[bobbysocks]

Dr Thomas Tredici regarding his WWII experiences

I was born and raised in Monessen Pennsylvania about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh. Like most of the lads there, even if you went to college, you had to do your stint in the steel mill, nearly every on in town worked at the Pittsburgh Steel Company at one time or another.

In the early days of the War, the spring of 1942, the draft was in force for 21 year olds and above. As the War progressed, they had to change the rules to accept 18 year olds to compensate for the heavy losses in Europe. With that change, I applied for the Army Air Corps (AAC) with aspirations to be an aviation cadet. Back then, the AAC required a written test. Thank goodness for good old Monessen High School because according to the sergeant who administered the test, I did well. Despite this, he said go home, and wait until you hear from us. Well, having passed the test, I went home and spent a very happy Christmas of 1942 with my family, all of whom were quite proud.

In early January of 1943, I received a letter instructing me to report for duty at the Pittsburgh post office! The letter said don't bring anything except your shaving kit. I went to Pittsburgh and boarded a train bound for Florida, or so I thought. Having a good grasp of geography (again gleaned from good old Monessen High School) I realized we were not heading south but west! Apparently, the trains took whatever route was available. One night we stopped in the Kansas City rail yard. The next morning I was awakened to the sound of mooing, so I looked outside and saw we were parked next to a cattle train in the rail yard!

Finally we headed south towards Florida. I remember standing outside between the cars as we passed through a great swamp in Florida. The track was raised about 3 feet above the water and you could see nothing but swamp as far as you could see. This was in January 1943.

Our destination was Miami Beach. When we got there we found out they had no barracks of any kind. What they had a lot of were hotels, so we actually stayed in a hotel for our 8-week basic training in Miami. We aviation cadets were in hotels, but the OCS candidates stayed in better hotels. During this time, we learned that Clark Gable was also training in Miami Beach so we went in search of him, but we quickly found out he was out of our reach. His class was in the Rony Plaza Hotel.

One thing we did was to destroy a premiere golf course. This was due to the very thin soil underlain by sand, so with thousands of men marching all the time, we made minced meat of the grass and we ended up marching in sand.

Surprisingly, there was really not much to do but train and stay in the hotel. Another clever idea in being at this time was the College Training Detachment (CTD). There was very low enrollment in colleges, due to the war. As a result, the colleges had the space and the classrooms, which was just what the Army Air Corps needed. I went to Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio and was assigned to a large house that had been a fraternity house. We did a lot of PT (physical training), but no sports were allowed. At the time, being 19, none of us understood why we could not participate in sports. Looking back, it is clear that they did it to prevent injuries that might have an impact on a pilot's ability to fly in adverse conditions of combat. Anyway, this arrangement really was pretty neat because it was just like going to college, but on an accelerated schedule. We studied math, geography, and a lot of meteorology, which was to become very important to us as pilots. I stayed there about four months but before I could take my final exams, my orders arrived and I was sent to a "Classification" center. This was set up (San Antonio for Eastern Training Command) and Santa Anna California for the West) to give thorough medical and psychological examinations to determine if you were fit to receive training to be a pilot. One test was a 78 rpm phonograph record (if anyone does not know what this is, ask your grandparents!) with a small opening, about a ½". They would rotate the record at varying speeds and see if you could follow the hole and insert a probe at the appropriate time. After all was said and done, the testing resulted in a high percentage of accurate projections as to who would complete pilot training successfully; the actual percentage was over 90% accurate! The results helped classify you for a pilot, navigator, or flight engineer, training according to your results on the test, hence the name "Classification" Center.

Having passed my pilot classification, I went to Ryan Aeronautical School in Tucson, Arizona. This was a private flying school to teach basic flying skills. They had a Ryan PT-22 as their primary trainer. The PT-22 was a low wing monoplane with reinforcing struts above and below the wing. This was originally designed to be a racer; our versions were modified to an open two-place cockpit. It was quite maneuverable, but they changed the engine from an inverted in-line engine to an air-cooled rotary engine. Except for being underpowered, you could do aerobatics quite easily. It was also very durable, and almost impossible to damage. One interesting fact was you could predict when a stall would occur by listening to the sound the wire struts made as they vibrated.

I went on to Basic Flight Training at Minter Field, Bakersfield, California. Here we flew the BT-13 Vultee aircraft. We flew in a simulator for instrument flying. This was a Link Trainer. Successful training here allowed you to go on to Advance Flight Training.

Advanced Training for me began at Pecos Army Air Field in Pecos, Texas. I will never forget the smell of rotting cantaloupes when we went into town. We discovered that the staked rail cars were filled with cantaloupes, but they were not in cartons, but stacked on top of each other. As a result, the fruit on the bottom was crushed which dripped juice all over.

Our training was done in a Cessna UC78; a twin engine aircraft built especially for the AAC. We flew with 4 on board, the instructor and 3 trainees. Surprisingly, it was built of wood! We ended up calling it the "Bamboo Bomber". The AAC ended up replacing it as the glue could not stand the high temperatures during the day and the cold at night. It was 110 degrees in the day and 45 degrees at night. Even so, I never saw any crashes.

We flew all over west Texas. You could see the McDonald observatory from 100 miles away! The sky was absolutely clear so you could always get your bearings by looking for that silver dome. At night it was a different story. With the blackout, the only lights we could see were the cowboy fires and the "light line" used by the airlines for navigating. These rotating beacons were placed every 10 miles in the flight line between major cities along which the airlines flew. You could see as many as 4 or 5 beacons at one time so you could find your way using the rotating beacons.

Another navigation aid that we used was the radio range.
After this training I went to Yuma Army Air Field in Arizona for B-17 training. We also formed up as a crew for the first time and trained as a crew for here on. Training included all the crew, practice bombs were dropped; emergency evacuation drills (for bailouts) and many, many take-offs and landings. Take-0ffs were done at Max power with full "loads" to simulate what we would have to do when loaded with fuel, bombs, and ammunition. Bombing practice used sand in the bombs with powder to mark the place it hit.

My crew got orders to go to Lincoln Nebraska to get our own B-17 and fly to Europe! But when we arrived in Lincoln, there was a revision of plans and we were told we were not getting a plane, so we stayed in camp waiting for orders. It was November 1944 and it was cold! The only place that was warm on the base were the showers. We lived in tarpaper shacks with one pot-bellied stove for heat. So we waited until told to board a train for Fort Tauton Mass (near Boston) to be issued our flying gear (including a 45 cal pistol which we never had until then.)

From there, we boarded the IL de France, which was a luxury ship making some of its last runs. We had many troops on board from all branches. All I ate for 5 days was Butternut cookies. During our crossing, which we made alone and unescorted, I barely slept due to the constant drumming of the engines (this ship was quite fast, but old and made lots of noise). The ship zigzagged the entire way which slowed the crossing considerably. This was done to evade German submarines. Our landing was at Glasgow Scotland. I still remember the pitch of the train whistle in England and Scotland.

We were promptly moved to our base at Glatton where I was assigned to the 457th BG-Heavy, 751st Squadron, 1st Bomb Division of the 8th Air Force. There were 12 planes in our squadron. Many times our entire squadron would fly raids by the 8th AF to some target in Germany. Especially when there were 1,000 plane missions. We flew in formations, typically low at about 28,000 feet, medium at 30,000 feet and high at 32,000. If you were assigned to the high squadron, you could be above the flak, which was the safest place to be.

My first mission was in November 1944, and my last mission was early May 1945. Our crew got one break for about a week and went to a "flak house" near London. This was a mansion that the AAC leased to use as a place for R&R for the bomber crews. It had everything from huge grounds with stables, archery range, bicycles, good food, and a bath tub! Plus they had a staff waiting on us. I remember hearing the V-2 rockets fly over us as they descended on London; it was an unmistakable sound.

Interestingly enough, we did not have fighter escorts the entire way on our longer missions to places like Poland. When the fighters had exhausted their fuel, I could see their extra fuel tanks tumbling off and we knew they were leaving and then we would be on our own.

I completed 18 missions before the War ended in May 1945. Remember, that we had to fly 25 missions to complete a tour, but with a loss rate of 4% per mission, it was nearly impossible to complete an entire tour.

While flying as "lead co-pilot" I flew with crews other than my own on three missions. (The "Lead co-pilot" flew with new crews to break them in.) After three of these missions, I gladly returned to my own crew. I can tell you that not all crews were the same, and I was never comfortable except with my own crew that I trained with and knew well.

Dr. Tredici: BITS and PIECES::

Glatton Field

457th BG (Heavy), 1st Bomb Div, 8th AF.
4 Squadrons, I was in the 751st
12 planes in our squadron

Even though we did not refuel in flight, we carried out very long missions. We would fly into Poland or Czechoslovakia then on the return flight land at a field controlled by the Air Corps in France, refuel, and fly back to Glatton in the UK.

We had Fighter escorts but they did not stay with us on our longer missions. You could see the P-51's glistening in the sky around us, and while they were there, we never had any German fighters attack. Then as our fighters ran low of gas, they would drop their wing tanks and we knew they were leaving soon.

During my tour, German fighters were a lesser threat than the flak, which was enough. The Germans would throw up intense flak directly in our path as we approached the drop point. They filled the sky and we had no choice but to fly right into it to reach the target. Neither the German fighter aircraft nor our own fighters would ever fly into that; but we had to do it to accomplish the mission and that is where we lost our bombers.

After the War, we re-fitted our B-17 by putting plywood decking over the bomb bays, then loaded up with our personal gear (our 10-man crew) along with 10 other flyers. We flew back to the U.S. in stages so we could refuel in Scotland, in Iceland, at Blue E West 1 Greenland, then we landed in Chickopee Falls Connecticut where we left the plane. I got orders for B-29 training, but before going to training I got leave for 1 month in June. On my return from leave, I went to Sioux Falls Army Airfield in South Dakota and waited for my orders. Before any orders arrived, I heard about the atomic bombs and the War in Japan ended, thank God. The biggest problem then was what to do with all the people at the base. I was sent to Randolph Field, Texas. By Christmas of 1945 I was back home with my family: boy was my mother happy.

I entered college at Washington and Jefferson College Washington, PA. Then on to medical school at the University of Pittsburgh. I went on to become an Ophthalmologist. I continue to work today (2004! (editor's emphasis)) for the U.S. Air Force in the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine in San Antonio, TX. During my career, my branch helped numerous pilots to retain their flying status through the use of new technologies to maintain their vision. I have written papers on what we have done for our fliers; we have salvaged many pilots who would otherwise have been grounded. It might have been as simple as contact lenses. As technology grew, we used intra-ocular lenses with a nearly 100% success rate. This allowed these pilots to fly in every aircraft and in every situation, including combat. Given that each pilot costs $4,000,000 to train, we saved the Air Force significant funds. I am quite proud of my branches accomplishments, as well as my service to the U.S. Air Force.

I have thought about "heroes" and decided that the real heroes of the war were the ones who did their job every day. Somebody had to get the job done in a steady, reliable fashion or we would never finish. Thus the little things could really become big. For instance, if a ground crew member did not check tires properly, there could be a flat tire on takeoff, which could result in a disaster and an incomplete mission etc.

Webmaster: What would you like the younger generations to remember or learn about WWII?

In WWII I saw the country come together as never before or since. Like oxen pulling a plow; if they were facing opposite directions, the field would never get plowed. But pulling together, the job got done in good time. I think WWII was the pinnacle of our Country working together, and I am proud to have been a part of it.
Today much is made of the term "diversity". Well we also had people from many backgrounds, Italian, Polish, Jewish, etc but when the time came to get the job done, we were all Americans on the same team, with the same goals. If we are going to get anywhere, we have to remember that lesson.

Where were you when Pearl Harbor was attacked?
Dr. Tredici: I was in my back yard in Monessen, PA.