Marion "Mac" Makarewicz
95th BOMB GROUP (H) ASSOCIATION
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
2002 REUNION ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
JM: This is Janie McKnight with the 95th Bomb Group Legacy Committee. We’re interviewing Mac Makarewicz today. With us is Brian Makarewicz, Mac’s grandson, and Russ McKnight, also of the Legacy Committee. Mac, for the record, will you state your name, today’s date, and where we are?
MM: I’m Mac Makarewicz. Today is September 12th 2002. We are in St. Louis at the Hilton Hotel Frontenac.
JM: What were your dates of service with the Army Air Corps?
MM: Starting August 7th to October 17th 1945 – from ’43 to ’45.
JM: August 7th ’43 to October ’45?
MM: Right.
JM: What were your dates of service with the 95th Bomb Group?
MM: I arrived at the air field on July 9th 1944, and I left on January 10th 1945.
JM: What squadron were you in?
MM: I was in the 336th Squadron.
JM: What was your principal job with the 95th?
MM: I was a ball turret gunner.
JM: Tell us about your induction into the Army Air Corps. Where were you living and where did you sign up?
MM: Well, I was living in Saginaw, Michigan, which was my home for up to the time I was 18 years old, and I was inducted on August 7th and we proceeded to Fort Sheridan where we went through our physicals and received our installation into the service and where we gave our pledge we would be loyal and so on.
JM: How old were you were inducted?
MM: Eighteen and a half. So, I was born March 9th 1925.
JM: Tell us about your training. Where did you receive your training?
MM: Well, we did some initial training at Custer, Fort Custer, because they had a time set up that you had, and so we had a week of basic things that they did, and it was primarily obstacle courses and running and things of that nature, and some military courtesy. So we had to learn how to salute and things like that.
JM: And after basic?
MM: Well, after this one week course, we went to Jefferson Barracks where we had the regular basic course, and we started in that about a week after induction, and we went through the various things like obstacle courses, and drill, and marching, saluting, military courtesy, survival, and things of that nature. And one of the main things that they really put into us is that we had to have some endurance, so they took us on a 25-mile hike from Jefferson Barracks to a place called Moss Hollow which I think was along the Mississippi River. And, of course, it was 25 miles there and we marched back, so that really was a 50-mile trip.
JM: And after that, where did you go?
MM: After that, we received orders to go to our different installations and mine was for gunnery school in Las Vegas. We went to Las Vegas Army Air Base to do gunnery and basic flying.
JM: And then after that, were you finished with your training?
MM: Not really, because what we got was basic stuff there, and usually they felt it had to be refined a little more, so then we went to Rapid City Army Air Base. That’s where we received our overseas training, and of course, this was flying, and shooting – trying to hit the targets from where we are in a moving plane, where planes would simulate attack, we would try to shoot them down by camera fire - and things of that nature. One of the things that did happen there that I won’t forget is that one of the fighter planes that was attacking us attacked the next plane and hit it square in the middle and caused it to fall. That was where I saw my first air collision, and of course I had a good view of it because, at the time, I was in the ball turret. Of course, the first thing I want to do is jump out of there and get away from it all. Well, the tail gunner was the sole survivor. He rode the tail down, and of course, I understand, he had just about every bone in his body cracked or broke. We thought he was going to be gone by the time we heard about him again. While we were overseas, we heard that he healed and went back into gunnery school, went through flight school again, and went overseas as a gunner…quite something.
JM: What was the total amount of time for your training?
MM: Actually, the training at Rapid City was, I’d say, about 12 weeks, very similar to basic, because basic was 12 weeks. Overseas training was 12 weeks. And, of course, we were all through, a strange part happened here. I had a tendency to get airsick, and of course, I didn’t mention it to anybody except somebody that knew it. So anyway, the word got out to our pilot that I got airsick, and evidently went to the higher-ups and had me taken off the crew, because they felt that they wanted to have people that wouldn’t be airsick. Well, I was taken off the crew, and I was put into a repo depot which I thought was really strange, and I asked where was I going from there, and they mentioned something like fly in the C-47s over the hump. I couldn’t figure out why I should fly over the hump in India when I got airsick in the air in the bombers, and that would be worse. Actually, it wasn’t. But anyway, I was there for about a week and, of course, my crew that I was on shipped out overseas; they left. I was supposed to leave with them. Well, I happened to go into the office, and I saw some Captain there, and I said, “How do I get back on flying status?” and he said, “Do you want to fly?” and I said, “Well, yes, that’s what I’m here for.” So he said, “Ok.” So he gave me a physical right there in that office. From the office, I went to my barracks. I was there about five minutes. A truck pulled up. Two guys came in, and they said, “Pack up.” So I said, “This is unusual. Where am I going?” They said, “You’ll find out.” So I packed up, loaded it into the truck, got into the truck, and they took me right straight to the flight line, introduced me to my new crew that I was going to fly with, and from there, we flew to Nebraska. I didn’t mark it down. We were in Nebraska for about five days, which this served as a reception center for sending the people out to different places. So I got back on a crew within a week, which surprised me. Needless to say, when I got overseas, I found out that my original crew flew over the channel and collided with another plane, and both crews were killed. So that’s the …but I’m not sure; this is what I heard from other people. And I didn’t learn about this until really – until I came back to the States and found out that this happened. But – and I tried to write to these guys, and I never got any answers, so evidently they did go down. And I thought, gee, this fate is similar, because I was spared on that plane and here I’m going to fly in a different setup. So after we got there, we flew from Kearney, Nebraska to Maine, and from Maine we flew to Newfoundland, Newfoundland we flew all the way across – guns with no ammunition - across the ocean, and we landed in Scotland, and I don’t know the name in Scotland. So, that’s where we landed.
JM: Then from Scotland, were you dispatched to…
MM: Then we were sent to the various groups, and we started at the beginning, coming down, and evidently they took a cycle. They started with different groups, and we were evidently at the end of the chain of groups that were there, and we kept going, and the train got lighter, and lighter, and lighter, and lighter, until finally there was our crew and another crew, and our crew got out at the 95th, and the next crew got out at the 100th. So – but of course, I didn’t know anything about the 100th.
JM: So, now you’re in Horham with the 95th. Do you have any memorable missions from that time? What was the date at this point?
MM: At this point, I think it was around July 9th, 9th or 10th, somewhere in that area. So we left July 9th in Kearney, we took one day – two days to go over, and probably about the 15th of July would be a good guess that we were there. So from July 15th on to the other day. Now you say “memorable things?” I think we might say this, is that it was quite impressive, and the first thing we did is we got our quarters, and of course, we went in our quarters with veterans that had flown before. And the first thing I wanted to know was how is it, what’s it like? You guys did it, now we’re going to do it. Was it scary? Were you afraid? Along those lines. And, of course, this one guy that I talked to, he had a charming way of making you feel at ease. He says, “Oh, no, it’s not that bad.” He said, “You’ll get used to it.” He didn’t say “enjoy” or anything like that. He said, “You won’t have any problems.” So I said, “Ok.” And I’m still looking for that guy, wherever he is, to give him the good word that he really made me feel good and at ease. Well, anyway, we were transferred from that barracks, and we joined the rest of our crew together and were put in Barracks #18. Now the reason I say Barracks #18 in the 336 Squadron was that another crew member met me at one of our 95th Group meetings, and he says, “Oh, you’re Mac from the 95th Barracks #18,” and I says, “I don’t know one barracks from another.” So I looked at the picture over there, and I didn’t see any numbers on it, so I never knew what number it was. Then I was in one of the Quonset huts; they’re pretty nice as far as I was concerned.
JM: How about any memorable missions that you flew?
MM: Well, the memorable ones were probably the ones that were the worst, but I think you usually, if there was something else attached to it, you remembered it more. I remember Number 1, Number 17, and Number 35 – those were the…
JM: Can you tell us about those, please?
MM: OK, Number 1 mission was August 2nd, 1944. We didn’t get up in the morning to go to it because we were outside, and we had our breakfast, and we had our dinner, so they called us in and told us we were going to go on a mission to France, on by the channel. Didn’t say exactly what place, but it was Pas de Calais. They said it was a training mission, and of course, it was going to be a relatively easy mission, so we wouldn’t have any problems. So, we accepted what they said, and we said – somebody mentioned the word “milk run.” That’s where I first heard “milk run.” So we started out, and things were normal alright. We headed for the target, and up to that point, it was uneventful, and then we started towards the target, and there was some chatter on the intercom. It sounded like somebody was cussing out somebody else and so on, and something was said about the words “You have missed where you are going; you are five miles over one way or the other.” I found out afterwards that what we did was, instead of going over the area that was relatively safe, we went over the guns area where the guns were located. Of course, as we entered this area, the guns started to go off right and left, shells burst all around us. Of course, I’m down in the turret, and I can see all the things coming up. That’s a good place to be to see everything coming up and then falling down. The explosions taking place around all of us as we were going in, so while I was moving the turret around, no fighters were in the area. We kept moving closer towards the IP, and I think we were a good distance away from it, but we still weren’t on target yet, and pretty soon we moved in, and we were ready to drop, the bomb bays opened up, and we were going over the target.
As we’re going over this target, I turned the turret to the right side of the plane, and I saw a direct hit take this plane. This plane just literally exploded right in front of me, so I reported that a plane had exploded. Of course, the pilot didn’t answer or anything else. They probably didn’t want us to talk anyway, but I reported it. So I watched this plane going down, and then I went back and turned around in the other direction. As I turned the turret to the left side of the plane, and I watched a plane over there, and all at once, it exploded in the same manner that the first one exploded, just a direct hit, and it exploded and went downward. So as it’s falling, of course I got that old feeling when I saw the other plane in training fall. I thought, “I’ve got to get out of this place.” But I remembered that: “Stay in your turret. Do not leave it. That is your duty spot. You stay there through thick and thin.” So I stayed in it, and flew that all the way through, and went passed the target, watched the explosions of the flak and stuff, and watched the gun batteries below. We went through the target. I don’t know what we hit. I think they reported it was a poor showing on the thing. And then we turned off and headed for England. Then of course we landed, and I reported the planes that fell. The guy looked at me sort of funny, and I couldn’t figure out why, but the pilot agreed that those two planes hit.
So after this we landed, and of course we went through our usual report that we gave. You know, they checked everything out that happened, and I was green as grass as far as that goes, and I wondered about why the shell’s fire exploded and went upward. Of course, I should have thought about heat expanding going upward and it’s lighter than air, but I didn’t. So anyway, I mentioned, “There’s a lot of cones down there.” And they said, “Oh, you like ice cream cones.” I looked at them sort of funny, left it at that. Then I went back to the barracks, and I sort of kept to myself. We stayed there, and I was in sort of a, oh you might say, daze. What had happened, and I didn’t think about the future, but I said, “Boy, that was something.” And of course, all night long I rolled and tossed, and I saw the things over, and over, and over, and over, until morning. So I said, “I can’t sleep any more because this is impossible to sleep with.”
Well, the next day, I went to bed over there, went to bed and slept like a baby. I mean, it was that easy. Of course, one of the other guys that was on that same mission – he rolled and tossed also, and a few times you could hear him let out a squeal or a yell, and there’s somebody crying in the background, because you know – I have no idea why he cried – but going back to Basic, the guys that were going in the service for the first time, they’re men but during the night, they cried. You said, “They can’t take it, huh?” But anyway, that’s the situation on that.
And then after that, later on, we went on our second mission. It seemed like we flew in a second, and a fourth – I think it was the sixth, seventh, and eighth, we went to Russia. We were on the shuttle run, and that was uneventful, so to speak. We saw fighters coming at us and leaving us. They didn’t come too close to us, but they were far away. And the Russians came in, and they did their work, and while we were coming into Russia, all the way towards the place we were going to land, Poltava, the Russians started shooting at one of our planes, and they knocked out one engine from what I heard, but the plane flew all the way in. The reason for that is, it drifted off course, and went into a taboo area, and it was an area where they weren’t supposed to be in, and anything that went in this area was shot at, regardless of who they were, it didn’t matter. So we landed in Russia – Poltava. So after that, that’s – well, those missions didn’t seem like they were too scary. The flak was there, but there was a long distance away, and when we went over the target, the flak settled down. We got over it, and it was quite amazing. We got through that.
We stayed in Poltava for two days, and I think on – we made a mission to somewhere in Romania – the oil fields, and when we dropped our bombs, we saw the explosions down below, and as we turned back, we found that the smoke from the oil wells came up as high as we were in the air. You could look straight ahead and you could see the smoke from the oil wells and the oil wells burning below. So we did a pretty good job on that oil field. I went back to the base, stayed one more night, watched the Russian Cossack dance, and they did a pretty good job. The girls danced and some American GIs danced with them, but soon as they left, they would have nothing to do with us, and we would have nothing to do with them. I might say that I had the experience of going to the plane, and a Russian soldier was guarding the plane, and I went inside the plane, and I thought I was going to be nice and give him a can of K-rations, and I handed him – I put it in front of him, and I said, “Would you like this?” And he looked at me and said, “Nyet.” He didn’t take it. So I said, “Ok.” I went back in the plane and put it in the box, shut the plane, and left. The next morning, we went to the plane, and all the K-rations were gone. So the Russians helped themselves to the K-rations.
From there we flew to another place to bomb, and then we landed in Foggia, Italy, which is pretty good. We visited the area and saw sights and whatnot. While we were there, we saw a P-38 come down spinning and hit the ground and exploded, which was my fourth explosion that I saw in the service. From there, we went back to England and made – let’s see, I think we had about – ‘til we completed ten missions, our pilot at that time decided he had enough, and he wasn’t going to fly anymore, and the navigator decided he had enough, and he wasn’t going to fly anymore, and they both reported that they would not fly anymore, and they were off the crew for two days. The pilot was sent to another command. The navigator returned back with us, and he remained until we completed the missions that we had. So that went on -when that happened, we were without a pilot for a short period of time, and then we got another guy to come in and his name was J. D. Waddell, and I noticed in the reports there that J. D. Waddell just passed away this year. Well, anyway, he was the new pilot, and that was on our tenth mission he took over, and it was uneventful for a period of time until we came to October 17th.
Now, October 17th was a mission that we wouldn’t forget either because it was almost similar thing that happened on August 2nd. We were flying to the target, there was some confusion again, we drifted over the target or the gun area, and we were on the outskirts of Cologne when out of nowhere, I heard like machine gun fire, and I called in to the pilot and asked what’s going on, and he said, “We’ve been hit.” So, I got out of the turret ‘cause we’d been hit, and when I got out of the turret, I found that I was breathing without an oxygen mask. I had the mask on, but it was disconnected, so without the oxygen and I wasn’t needing it, I took the oxygen mask off, and the discussion was: Are we going to try to make it to England or crash land in Belgium, France, or wherever we could? But anyway, we looked out, and I could see the gas coming out of the wing, and we were dropping fast. In fact, by the time I got out of the turret, we were at probably 25 to 30,000 feet, and we were down to about 10 to 15,000 feet just dropping real quickly. So at that particular time, I started to get ready to get the plane so we could go further. So first thing I did is I started throwing out anything that was loose, and that was we took the guns, the ammunition and dumped them overboard. I went to the back end and tapped the tail gunner on the back, told him we were hit, and I opened the back hatch, and I threw out his bag of clothes that he had on the flight. And I went through the whole plane, got rid of flight jackets, and got rid of all these vests that were there – the heavy-plated vests that were used for protection, and lighten the plane, and then I started working on a turret to drop that. We wanted to get back to England.
They told us in training that four bolts - one or two extra ones here and there, and the turret drops without any problem, so we disconnected all the bolts, kicked the turret – it didn’t go, kicked the turret – it didn’t go, and pretty soon the pilot gave us the word that we were coming in for a crash landing. Evidently we landed wheels up, and we skidded across the mud in the area that we were. While we were in this pattern getting ready for that thing, I noticed that there was a lot of infantry fighting going on as we crossed over, so we evidently crossed the German lines and our lines, and we were back in friendly territory. But I didn’t realize how far – it was just about a mile. So we just got over the line, and as we came in there, we hit the ground, and of course, the pilot did a beautiful job landing that plane in the mud, and we slid all the way through it. I was worried about the turret – that it come loose because we’d hit the ground. It didn’t move; it didn’t even move up or down. If it would’ve moved up, it would have landed right where we were; we were in the radio compartment, sitting in a crouched position, preparing for this type of thing, each guy holding the other one, and holding our heads down and things of this nature, and we landed. And then, we got out of the plane, the door - opened it up, stepped out, dropped to our knees in mud – that was really deep – and met the infantry.
They looked at us and asked us how we were, and we said fine, and of course they looked at us and they said, “How do you do it?” I said, “Do what?” They said, “How do you go up there?” They said, “We watch you. We see you come down. We see you fall. It’s like rain - rain of planes and men andparachutes.” Well, this was this guy’s interpretation. He says, “I wouldn’t take your job for all the money in the world.” And I looked at him, and I said to myself, “And I wouldn’t take yours” cause he was muddy all the way through, up to his belt and everything else, packs on his back, helmets on. They took care of us; they loaded us up in the trucks and headed us out towards Brussels. When we drove along the line – that was the line just a little bit north of that was the line – actually west of it. We drove practically all day – seemed like all day in that old truck. We got to the – in Belgium, and there we saw a huge building. I’d estimate it was probably 120, maybe 150 feet long, and about 60 feet wide, and inside, there was hundreds and hundreds of bunks, and they said, “Help yourself to a bunk. You’re going to spend the night here.” And that room was filled with airmen that were shot down that day and brought back to the thing. Some say they only lost one or two people, but I don’t know about that.
So anyway, we saw these people that – well, the next day I got out and took a tour through the town that was around it, and this was in Brussels, and I walked out and stepped in this, I guess it was a tobacco shop, and I asked the proprietor or whoever owned the store about something, and he looked at me, and the first thing he started to do was cuss us out and told me to get out of his store; he didn’t want any damn Americans in his store and stuff. So evidently I figured well this guy was a probably pro-German, and there were a lot of people that were pro-German there, but they didn’t like us coming into their country because of our bombings and things of this nature. I can understand why. So, that was that particular mission, Number 17. The pilot was sent home because of his injuries. The engineer got hit in the heel, but his leather shoe and steel plate in his shoe protected him from injury, but it knocked him out of the turret. And the rest of us, other than the pilot, were in pretty good shape, so we didn’t need any medical thing, but the pilot was taken to the hospital, and he was – wherever the seat didn’t protect him, he was cut by shrapnel from flak – just like somebody took a machine gun right in front of him and every one of these was hit. But he had pieces of flak in him that were, I’d say, half the size of a baseball that he got hit by. So he was pretty bad. And of course that meant that he wouldn’t go back to the base. From there, they took us in another plane – another B-17 – and we flew back to England. And of course, in this plane, they had different people there. They had other GIs, they had some French soldiers, and they had some Belgium people, and, of course, the thing that we did is showed them how to put the parachutes on. This one guy had his parachute upside down, and I figured he was going to have a good time if something happens landing on his head. But we got it on, and they all showed their appreciation.
We flew over back to England, got to our – we didn’t get them back to our base. We landed at some other airfield – I don’t know which thing it was, and the first thing they did is they fed us. And after not having ate for a few hours or actually a day, we got into the pineapple. I ate so much pineapple, I got sick, and I don’t care for pineapple any more. But ??? like that. So, from there they loaded us on trucks again, and they started dropping off the guys at different bases. They finally dropped the guys off at our base. I got off the truck, carried what I had with me, got to the barracks, opened the door, and here the guys were distributing our goods – our clothes and our stuff. One guy says, “Who wants this; who wants this?” And I said, “I want that because that’s mine.” And he looked at me, and he said, “You’re back! How’d you do it? We thought you were dead.” So, I got all my stuff back; the other guys got some of their stuff back. Some of it disappeared, but that was the end of that. We were heroes for about 30 seconds, and then we went back to reality again. The next missions were – we went through between 17 and 35 – weren’t uneventful, but they were of the same caliber, you know, you sweated it out.
Sometimes you had a bad deal; sometimes you were pretty good; sometimes you got shot at pretty badly. I noticed one thing that if the 100th flew ahead of us, and they went through a flak battery, we didn’t get anything. We – the guns were cooling, and they didn’t shoot at us at all. So the next batch got us through, so we always liked to follow the 100thwherever they went. Coming down to the last mission – oh, by the way, got to go back a little bit. We were out of a pilot, so we needed a new pilot, and the navigator had come back already. He had flown with Waddell too and stuff, but we needed a pilot.
So in comes this guy, and he says, “I’m your new pilot.” We said, “Who are you?” He said, “I’m Lieutenant Les Lenox.” Well, that didn’t mean anything to me. I mean, he’s ok. So he says, “We’ll notify you when you’ll be ready for flying.” So as we were going around the base, we would tell the guys, “Well, we’ve got a new pilot. His name is Les Lenox.” And they said, “Les Lenox? Hey, isn’t he the guy that was going over Berlin, and they had a plane called ‘I Dood It’ and he flew that plane, and that plane caught fire, and the guys all bailed out of it, and he went into a dive, and the fire went out, and he flew the plane back with his co-pilot?” Said, “Yeah, that’s the guy.”
So we looked at each other, and the guy sort of mumbled to himself, “What’s this guy? What’s he going to do? Is he going to do this to us?” And we didn’t think too much about it. We flew a couple of missions with him, and he was alright. And then one day, he called us in; he said, “I heard a lot of grumbling going on. You guys aren’t satisfied with me. You don’t want to fly with me.” We looked at each other, and we looked at him, and we said, “Who told you that? You’re alright. We have no complaints. We’ll fly with you.” He said, “Good. From now on, I don’t want to hear any complaining.” Well, actually we weren’t really complaining, but we were sort of a little on edge. So we flew with him until – I flew with him until my 34th mission.
While I was doing one of these missions – I don’t know – I got sick, so I reported that I was sick and couldn’t fly, so they sent me back to my barracks and told me to report to the flight surgeon in the morning. So he examined me, he looked at me, and then he says, “You’re alright. There’s nothing wrong with you. You can go back to your barracks.” I said, “Gee, thanks, I was kind of worried that I might have pneumonia or something. I had chest pains.” So I mentioned, “Yeah, well it’s a good thing there’s nothing serious because I was on the flight line this morning, and they sent me back to the barracks to see you and examine me and find out if there’s anything wrong.” And he said, “You were on a mission today, and you left to come here?” I said, “Yeah.” He reached out, called the ambulance. The ambulance came, picked me up, took me to the hospital, and I was in the hospital for two days. So I don’t know why, but I figured the only thing that could excuse you from a mission is that you were truly down and out sick. You couldn’t have a headache or a toe ache or something like that. But I thought I had something serious, because every time I took a breath, it just like – the whole thing was on fire and pain and whatever. I’ve never had that pain before and never had it afterward. So it came out that way. Anyway, I wound up in the hospital for a little while. And of course, I found out there that when you’re in the hospital, and you can get around, you wind up doing KP in the hospital. You don’t just lay in a bed. So I did the dishes and stuff like that while I was there – and read books. So that ended that particular part.
But then I had the last mission to fly, and my last mission was with Dave Taylor and his…Dave Taylor was the pilot, and the gunner was Debalt – no, I was supposed to fly as the togglier, and so, I says, ok, I came in and introduced myself to Dave, and said, “I’m your new togglier.” He looked at me and he said to me, “How many missions have you done?” I said, “Thirty-four, and this is my last.” He said, “You’re not our togglier, you’re our waste gunner.” And they took their waste gunner and put him as togglier, and I got to be – but I got credit as a togglier, so anybody asked me, “Have you had any bombing experience?” – “Yeah, I was a togglier on Mission 35.” Well anyway, we went on that mission, and went over target and oh, the Germans threw everything at us. They say that 36 planes went out there; 23 of them had battle damage, you know. So it was a rough one – a lot of flak. A few fighters came in – they didn’t come around us, but they were in a distance, and a few planes sort of dropped back when we left – we dropped the targets. We had an excellent hit, so they say. I looked at some of the records, and some of the missions did have excellent hits. So we flew back and after the mission and calmed down, and I got out of the plane, and this was Number 35, and I grabbed the ground, and I gave it a big hug and kiss. I said, “I’m done!” And I got out of that, and I said, “I’m heading for home pretty soon.” Uh, I said “pretty soon.” Went back to my barracks, sat around a little while, went to sleep, woke up, it was morning, and about the time I bounced off my bunk to the ground, the door opened up and a guy says, “Mac, where are you?” And I said, “Here.” He said, “Get your stuff; you’re going home.” And that was the end of my little tour of duty. So actually, by and large, it was probably not too bad. Certain point that bothered me for a long time is that all the guys that flew 25 missions got their DFC, and we didn’t make too much stink about it, but we felt something happened, and the day we got back from our 25th mission, they informed us that the DFC is not given any more, so we didn’t get it. That’s what I wanted to say – that’s it.
JM: Very briefly, can you tell us about your homecoming?
VM: Actually, the homecoming didn’t happen for a whole month practically because we stayed in Scotland, then we took a train ride to Southampton. This is interesting too. We got on a boat. We flew over and we were on a boat. So when we got on this boat, the Air Force personnel were given the job of being KPs. The infantry did enough and they were tough and they were beaten and they needed rest and recreation. We needed a little exercise. So I was going down to the lower part of the ship, and as I went down to the bottom, they – a big sack of about 100 pounds like flour or something – I don’t know what it was – and I carried it up to this next deck. I got on that deck, and at that moment, I sort of dropped that bag on the ground – on the floor – no, on the deck, and just as it touched the deck, there was a big explosion. And it shook the ship, and everything went like that, and I figured, we’ve been hit by a mine or something like that. So I got out of there, and I highballed it right straight up. I kept going up the flights, up the flights, and I got to the top deck. I got on the top deck, and there was nobody there except me, and I looked around and I said, “Gee, there’s nobody up here.” And the ship is still moving; going forward, and nobody is concerned about it. So I made it down again, and went back to where I was supposed to be working, and there was an announcement on there – and the captain of the ship said, “I see several people made it to the top deck when they heard that explosion.” He said, “Under no circumstances do I want anybody on the top deck when that happens. If you think about it carefully, and you’re planning on jumping off, it’s about 12 stories down the side to the ocean. If a shell didn’t get you, the water would get you. Secondly, if you landed into the water or alive with your vest, you’d be there and we’d be five miles away. The boat will move for five miles before it stops, and you’ll be five miles back, so you’re not going to be saved, because nobody’s going to be looking for you five miles away. If there is an emergency, you will be told over the PA what to do, so none of this helter skelter without anything else.” So he gave us a warning there, and most of the guys did seem to be affected by it, but I felt that the mine was right by us and it really blew. So anyway, I asked somebody. I said, “So how far away was that?” He said, “You wouldn’t believe it. It was two miles away.” Two miles away, and here I trekked up there. So that was an experience in itself. I learned a lot about that, but then the ride was uneventful. We went through a little storm, but you know, rough waters – so everybody said about getting seasick. I never got seasick. Oh, incidentally, I never got airsick once in the time that I was in England and flying every mission and everything else – not once. I kept my cookies all the time, so it’s really interesting to note that.
JM: Well, Mac, thank you so much for taking the time today to tell us these stories, and thank you also for your contributions during World War II. We owe a lot to you and everyone who participated. Thank you.
MM. Thank you very much.