Albert “Bud” S. Porter, Jr

February 3, 1921 – March 22, 2017

From the 95th BG Memorials Foundation Facebook page:

With heavy hearts, the Memorials Foundation and the Heritage Association report that Albert “Bud” S. Porter, Jr., of Hilton Head, SC, left formation on 22 March 2017 at age 96. Bud was a 412th ball turret gunner. He passed away peacefully at his residence. 

Bud was born on 3 February 1921 and raised in Elizabeth, NJ. He aimed to be a pilot but washed out as an aviation cadet because he could not land the plane and tended to “ground loop.” He was sent to radio school in Sioux Falls, SD, and then to Kingman, AZ, for gunnery school. Bud’s B-17 crew formed up at MacDill Field in Tampa. Because he was 5’7” Bud was reassigned to the ball turret. His crew went to England on the Queen Elizabeth and was assigned to the 95th Bomb Group. On his second mission, his ship was hit by flak, lost 2 engines, and made a forced landing in Belgium.

In later life, Bud was president of the 8th Air Force Historical Society of South Carolina. He also served as a docent at the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force in Savannah, GA, and was a longtime member of the Birthplace Chapter, 8th Air Force Historical Society.

Bud left an indelible mark on many in the 8th AF community. Heather Thies of the Mighty Eighth Museum wrote her colleagues that “We will all miss him and must remember how he touched all of our lives and left this world a better place for having been in it.” Jerry McLaughlin, also of the museum, echoed Heather’s words in an email to the Heritage Association’s Mike Ager. Calling Bud “a founding father of our museum,” Jerry expressed being “very happy that [Bud] appears on the cover of B-17 Restoration, standing with our team. His stories of being a ball turret gunner with the 95th have become legendary at the Mighty Eighth.”