Editor’s note: This op-ed is by award-winning journalist Telly Halkias. It first appeared in the Bennington Banner.
The number 50 was golden for George Sponauer and his buddies on the crew of the lead B-24. In 1944, while based in southern Italy, it represented the number of bombing missions they had to fly to survive a combat tour and earn a ticket home.
But Sponauer, then 21, had learned nothing was easy. He was navigator of a B-24 Liberator, and the 15th Air Force had chosen his crew to lead the raid on which he was to earn the coveted number.
That day, Sponauer’s assignment was nose gunner, a position for which he hadn’t trained. He wasn’t alone; the crew had never flown lead for a major formation. This meant that out of hundreds of bombers flying in daylight, Sponauer would be at the tip of the spear, with nothing between him and enemy fire but a glass turret and blue skies.
“That had to be the most nerve-racking eight hours of my life. I was terrified. In 49 missions, we had already survived three crash landings and too many close calls to count. After a while you turn numb, just so you can mentally survive. But as the missions pile up and you get closer to going home, one thought keeps running through your mind: ‘Will this be the day my number is up?’”
Last week, when Sponauer, of Pownal and more recently the Vermont Veterans’ Home, passed away at age 88, I was glad to have once had the opportunity to record his story. I sat down with him four years ago when I authored a magazine series, “Paths of Glory,” which profiled World War II veterans. Readers flocked to their stories.
The day after George died, I dug up my interview notes, and one quote of his stood out:
“That had to be the most nerve-racking eight hours of my life. I was terrified. In 49 missions, we had already survived three crash landings and too many close calls to count. After a while you turn numb, just so you can mentally survive. But as the missions pile up and you get closer to going home, one thought keeps running through your mind: ‘Will this be the day my number is up?’”
In 1943 George was working on a bomber assembly line in Baltimore. On his 19th birthday, he enlisted in the U.S Army Air Forces, and soon after headed to nine months of flight cadet training as a bomber navigator at Selma Field, La.
The crew of his first plane, “Jack Pot,” trained together before going into combat. On his graduation day, when George was commissioned, he also wed Rose Marie. They were just teenagers; he was 19 and she was 16. Married for 65 years, Rose passed away in 2008, something George described to me as “the greatest heartbreak of my life.”
In January 1944, Sponauer was assigned to the 460th Bombardment Group (Heavy) in Spinazzola, Italy. Unlike units based in England that required 25 missions of their crews before a stateside return, Mediterranean crews needed 50.
The 460th turned in a prolific combat record. In 13 months it flew 205 long-range raids, striking high-value Axis targets as far away as Poland, Czechoslovakia and southern Germany. Losses ran over 25 percent.
George told me in his tenure with the 460th, crews bonded very closely. He said so much of the terror of flying was interspersed with boredom and busy work on the ground. Not lost on George was the result of his crew’s missions. From the same story:
“By the time I flew on my final raid, we could see how much of a difference we made in weakening Axis logistics. We had gained air superiority; German ground units suffered terrible shortages. The Luftwaffe had fewer fighters to send up against us. It was very revealing to notice that change.”
In August 1944, Sponauer’s B-24 completed the 50th mission. That same month he redeployed to the U.S. where he finished the war as a navigator instructor at Westover Field in Massachusetts. Sponauer was honorably discharged in August 1945.
While taking a break from remembering George, I turned to my email, and a new arrival from a reader was eerily prescient:
“I noticed lately you’ve been writing many memorials. I enjoy reading those tributes, particularly to World War II veterans, more than taking in the news these days. My grandfather served in WWII. Thanks for not forgetting them.”
As a veteran, it’s hard for me to forget, and my father served in World War II. Their time is passing right before us, and soon they’ll all be gone.
I looked at George’s picture from his flight cadet days – all of 19 years old. Seven decades later, the resemblance was still there.
Whenever I ran into George after our interview, I addressed him as “Lieutenant,” his wartime rank. He would chuckle like a schoolboy and perk up for a moment, as if feeling his B-24 touch down on the tarmac, bringing number 50 home.
