nineteenth-century mountain men must have felt. That was not a bad life, he decided.
During his last few days at gunnery school, Peter and the other trainees were finally given the opportunity for some actual in-flight target practice. Flying in a B-17, the men were to each have a burst or two at a target sleeve pulled by a second airplane. He watched with anticipation as the first man was unable to score a hit. I can do better than that, Peter thought
and wiggled his fingers in preparation for his turn.
The second man to shoot began to blast away at the target, and to everyone’s amazement the sleeve went down like a rock. The irritated instructor informed the jubilant marksman that although he had missed the target sleeve completely, he had managed to hit the tow cable. The sleeve was gone and so was Peter’s first and last chance at air-to-air shooting practice. The first time he would fire a .50 caliber in the air, he would be heading to Germany on his first combat mission.
During his first week at gunnery school, Peter had taken great care to conceal his vision problem. However, he found it necessary to wear his glasses when he was first ordered to strip down the .50 caliber weapon and then reassemble it. He waited nervously for the instructor’s negative reaction, but it never came. After that, Peter freely wore the glasses whenever he needed to. No one ever said anything about his glasses at the gunnery school, but Peter knew at his next assignment, it could be a very different story.
With gunnery school nearly finished, he would soon be headed to Washington State to join his bomber crew. These guys would be putting their lives in each other’s hands, and they might not be so accepting of a gunner who wore thick glasses. He knew he could do the job, but he decided, “Why rock the boat?” Before he left gunnery school, he sent his official aviator sunshades home to his sister Margaret, with instructions to have prescription shaded lenses inserted. Those shades would help Peter hide his little secret until he got to know his new crewmates.
It was March 1943 when Peter joined his B-17 crew in Moses Lake, Washington, where they would begin their in-flight training before transferring to Walla Walla. His assignment was left waist gunner. The aircraft commander was First Lieutenant Giles Kauffman Jr. The pilot’s quiet demeanor, Peter soon learned, was not aloofness. Kauffman turned out to be friendly enough once you got to know him. Casual with his men while off duty, he was a no-nonsense, get-the-job-done type of officer when commanding his aircraft. Most of the crew thought those were admirable traits for a man who was about to lead them into air combat.
One day, during a break from their B-17 flight training, one of the boys suggested a game of touch football. Although it was a typical drizzly Washington day, Peter could not remember when he had such a great time. Everyone seemed to be getting along fine. At the end of the lively game, someone asked Kauffman’s crew to pose for a photo. Peter stood at the end of the back row, his baseball cap tilted back on his head.
When he was given his copy of the crew picture, Peter sent it along to his sister Margaret in Brooklyn, writing on the back of the photo: “The best damned B-17 crew in the Army Air Force! We will make history!”
Half boast and half tongue-in-cheek joke, the young waist gunner’s words would prove to be prophetic.
Kauffman’s crew received orders to report to the Eighth Air Force in England upon completing training. Luckily for Peter, he was granted a three-day pass to visit his family in Brooklyn. Returning to the East Coast, he took the ferry across the Hudson River and caught a Brooklyn-bound subway train from Manhattan.
Peter had never thought much about the concept of fate until then, but as he exited the subway at the Myrtle Avenue station, he experienced one of life’s rare and mysterious moments. Walking up the stairs leading to the street level, Peter encountered a beautiful young girl coming down the steps.
“Helen!” he said, stopping so suddenly that several people behind him bumped into each other. The look of total surprise on Helen’s face was quickly replaced with a warm smile.
Peter Seniawsky, she thought, from out of nowhere and looking wonderful in his uniform.
“Peter, what are you doing here?”
He started to explain that he was heading overseas and to tell her all about his new assignment, but he stopped in midsentence. Peter realized for the first time that he was in love.
“Helen, what are you doing tonight?” he asked.
“Nothing, I guess . . .”
“Will you go out with me?”
“Yes, you know I will.” Helen laughed and hugged him. The next day Peter asked her to marry him. She said, “Yes.”
Without an official engagement ring, the young airman offered his new fiancée his Air Corps wings. She proudly pinned them on her blouse. The following day Peter and his crewmates shipped out for Britain.
When they arrived in England, Giles Kauffman’s crew was assigned to the 547th Bomb Squadron as a part of the 384th Bomb Group at Grafton Underwood airfield. By September they were in the air on their first combat mission. When their B-17 popped out of the clouds, Peter marveled at the blueness of the sky, which seemed filled with olive drab bombers.
“Man, I’m finally here,” he said out loud. Soon Kauffman gave the okay for the gunners to test-fire their weapons. Peter stood at the left waist machine gun and rattled off a couple of quick bursts. It felt good. It was the first time he had ever actually fired a .50 caliber in the air. Underneath his goggles and oxygen mask, Peter was wearing his prescription sunglasses. He had stashed a second pair and a third, clear pair in his flight jacket and pants. He was taking no chances.
He gave the machine gun’s trigger another quick squeeze and watched as the tracers streaked into the open sky. It was reassuring. He felt he was ready to deal with an enemy fighter, should one come close. Almost as soon as the bomber group cleared the English Channel, the young waist gunner found out he was very mistaken.
As Peter scanned the sky beyond the squadron’s other bombers, an enemy fighter flew right through the formation.
“My God, that’s a German airplane,” Peter said.
There was no time to get a shot off—it was there. Then it was just a gray blur and then it was gone. There would be many other opportunities for the left waist gunner. Early in the war, the Luftwaffe command was fully aware the American bombers lost their escorts early in a mission. When the American fighters turned back to England, the bomber crews could count the seconds before German fighters appeared. If their bomber survived the trip to the target and the flak, the crew still had to fight their way home. So it went for the first two missions flown by Kauffman’s boys.
On October 4, Kauffman drew one of the original B-17s assigned to the 384th Bomb Group. Stenciled on the bomber’s tail fin was the serial number 42-30043, but everyone called her Ruthless. The crew stowed their equipment on board, then gathered under the bomber’s nose to wait for the signal for takeoff.
As some of the men chatted, Peter sat quietly and observed his crewmates—they had known each other only a few months, but they were a combat family now.
First Lieutenant Giles F. Kauffman Jr., the pilot, was quiet and steady. From Lewistown, Pennsylvania, he had spent a couple of years at Penn State studying chemical engineering. Kauffman’s father had died early, leaving his son to go to work in his teen years—something to which Peter could relate. Most of the crew called their pilot Junior.
Second Lieutenant George Molnar, the copilot—good natured, always smiling. The men nicknamed him Happy.
Second Lieutenant J. J. Lecroix was the bombardier.
Second Lieutenant Frank Pogorzelski served as the navigator. Nobody could pronounce his Polish name, so he told the crew to just call him Pogo. The name stuck.
Sergeant William Jarrell was the crew’s flight engineer. Jarrell seemed to be an expert on information about a wide range of topics. He was the crew’s only Republican. The boys called him Whataman.
Sergeant Stanley T. Ruben, a Cherokee Indian from Oklahoma, was the tail gunner. Peter and Ruben had become almost instant friends back in Walla Walla.
Sergeant Jacob M. Martinez, a good-looking kid, was the ball turret gunner.
Sergeant Jules Beck was the crew’s radioman.
Sergeant Paul Spodar, the baby-faced right waist gunner, stood back-to-back with Peter during air combat. Spodar was from Cleveland, and he and Peter had at least two things in common. Spodar also had a vision problem (a weakness in his left eye), and like
Peter his father had immigrated to America from the Ukraine. The two waist gunners were friendly, but during off-duty time Peter tended to hang out with Ruben, while Spodar was close to Beck.
Peter had complete confidence in each of his crewmates, but after what he had seen on the first two missions, he did not expect their luck could hold up.
Kauffman and Molnar were discussing the evacuation procedure in case of a ditching. Both the pilot and copilot were supposed to leave the aircraft through the cockpit’s sliding side windows. Neither man was sure that could actually be accomplished in an emergency. Some of the other crewmen expressed their opinions on the best way to quickly get out of a B-17. There seemed to be some confusion on the subject.
“We’ve got the time, Junior. Why don’t we walk through the evac drill now?” Peter suggested. Kauffman thought it was a good idea. The crew climbed aboard their bomber and each man found his station. Kauffman read the procedure from his manual, and on his signal each crew member went to his assigned escape location. Since a crash landing and a water ditching required different escape routes, the pilot made sure each man knew where to go in either situation before he ended the drill.
Peter did a last-minute check of his machine gun. He was glad he had suggested the escape drill, but he thought it was unlikely they would ever use it. He guessed they were much more likely to be blown out of the sky by flak or an ME-109 fighter. A few minutes later, Ruthless roared down the runway and climbed into a cloudy sky on what would be her last mission.
The objective that day was an attack on Frankfurt, Germany. To Peter it seemed pretty much like his first two missions. The gunners were kept busy fending off enemy fighters on the way to the target. Kauffman dodged Frankfurt’s plentiful flak to drop his bombs, and then he turned Ruthless toward home. The German fighters hit the group again on the return trip, but Ruthless rumbled along seemingly untouched.
The first Peter knew of trouble was when Kauffman informed the crew over the interphone: “Boys, we’re going to have to lighten the aircraft. We are very low on fuel.” Peter was surprised when he heard the pilot’s announcement, and he looked at Spodar. The other waist gunner shook his head with a frown. He had witnessed a scene before takeoff that now seemed very important. The ground crew apparently had been given a directive on rationing each bomber’s fuel supply for the mission. Spodar had been nearby when Kauffman had become engaged in a heated argument with a staff officer over the subject. The pilot made it clear that he felt they were cutting it too close on fuel, but the other officer would not relent.
The Bomber Boys Page 8