A Citizen Soldier in the Air - a B-24 Liberator pilot's story.

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A Citizen Soldier in the Air.

Last Duties

The Air Force tried to find a non-flying assignment that would make good use of Charlie’s combat experience. In December 1944, he was assigned to a B-24 training base at Tonopah, Nevada, as the ground training director. There he employed a grounded B-24 as a crew combat- and emergency-procedures trainer, something that was quite innovative at the time.

He was a captain at this time, and there was a major who was in a junior position in the same organization and who complained about this. Though Charlie was doing a great job, military thinking prevailed, and he was offered 'any other job he wanted.' He chose an Air Transport Command job, was returned to flight status, and got checked out in the C-54 transport aircraft (military DC-4). He continued to fly transport and ferry missions through 1944 and 1945. In the summer of 1945, Charlie got verbal orders to go to England to pick up a repaired B-24 and several VIP’s for return to the States.

After eleven days of attempts to start the engines, the B-24 in question was finally really fixed, and he flew it Back to Westover AFB, Massachusetts. He was then told to go to San Francisco to join an Air Evacuation Group. But a 'SNAFU' with his personnel files resulted in several months in California with no orders - Charlie just waited for months, checking every day for new orders. Finally he decided that this was crazy - the war was over, and he had enough service 'points' to get out. So he left active duty service in October of 1945.

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