Date: Thu, 20 Jan 94 12:47:29 -0500 From: nrm1853@rserver3.dsac.dla.mil (Michael Fitch) Subject: Recent letter form Al Soriano SUBJECT: B-17 Boomerang Barbara. A recent letter to Mark Watson from Albert Soriano: January 12, 1994 Dear Mark, Yesterday, I had my mind set thinking of our crew. This was because I had read and re-read your letter that morning. I took out my notes and compared them to Bill's. While my mind was deep in those thoughts, the phone rang, it was James Baldock calling from his home in Kent, Washington. This sent a chill through my body, I did not expect the call. He told me that he was calling because it was the 50th anniversary on the day he joined our crew. I have written to him before and kept him up to-date on things, but he has always been slow to respond. We talked for a while and he proved to have a very good memory going back fifty years. I did notice that, on some details Bill notes and mine are a little different. I accept Bill's notes as more correct, because he kept notes that I did not take. Although we flew every mission on the same plane and at the same time, his view and mine were very far apart. You see Mark, in the radioroom, your father had two small windows to the sides and a big opening on the roof where his gun was. He had a good view to see what was above him, he could not see what was below. I flew in the ball turret, which gave me a wide veiw to the sides and down. I could see the ground and the cities we flew over. The only problem was I could not see any other crew member and they could not see me. You had to trust in your crew, for they were as depended on you as you were on them. There was one very big difference between Bill and I. Bill got to know a lot of the men on other crews. You can read this in his notes, he know who was flying next to us and he knew them by name. This proved to cost Bill a great deal of extra grief. When someone went down, he knew them, he had been friends with them. I on the other hand, went out of my way, not to make friends with anyone outside our crew. Twice within our tour of missions, our barracks was wiped out, everyman living there, except our crew and one other, across the asle from us were lost. On some missions we lost sixty planes, that was six hundred men all at once, in a few hours. It was bad enough to know that your fellow airmen were being lost at such a rate, but to know them by name was just too much. As our radioman, Bill had first hand knowledge of our position. It was his job to stay in touch by radio, unless we were under fighter attack, he had to sit at the radio. He could listen to other planes talking to each other and sent messages when the pilot gave the word. I could only hear the crew talking to each other. This is why Bill writes about being off course or being late over the target. When we got a pass, which was when the weather was too bad to fly, most of us took the train to London. Wartime London was full of action and thats where the girls were. I went to London only once with Bill. It was our first pass and we went as a crew, all ten of us. Officers and men. We rented connecting rooms at a fine hotel and threw a party. I was not used to drinking and after a couple, I don't remeber many of the details. After this, I only went on passes with Joseph J. Stankevich (Stinky). Stinky was single and like I, unattached. At times, Bill and I, with others in the crew, went on special missions around the base. We borrowed bicycles and went around the nearby farm house to trade for fresh eggs and spring onions. We each took extra cigarettes (which cost us a nickle a pack) and traded them for fresh eggs. We had a lot of fun, but most of us stayed away from the local bars. There were just too many fights. English ground troops and US flyboys did not get along too well. They were not well paid and had little money to spend, on the other hand with flight and overseas pay, we had money to burn...... ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Back in the late '70s, when I was a student at OSU, I saw a female Horticulture student wearing a T shirt that declared: "You can lead a Whore to culture, but you can't make her think!" ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ E-mail: nrm1853@rserver3.dsac.dla.mil