Ronald Grove and Frank Ceraso
95TH BOMB GROUP (H) ASSOCIATION
95TH BG LEGACY COMMITTEE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
1999 REUNION PITTSBURGH, PA
KS: To state for the record, this is Karen Sayko. We are interviewing Ronald Grove and Frank (Cherry) Ceraso, September 11, 1999 in Pittsburgh, PA. Also present in the room is Gerald Grove, son of Ronald Grove.
KS: Just to get some basic things on the record, what were your dates of service with the Army Air Corps?
Ronald Grove
RG: November 9, 1942 to November 23, 1945.
KS: What about your dates of service with the 95th Bomb Group?
RG: April 7, 1944 to April 24th, 1944, the day I was shot down.
KS: Which unit or squadron did you serve in?
RG: 335th
KS: What was your principle career field in the 95th?
RG: Tail Gunner
KS: Let’s go back to the beginning, and tell me about your induction. How old were you and where were you living at the time?
RG: I lived in Waverly, Missouri, and I was inducted November the 9th, 1942 in Leavenworth, Kansas.
KS: Just to get some basic things on the record, Frank. What were your dates of service with the Army Air Corps?
FC: October 26, 1942 and I was discharged October 31st, 1944
KS: What were your dates of service with the 95th Bomb Group?
Frank Ceraso (Formerly known as Frank Cherry)
FC: April the 7th, 1944 to April the 24th, 1944
KS: What unit/squadron were you in?
FC: The 335th Squadron
KS: And your principle career field?
FC: I was a Radio Operator/Gunner
KS: Going back to the beginning, tell me about your induction, how old were you and where were you living?
FC: Pittsburgh, PA, I was 22 years old.
KS: How about your training…where did you take your training?
FC: I took basic training, which I had in 2 places, actually. I had it in Detroit, and I also was reclassified and sent down to Mississippi, Biloxi, Mississippi and we had basic training all over again. I went to radio school up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and after that we went to Harlingen, Texas for gunnery school.
KS: Did you have any memorable experience during your training?
FC: Nothing special, except that, like I was telling them, I was just almost like a country boy and I never flew before and was kinda nervous about the whole thing.
KS: What about your training, Mr. Grove. Where did you take your training?
RG: Leavenworth, Kansas where I took about 2 weeks basic there. Even at nighttime we went out on bivouac, and then I left there and went to Fresno, California, took basic training there. I left Fresno, California and went to Las Vegas, Nevada, went to aerial gunner school there. From Las Vegas, went to Amarillo, Texas. Went to aircraft mechanic school down there. Took test for cadets, passed it but turned it down so I could be assigned to a crew and I went from there to Salt Lake City and was assigned to the crew. And from there we went from Salt Lake City to Alexander, Louisiana and started training, and from Alexander, Louisiana we went to Grand Island, Nebraska and finished our training and was sent overseas.
KS: Did you have any memorable experiences during any of the training?
RG: Just meeting him, was all (laughs).
RG’s Son: What about your AT-6 experience?
RG: I had a parachute to open when we was taking gunner practices in AT-6 one time, and of course we’d been instructed if one ever opened up on you just to set on it, you know the silk on it, so that’s what I did, and called the pilot and told him so we went on in to land and we had no trouble. And then one time we was landing and the tail wheel come off cause I had the same pilot the whole 5 weeks, a young 19 year old Canadian, but he was a good pilot.
KS: How did you get over to England?
RG: We flew. We went through Presque Isle, Maine to Newfoundland to Iceland to Prestwick, Scotland.
KS: Now were you with Frank?
RG: Yeah, a group of B-17’s went together
KS: So you took the same route. How long was it then before you started missions out of Horham?
RG: I’d say a couple of weeks or three, ‘cause I went to war school, I don’t know what he did, but I went to two different places for schooling over there.
KS: What type of schooling did you do?
RG: Well, it was about gunnery and how to take care of the guns and things over in that climate, how to identify airplanes and things.
KS: What was different about taking care of the guns over there than what you’d been taught in say, Las Vegas?
RG: Well, the climate was different for one thing, it’s quite a difference, that’s about all I can tell you.
KS: Was it easier or harder to take care of them?
RG: Well, it was harder to take care of them over there because the climate kinda, you know there’s so much moisture over there.
KS: Would you like to tell us Ron, about some of your missions, some of the more memorable ones you were on.
RG: Well, the first mission we went on, we went to Berlin, April 18th. I was originally, to start out with, I was a ball turret gunner, and then our original tail gunner, to this day I don’t know why, left the crew and the guy that come in to replace said all he could fly was a ball turret, so the pilot asked me if I would fly the tail and I said I could, so I was to fly the tail. Well on the first mission, his (ball turret gunner, James W. Pletcher, Jr) mask froze up and he passed out, now this guy (indicating Frank Ceraso) was the one that seen the turret turn around real slow like so they cranked the turret around, got Pletcher a bottle of air and then the pilot asked me to fly back in the ball turret from Berlin because they wanted somebody in there and they put a waist gunner back in the tail. But I told him (Max Wilson, pilot) I would not fly it unless somebody was hurt from now on because Pletcher wanted to be there. And outside of that, everything went pretty smooth I guess. That was the first mission.
KS: Frank, can you elaborate on the incident with, was it your pilot passing out?
FC: Well, it was our gunner, our ball turret gunner. What happened, we always had position checks, and we start from the tail gunner forward to the pilot and co-pilot, and if we didn’t get a response, why then there was something wrong. When it came to my turn, I didn’t get on it because our ball turret guy didn’t, gunner, didn’t respond. Someone thought well, the fact that it was moving around, he’s OK, so we decided to come back to that. We went on with our oxygen check and then after that was over, we decided to check it out. Our waist gunner, David Oates, he got the crank and with the help of probably Ronnie and somebody else, we got the turret up and found it was all froze up. And we put him in the radio room, and finally Ron went down into the ball turret, he went down to the ball turret and rode back and he, by that time Jim Pletcher had thawed out and everything turned out fine.
KS: Sort of memorable for the first time. Did you ever have any emergency landings or ever have to ditch or anything like that.
FC: I can’t remember, I was a stupid radio operator
RG: Well, on April the 24th, the day we went down, on the 4th mission, that was a crash landing. We had an engine come out of the parapet and one wheel went off as we crash-landed and then we went through a radio shack and hit a steel tower.
KS: Getting back to the beginning of that mission, what was your target and where was it that you crashed.
RG: Friedrichshafen, Germany was the target, right on the lake, right next to the lake between Switzerland and Germany (Lake Constance).
RG’s son: Where did you crash?
RG: Dubendorf, Switzerland, out in a little pasture.
KS: How was that crash greeted. Describe it and also the Swiss that came out to help you or whatever.
RG: Well, the only thing I can remember the ball turret gunner, of course we all stayed in our positions except the ball turret gunner, cause he had to come up out of there. We got ready to hit the ground and I come up there and he was standing on top of the ball turret and everybody was supposed to be going into the radio room at landing. And I just gave him a shove when we hit the ground and dove right in behind him. And then when we stopped rolling, why, one guy went back, the waist gunner, and tried to get the door open and couldn’t, so I went back and we just had a little chord that you jerk, a steel cable, and I jerked it and kicked the door and it fell off. So we went out through the door, the ones of us in the radio room. And of course when we got out why there was a Swiss guard standing out there. Well they looked like Germans to me because they dressed in about the same kind of uniform and they had bayonets on their rifles. Of course they jabbered away, but I didn’t understand because they were speaking the high German. But somebody on our crew could speak Polish, the co-pilot could speak some Polish, so that they got it straightened out from them. They let us know that the war was over for us right then.
KS: Did you know right away you were in Switzerland?
RG: No, I didn’t. That’s what I said, I thought they was Germans because they dressed just like them and they spoke German, so that’s what I felt they was, ‘specially when they had them bayonets pointed at you on the end of a rifle. I wasn’t too happy at the time, but that’s part of it.
KS: When did you find out that you were in Switzerland, Ron?
RG: Well, finally they got to talking to us in Polish, and they let us know where we was at. The co-pilot could talk to them.
KS: How much warning did you have that you were going to crash land?
RG: Well, we wasn’t planning on crash landing at all, we was just planning on landing, we didn’t know we was going to crash. But, uh, when we went over, well he told us then he was going to try and land it. First we thought about bailing out, but they found two parachutes that had holes in them, so that put the bailing out part, so we decided to ride it in with him.
RG’s son: How many engines were working?
RG: One engine, we was only flying on one engine, that’s all we had left. In fact, at one time, the pilot was trying to start two of them and the co-pilot was doing the flying. In fact he was doing that just before we landed and the pilot told the co-pilot that he was too high when he was coming in, he said “Give me the controls.” And that’s when he quit messing with the engines.
KS: Were there any other planes that crashed that day?
RG: Yes, there was. One of them was from the same group that we was in. In fact he was the next plane in, I think. Lt. Cunningham came in there from the 95th Bomb Group. I think the total for that day – fourteen, not all from the 95th but that actually came in there.
KS: In that same area
RG: In that same day, not the same lot we was in, but they came into Switzerland.
KS: Frank, what was your thoughts when you found you were in Switzerland, and not Germany?
FC: Well, it’s just the same thing. You don’t realize the full impact of it because you were shook up, more or less nonchalant about it. I’m glad that we landed safely, more than anything else. It was the fact that we all got out of the aircraft okay. And it took us by surprise the fact that it was in Switzerland and the war was over for us. That’s about it.
KS: Frank, how were you treated as a Swiss internee?
FC: Well, I was treated, I think basically we were treated very well in the physical part it. I mean we were guarded night and day. We were allowed to walk through the streets, little street. We weren’t allowed to go down the mountain because the had a vernicular going up and down, and it was always guarded there. But we were permitted to walk up the mountain, just so high. We had a ball team, we played ball. But, uh, that was basically all we did. They promised us schooling and all that sort of thing, but we never got them. And then we were fed very good up until D-Day, and after D-Day it seemed like our food supply stopped. I think we were getting fed most of that stuff the things from Germany, and Germany needed all the food they could get for their own troops. Evidently, and we had a hard time with our food.
KS: Where were you housed?
FC: We were housed in a hotel, but it’s not the type of hotel we’d be used to. They were just like a bed and breakfast would be here. I mean nothing elaborate. I mean it was just like a mountain resort, that’s all it was. But it was comfortable, it was nice. We didn’t have everything. Like we didn’t have hot water all the time. We had it once in a while. And our rations were, you know, sparse.
KS: Was your crew all together?
FC: No, we separated. Some of us like, we were in the same hotel for a while, and then we split up and they took some of them and sent them to Adleboden, some went to Wengen. I think, Ronnie, you went back to Adelboden, didn’t you, after Wengen?
RG: Yeah, and the officers went to Davos.
FC: Well the officers were separated from us ‘most all the time.
RG: We was quarantined there at Gerten-Kulm (northeast of Neuchatel and west of Bern) for two weeks when we first went down, where we was interviewed.
KS: Back tracking just a little bit, and you probably don’t have too much on this. But since you were shot down, went down on your fourth mission, what was it like living on the base at Horham before you know…
RG: I liked Horham. The people were friendly there. Even the civilians around, they were friendly. They was well organized place there. They knew what they was doing. They took good care of it.
FC: Could I just say one thing. For all the years we were in the service, we were always transients. Every place we would go, we’d be there for a short period of time. We got the worst food, the worst housing, the worst of everything. When we were at Horham, we were A #1. We got the best food, we got the best of everything. And the permanent party there got what was left. (Chuckle). So that was our, I thought we got treated very very well there.
RG: That was a well-run organization
KS: I know that you faced a lot of things, and none of you will claim the term “hero,” but if you don’t want to say something about yourself, can you recount any act of courage you witnessed during the war?
FC: No, not really. We was just strictly, we were there for such a short time, why, I think we worked as a crew and our training taught us to be close. We always mingled together, stayed together. In the time of crisis, why we always worked together.
KS: Was there anything funny that happened to you during your time in England or during your time in Switzerland?
FC: I can’t remember anything humorous, except one time we got drunk (laugh).
RG: (Laughing) You did, I didn’t. Don’t tell…
FC: One time I got drunk. First time in my life I got drunk, and it was my birthday, and we had ration coupons and we were allowed to buy some alcoholic beverages. It was a nice June day. We were playing ball and we come in. Our curfew was due and we had a couple of drinks. Well, since it was my birthday and we had ration coupons. Uh, everybody was buying me a drink. I didn’t know how to drink in the first place, and I never did drink brandy when I did. So with brandy and beer, I remember everything as clear as a bell until we were told to go back to our rooms. And the last…I remember crawling up the steps a little bit, and I remember, during the night I remember my roommate, he was sitting up in bed, and he started sneezing. And every time he would sneeze, his head would hit the backboard, I can remember that much. I can honestly say, for the next week we were sick. No more brandy! Forget it!!
KS: And what birthday was that for you?
FC: I guess that was the 24th.
KS: And that was the first time you had been drunk?
FC: Yeah
KS: And a tie-in from Pittsburgh?
FC: Yeah
KS: My God (laughter)
FC: When I was 21, I still wasn’t allowed to go into a beer garden to get a drink. My big brothers were there, and anybody else that was there, “you’re not allowed, you’re too young. Get out.” We didn’t have to have the bartender tell us to get out. We just weren’t allowed in. No we didn’t do very much drinking. Tell ‘em what you did on your birthday.
RG: I didn’t do nothing on my birthday. I didn’t even act like I had one. I didn’t drink to start out with, so..
KS: You mentioned much earlier that during training the only memorable thing was meeting this guy, meaning Frank. What did you mean by that?
RG: Well, we just became close friends, and his mother used to send boxes of salami and bread and stuff. And down there, we’d get away from the rest of them so we could get all the salami and the good cookies and the bread that she baked, ‘cept when she sent the cake down for his birthday. Now we did let the rest of the crew in on that. And we was just close all the time, closer than anybody in the crew.
KS: Did you keep in touch after the war?
RG: Yes, for a while.
FC: But then we got separated.
KS: While you were in Switzerland as an internee, did you have news of the war?
RG: Well, some of it. We never had…
FC: We never had…that’s one thing that they did do. They kept, this was a type of harassment that we got, we didn’t get all the news. Our mail was cut down. We were allowed to write twice a month, and all the several months that we were there, I had two letters. I don’t know how many Ronnie had. Ronnie said he only had one letter. And this is the kind of thing. They tried to keep a lot of things from us.
KS: How long were you in Switzerland?
FC: We were in Switzerland for seven months. Then we escaped.
KS: Okay, let’s talk about, Frank….
FC: His first, his first. Ron was first.
KS: I’m sorry…
L to R: F. Ceraso, J. Dzedzy, R. Grove in Adelboden, Switzerland
FC: We didn’t escape together.
KS: Okay, Ron, why don’t you tell us how you came to escape.
RG: Well, I met a fellow by the name of Joe Piemonte and we’d heard that maybe we could get out. So anyways, we was going to go to the dentist and have our teeth checked as a way of getting out of the camp. And there was six of us going and of course Piemonte and I was planning on going into the Doctor’s office first, one at a time. And then when we came out, the last one came out, we knew there was a back way out of the office, where we wouldn’t have to go past the guard. So I went in first, and then Joe came in after I came back out, and I figured it was about time for Joe to come out. I kept time when I went in. And when it was about time for Joe to come out, I asked the guard, ‘cause there was only one guard with the six of us, and I asked him if I could go to the bathroom, and he said yes, which was right along the hallway where we wanted to go. Well when Joe came out of the Doctor’s office, he knew where I was supposed to be, and he just come in there and laid his pass, ‘cause we had passes, we left ‘em right there, and of course one of the other guys was going to pick ‘em up. And then we just took off down the hallway, and we was going down to the railroad station, ‘cause we was gonna get up and get on the train.
I’d bought some civilian clothes off of some waiters in the hotel. As we was walking down to the depot, why a guy walked up behind us and he says “Don’t you Americans, two Americans, turn around. Just keep walking and don’t even act like you heard me or know me.” But he says, “Do not go down to that depot, ‘cause you will be picked up when you get off of that train in Bern.” He says “They know that you’re coming.” And he says “I’m gonna walk past you,” and he says “Don’t you say a word to me, don’t even act like you know me,” and he says “If we get stopped,” he says “Don’t you say anything, I’ll do all the talking.” He says “You just follow me and stay about 15-20 paces behind me.” So that’s the way we went, and I don’t know, I suppose we walked a half-mile or so. And he took us to a car. I don’t know what you’d call them. They’re dividers between the front seat and the back seat. They had a Frenchman driving, I know that. A woman, and English woman in the back, and this, uh, he was Canadian, got in the front and made us get in the back. And when we got in the back, this English woman told us to get out of the GI clothes and put on some pants that she had in the car for us. Well, we got them on, and about that, we was putting them on, we went through a roadblock.
Well, of course that sent the Gestapo after us then. I suppose we went two or three more miles and we went through another one. We was on our way to Bern, then, see. They was taking us to Bern. And uh, we get the clothes on and this Canadian told us that when we pulled up in front of the embassy in Bern, as quick as that car stopped, that he would jump out and open the back door and for us to run right into the office, ‘cause this car was following. He says “They cannot follow you once you’re in there.” He says, “If they catch you on the outside of it, then they’ll throw you in prison again.” And he says “Then the underground will take care of you from there on in. Well, we got in there alright, and we slept there on the floor that night. They brought in some sandwiches for supper. And about 4 o’clock the next morning some underground come in and took us and started us out. And that was on the, we started out on the afternoon of the 25th, the next day was the 26th, and, oh let’s see. We walked several miles. Of course there was snow on the ground.
I had some low cuts on, and then, anyways, we wound up into a little pasture like in the woods. And there was a guy supposed to back a trailer truck in there with chicken coops on it. And we was supposed to stay in the woods until he come in and told us to come out. About a half hour, why they did. We was standing in the woods and uh, so he backed the trailer down in there. Got out, smoked a cigarette, course they had a canvas over the chicken coops. And then we seen him out there moving the chicken coops around. I’d say about 15 or 20 minutes, why he come in the woods there, and he says, he could speak English pretty good, he says “I’ve got a little pathway down between them chicken coops, and you go to the front of the truck, and he says “They’ll be an open space up there” and he says “Go just as far as you can go.” And he says “You set down in there.” He says “I’ll put them chicken coops back around you.” He says “That canvas will be pulled over you.” He says “I don’t want you to smoke, talk, or do anything else.” And he says “If we get stopped” he says “you stay completely silent.” Which we did get stopped. ‘Course they talked in German and I don’t know what they said. They moved some of the coops around and also moved the canvas around. But they never did get to us, ‘cause it was a pretty long trailer, and they never did get close to us. So they turned him loose, and away we went. I don’t know how far.
But that night, I guess it was about close to midnight, we was walking out across this field with two Polish guys, and they took us pretty close to where one of the lakes was. They told us that at a certain time they would take us down to where we would go into the lake and there would be a dingy there, and we was to get in this dingy and they would pull us about half way across the lake, and we had to wade the rest of it. And he said “When you get on the other side, you’ll be in France, and you’ll be free.” And that’s what we done. And we went down there and then these Polish guys on the other side when we got out, and so we give them all the money, the Swiss money that we had on us ‘cause it was no good to us. Well then there was a Frenchman over there, and he took us, I’d say, probably three quarters of a mile down a road to a house where there was an old woman in there, had a big cook stove in it. As soon as we got there, well, I didn’t drink alcohol at all at the time. Well, when we come up out of the water, it was in November, and uh, we was cold. And they give us these little bottles of vodka, and they said to drink that down, and I said “I don’t drink.” He says “You drink that down, it’ll keep you from getting sick.” We drank it, which it did warm us up in a hurry on the inside then.
And we went down there then, and this woman, that was the first thing she had us do. She had us take off our clothes and our shoes and everything. Which of course, she put the shoes up on the warming oven, and she had some different uniforms there for us to put on. So we sat there and talked, I expect, ‘til about two in the morning, and anyway, she told us that there’d be Americans there to pick us up the next morning around 10 o’clock. And we went to bed, and I’m telling you, that was good sleeping, with all that comforters she had in there and everything. And about 10 o’clock the next morning, an MP and a Captain come down and got us in a truck, and took us to Annecy (France) and they quarantined us there for, I think, two weeks.
And they really fed us good. I know the first meal we had, they had steak, and of course every thing with it. And the gal that was waiting on us, she says “Eat all of it you want, but” she says “Be careful ‘cause you’re not used to this rich food and it can make you pretty sick.” But they would not leave and let us go out of the hotel, ‘cause there were some Germans still around and in the area. So they wouldn’t even let us, for the two weeks we were there, we had to stay right in the hotel.
Well then they picked us up and took us into Paris after that for, I don’t know, I guess we was in Paris 2 or 3 days and they flew us back into our own bases, back into England. And then I asked to finish my missions, and he (95th BG officer) said no, that I could stay there and work on the line, or work in one of the offices or I could come back to the states. And I said, “Well, I’m not going to stay and work on the line or in an office over here. I said I’d go back to the states. And he said, “Well, I’ll give you a pass to London for 10 days.” I said “I don’t want to be in London 10 days.” I said “I was there before and” I said “I’ll go to London for a day or two” and I said “That’s all.” He says “Alright.” And he says, “When you get back, we’ll have your order cut for you to get back to the states.” And I flew back to the states, and, let’s see, flew into the states at LaGuardia airport at night. And I had a sister that was working with the FBI up there, and I asked the MP if I could call her, and he says “No, there was two of us (Joe Piemonte)”. He put us in a barracks by ourselves and he says they’ll just be the two of you here tonight, and he says, “I’ll be here at 8 o’clock in the morning to pick you up and we’ll go to the Pentagon building and you can do your talking there. And that’s where we spent the next day, going through there, with all that group in there. And then that night I got on the train at 6 o’clock and headed for Kansas City, Missouri.
KS: What kind of information did they want from you at the Pentagon?
RG: Well, how we got treated while we was in there, and how, when we was getting out, working with the underground, how we got treated with the underground, and how much money we thought we’d paid out, and everything like that. So, I give ‘em what little I knew. It wasn’t very much, but I did.
KS: You said earlier that you really hadn’t seen much courage, but it seems to me that the underground was courageous…
RG: They were, they really were. At one time we thought, I wouldn’t have thought we’d have been out of there, cause like I found out later that when we got off the train, when we were supposed to get off the train at Bern, there would be a Gestapo down there, and the one would get off the train, and when we stepped off, he was going to drop a white handkerchief for the the Gestapo down there to let him know that we was the two that they was supposed to pick up, on account of they knew what kind of clothes I was wearing ‘cause I had bought it from one of the persons that had worked in the hotel there.
KS: So she was probably working with the Germans.
RG: Yeah, they did do that. You know, some of them would try to pay to get out, and sometimes they’d take them right to the Germans, and you know, it was wherever they could make the most money sometimes, and it was according to how true they wanted to be. So you just had to take chances, that was all there was to it.
KS: When you got into France, what was the closest city? What city did you come to?
RG: Annecy is the only thing I can remember.
RG’s son: Annecy was SW of Switzerland. You could drive from Annecy to Paris.
RG: Yeah, cause we went in a truck. That’s what we went in. But when we first got out, we went to Annecy. After they came down there and picked us up at this house, they took us to Annecy and we stayed there for two weeks. We never even got out of the hotel.
KS: Frank, you also escaped?
FC: Yes, that was probably close to the time that Ron escaped. Basically, a lot of it is the same. I had help from people in that town. And we got stashed away in a truck. Basically with, Ron had chicken coops around him. I had bottles and different other things, with the tarpolin over it. My buddy and I, Walter (Wisniewski, 92nd BG) and I, were stashed in the middle. We had several roadblocks, and we traveled at night. We really left at night. And we went through several roadblocks and you could hear them talking and checking and looking around and all that sort of thing. But they didn’t see us, naturally, because we were pretty well covered up.
And uh, we got into Bern, went right in through the embassy, and that was it. I had no problems there. Then, at Bern, we had the usual thing. They gave us all clothes, civilian clothes, and uh, we were holed up several days at, I guess, this particular place. We had a lot of people there, I mean, a lot of people were going out. And uh, they were sleeping on the floor and different places. Finally we got out of there, and that’s when we hooked up with the underground. Now, I assume, I’m sure that they were the free French at that particular spot that took us. And how, I cannot explain how we did it, because I can’t, it’s like a dream because, I mean, you saw this kind of stuff in the movies, you know.
I remember getting on a streetcar, and I’ve never been on a streetcar in there before, but I don’t know how we remembered to get off that streetcar – we had to follow somebody off. I remember being stuck in the woods, waiting for a truck to pick us up. You know, you went through that. And uh, we thought we were the only two in there. But when that truck pulled up, the woods came alive, and several more jumped into this truck. I remember coming out, uh, we had to be at a certain spot, uh, for a factory to let out. A factory was letting out all the, you know, all these people, and we were to join in with them people and walk just like, like Ronnie said, when we got to Geneva, the lake, we met the Polish underground there.
And we waded through a lot of things, water, you know. And then in the deepest spots, there was the dinghies, and they would get in the dinghies and they’d pull us over across the deepest part. And there was a beautiful clear blue sky night, starry night, I mean the moon was out in full glory. How we got out, I don’t know. But, uh, they gave us the uh, the same thing as Ron had. I think ours was brandy that they gave us, and we took a couple of sips as we were going along. And when we got out of, across the Lake Geneva, uh, we went to a little house, it was just like a shed like type of thing. It had a bed in it. And uh, only one bed, and uh, we had to wait ‘til the next morning to get picked up. And the truck did come by the next morning. A regular truck picked us up and drove us to Annecy, France. And we stayed there a week or ten days. I can’t remember how long. Then they picked us up from there. We went to Lyon, France and then we went to uh, on a C-47 they took us over to England, basically.
KS: How did you make your initial getaway from the hotel?
FC: That truck. I mean, we did it at night. We were in a place, and the truck was already parked there. And it was dark, and everything, and we got into the truck.
KS: How many?
FC: Just two of us. And uh, basically the same thing, we were snuggled way in the back of the truck, by the cab, and we had different things stashed around us and a big tarp over us.
KS: Did you have the same debriefing at the Pentagon?
FC: No, I didn’t have any of that. I didn’t have anything. I didn’t even have any particular evening when I went to our base, back to the 95th. I just turned my papers in. The guy at the desk said “That’s it, so long.”
KS: So, did you come back to the states?
FC: Yes, well, I had a nice experience. We went to uh…we were coming back to our base, and we were stranded in London, and it was getting dark, and we were afraid to stay in London because of the buzz bombs. So there was a place outside, they told us to go to a place outside of London. And there was a…I guess it would be like a USO something, you know, where they kept us, we were able to find sleeping quarters. And while we were undressing to take our shower and everything, I looked down the hall, like it was an aisleway there, and I looked down, and I saw this fellow, and would you believe he saw me and we started walking – my next door neighbor.
KS: From Pittsburgh?
FC: From Pittsburgh. My next-door neighbor I was born and raised with. And he was flying missions, and he was on leave at that time. He had a weekend pass. And naturally, you know, it was a very, very beautiful experience.
KS: Probably didn’t get much sleep that night.
FC: Well, it was a very…when he looked at me and he saw me the way I looked, he said, he said, “Tomorrow we’re going to go to lunch. We’re going to have it down and get you a date.” He said “But I can’t take you the way you are.” He said “You’re a mess.” He said we’ll go down, and he’ll have them make my clothes all pressed, ‘cause they gave you just the uniform with the hat. And that hat, they said throw that away. He bought me a cap and we had a date that night. We had dinner, dance, and everything else. That was my most unbelievable thing that happened. It was very pleasant. After a couple of days, I left. And uh, came back to Pittsburgh. We were flown to Andrews Air Force Base and no debriefing or nothing. Right out.
KS: What was it like to get home to Pittsburgh?
FC: I have to say, it was terrible. Because the last letter I got from home, which was one of two, had a different address that I wasn’t familiar with. And I didn’t have any idea where it was. So, I got to Washington, D.C. there. I called our old phone number up, where we lived. And fortunately, my brother was still living in the house with his wife. And when I told him it was me, it was hard for them to believe it, but…and I told them I was coming in on this train, and all that sort of thing. So the next night we pulled into the Pennsylvania station, and I’m waiting for my brother – couldn’t find him nowhere. So, I start carrying, I had a B-4 bag, and, now I hate to say this, but it was full of booze because a Redcap told me, you better buy some liquor here because in Pennsylvania, it’s rationed. You couldn’t buy it at a regular store. So there I am trying to lift this big B-4 bag, and the Redcaps, when they went to, they said “Can I carry your bag?” I said “Sure” and he went to carry it. He said, he saw another young Redcap, he said “Hey boy, you carry this. This is a little bit too heavy for me.” So, anyhow, I got on the streetcar, and I got off at my old neighborhood. And just as I was getting off the streetcar and start walking, there’s my brother coming. He said “I missed you!” I said, “You’re damn right you missed me!” (laugh) But anyhow, he took me to my new home. And my mother was up in bed, naturally, ‘cause she always was ailing. And that was the big thing, meeting my mom again. It was very nice.
KS: So there was no word from the Army/Air Force to your parents to let them know you were back in England after you escaped?
FC: No, no, not a thing. The only thing was, we were allowed to make a phone call. That’s the phone call I made, and I wasn’t allowed to tell them where I was or anything else. It was all still secret, you know. I wasn’t told anything, and I couldn’t say anything. No hoopla, no nothing. I mean, you went back there, back home, and it was so sad because, at that time, the Battle of the Bulge was going on. And the steel mills were working night and day. Everybody was tired. And everybody would see you with a uniform on, and especially if it had like 8th Air Force on it. They wanted to know…Oh, my son was here and my son was…I had to cut my furlough short, because it was just too tragic, because everybody was, it was sad because so many people were missing and this and that and the other thing. And I went back to R & R quick, and went down to Florida.
KS: Ronald, how about your homecoming? Had your parents moved?
RG: No, my parents hadn’t moved. They was at the same house.
KS: Did they know you were coming?
RG: No, they did not know that I was coming. I was, when I left Washington, D.C., I traveled on the train that night and part of the next day, went into Kansas City and I checked in the YMCA, cleaned up, shaved and everything, and caught a bus out of Kansas City and it pulled into Waverly, Missouri about 10:30 that night. And my folks lived out on the west part of Waverly when you first entered from Kansas City. And so I asked the bus driver if he would let me off earlier rather than going to the other side of town, then have to walk back. And he said, if you tell me ahead of time where you want off that I can get stopped, then he said “I can let you off wherever you want.” So, there happened to be a man sitting in the back that lived in the same neighborhood of the town that I did. So anyways, I went up to the bus driver when we got about a half mile from where I wanted to get off, and I told him where I wanted off at. And he said, alright, I’ll put you off. Of course the other guy got off at the same time. But it was about 10:30, and I figured, we had a big collie dog, and I figured that he would probably give me away when I come in because I was just going to go in, and if everybody was in bed, I wasn’t going to wake them up.
Well I went in and started up the stairs, and one of my younger brothers was still out. And my mother said, “Is that you, Kenny?” and I said “Yes” and just kept starting on up the steps and she said “No, it isn’t.” So then they got up, and I guess we was up most of the night. And my Dad worked on the railroad, and guess he went to work about 4 o’clock in the morning, but he stayed up and chatted with us. I don’t know if he done any work the next day, but he did go to work. Anyways, and that was about all there was to it. And they didn’t know I was coming in. My mother wanted to know what I was doing there. I said, “Well, I got out from over there. That’s what I’m doing here.” Of course my sister, she said I looked like skin and bone and kept running her hand all over me. I said “I’m alright, don’t worry about me.” I said, “There’s nothing wrong.” That was about the end of it. And that was enough. I was tickled to be there. And then I went, spent until the first of New Year’s and then I shipped to Florida for R & R. And he was down there, but I never did run into him. The only person I met down there was the co-pilot (Felix Kowalczyk). Did meet him one night.
FC: Didn’t I meet you down there? I met you in Florida, didn’t I?
RG: You didn’t meet me in Florida. The only one I met was Felix in Florida. And then I…we was supposed to be there three months. Well, anyways, when April come, they hadn’t nobody ever talked to me about what I wanted to do or nothing. So finally I went into one of the officers, and I asked him, I said “What am I supposed to do? I was only supposed to be here three months” and I said “I’ve been here three and a half already.” He said, “Well, where do you want to go and what do you want to do?” And I said, “Well, I planned on taking some training on B-29's.” So he said, “Well, where do you want to go?” and I said, “Well, where’s the place to go to train on them?” And he named three bases.
So I chose one in Alabama. And I went down there and started training on B-29’s. And I guess, it was so hot and humid down there that I couldn’t sleep at night. So finally I told the First Sergeant that I wanted to get transferred. And he said, “Well, you’ve only been here two weeks, you can’t get transferred.” And I said, “Oh yes I can.” I said, “You check my records. I can transfer to any base I want to.” And so he said, “Well, you’ll have to talk to the Commanding Officer.” And I said, “Well, let’s go see him.” So he called him, and he said, “Well, bring him in and his record, his service record.” So we went in there. He was Captain, and he says, “What’s the matter, Sergeant?” I said, “Well, I got to get out of here. I can’t fly eight hours a day and come in at night and try to sleep and lay in sweat.” I said “I just can’t do it.” He said “Aw, it isn’t that bad..” I said “It may not be for you but,” I said, “It is for me.” And he said “Well, where do you want to go?” And I said “Lowry Field, Colorado.” So he told the Sergeant, he says “Cut his orders.” And he said “Give him a ten day delay en-route.” But you know you go home on that.
Of course it hadn’t been too long since I’d been home. So, I went home on the way up to Lowry Field. And I went in there, and they didn’t know I was on the base for about two weeks after I got out there. I went in at night, and I went in the supply house, and this Sergeant assigned me to a barracks and give me the bed clothing and took it over and nobody else ever knew I was there I guess. So finally I got tired of just loafing around because I couldn’t get a pass to get off the base. So I went and checked in with the First Sergeant, and he said, “Well, where have you been all this time. And I told him what barracks I was staying in. So then he got me all fixed up and kept me in there, I worked every other night answering the telephone from midnight til 7 o’clock in the morning.
And finally my mother got a hold of me, wrote to me and told me that two of my brothers had came back from overseas, was in St. Joe, which was closer to my hometown airbase. And I said, “Well, I’ll get transferred down there.” So I went in and put in for the transfer. Got transferred, and by the time I got down there, they got discharged before I got there. So I stayed in St. Joe til November 21st, I think it was. And they put me in charge of 20 soldiers who were going to Scott Field to get discharged when we went down there. And we got discharged on November 23rd in the afternoon. Scott Field, Illinois. And I hitch-hiked home from St. Louis that day.
KS: That would have been 1945?
RG: 1945
KS: Frank, just clarify: what was the date that you escaped in Switzerland?
FC: I can’t remember the exact date, but it was about a week after Ronnie…
RG: Left on the 25th, and got out on the 26th. (November 1944)
KS: …same period of time
FC: Same period, oh absolutely. I was home for Christmas of ’44. I was home for Christmas. That song was what brought us back. “I’ll Be Home For Christmas,” you know.
KS: How long have you been coming to these reunions, and what do you feel is the most important….
FC: Well, I’m ashamed to say, this is the first one that I came to. I think, I’ve seen a lot, and it’s amazing the people that you meet here. And you see what these fellas have done. And say that’s how we won the war. I mean these people. Him for example, he come in and wanted to fly again. Me, I would never fly again. Some of these gentlemen that I met, they had two tours of duty. The last two people we met today…how many did he say? Two tours, I mean, and he was the lead plane. Oh, my God, I would never do that. I’m a coward, I guess. I don’t know.
KS: Is there anything else you would like to add for the record?
FC: The only thing I can say, really and truly. They’re fabulous people in the Air Corps. The Air Corps uh, they do have a record, and it’s unsurpassed. And I’m just proud to be part, just a little bit of it.
KS: Ron, how long have you been coming to these reunions?
RG: Well, this is the first one of the 95th Bomb Group, but I’ve been to two 8th Air Force Reunions before this. One in St. Louis, and one in Des Moines, Iowa, of the 8th Air Force, which they even have more people at them than they do at these 95th and things. They have a lot of people. And I enjoy meeting, talking to some of the people there. In fact, when we went to Iowa, they had a regular place for the internees. They had a regular session set out for them to get together…just nothing but the internees get together and have their own little reunion even, from the 8th Air Force.
KS: Speaking of the internees…do you have your own organization, and do you participate?
RG: Yes we do. Yes, we do have our own. Yes, I’ve been in it since about a year after it started I joined when I got the information sent to me and I joined quick as they sent the information. In fact, he belongs to it as an associate member.
KS: Is there anything else you would like to add for the record?
RG: No, nothing, nothing great. Just part of life, as far as I’m concerned.
KS: I’m just going to add for the record that this has been Karen Sayko for the Legacy Committee, talking with Frank (Cherry) Cereso and Ronald Grove. Gerald Grove sitting in, and we wanted to thank you very much once again.