Ohio War Stories

The Tales of the Ball Turret Gunners

May 7th, 2008

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Randall Jarrell

Just a few words about those veterans who crammed themselves into ball turrets during World War II…

Sperry Ball Turrett The Sperry ball turret was used on both the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-24 Liberator as well as the Navy’s Liberator, the PB4Y. The Sperry ball turret was very small in order to reduce drag, and was typically operated by the shortest man of the crew. The gunner “sat” in the turret with their back and head against the rear wall, their hips at the bottom, and their legs held in mid-air by two footrests on the front wall. This left them positioned with their eyes roughly level with the two .50 calibre machine guns which extended through the entire turret. The cocking handles were located too close to the gunner to operate easily, so a cable was attached to the handle through pulleys to a handle near the front of the turret. Small ammo boxes rested on the top of the turret and the remaining ammo belts were stowed in the already cramped turret by means of an elaborate feed chute system. A reflector sight was hung from the top of the turret, positioned roughly between the gunners feet.

We met William Gearhart, who was interviewed by students of Newark High School. In the clip below, Mr. Gearhart talks about his function as a ball turret gunner during a massive bombing run over Berlin. Under heavy fire, the plane had to ditch its turret; Mr. Gearhart belives that his was the only plane to do so over German soil.

I found this other clip on YouTube about a ball turret gunner who describes his own bombing run over Germany. How they managed to function in such a tiny space while being shot at defies explanation.

Posted by Scott Gowans

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Recording the stories of those who served in World War II is critical

April 22nd, 2008

I post this response from The Newark Advocate knowing full well that I risk at the risk of patting ourselves on the back too much. But this letter is too good to ignore. It was written by Douglas E. Sassen, law director of the city of Newark, in response to this web site’s mission to record Ohio war stories. Mostly I want to re-emphasize that the site is open to anyone. You are free to record your own video, dig through family photo albums, or just listen to a veteran’s story and find a way to post it here.

An article appeared in the Advocate on April 4 that discussed the Ohio War Stories Project, a part of the Library of Congress Veterans History Project and a collaboration of WOSU Public Media and the Longaberger Foundation.

This project involved students from the Newark High School Advanced Video Production class and from C-TEC who conducted interviews of local World War II veterans to preserve as a part of this project. These stories will be available to view at

I would like to say thank you to the students and staff of Newark High School and C-TEC who participated in this project and to the Longaberger Foundation for providing the necessary support.

As a lifelong student of history, I can explain almost any battle from World War II, some superficially and some in great detail. But ask me what it was like for the millions of men and women involved in this great struggle and I could not possibly begin to tell their story.The article quoted Joe Kurzawa, who said, “It’s pretty amazing. You see these normal looking guys who lived extraordinary lives. We live in such simple times compared to these people.”

Thanks, Joe. No one could have said it any better. The accompanying photograph of Corey Hiegel interviewing Ruth Gutridge about her service in the Coast Guard is a powerful image of what Joe was trying to say.

My dad was one of those “normal looking guys” when he graduated from high school in June 1942. By November 1942, he found himself in North Africa and, before it was done, he had fought his way through Sicily, Italy, France and Germany as a forward observer with the First Field Artillery Observation Battalion.

Along the way, he earned a Purple Heart, four Bronze Stars, the Croix de Guerre and various Theatre and Good Conduct Medals. His personal memorabilia and records were destroyed during the years and his official records were destroyed in a fire in St. Louis in 1974, along with those of millions of other G.I.s.

When he passed away in 1998 at the age of 74, he had never told his stories to anyone, including this rather persistent student of history. If he told my mother, which I doubt, we won’t know, as she passed away in 2001.

Would he be ready to tell his story now at the age of 84 if he was still with us? I don’t know. But I know that others are ready and I am extremely grateful to Joe Kurzawa, Corey Hiegel, and all the Newark High School and C-TEC students and staff who are helping to preserve those stories. Thank you.

Douglas E. Sassen is law director of the city of Newark.

Posted by Scott Gowans

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World War II veterans share stories and recollections

April 10th, 2008

Courtesy of the Newark Advocate. Written by Tiffany Edwards. Photo by Eric George.

NEWARK - Warren J. Poland, of Mount Vernon, was returning from a bombing mission in Strasbourg, France, when his B-24 plane was gripped by a snowstorm.

The windows froze over and the plane, punctured by antiartillary fire, was dangerously low on fuel.

“We were 80 miles out at sea and 300 miles north of our base,” the World War II Army Air Corps veteran recalled. “We flew right on until we ran out of fuel. When we hit the water, one wing hit a wave and the plane broke in two.”

Poland, an engineer stationed in the front of the plane, was one of four crewmen to survive. The five men in the tail of the plane, however, perished in the North Sea.Poland’s story was one of many accounts of WWII bravery and endurance that were collected Thursday for an online history project, Ohio War Stories. The project is a collaboration between WOSU Public Media and the Longaberger Foundation, a nonprofit organization.

The stories will be posted at ohiowarstories.org and included as part of the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project.

Tom Matthews, media spokesman for Longaberger, said 35 people scheduled interviews and additional participants walked in. Veterans, civilians and family members from Newark, Mount Vernon, Coshocton and other nearby towns came to share their experiences.

Students from Newark High School’s advanced video production class and the Career and Technology Centers of Licking County conducted the interviews and filmed the veterans. WOSU led a training session with the students earlier this week.

“We want to work with the local community,” said Marcelita Haskins, director of educational services for WOSU. “It is a learning experience you cannot re-create. How many of us have the experience of listening firsthand to someone who served in the war?”

The uniqueness of the opportunity was not overlooked by the students.

“It’s pretty amazing. You see these normal looking guys who’ve lived extraordinary lives,” said Joe Kurzawa, a senior. “We live in such simple times compared to these people.”

When Poland’s plane went down, his hips were crushed by the turret, he said. Fortunately, as the plane filled with 38-degree water, the turret shifted and let him loose to swim toward light. He escaped to a life raft, where three comrades awaited. He cut the raft free from the sinking wreckage.

“There were two guys calling out to us,” Poland said. “You could hear them, but you couldn’t find them.”

Using a mirror to signal for help, the survivors caught the attention of planes overhead and several hours later, a British rescue ship pulled them from the choppy sea. Poland spent three months in the hospital for injures to his pelvis and later received a Purple Heart.

The Mitchell family sent four brothers abroad to fight for the Allied cause. John, a Marine, and Jim, a Navy seaman, served in the South Pacific. Oliver (”Earl”) fought for the Army in Europe, and Hershel was sent to Turkey.

John, of Newark, shared his memories Thursday of trudging through swamps, battling malaria and tropical pneumonia, and preparing for an invasion of Japan. The Japanese attack, however, was abandoned in favor of using the atomic bomb.

“We learned later if we tried it would have been suicide,” he said. “I think (the bomb) saved a lot of lives. Not only American lives, but Japanese.”

Gary Mitchell, of Newark, came to tell stories on behalf of his father and John’s brother, Earl, who is 97. He brought Earl’s military jacket and a laminated postcard his father sent to his mother from the European theater.

Earl Mitchell fought in the Battle of the Bulge, the bloodiest battle of the war, and witnessed firsthand the atrocities of a concentration camp, he said.

“To this day, anytime he tries to talk about it, he cries,” Gary said of his father.

When Gary told Earl he’d seen a television program about the Holocaust, his father replied, “I bet it didn’t show the smell, the bodies of men and women and children lying around the whipping post.”

For many of former soldiers, the war and lost buddies still were difficult to talk about and they downplayed their own importance in it.

“It’s history and if it does anyone any good, I’d be glad to tell it,” John Mitchell said. “I’m no hero. I did what was required of me.”

Haskins said WOSU recognizes some urgency in completing the project because the stories will disappear with the aging WWII veterans. There were 16.1 million soldiers in the armed services between 1941 and 1946, she said. In 2000 5.7 million still were living.

After sharing his Army scrapbook, Thomas Bowman, 90, of Brinkhaven, said, “I got a letter from one of my buddies six to eight months ago that said there weren’t enough of us left to have reunions anymore.”

Posted by Scott Gowans

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The Days After D-Day

April 8th, 2008

D-day map This entry comes from a 59-page document entitled “My World War II Stories From Beginning to End as told by Orton Cash Misel, Jr.” and was submitted by his family. There are many, many deatils worth savoring, including a stint at Ft. Hayes, running into a Cambridge, OH native while overseas, and Mr. Misel’s many memries of Europe fighting the Germans.

I’ve included just one bit, because it’s easy to think of the D-Day invasion being a success, and then everything went fine afterwards. In fact, the Allies had a long, hard slog.

During this period, according to a Time Life book, they had what they called the Liberation. That was the second book after D-Day, The Invasion. It says that when we attacked, the 83rd Division had so many casualties that the German’s Parachute Commander released captured medics to help with our casualties. He said, according to Time Life, that he hoped that General Macon would be as generous to him if he were in the same position that we were in. We suffered heavy casualties. We didn’t have casualties that amounted to anything before we were attacking. We were just holding getting ready. The whole Front was trying to break out of the beachhead. But on the 4th of July 1944, the whole Front, not only us but also the whole Front was trying to break out. Our Regiment had about three hundred killed in that first twenty days of attacking. Keep reading…

Posted by Scott Gowans

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Seems our work is still going on after 60+ years

April 7th, 2008

News from local historian, Scott Trostel

The local American Legion at Piqua, Ohio, (66 miles west of Columbus) through the efforts of many local donations, is sending 44 of the local WW II vets to visit the WW II memorial in Washington, D.C. on May 2 and eight of Troy Ohio’s original canteen girls are coming to hand those veterans cookies and snacks, just as they did 66 years ago at their canteen in Troy, Ohio, where they met and fed over 600,000 troops on passing trains. This is the first time since September 12, 1970 a canteen girl has met a veteran with the purpose of serving them food, smiles and cheer. For the sake of history, just to the back of the departure site from the American Legion is the site of a nasty Troop Train wreck on May 21, 1945, where the canteen girls packed up and went mobile from their Troy, Ohio canteen site, eight miles south and came to serve the hundreds of veterans who were stranded and some injured at Piqua. These were ALL teenage girls and theirs was the only canteen staffed by teenagers during the war. You can read their story at this URL www.canteenbooks.com/Junior%20Girls%20Canteen.htm

In the words of Phyllis Gass, from Troy, Ohio, one of the canteen girls from Troy, here it is:

“By the way, did I tell you that we Jr. Canteen gals - 8 of us local gals - will be handing out cookies to the 40 WWII veterans who are leaving May 2 on a bus trip to Wash DC to see the WWII monument, etc.? Marlene Reid found out about the trip and someone asked if we might want to do that as a rerun of serving cookies during WWII. They also told her that during the bus trip, they have mail call for the guys so the 6th graders at Troy Christian School for whom we made our presentation earlier are writing letters which I will pick up in 2 weeks and then some of us canteen gals are writing letters. I’ve got mine written but I want to get some patriotic paper to run off 40 copies so that each of the guys on the bus will get one. Marlene has hers written and she ran off 40 copies also but I’ve not said anything to the other gals yet. We will get together closer to May 2 to bag our cookies so that each vet gets several kinds of cookies. Seems our work is still going on after 60+ years!”

Posted by Scott Gowans

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I shall never forget that morning

March 28th, 2008

Entry submitted on behalf of the family of Dale Oliver Taylor.

US Navy Seaman Taylor, Dale Oliver 1
Pharmacist’s Mate First Class
Enlisted February 6, 1942
Inducted February 24, 1942
Date of Separation December 20, 1945

Total time of active duty three years ten months and fifteen days

I have often heard of the awful things in battle and of men getting ships torpedoed from under them, but I never fully realized what it was all about until I experienced a battle myself of which I am about to tell.

On October - 1942, I went aboard the USS Hugh S. Scott. She was a transport just taken over by the Navy and put into commission. She was the old President Pierce. One of the dollar liners, and had made several trips around the world. Her regular run was China. On the morning of October 24, 1942, fully loaded with supplies, ammunition and soldiers, we left Newport News, Virginia on a mission of what nobody knew. After 48 hours at sea the orders were opened and we were told that we were headed for French Morocco in Africa. Our convoy was mostly amphibious and was the largest of its kind in history of the world. Keep reading…

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Ohio War Stories: Share Your Memories

The Tales of the Ball Turret Gunners

May 7th, 2008

Recording the stories of those who served in World War II is critical

April 22nd, 2008

World War II veterans share stories and recollections

April 10th, 2008

The Days After D-Day

April 8th, 2008

Seems our work is still going on after 60+ years

April 7th, 2008

I shall never forget that morning

March 28th, 2008