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

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A Citizen Soldier in the Air.

Travels with Charlie

Once checked out in the B-24, Charlie began to fly to a number of different bases in the U.S. First he flew up to Topeka, Kansas.

This is where he was assigned the crew of nine men he would fly with for most of the next year:

co-pilot Nathan T. Bradford
navigator Morris H. Schafer
bombardier Andrew F. Fedyk
radio operator Marvin Henslovitz
flight engineer Shelby Smith
gunners Raymond Perzesker, William H. Thomas, Gerald A. Zimmerman, and Ercel Londrie).

There was a bomb range nearby, and they started practicing with live ordnance. This was followed by long flights to bases in Idaho, New Mexico, Long Beach, and finally San Francisco. Advanced training prepared the crew for long-range navigation and to work as a tightly coordinated unit for the combat that was soon to come.

Cookie in flight (thanks to John Alcorn and Jason Dilworth).
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Considering that so much of their flying was to be long stretches over the Pacific Ocean, Charlie felt he was lucky to have gotten one of the best navigators in his crew. Navigation in the Pacific was a real challenge at the time, as there were virtually no navigational aids, and what charts they had were often wildly inaccurate in even the positions and shapes of the islands!

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