蜜芽传媒

My dad is a World War II War Hero as far as I'm concerned. In fact, I think all men who have fought in all wars for America are war heroes. But I'm especially proud of my dad. He was in World War II and this is part of what I know about his war story.

He was 18; he graduated from High School in Alliance Nebraska in 1943. He went in to enlist but they told him to go home, his time was coming right up, they鈥檇 be calling him. Se he went. When they did call, he found himself in the Army Air Corps (AAC), forerunner to the Air Force. He had volunteered for the paratroops but was told that the Air Corps had priority. He took the train from Alliance, NE to Denver, (Colorado), to Ft. Logan, for induction, then to basic training at Shepard Field at Wichita Falls, Texas. After that he went to Wichita Kansas for College Training Detachment (CTD) and then on to Santa Ana California for officer testing, where most everyone washed out, then back to Denver. He spent D-Day (June 6, 1944) at Lowery field in Denver where they had the largest mess hall in the army at that time; he was involved in armament training on 50 caliber machine guns that fired 800 rounds per minute.

He didn't know it yet, but he would be in the European Theatre of Operations (ETO), part of Lt. Paul Crider's 10 man flight crew that would be flying a B-17 Bomber, stationed in Eye, England, dropping bombs on Germany. The towns of Diss, Eye, and Horham, England, were all within six miles of each other, deep in the beautiful countryside and amidst the gentle undulating farmlands of Suffolk. They housed AAC bases from which the B-17 bombers flew. These flyboys had no idea that 13 of the original 34 B-17's had to be replaced because of mechanical failures, or that 77 percent of them did not complete a full tour of 25 missions.

My dad鈥檚 bomb group, the 95th Heavy Bomber Group, was part of the first B-17 bombing of Berlin on March 4, 1945. The 95th bombers had a Square B marking on their tails, as shown in the picture 鈥淗eavy Date鈥� below. The 95th was part of a huge coordinated force of bombers and fighters stationed in England, whose purpose was to bomb the Nazi鈥檚 out of Europe. They blew up the oil fields in Romania and the synthetic oil factories in Germany in an effort to bring the German war machine to a grinding halt.
The entire crew would be comprised of Lt. Paul F. Crider, Pilot; Lt. Richard Charlton, Co-pilot; Lt. LaBarr, Bombardier (never went overseas); Vincent Myers, Navigator; Robert Arnoldi, Engineer; Bill Cape, radio operator; Sam Woodwind, waistgunner; Frank Schmit, tailgunner; John Gaddis, lower ball turret gunner; and my dad, Raymond Rachetts. He flew the bombardier's position in the navigator's compartment, releasing the bombs, and was the togglier, manning the two-gun chin turret guns.
Allied Air Power was the chief factor in Germany's defeat. The bombers did more than anyone toward winning the war. They executed high altitude, daylight, precision bomb runs. These men were going to be Lt. Paul F. Crider's Flight Crew: the 334th Squadron, 95th Bomb group, 13th Air Wing, 3rd Air Division, 8th Air Corps, U.S. Army. They were just ordinary people, caught in a global war, and their courage and their sense of honor altered the course of history forever.

The 95th Bomb Group started in Rapid City South Dakota in 1943. There's a book about the famous 95th with pictures taken inn Rapid, called "Bombs Over Berlin, the 95th Bomb Squad."

When I began my search for my dad's crewmembers in July 2000, I located the pilot, Paul Crider, in Vero Beach, Florida. He was widowed, but had remarried, and, at age 84, was in good health. In December 2002, he was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and underwent one chemotherapy treatment but was too weak for another. He died in January 2003.

In July 2000 I located the Navigator, Vince Meyer, in St. Paul Minnesota, with his original wife, in good heath, age 76, as he remained in December 2002, at age 78.

My father, the bombardier/togglier, Ray Rachetts, in July 2000 was in Alliance Nebraska, age 75, a widower, in good health, as he remained, at age 77, and as he still remains at age 80 in 2005. My father was awarded a 鈥淭hank You America certificate鈥� from the French Government for his heroic contribution to the liberation of France during World War II.

In my search, in 2000, I found the co-pilot Dick Charlton, was deceased. The waist gunner, Sam Woodward, was deceased, and I was unable to locate the rest of the crew.

In November of 1944, while completing their final training at Drew Field, Tampa, FL, Lt. Paul Crider's training bomber team was named Crew of the Week, having completed more missions than assigned. The Operations Officer announced that they were ready to do their job, they were outstanding, and they were well trained. They had their picture taken in front of their plane, and as a reward they were allowed to fly to Detroit where the family of co-pilot Dick Charlton had invited them all for dinner. As it turned out, Romulus Field was so socked in; they landed at Lockborn Field, Ohio, spent the night, and went back the next day. Everyone was crying the blues because they had so looked forward to that dinner; it was close to Thanksgiving time.

From Florida, the crew boarded the Queen Elizabeth in New York harbor on February 28, 1945 for their six-day zigzag trip to Glasgow, Scotland. They zigzagged to avoid the German U-boats. They disembarked in Glasgow on March 7th 1945. On March 4th the 95th was participating in the first daylight raid over Berlin, 800 bombers in total. March 31 was my dad鈥檚 first combat mission.

Once they reached Scotland, they boarded the train, which took them to their destination: Eye, England. Eye is situated halfway (vertically) between Ipswitch on the South, and Norwich, to the North, in the southeastern part of England, near Framingham. The men could take a 100-mile train ride to London, if they had a pass, for the weekend.

The men slept on cots in Quonset Huts. They had small, pot bellied stoves in their Quonset huts to keep them warm. After they got back and were debriefed, one at a time, by intelligence officers to determine whether they had seen any troop movements or other valuable information, and had had their reward of one shot of whiskey, they'd make Dutch sandwiches with bread and cheese on the stovetop, trying to stave off the bitterly cold east wind that blew straight across the airfield from the North Sea.

Then they went to the briefing to learn of the mission for the day: where they were going and what the target for the day was. Then it was off to get their gear on and load themselves onboard and off they'd go. They were flying in formations, sometimes up to 800 bombers; but they could not see each other until they climbed up out of the fog. Once they reached about 10,000 feet, Dad started checking everyone on the microphone to see if their oxygen and electrical suits were working. He'd start the check with the tail gunner and then work his way forward. Once they reached 27,000 feet, it would be 55 degrees below zero. They wore electrically heated fight suits to keep from freezing so they prayed they wouldn't lose their electrical system. Many men had frostbite on their faces where their oxygen masks didn't cover their faces. If someone did not respond, Dad would have to grab a bottle of portable oxygen and go see what was wrong.

They flew, as a matter of course, in weather that back home, would ground every aircraft in this county. They sometimes flew 1800 miles, a 12-hour flight. After finding their target and making their bomb runs and dropping their loads, they'd turn tail for the Cliffs of Dover, and when they Cliffs of Dover were sighted they could start to breathe again.

Once they made it back, there was the debriefing. Every man on the crew was debriefed, one at a time, Each man was rewarded with one shot of Scotch Whiskey and once in a while they could bum another if there was someone who didn't drink.

On their first combat mission they didn't get their actual plane, they one that had already been in battle because there was a pretty good change of being shot down on the first mission. Also on the first mission you didn't get the pilot you'd been training with, either, you got a more seasoned pilot. So when they were getting the crew ready for their first mission they were going over the procedure to release the bombs and my dad said he was only half paying attention because he's already learned this, this is what he'd been trained for. So they get up they and he hears "Bombs away." And he can't release the bombs! He hadn't been paying close attention to precisely what the guy was saying. And the bombs were ignited. Last ditch he could pray to get them out by the time they got back to the English Channel or it was so long for all of them on his goof up. The pilot didn't say a word or skip a beat he just headed for the secondary target and by the time they got there dad had figured it out and got the bombs away. Thank god for that. That鈥檚 good for a few night terrors, eh?

On one mission, my dad said he had just been issued a new GI shirt the day before and tied a can of cheese in one arm, a tin of butter in the other sleeve, and put a package of cigarettes in the chest pocket with a note that gave his name and address and stated that he'd like to hear from whomever found the shirt. He received a letter from a 15 year old boy in Holland, written in beautiful penmanship, almost calligraphy, in flawless English, telling how grateful he and his family were and how they were starving and how bad off they were left by the fleeing Germans.

In March 1944 the 95th BG completed its 100th mission. 97 aircraft were lost; 10 men each. The 95th flew 309 total combat missions. Paul Crider's crew flew their combat missions in the last 25 flights of the 95th.

There were eight chowhound missions flown after the war by the allied forces, to feed the starving Dutch; the Germans had blown all the dykes in Holland as they retreated. Holland was flooded and starving, after the war. There were about 23,000 Third Air Division men involved in these missions. The only airplane lost in all of the 5,626 planes flown in the chowhound missions was from the 95th; it was the last casualty in the Eighth Air Corps. Eleven men were lost as their plane went down at sea on May 17, 1945. Lt. Crider's team flew a chowhound mission on May 6th 1945 and my dad was on it.

After the chowhound mission, where he dropped another message, my dad received another letter from another Dutchman, again in perfect penmanship, nearly calligraphy, in flawless English, telling how grateful he was and how he was a policeman. He told of what desperate shape the Dutch people were in after the Germans flooded the country and fled. He asked if there were one more thing my father could do for him. He needed a particular size of bicycle tires. My dad was in Deadwood South Dakota when he received this letter so he went to the hardware store and asked for that size tire. The man said he's just sold them and told him whom he'd sold them to. It was the lady who lived right across the street from my Grampa Bart's motel (his dad). So he went to her and asked if he could buy them from her and she agreed so he got them and mailed them to the Dutchman but never heard from him again.

As told by one of my WWII email buddies, Albert R. Bessette (Albert Bessette , who was part of a ground crew for the 95th: "I know I patched a lot of flak and bullet holes on the birds while I was in charge of the hangar repair the first eight months we were there. The first mission for the 95th BG was on 13 May 1943, target: St.Omer. Nineteen aircraft took off, 15 dropped their bombs and only 2 returned with battle damage. The next day target: Antwerp. 24 acft took off, 21 got credit for the mission and 17 returned with battle damage. 1 acft failed to return, the first loss for the group. Acft S/N 42-3115; pilot McKinley. Under fighter attack, the acft spun out of formation and crashed on island of Noard Beveland, no survivors. That incident brought a shock to the entire remainder of the 95th BG. The fact that we had lost an aircraft to enemy fire with 10 of our friends on board brought the realization that we were at war and it isn't a good idea to make friends with combat crews. The first losses were always friends because they were the original crews that we had known for several months. The first few months of combat were as rough on the ground crews as it was on the remaining flight crews. A month later on 13 June 1943 on the first raid to Kiel, my squadron C.O., Maj. Alan W. Wilder was killed, as was Brig. Gen. Nathan B. Forrest III on the same aircraft when they were attacked by three enemy fighters and shot down over the Baltic Sea. Two men survived that action when they did not open their chutes as soon as they left the plane but free fell several thousand feet before pulling the ripcord. The ones who pulled the ripcord as soon as they left the plane were blown out over the Baltic Sea by high winds aloft and they either drowned or died of hypothermia in the icy waters. I had flown many hours with Maj. Wilder including the Atlantic crossing via the southern route. West Palm Beach> Trinidad> Belem> Natal> Dakar> Merakech> St. Eval, England. Losing him was the biggest blow of the war to me. We were good friends. There were ten aircraft lost that day with over one hundred KIA or POWs. After that we knew what war was all about and worked all the harder to make the aircraft as perfect as we could for the next mission. "

My dad flew on eight combat missions and one chowhound mission. The dates of my dad鈥檚 combat missions were March 31, 1945, April 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, and 15. May 6 was the chowhound mission. After eight missions the soldiers and officers were promoted. My dad was promoted to staff sergeant. Second Lieutenant Crider was promoted to First Lieutenant.

Dad re-enlisted after the war and was sent back to Germany, to Furstenfeldbruk, the last place he had bombed. When I asked why he went back to Germany he said, " Well, I guess I wanted to see how they were going to put it all back together." He remarked that when he first saw Munich after war it was simply rubble. I asked if the German civilians spoke to him and of course yes, they had. I asked if they were glad the war was over and he said no. They remarked that, "All is lost in da Fatherland." They had no hope.

After my dad re-enlisted, he was taking a train from Alliance to Omaha, then on to Greensborough, N.C. Grandpa (Bart Rachetts) was the conductor and he told my dad he could share his double seat. Grandpa was not sitting there when the MP鈥檚 came up and told my dad to move, that he couldn鈥檛 sit there. My dad told the MP鈥檚 that his dad was the conductor and the conductor told him he could sit there. The MP鈥檚 didn鈥檛 believe him until Grampa came up right then and told the MP鈥檚 to leave my dad alone, that he had permission to sit there!

Dad鈥檚 last combat mission was April 15, 1945, and Victory in Europe (VE day) was Tuesday May 8 1945.

The missions of Lt. Paul Crider
March 31, 1945, TG (target) 鈥� Zeitz 31 planes TO (took off) 1 FTR (failed to return)
April 4, 1945 TG - Kiel, 38 TO, 0 FTR
April 6, 1945, TG 鈥� Leipzig, 36 TO, 1 FTR
April 7, 1945, TG 鈥� Kaitenkirchen, 38 TO, 0 FTR
April 9, 1945, TG - Munchen-Reim, 38 TO, 0 FTR
April 10, 1945, TG 鈥� Burg, 38 TO, 0 FTR
April 11, 1945, TG 鈥� Landshut, 37 TO, 0 FTR
April 15, 1945, TG 鈥� Royan, 38 TO, 0 FTR
May 6, 1945, TG - Utrecht, 38 TO, 0 FTR (chowhound mission 鈥� food drop)
May 7, 1945, TG - Utrecht, 40 TO, 1 FTR (chowhound mission)
May 14, 1945 victory tour mission, 18 TO 0 FTR
May 25, 1945 revival mission returning Australian war prisoners from Germany to England, 32 TO, 0 FTR

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