John Stack
95TH BOMB GROUP (H)
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
2004 REUNION WASHINGTON, D.C.
(Interviewed by Janie McKnight)
JM: This is Janie McKnight with the 95th Bomb Group Legacy group. Today I am interviewing John Stack from Mattituck, New York. John, for the record, would you state your name, and today’s date, and where we are.
JS: John Stack. Today’s date is September 10th, ’04, and we’re in Washington, D.C.
JM: And what were your dates of service with the Army Air Corps?
JS: I enlisted and it took a long time to get in. And I finally went in cadet training – I’m not particularly sure of the dates. But it was in early ’43. I enlisted and went to San Antonio Aviator Cadet Center and went through classification. And my first trip from there was in ________________ for my first flight training, primary training. And I went to Grainville, Texas for basic training, and then I went to Ellington Field for advanced training. From there they sent me up to – I can’t remember the name of it – it was in the Arbuckle Hills of Oklahoma. And I was supposed to get phase training up there. What happened was one day they told me to get to the flight line with my gear, and they sent me down to Galveston, Texas. And I found that I was on a flight that was in their third phase of training, but the co-pilot had stepped into #2 prop the day before and was killed, and I was a replacement. And we were going on a flight that day – my first time in a B-17. It was a high altitude gunnery formation. And I told the pilot I’d never been in a B-17, I’d never used the turbo supercharger, I’d never flown at altitude, and I’d never flown on oxygen.
JM: Going back for just a minute, when did you – what were your dates of service with the 95th? When did you go over with the 95th?
JS: The 95th was February of ’44 to July of ’44.
JM: Okay. And what squadron were you in?
JS: 336th
JM: And what was your principal job?
JS: I was a co-pilot.
JM: Okay. So, back to the story.
JS: So that first flight was really something. I mean you talk about being a greenhorn. I was there and I had to just do whatever he told me to do. And I had a good pilot. He was very good with me.
JM: Who was your pilot?
JS: Royal Scott. And we went through that and had a successful mission with the targets. The guys did well on the gunnery. And we got down and from then on he started tutoring me. He did a good job with that. He got me going. One thing I felt was really terrible – we tried to feather. He was showing me how the plane flew after you feathered it; that with one engine feathered you could still fly well. Then we got two feathered; it still flew well. Then we got three feathered, and I could still fly it. So then he said, let’s _________ for the #3. When I reached up for #3, he reached for the mix control, hit my hand and it hit #4, and #4 was feathered. And we were a four engine glider (chuckle). And I looked out and said, God, we got two feathered here. And the bombardier said, there’s two feathered over here. They came up to the deck and we were kind of busy, and we couldn’t get them unfeathered. They wouldn’t unfeather. And so finally we got it together and he got the idea of increasing the airspeed and sticking your nose down. And then we just tried #2, and it started to unfeather. And once it unfeathered, it turned and fired up. And once it got going, we were able to unfeather all the other engines. As soon as we landed we got a hold of the Boeing representative and said, “What the hell happened?” And he couldn’t tell us. So when I came back from overseas, I went ___________________________________ and was an instructor. And I got in instructor training school, and I found out that you need 180 amps in your batteries to unfeather them. And we didn’t have it. So at least I learned that. But it took me all through combat before I did. But the main story I wanted to tell you was the one about the trip to Russia – the first triangular trip to Russia, Italy, and back to England. We flew lead, and Colonel Mueller was in our ship. We landed in Mirgorod. And that night the planes came over and we knew that we were going to catch it the next night. And that night Poltava got bombed. And they got them on the ground there. So the next day we got in the planes and flew them at about 100 feet, and flew to another so-called airbase. We landed on grass in a B-17 (laughing). And we parked them out there. And the radio operator, Bucky Harris and I, stayed with the airplane with Colonel Mueller in case he wanted to do communications with anybody so that we could fire it up and get the radios going. The next day we went back to the base – maybe a day after – went back to the base. They’d cleaned it up, filled up the pot holes. They got bombed that night. And then we loaded up and made the trip to Italy. And on the way down I said to Colonel Mueller, “Where are we going to land, Colonel?” And he said, “Well, right here.” And he points on the map. I said “Yeah, but what Bomb Group is that?” He said, “I don’t know. Why?” I said, “Well, I have a brother in the 99th Bomb Group” (Telephone interruption)
JM: You were on the triangular…
JS: We were on the way down to Italy. Are we on? OK. And so I told him my brother was the 99th. He said, “Well, I’ll try to see that you get to see your brother before we leave.” Well, we got there and we landed and we taxied off the runway on a taxi strip. I looked out the window and I saw my brother looking at the co-pilot seat. He saw it wasn’t I, and he started for the next plane and bang, he did a double take and came back. So I said, “Scotty, stop this thing.” (laughter) We stopped right there on the taxi strip and I went back through the bomb bay and the radio room into the waist. And as I got to the back, the ball turret gunner said, “For Christ’s sakes, that’s Captain Stack’s brother” (laughing). So we picked him up and he drove back with us. Our crew was billeted in his squadron. There were four squadrons on the base. But our crew was billeted in his squadron. They put me in his tent. And he flew his first mission the next day. So we sweat him out. They took pictures to send to the home papers, you know. But he and I sat down and we wrote a letter to our folks. And my sister told me later on, it was the greatest thing that ever happened, because he was the baby of the family. I don’t know what she thought I could do for him. But anyhow, she felt that he was safe because I was there. And my father had just died, and we didn’t know it. So it worked out for the best. We had a wonderful time there. We went swimming in the Gulf of Macedonia. We’d been in England all winter and had nothing but cabbages. Scot and I, I think, ate three bowls of cucumber salad that night. And the fresh vegetables were just too much. And he flew his first mission the next day and God, he wasn’t in, he wasn’t in. He was a co-pilot too. I kept asking, where is he? Finally they got in. It seems that, in the excitement of their first landing in combat, the ball turret gunner forgot to retract his guns. And so the guns dug a ditch in the runway, and the Colonel had a chat with them. So that’s why they were late. We had a good visit there. We saw Hiefitz give a concert in a bombed out area in Foggia. It was a wonderful experience. It was the highlight of my trip overseas. We flew back to England, bombed in Beziers, France, and went back. The only unique thing about that was somebody had flak and had problems keeping up. We essed the whole formation and he just flew a straight line and we just essed over him and covered him. We all got back fine. It was a wonderful mission.
JM: How many missions did you fly?
JS: 35. I thought when I was back that I was too old – I was 30 when I left. And when I got back I had 32 and I thought I was finished, but I had three more to do. We had luck. We didn’t lose any men. We were just very fortunate. I had a good pilot.
JM: Did you fly with the same crew for the whole time you were over there?
JS: Yeah, yes I did. Well, no. One time I flew with one other guy. I was in the hospital one time, and they flew a mission without me. And so to catch up, I flew with another one. A co-pilot had become pilot because the pilot quit flying. And I flew with him as co-pilot. That was a good flight. It was a wonderful experience.
JM: Any other memorable missions that you flew on?
JS: Yeah, when we went to Poznan. We got all the way out there. Colonel McKnight was the leader. And we got over Poznan with our bomb bay doors open. And Poznan’s way deep in there. And we got over the target, and it was all covered with clouds and they wouldn’t bomb. So we pulled out of that area. We started going on a cook’s tour of Germany. People kept saying “_______________________ Where’re you going?” And he said, “Follow me! Follow me!” That’s all we’d hear him say, is follow me. So we followed him and got to Rostock, Germany and we bombed the bejesus out of Rostock and then came home. That was a very interesting mission.
JM: Any other interesting characters that you remember from that time, or did you form any special friendships?
JS: Well, among the crew you get a great unity, you know. To tell you the truth, it was sort of funny. We were pretty young people. And Scot was a big fellow – he was six foot something and two hundred and some odd pounds – big man. And he sort of ruled the club with an iron fist, you know. And sometimes he’d maybe make a boo-boo. They wouldn’t say anything to him. They’d come to me. And they’d say, “You know, he told us to do this. If we do this, this is going to happen.” So I’d get a hold of him and say, “If we do this, this is going to happen.” Then he would correct it. But that was the way it worked. They’d come to me, I’d tell him, then I’d let him correct it. And we had wonderful discipline. ___________________ one guy. We had a replacement gunner, waist gunner, and lazy. And when we test fired the guns over the Channel, you know, before you went, test fire to make sure they worked. You were supposed to clear the area and make sure you’re not going to…he’d just reach up and hit the button. And I think he put three or five shots right through our own horizontal stabilizer. I never liked that man from then on. But the rest of the crew was wonderful – good guys. We have one with us on this one – Scot’s here and the radio operator’s here. The only other one that’s still living is in Texas and he’s got heart disease, diabetes, and about three other things and he just can’t…
JM: Did the crew keep in touch after they returned home?
JS: Yeah. We’ve been together at other bomb reunions. We keep in touch – cards and stuff like that.
JM: Have you ever been back to England?
JS: Yes I did. I went back to England with my wife. We flew back – let the Air Force fly us back, space available. We went down to McGuire Air Force Base. We got out the first day we were there. I never believed that would happen. And we went over to England, and we were to meet another fellow I’m going to have dinner with this Sunday night that’s here – Jack Kelly, who was a bombardier with another crew that lived in the same Quonset hut that we lived in. They didn’t get there until much later. They came over commercially. So my wife and I flew over to Ireland to visit her in-laws over there. We had a visit over there. And we had a tour of Ireland and that was great. And went back to England and met Jack. And then we got a car and we went up and found the base. And it was funny. When we got to where it said on the map, where we thought it should be, I looked out the window and I saw the Church and I saw the monument. I said, “Jack, we’re here.” And that monument – it’s a wonderful monument. There is nothing you could add to it that would improve it. And there’s nothing you could take away from it. I figure that’s real art. And the guy that did it, he works in pubs. He builds pubs. He was good. He really did a job on it.
JM: Inspired.
JS: Yeah.
JM: Any other stories about the days that you were in England that you’d like tell us about? Humorous incidents?
JS: Well, we’d be in bed and we’d hear the bombers, fighters come over the top of the thing. We’d just pull the covers up. None of us running out into the ditch. (Chuckling) It was an interesting time. We had the bucket to catch the mice. We had a big bucket and a loop on it and we had a piece of cheese hanging. We had brown paper stretched over the top with an X cut in it. When the mouse would get up, he’d fall into the bucket. (Chuckling) That’s how we’d get rid of the mice. The damn mice were eating our candy, you know. We couldn’t have that happen (laughing).
JM: Did you get to see your brother again, or was that the only time that you saw him?
JS: That’s the only time I saw him over there. He came back. He got flying out of some place in south Florida below Palm Beach somewhere. He wrote and told me, he said, “John, the B-17 is a wonderful airplane. Ask any B-24 pilot. He was flying B-24’s out on submarine service. And he didn’t like them. He didn’t like them at all. You can’t see out of them. You can’t fly formation. You know, they were box cars. I feel I was very blessed and lucky I got a good crew and a good airplane, and got home.
JM: Well tell me about your homecoming.
JS: Well, they sent me over to Wales. Sat around there. Went swimming one day and decided a Frididaire would be better. And then they flew us back from Wales and we stopped in Iceland or somewhere like that, and into Presc Isle and down to Newark. And I got out there and went over, had to buy a summer uniform. We had those summer uniforms over in England. And then I had to get out to Mattitock. Well, I took the train out Camp Upton, because that’s where I had to put my papers down and say I was home. Then I got, from there, I wanted to get up to where I lived on the Island, and no way to get out there. They gave me a ride out to the highway and I stood on the highway and thumbed. I was getting a little bit peeved. I mean here I was, just coming back from flying 35 missions. These people, nobody would pick me up. Eventually a staff car came out. And there was a lady driver, and a lady in the back. It happened it was a lady that lived out in a town just past Mattitock. Picked me up, drove me right in the driveway. When I got there, my sister came out and said, “Oh my God, John. Stay out here. Let me get her ready.” So she went in to get my mother ready to – didn’t want to…
JM:…didn’t want to surprise her…
JS: Yeah, yeah. I didn’t know when I was going to get home. How could I tell them, you know? So that was a great homecoming.
JM: And was your brother already home?
JS: No, oh no. He flew his first mission – hell, I was almost finished. And he flew his first mission.
JM: And did you stay in the Army Air Corps when you got home?
JS: When I got home I stayed in for a while until. I was thinking seriously of staying in. I wanted to get into hurricane hunters, to tell you the truth. I was instructing down in Hobbs, New Mexico, in B-17’s. But my wife had a problem. I was married and had a child. She had a mental problem, and I figured I had to get out. So I went to a psychiatrist at the base and he said, “There’s only one thing for you to do, son. Get out and get over it.” She had a rather severe problem, and eventually she took her life. Children, three children. Several years later I married a wonderful lady. Then she died. I married the wife I have now, and we’ve been married for 29 years. The others were 13 years a piece. I’ve led an interesting life.
JC: Well before we finish up here, are there any other things you’d like to say? How about these reunions? Have you been coming to them right along?
JS: Well, the first reunion – when we went to England that time, we went to the ancient house there. We looked in the sign-in book there, there was Scot’s name. I found out where he lived and got home, got in touch, and found out there was going to be a reunion down in New Orleans.
JM: And when was this? What year? Around?
JS: Whenever New Orleans was. I’m bad trying to remember how far back, you know. And I went down there, and we saw Scot and a whole bunch of guys. I hit several reunions after that. We went to Reno. My wife and I would drive out to these places. But I can’t drive anymore. And this last time, she was hospitalized just before this, so she couldn’t drive. And my six girls got together and got us down here.
JM: Are your daughters with you?
JS: One daughter lives down here, one lives in Annapolis, one lives up in Jersey, one lives in Connecticut, one lives in Boston, one lives in Vermont.
JM: Did they come to this reunion, any of them?
JS: No, no. They’re good girls. All doing well.
JM: Thank you so much for taking the time to do this oral history.
JS: Thank you for listening.
JM: And thank you especially for your service in World War II.
JS: Believe me, it was my pleasure. I learned a lot. I think I grew up a bit.