In the summer of 1942, while at Yale, I was accepted as an aviation
cadet by the US Army Air Corps. I went on active duty in February of 1943.
Basic training, schooling and flight training took until April of 1944. I
was commissioned a Second Lieutenant and assigned to training to be first pilot of a B-17 bomber. ( A 10 day pass enabled me to return home to marry my high school sweetheart, Dot.)

Together we endured Florida's lack of air conditioning and housing
shortages, but love makes anything possible. Flight and crew training
ended in December of 1944, with a few weeks in Savannah, Ga. where we received a brand new B-17. Just before Christmas, Dot went home to Long Island and my crew and I to the 8th Air Force 388th Bomb Group in England via New Hampshire, Newfoundland, Valley Wales, and Liverpool, England
We flew 20 combat missions before war's end in Europe. Although badly
shot up (flak) many times, no one was killed or wounded and thank God for
the structural integrity of the B-17.

Two weeks before the German surrender, under a Red Cross truce, we
flew tree-top-high mercy missions to Holland, dropping food supplies to
the starving Dutch people. Immediately after the surrender we flew to
Linz, Austria to fly out French POW's captured in 1940. We delivered
them to Orly Field in Paris. The emotions of those Frenchmen was truly
unforgettable.

Having our own transport enabled us to fly back home via the Azores,
Newfoundland again and finally Hartford, Ct., leaving our
wonderful B-17 for the last time.

After stops in Sioux Falls, S.D. and Colorado Springs for B-29
training that never materialized, I was discharged in September and
with Dot was back at Yale in October, 1945.
Dot deserves WW2 medals and a Yale diploma.