Part III

It's Tuesday...you've got nothing going on today right??  Good, now grab some popcorn and a drink and sit back and read this post about my Grandparents.  It's pretty cool. 

Back in August I started posting about My Grandparents, Wayne & Norma and their experiences during WWII. I meant to post this on Veterans day but never got around to writing it.

You can read about why I'm doing this here and read about Part I Here and Part II here.

Part II ended with Wayne and Norma and Ronnie in Sioux City Iowa. Wayne had just joined a crew as Co-Pilot for a B-17 bomber plane. After waiting a few months to deport and waiting out a few snow storms on the way overseas, he landed in Stone, England, 20 miles south of London where he joined the 384th Bomb Group. This was around October of 1944.

He was sent on 18 missions over Germany. He had many different targets, ammunition dumps, ball bearing factories, rail yards, and any other places where they thought the Germans were building airplanes or army vehicles or tanks. Six of the eighteen flights the weather was so bad, they were diverted to another air field and have to wait their until the weather cleared so they could get back to the 384th homebase.  This is one of his letters to home.

England Jan 24

My Darling Wife and Son

Hello Darlings, How's my little old sweet family doing tonight. Babe, I didn't write you last night because I wasn't at my base and still I'm not but I managed to get some Vmail tonight. We went on a mission yesterday and couldn't get back to our base. I didn't fly with my crew yesterday. I flew with a brand new crew on their first mission to check the pilot out on how we fly missions over here. I kindly got a kick out of it because they sure were scared just like us on our first mission. They were a pretty nice bunch though. Honey, I sure am missing you two tonight. I've been listening to Dagwood and Blondie and it makes me think of when we used to listen to them together. Darling you know that cigarette case you bought for me out at the p.x. there at Sioux city. Well, I have carried that ever since I left you. I carry anything you ever gave me darling because it reminds me of you. Kiss our little man for me baby and tell him how bad I'd like to see him and his mom. (I have 17 missions) I love you all always,

Wayne

Granddad's crew safely completed 18 bombing missions and on the 19th mission He was assigned to fly with the 8th Air Force as a part of a 2000 plane armada. They were to fly into Berlin and try to bomb all the rail yards. February 4th 1945 was the date. It was a cold winter day over Germany. Wayne and his crew had just dropped the last bomb they were carrying over their target. Wayne remembers every time they dropped a bomb the plane would lift from loosing the weight of the bomb. The plane lifted as they bomb was dropped and was immediately hit by FLAK (German air force defense cannons). If they'd have been hit 5 seconds earlier their plane, with the bomb inside, would've exploded. Since they had just released the bomb no one was killed, they just knew they were going down and had to bail out.

They made a radio call to the deputy lead. The crew reported two injured, two engines out and the plane on fire. They said they would bail out, that's the last they heard of them over the radio.  Grandad says the last thing he remembers was bailing out and seeing his Lt. Hat on the dash of the airplane (that's what he called it, I don't know if airplanes have dashes or not??)  Anyway he remembers seeing his hat as he bailed out and thought,  "Man, I should've grabbed my had, I sure would like to have that." 

I found an article that BLEW MY MIND.  In the article German author Wilhelm Zimmermann wrote to someone asking about a B-17 that crash landed in a field during early February of 1945. He had a photo of the plane with the fuselage letters visible, and guess who's plane it was!!  If you guess My Grandad's you are right!!  Wilhelm had made contact with Jurgen Korte and the following (edited) information is from a letter written to Wilhelm in June of 2002.

"Between the days of 5th and 9th of February 1945, I drove to Furstenwerder and discovered the crashed down Boeing B-17G. The plane was guarded by a soldier of deutsche Wehrmacht. I walked nearer to inspect the wreckage and then had a discussion with the guard. The plane seems to be not vandalized at this time, but seriously damaged. Returning to my platoon on February 14th 1945, I again passed the wreckage on my way to station of Woldegk, north of Fürstenwerder, which was still resting on the meadow in an unchanged condition. After return to my unit I was on duty again until becoming a POW of the US Army in May of 1945." Jurgen Korte

I have looked all over the internet for this photo that Korte writes of and can't find it. The photo of the aircraft shows serious crash damage as well as fire damage on the #3 engine, as reported by the pilot before bailout. The top turret guns are still in place, but various holes and broken Plexiglass are evident.

Grandad's entire crew did exit the aircraft and landed near the town of Templin, Germany. The aircraft continued on by auto-pilot for approximately 20 miles and crashed near the village of Fürstenwerder, Germany. The crew remained a mystery to the town's people. All that remains, today is what appears to be a piece of radio equipment.

How cool is that!?? His plane is still there! or at least the Radio Equipment is.

Stay Tuned to Part IV and I'll tell you a little about Wayne in the POW Camp

Part II

Part II

When We last left Wayne & Norma, they had just gotten married at Lackland Air Base in San Antonio, TX before Wayne started officer training school.
The Church on the Base at San Antonio that My grandparents, Wayne & Norma, were married in is pictured above. The week after their wedding my Grandad, Wayne, started officer training. He said it was pretty rigid and you had to do everything by the book, salute every officer, make your bed, etc. After nine weeks of ground training he finally got to fly in the afternoons for flight school.
After officer training he was sent to Garden City, Kansas for Basic Flight training. He learned about weather, and navigation. On their air field they had planes coming in from both sides of the run way, one side landed and one side took off. Wayne got in the wrong lane while landing during one of his first training flights and his instructor got on to him and gave him a really hard time about it from then on.
After logging in 7 or 8 hours of flight training he got to fly his first solo flight. When his flight instructor finally told him he was ready for his first solo fight he said, "Well Wayne, You're probably going to kill yourself, but go ahead and take off." This was pretty funny because Granddad was actually a really good pilotAfter nine weeks he went to Altus, Oklahoma for Advanced Training and after graduating from Advanced Training he got his 2nd Lt. Bars and Pilot Wings.
He stayed in Altus for a month, with Norma and Ronnie, as a Advanced Training Instructor and was then sent to Sioux City Iowa to join a crew as Co-Pilot for a B-17 bomber squad, to prepare to go overseas.
Above is his flight crew. The same crew he flew with throughout all of his bombing missions over Germany.
In a letter to home after a short visit home before going overseas Wayne Wrote...

Sioux City Iowa July 16th 1944

Dearest Mother & All
Well we are back home and all settled down again. We got out last night and hunted for another apartment we found one for $10 a week that wasn't bad at all. It may be a little hot but I think we can put up with a little heat for that much difference in the rent.
We can make our car payment almost with the difference in rent.
Well I went to the hospital and let the doc's examine me. They sill didn't put me back on flying but they surely will pretty soon.
I think we will send for Ronnie's little bed now that we have a car to haul it around.
Old Ronnie stood the trip just fine. We managed to cross most of the hot country at night, but still the 2nd day was plenty hot.
Those tires on our Ford sure stood up good. We didn't have a flat all the way and those roads, in places, were plenty rough.
I was sure sleepy when we got here and so was Norma, we hadn't slept but a hour now and then since we started. We have sure caught up on our sleep since we have been here though.
Today (Sunday) I slept until noon.
It sure seems kindly lonesome just us three again after being with you all.
Well, I better close for now.
Our new address will be 1022 Virginia S. Sioux city.
With all our Love,
Wayne Norma & Ronnie
P.S. Dad, we got home on less than a 100 gals of gas. I had almost 40 gals left out of the 130 allowed me.

Well that's all for today. Come back for Part III, Wayne finally goes overseas to fight WWII and Leaves Norma & Ronnie.

WWII Part I

For those four or five of you who read my blog, I'd like to continue to share my family history with you. You'll remember that I'm making a scrap book for my grandfather that is going to include all his letters from home, all his paperwork from the war, and all the other photos and mementos he kept. I'm going to also write a story of his life during the war so generations to come can remember all the stories he's entertained me with through the years. This is Part 1.

Part 1.


December 7 1941 is a day that everyone remembers well. The day that Pearl Harbor was bombed. Four days later Hitler declared war on the US which sent an unprepared United States into war.

Just a year Earlier Wayne Treadway had graduated from High School and had been working odd and end jobs just trying to make a little cash in the small town of Booneville Arkansas. In 1942 At age 18 he did like so many other Americans did during this time, went to work in California in hopes to help in the war effort. Wayne started work at Consolidated Aircraft building the B-24 Liberators, which were bomber planes which still hold the record as the most produced planes in the US.

Shortly after working at Consolidated Aircraft Wayne decided it was his duty to join the war efforts in a more productive way than just building bomber planes, he wanted to fly them! As he resigned they told him he didn't have to go to war, he was deferred from the draft because he was building the planes, but he really thought he could do more to help his country than just build the planes. He was brave and he knew God would use him more productively.

On November 17, 1942 he enlisted in Rosecrans in California at the young age of 19. Although his desire was to be a pilot when he signed up for the cadet program in the Air Force they didn't have any immediate openings so he was sent to Boot camp in Phoenix AZ and then to Airplane Mechanic school in Shepardfield TX where the "sun shined and it would snow at the same time." The weather was awful.

After four months he was called up to Aviation Cadet School In San Antonio Texas. There Wayne called up his Sweetheart of two years, Norma Lacy and ask her to marry him. He was given a week long furlough and on May 11th, 1943 they were married at the chapel in San Antonio on the base in a traditional military wedding, gun salute and all. Nine months later, Norma would have their first son, Ronald Wayne, (Ronnie)

A few years earlier when Norma first saw Wayne she couldn't believe how good looking he was, unknown to her, he couldn't believe how good looking she was. He finally got up the nerve and invited her out for a coke one night and she couldn't believe out of all the pretty girls in town, that he had picked her. It was love from there on out. They are now working on their 66th year of marriage as happy as ever. She can't walk and he can't see but the love they have for each other is still strong and is obvious when you're around them and hear them flirt and joke with each other.

Check back in for Part 2 in a few days.

Read this post ok?

This post is really long but I'm demanding you to read it! I'm super excited about it!

I've been really busy this weekend/week!! I spent the weekend in Ft. Smith at my Grandparents house. My grandfather celebrated is 86th birthday. He has Macular Degeneration so he can't see real well anymore and my Grandmother broke her hip for the second time and they have confined her to a wheelchair because she walked too soon after the first brake. Anywhoo needless to say they can't get around well and needed some help cleaning out a closet full of pictures and documents.

I really feel as though I stumbled upon a gold mine because apparently back in the 60's the "in" thing was using a camera that produced slides, and I found them all! They were all my mothers baby/toddler pictures and she really thought she was adopted because of the lack of baby pictures of her but they were just on slides. I spent all day Saturday looking at all the baby pictures of my mom and her sister.

I also got a pretty good dose of family history. I learned all about both sides of my family as far back as my great great great great grandparents. My great great great great grandfather was full blood Indian (Native American-whatever) and my great great great aunt died on top of Crowley's Ridge when she leaned back too far in her Rocking Chair and fell backwards and the pipe she was smoking lodged down her throat and killed her! I also found out my Great grandmother came to Arkansas from Iowa and she kept a diary and from reading it I learned how to make Lye Soap and how to skin a hog and that they traveled from Iowa in a wagon and walked most the way behind it!! And I also found out that My great Grandfather got his arm cut off when he was young because he stuck it in a cotton Gin.


I also found tons of old newspapers from the Ft Smith Papers. The headlines read "The President has been shot." !!! I know right! It was all the coverage on the Kennedy Assinatation, and I mean all of it! So cool..

The thing I'm most excited about though is all the things I found of my Grandfather's, Second Lieutenant, Hobart "Wayne" Treadway Air Force Pilot. Grandad served in WWII and was a Pilot of a B-17 Bomber plane. After 18 missions he was shot down over Germany and Held prisoner for three long months until he was liberated at the end of the war in 1945. Anyway Guess what I found?? EVERYTHING that ever had to do with his time spent in the war. I mean letters home, letters to him, his pilot log, his discharge papers, his graduation papers his flight books, his weather books, pictures of him and his graduating class. Pictures of him and his crew in front of his plane. I found Telegrams from the Army to my grandmother telling her he was MIA I found telegrams to her saying he was found. I found his papers from Germany when they registered him in the German POW Camp. I found it all baby!!!

I'm a huge History lover so I confiscated everything and I'm preserving it and putting it all in a big book. I bought everything yesterday and I'm SOOO excited to do this for him. He was so happy that I was so interested in it and we sat and talked for hours about war stories. I'll start posting Photos and Scanning documents to you can see what I'm seeing. I'll also let you in on some of the stories he told... It's so cool! Maybe I'm the only nerd that likes stuff like this but it's History and I love it!


P.S. I LEAVE IN THE MORNING FOR GULF SHORES ALABAMA TO SPEND THE REST OF THE WEEK LOUNGING ON THE BEACH! ENJOY YOUR WORK WEEK :) I'LL BE SUNTANNING!