Stories in Life. On the Radio with Mark and Joe.
Mark and Joe interview people with stories that affirm your belief in the goodwill, courage, determination, commitment and vision of everyday people.
Our primary goal is that, through another person's story, you will find meaningful connection no matter your place in life. We intend that the stories we select will be inspiring and maybe help you laugh, cry, think or change your mind about something important in your life.
Stories in Life. On the Radio with Mark and Joe.
From the Farm to Front - A Young Soldier's Story of Courage at the Battle of the Bulge (Part One of Three)
You're about to embark on a memorable journey through time, as we sit down with my Uncle Alphonse Wolak to share his unforgettable experiences serving in the now famous Eighth Air Force during World War II. From the moment he enlisted at Fort Snelling at 18 years old, to flying harrowing missions over Germany and Belgium, Alphonse's stories paint a vivid picture of bravery, sacrifice, and loss. As a left side gunner on the B-24 Liberator, every mission was a testament to the fortitude and dedication of young soldiers to our country. His descriptive tales from the front are sure to leave you on the edge of your seat.
Alphonse's stories give us a rare glimpse into the humanity amidst the chaos and loss of war. Like his ten-day leave in Glascow, Scotland, when he found a brief respite from the war in the warmth of a local family and the comfort of a pub - reminding us that even amidst war, the human spirit endures. So, brace yourselves for a journey back in time as we honor our veterans and the sacrifices they've made. Alphonse's first-hand accounts from World War II will captivate, inform, and inspire.
This is part one of a three part series.
Welcome to Stories in Life. You're on the radio with Mark and Joe. We share stories that affirm your belief in the goodwill, courage, determination, commitment and vision of everyday people.
Mark Wolak:Our goal is that through another person's story you may find connection. No matter your place in life. The stories we select will be inspiring and maybe help you laugh, cry, think or change your mind about something important in your life.
Joe Boyle:Join us for this episode of Stories in Life.
Mark Wolak:In this episode today you will hear a special story told in detail by my uncle, Alphonse Wolak, of his military service in the famous Eighth Air Force, the European Theater of England, Germany and France in World War II. He was a side gunner on a B-24 that flew missions at the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, one of the deadliest battles for US soldiers in history. My dad, Alex, an older brother of Alphonse, did not pass the medical requirements for military service, so he stayed home to work on the farm with his mother, my grandmother, who was widowed with seven children, in 1940. Alphonse was 18 years old when he joined the military. He was interviewed and asked to tell this special story when he was 81 years old.
Mark Wolak:The interview was conducted by James Sorensen in October 2004 and is in the Library of Congress, Veterans History Project. As you listen to Alphonse tell his story, you will hear a unique dialect of the Polish community where I grew up in Benton County, Minnesota. My relatives on my dad's side all spoke with this dialect. That was learned from their parents and grandparents, who immigrated to the United States in 1881. We created three episodes from this interview so we could share additional information about this special time in history. The commitment and great sacrifice of people across the United States and allied countries was simply remarkable. I know you will enjoy this story.
Alphonse Wolak:I can't say too much about high school. I learned a lot that I didn't know before, especially how to get along with people. I joined the Air Force when I was 18 years old. One reason was because my older brother would have been drafted and so I knew if I was to enlist that he would stay with my mother, so I signed up and they sent me. I was sworn in at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and I was there about a week after that and then a bunch of us were shipped to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, for basic training.
Alphonse Wolak:I was there approximately a month and they chose a bunch of us and shipped us to Atlantic City, new Jersey, to clean the hotels for the troops that would come there for training. It was a blast and I was there until, let's see, February of 1942. I took a test for aerial gunner and passed it. So they sent us to Chicago Radio School and from there, they sent us to Scott Field, Illinois, another radio school. I graduated there. I had a furlough home. Then I was sent to Hardington.
Alphonse Wolak:Texas gun reschool I was a better gunner than I was a radio man. After we graduated I was sent to El Paso, Texas, for flight training with a crew. We had the six of us enlisted men on the crew.
Alphonse Wolak:We made up a softball team and our pilot, Charlie Giesen, played with us. In gunnery school, we were instructed to take the 50 caliber machine gun apart which has an awful lot of pieces, and most of us talked to him, my God, we'll never get that thing together. He said, boys, I'll tell you. He said, in two weeks we'll be able to put this together in a blindfold, then we went to the gunnery range.
Alphonse Wolak:They had their target set up from 400 to I think it was 900 yards and we shot at them. Then they had a target that ran behind the ground for about a quarter of a mile and the target was above it. That is where we learned how to lead the target.
Alphonse Wolak:The target traveled at 35 miles an hour and we were taught to lead it. They had the big iron sights on the 50 caliber and you were supposed to lead that with that. For me, I grew up with a shotguns from seven years old, so I had no problem shooting targets of any kind. On that day I made the highest score out of the whole school.
Alphonse Wolak:We went to the shore of the ocean and planes would fly by towing a target. The engine bomber towing a target up at 8,000 to 9,000 feet and we got shooting at that. I came out of the gunnery school with a 70% rating and I understood that the bomber pilots would be showing these records and they could pick out the gunners they wanted. Because I remember my pilot telling me afterwards we would have to be training as a crew. He said as a radio guy, you're horse's ass. He said "you're a damn good gunner. That's why I picked you. I was a crew member of our bomber crew. The names were Steve Mollick, marion Thunderberg, earl Ritchie. He was the radio man. Thunderberg was the engineer, steve Mollick was the newest gunner and the guy named Bernie Scavarda was the tail gunner. The guy named oh what could we call him yet Ralph I can't think of his last name right now. He was the left-waste gunner. Us boys, all of us got along real good. We were all competent at our jobs, especially when my pilot took me off of the radio room For one reason or another. I couldn't stand the cost for whom. I wanted to be out somewhere where I could see things and he kind of understood it. So Ritchie was appointed to be a left-waste gunner and I was appointed to be first radio man. He couldn't hit a bullet or a scoop shovel, so we switched and he was a wonderful radio man and that put me in a left-waste position.
Alphonse Wolak:On a night mission over Arizona, a fire started on the half-deck gun, the B-24.
Alphonse Wolak:And just by coincidence, just before we took off for that mission, we got talking about using parachutes and the pilot told us he said well, he said, if we have to use parachutes for some reason or other, any time I'll press the buzzer in the cockpit and you guys go out either the bomb bay or the bottom door. Well, this fire started and I was helping Ritchie at the radio. We were trying to contact somebody and we couldn't, and that fire burned out the instruments for the pilot and co-pilot. Well, the pilot called us and he said fellas, the last height that I know that we were at was 8,000 feet. When you look at the ground at night and you see lights down there, you cannot really estimate how high you are. So we put our chest packs on, we lost the ground in the waste section and here come the engineer from up front and he waved it to dive out, so we did, and not knowing how high we were from the ground, we all, I guess almost in the same moment pulled our ripcords.
Alphonse Wolak:They came and then they started looking for the rest of the guys. Well, the calls came in from here and there picking these guys up. We all ended up in an old farmer's pickup. Mexican was driving it. They were taking us to Sky Harbor, arizona, the bay.
Alphonse Wolak:They checked us out and the navigator had broken his left ankle and my left shoulder didn't feel right because it was quite a jar hitting the ground. I was kind of rubbing it a little bit and the doctor looked at me and said what's wrong? I said, oh, I don't know. My shoulder don't feel right. Well, we'll keep you here. The radio man had sprung his knee so they kept the three of us there at the hospital and the rest of the crew. They flew them back to Texas. I was at the hospital there filled the navigator's ankle heal.
Alphonse Wolak:It was about eight days. Then we came back to Texas and got back in our training and we passed everything we had to pass and after that they told us.
Alphonse Wolak:They said we'll be going soon but we don't know where. Kansas City, missouri. It was a base where they delivered new bombers and we were ordered to fly there. In fact they flew us there and they so. We were there two days and we loaded up and took off across the United States for Gander Main. Two o'clock in the morning the MPs came, brought us all up, said he got half an hour to pack up boys, you're on your way. So we left Gander Main and it was a stormy night. I remember that in the pilot and co-pilot had a secret letter that they were supposed to open after they were off the coast.
Alphonse Wolak:At that time yet we didn't know whether we were going.
Alphonse Wolak:Pacific or to England. We're all hoping for England because we heard too much about the South Pacific and the pilot opened the order. As he called back, he said well, boys. He said we're headed for England and he felt really good about that. We flew to, uh Fuspe, labrador. There we trained a little more in our bomber and then they sent out over to Atlantic and it was pretty cloudy. We were only up, I think, maybe eight, nine hundred feet, when we happened to run into a convoy. That's when I saw my first anti-aircraft fighter. They opened up on us. They thought we were I mean, I don't know if they could tell them between the forest and anything else, but anyway they opened up.
Alphonse Wolak:They fired a few shots, turned the fire and then we start icing up and it was getting worse and worse and worse, and so the pilot pulled up. I think it was eight or nine thousand feet. It was worse up there, so he started back down. We were getting worried whether we're going to have enough gas to get to Iceland Came back down lower and you could hear the ice breaking off the airplane. We made it into Iceland. We were there two days gassed up. Then we flew into North Nutscorner, ireland, and from there was there five days, and that's where they lost my baggage. I ended up in England with the everybody else had their, their barracks bags.
Alphonse Wolak:Mine was gone and I ended up in England with just the clothes I had on for six days.
Alphonse Wolak:I had to wear those damn things. So I got different uniforms. Girls there washing clothes. So one day I come in early in the morning and I have my underwear in a bag and I threw them to her. I said can I have these washed by afternoon? She said why? I said my bag has disappeared someplace around here. I said they can't find it and that's the only underwear I have to wear. Oh, she says you're the guy. I said already it's all over the base, guy walking around with dirty clothes. And then they start pretending some of these guys you know that show up. Oh geez, what's that smell here Gonna kill the whole outfit.
Alphonse Wolak:We flew into Horsham, st Faith, which had brick buildings for barracks where every other base in England didn't have that. They either had the quantsets or the tents. So we were kind of proud of ourselves and we got along very good. But as far as being treated rough, no, the veterans there, some that had gone ahead of us and were already planning bombing missions. They told us things that we weren't taught in training about the German fighters how good they are, their method of attacking and what they really praised was the damn German AK-AK. They said that was the most because you have to sit there and take it. If a fighter came at you, you were busy, you could shoot back, but I didn't have the aircraft fire. You could see it walking in, getting closer and there wasn't a thing you could do about it and that was what broke the nerves. And they had a mission planned for St Deserre where the Germans that was their submarine pens. And I get up on the platform and he starts telling us the height and the altitude and stuff.
Alphonse Wolak:But we just got ready to take off to the airplanes and cancel the flight. Well, two days later we were scheduled for our flight to Munich. That was my first one in Germany. Well, we had the commander up on the podium, talking to all of us. He said we have seen no crews at us today. He said so you older guys you kind of keep an eye on them, like we're going to run away or something.
Alphonse Wolak:Munich and I was nervous. We did walk in and do what you call the unknown.
Alphonse Wolak:I knew that no one was going to call. Here comes the flag, but it wasn't that. It was scattered all over the sky. We dropped our bombs and flew home. I thought to myself oh, this isn't going to be bad at all, we're not going to do it. Second mission we flew to a place in France to knock out a railroad bridge, and that wasn't too bad. Still didn't see a German fighter. The third one they sent us to that oil place, macneburg. It was for the German making synthetic oil, and that was a rough one. That was what you call the meat of the whole thing. They picked us up with flak before we were within 50 miles of it and every so often it's a more common one and 10 miles from the target when they opened the bomb bay door. The Germans know you've got to keep that bomber on the steady lines and the bomber here can line up on a target. That's when they really pour it to you.
Alphonse Wolak:We had maybe 50 holes in the plane, but nothing serious. That's when I saw my first bomber get a little blowed up.
Alphonse Wolak:Well they got through the flak over the target ahead of us. And then when you come up after you drop your bombs you're kind of scattered. So you have to reform. And I was watching out my left window because the pilot said there's a bomber out there in trouble. So I kept an eye on him because we were supposed to watch for parachutes going up. They had an idea how many survived and there was four shots of flak just behind him and then just like that he disappeared. Four shells hit him directly. There wasn't enough left there to. Oh, I don't know, but I didn't see any really big pieces going down. But that's when I realized, when it was all about looking back on it, the thought came to me how quick everything can end, how much you can plan and hope, and yet how quick. In an instant it's all over.
Alphonse Wolak:But we made that trip home. Everybody was you can see a change in the boys and all of us. But we never talked about whatever happened on the bombing mission. We knew the guy's saying was at the base hey, did you see Joe lately? Oh, he bought the farm yesterday and that was it. If you kept your mind on it you wouldn't go again. I know I wouldn't. If it got in your mind you wouldn't go again. But it got to be kind of a game after a while. I mean, it wasn't that we were heartless and stuff, but if a crew went down there was a race through their rooms to see if they had any whiskey. First ones there got the whiskey and it wasn't because we didn't think nothing of them. We loved them very much. But it was over. You didn't put your mind on it, because I know a few boys that did and they ended up in a psychonellysis in the hospital. My mom happened to my pilot strange things.
Alphonse Wolak:He was with a wife and a girl, but after I think it was, we had 15 missions and one morning we were called to the commander's office and he said you boys are going to be taken off of a flying status for 10 days. He said your pilot is in the hospital. He didn't say why but he said being you have 10 days, you can go on fertile. I always wanted to see Lott Lohman Heard so much about that lake in Scotland.
Alphonse Wolak:There's a song about it, you know, and there's supposed to be a serpent in it or something. So I got on the train. I got a ticket for Glasgow. I got there. And what I didn't know, that other boys had decided on the same thing. Instead of going as a group, we all went individually to the same place, Glasgow, Scotland. They had a nice dance hall there and I liked the dance, so in the evening I was walking down the street and heard music, so I walked in.
Alphonse Wolak:I'll remember that in this day. And I looked around the hall and a bunch of girls sitting just the wall and look at this one boy. She looked pretty good. I walked over and asked her to dance. It was a good DNA and aircraft outfit In the outside of Glasgow's on the place there and I said do you know where Lohman is? Oh yes, she said we've picked it there once in a while. I said I'd like to go there.
Alphonse Wolak:Oh fine she said I'll take you tomorrow. So next morning I met her in front of the church where we had planned to meet. We got on a bus that was going to drop us off at Lohman. We got to know a family, a husband and wife and two children, and we'd go there meet them in the evening If we weren't flying next morning. Then go what they call the pub. And so darts drank their warm beer and they liked us, they were proud of it, they called it, they told us, they said in the morning, when we hear you, well, let's take an offer, your base there at five in the morning, whatever they would always say there go our boys. That's what they called us. And we got a long swell with them, had no trouble whatsoever.
Alphonse Wolak:Oh, they had one accident there One afternoon this bomber took off, had to fly out over to town in Norwich and just as he got off the runway he started climbing. Evidently one of the tanks and the bomb bay or in the waste section had broken loose and it slid down where it's gasoline load, onto the tail and he stalled out to me, dived into town. I'll never forget it because we all ran down there with our bikes. Everybody on the base had a bicycle. It was the first day you bought when you got to England and unfortunately it hit only one house. I believe there was only one family that was and they have a memorial there today in England in honor of this pilot who tried to pull his bomber away from the town.
Alphonse Wolak:Well, after a mission in Munich, we went to Magdeburg, which I mentioned before then. They were getting ready for the invasion and everything in England was top secret, and I was on bombing missions on D-Day just short missions. We flew two missions that day and what was really something to see was from England to the coast of France.
Alphonse Wolak:You could have walked on the boats across the English Channel and there was no aircraft fire over the bait, over the invasion beaches, because the American fighter bombers and the fighters had swept the Germans completely out of the sky. So we had to bomb two big gun batteries they had on the cliffs and then we went to that cut, lined up on the first one, and then notice came over the the commanders at the squadron hold your bombs, the Navy had blown it on the existence but go to the next one. We started for that one and about the same call they've destroyed returned to England. So with our second load of bombs we returned to England and of course everybody was up all night listening to everything that was going on and then a few days after that, when the Patton's army got into the place in France where they had all them hedgerows to
Alphonse Wolak:fight to. They couldn't get through there. So they called on a heavy bombers to go out and bomb the German lines. And I had a story and brought it home with me but I don't know whatever happened to it. Ernie Pyle, you heard of him. He was the photographer over there and he wrote great stories. So here came out the story. His story came out in the Yank Magazine. I was reading it one night. He was telling what he saw from the ground. That afternoon we went in there to help Patton go to get to the hedgerows and all the heavy bombers, b-17s and 24s, laid their bombs in there. We bombed some of our women and oh, we all felt bad, but it did happen well after that things kind of cooled down and we started back on the bombing oil fields, air bases.
Alphonse Wolak:A couple of those trips were a lot of anti-aircraft fire and the aircraft fire, but we still hadn't seen any German fighters. And it was our ninth mission, the first time the fighters hit us and we lost one bomber. And that was a case of you see, when you flew in in formation in the bomber formation over Germany, if unfortunately your bomber lost an engine and couldn't keep up with the formation, they didn't wait for you. I mean, you were on your own and it was. It was something to see when a pilot or a bomber would call the commander and say I just lost an engine, and where are the fighters? Because you always expected if you got knocked out of formation, a couple of p-51s or 47s would show up and escort you home. Well, this time it didn't happen.
Alphonse Wolak:Those guys start leaving the formation and that's one of the hardest things. Nothing it's so hard to accept, because you know those guys on that bomber. They're your friends, they're out there and the German fighters love to find a bomber. By itself they would shoot. They are through. You're still in formation. These guys have left open to get home and all of a sudden the gunner will call out bandits eight o'clock five of them. They passed us up completely. They went for that bomber. You'd give your soul to be able to leave and go help them guys. And you can't, you cannot. You've got to just stay and see what happens.
Joe Boyle:A nd now it's time for stories in life, art from the heart, deep thoughts from the shallow end. Each episode, we bring you a poem, a song or a reading just for you. The poet Robert Frost once said the best way out is always through.
Mark Wolak:Okay, Joe, Alphonse was talking about a chest pack and I'm assuming that was his parachute. You were in Airborne.
Joe Boyle:Yes, I was. I was in the Airborne back in the in the early 80s.
Mark Wolak:Okay. So did you have a chest pack, or were you wearing a different kind of parachute?
Joe Boyle:Every time I jumped there were two parachutes your main, which you carried on your back, and your reserve, which strapped around and click to the front, you know, in your belly area, and reminds me of a of a jingle we had when we would be out running. I'll shorten it up here. It's if my main don't open wide, I've got another one by my side. If that one should fail me to look out ground, I'm coming through. And you remember it that one sticks with you Wow.
Mark Wolak:So do you think he? Maybe it was limited in World War two to just having a chest pack?
Joe Boyle:Yeah, I would think that probably as a side gunner on a B 24 liberator, he probably just had what he's calling a chest pack and what I would call a reserve shoot because of space and weight and you know those guys have to move around up there and get at their ammo and everything like that, so I don't see a main really working Okay.
Mark Wolak:So the other thing that he brought up was this training mission in Arizona and the B 24 caught on fire and they had to jump out at a pretty high altitude. You've done a night jump. What is that like?
Joe Boyle:Night jumps are very different, because you know they're scary, because they're at night. For one thing you you're depending on on the pilot, the wind, the knowledge of your drill sergeants for when they tell you to go.
Mark Wolak:I, would you jump at a high altitude or?
Joe Boyle:no, no, the whole idea was to to get out of the plane and get to the ground as soon as you possibly could. So we, we would jump like at 1500 feet.
Alphonse Wolak:Wow Can you believe that Wow?
Joe Boyle:Yeah, yeah, you weren't enjoying the landscape as you came down. The ground came up pretty quick.
Joe Boyle:Yeah, I bet that was and in the daytime you can, you can time it and see where the ground and, and at night, you just have to be ready. So you, you better have listened to what they were training you, because you had to do what they call a PLF, a parachute landing fall. And if you do that wrong at night, you could. You could hurt yourself or break a leg or something like that Well, I often said he hurt his shoulder, I think it's the equivalent of jumping off a two story house, wow.
Joe Boyle:So at night it just increases the, the likelihood of injury and that sort of thing. I was the first guy out of our, of our plane on our night jump. I was the last guy in so I was the first guy out. Another funny story I was standing in the door. They had to do a second pass. I was standing in the door for about 20 minutes just looking out at the forest in Georgia, you know, and he comes up to my ear and just yells Are you scared, soldier? And I said no, drill sergeant. He said You're a flippin liar, but he but he didn't say flippin, but but the. That jump went well, everything went as planned so and I was thankful for that.
Mark Wolak:Yeah, but I think of these, these guys that were on the B 24 and the planes on fire, and that thing is going to land somewhere and do some damage.
Joe Boyle:And these guys haven't been trained right, they're just they never jumped, you know they're jumping for their life.
Mark Wolak:That's totally different, oh my.
Joe Boyle:Mark and I want to thank all the brave men and women who have served our country in war and during peacetime and the preservation of freedom. As Alphonse Walik said, if we want freedom, we have to fight for it. In our next episode we'll hear of Alphonse's plane being shot down and him becoming a prisoner of war.
Mark Wolak:The music today was from Bob Minner, the Missouri Waltz on his album called Solo.
Joe Boyle:We hope you enjoyed this episode. Please join us again next time on stories and life on the radio with Mark and Joe, and visit our website at storiesandlifebuzzsproutcom. That's storiesandlifebuzzsproutcom.
