The Forgotten 500 Read Online Free PDF Page A

1944.
     
     
     
    Every bomber that left from an Allied base to bomb Ploesti carried up to a dozen young men like Clare Musgrove. Some of them would die before they ever reached their target, many would die as they reached the target and met withering antiaircraft fire and attacks from German fighter planes, and others would make it through the worst of the fighting only to find themselves in a crippled, rapidly dying airplane that would not make it back to base. The bombing runs were always harrowing and violent, with every successful return seeming like a triumph over fate.
    Musgrove was typical of the bomber crews that flew these critical missions, wondering each time he climbed into the plane if he would make it back alive. Growing up in Hersey, Michigan, a small community north of Grand Rapids, Musgrove never imagined he would be flying missions that were so important to the Allied war effort and that could kill him every time. One of four children, Musgrove had spent much of his childhood helping his grandparents on their small, twenty-five-cow dairy farm and graduated from high school in 1937. He then went to a local community college and spent four years teaching in rural schools, which he enjoyed but knew he would not make his life’s work. Instead, Musgrove looked to the military for a better career, one that might offer more adventure than he saw in central Michigan. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Musgrove knew his path was clear.
    America had been at war in Europe for about six months in 1942 when, at age twenty-two, Musgrove volunteered for the air force because he wanted to fly. Most of his former classmates and most of his friends were volunteering also. Everyone wanted to fly because it was the glamorous way to serve in the military. The recruiting posters showed handsome young men in flight suits and leather caps, heading off for grand esca pades that outshone anything in a schoolteacher’s life, so that was the choice for Musgrove. Unfortunately, Musgrove ran into the same road-block that stymied many young men’s aspirations for flight. He couldn’t pass the eye test. Musgrove’s less-than-perfect depth perception meant the government wasn’t going to put him in the pilot’s seat, but hey, there are plenty of other seats on those big bombers, the air force pointed out.
    Musgrove could still fly if he found another position, so he considered navigator, radio operator, and engineer. But the one that sounded best was aerial gunner. The air force obliged and transferred him from Shepherd Field, near Wichita Falls, Texas, where he had undergone basic training, to Laredo, Texas, on Rio Grande River at the border with Mexico. This was the site of the air force’s first aerial gunner school, and Musgrove excelled at his work so much that he was tapped to stay on as an instructor in how to use the ball turret gun on a B-24 bomber. Having already gotten his fill of teaching before joining the service, Musgrove taught for a year before becoming restless as he watched other, less experienced men, go off to war. He lobbied for an assignment to active duty and the air force relented, sending him overseas to the Fifteenth Air Force stationed in Italy.
    Musgrove still didn’t leave his teaching role, however. The air force assigned him to be the instructor for ball turret gunners with the Fifteenth Air Force, reinforcing what the newly arriving crew members had been taught Stateside and helping them hone their skills for life-or-death missions over Europe. And there were always plenty of new recruits to bring up to speed. Every time a plane went off on a bombing mission and came back loaded with dead and dying crewmen who lost their fight with a storm of shrapnel, or when a plane never returned at all, that meant more young men had to be brought in as replacements. Musgrove stayed busy teaching the new ball turret gunners how to protect their bombers and how to stay alive. Neither was an easy task for