Reunion with Big Moose
By Kay Ball Splasher Six Volume 30, Spring 2000, No. 1 Cindy Goodman, Editor 1943 On May 7, 1943, Donald T. Atkinson was the flight engineer and upper turret gunner on a B-17 traveling to Europe to join the 100th Bomb Group. Well into this trip, the crew noticed that they were well off course, […]
A Kid’s View of World War II
By Bob Timewell Splasher Six Volume 30, Fall 1999, No. 3 Cindy Goodman, Editor This reminiscence was prompted by the following paragraph on page 167 of Harry Crosby’s book “A Wing and a Prayer.” “At 16-00 hours the next day, Christmas, we had turkey and ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, corn, peas, cranberry sauce, […]
Sugarfoot
By Francis P. McDermott Splasher Six Volume 31, Winter 2000, No. 4 Cindy Goodman, Editor It happened only a week after my eleventh birthday. My grandmother, Nora Kobis, was told that her son Charles was missing in action on a bombing Mission into Germany. The family went crazy. Was it possible that he was still […]
The Liberation of Moosburg
Splasher Six Volume 33, Summer 2002, No. 2 Cindy Goodman, Editor Editor’s Note: Credit for story goes to Frank Murphy, for providing the airman’s side of the story, and to Dave Kanzler for providing us with the official records of the 14th Armored Division. All 14th Armored Division accounts will be in italics. It was […]
The Last Cowboy
By Michael Faley Splasher Six Volume 29, Fall 1998, No. 3 Cindy Goodman, Editor As five stately gentlemen stand in the lobby of a Salt Lake City Hotel reminiscing about their youthful exploits, Brian hesitantly approaches the group. Being a member of the 918th Bomb Group reenactors, (invited to Salt Lake to display their massive collection […]
Twist of Fate
Splasher Six Volume 29, Fall 1998, No. 3 Cindy Goodman, Editor What twist of fate could tie a Belgian Resistance fighter, executed by the GESTAPO in 1943, to a young American Airman from Coffeyville, Kansas who was KIA in 1945? Joseph Wouters and Dwayne Cary lived different lives, were from different parts of the world, […]
D-Day Remembered
Splasher Six Volume 29, Summer 1998, No. 2 Cindy Goodman, Editor For many, the passage of time has robbed D-Day of its human face. Rather than being remembered as an epic story made up of individual and collective acts of heroism, it has been deprived of its emotional value and is now simply another day […]
Remembering: From Moses to Cleven
By John Gibbons Splasher Six Volume 35, Spring 2004, No.1 Cindy Goodman, Editor I arrived in Moses Lake in August 1943, and met my flight crew. There were two incidents that happened before we were sent to England that made quite an imprint on my combat flying. We did a lot of cross country flying […]
The Bombing of Billie B.
A War Story By John Alden Clark Splasher Six Volume 31, Fall 2000, No. 3 Cindy Goodman, Editor It was a late November 1944 mission of the 100th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force. We were flying 895, “Miss Chief”, an old (B-17G) aircraft but a dependable one, in which we had put a dozen missions. […]
An American Family
By Cindy Goodman Splasher Six Vol 31, Summer 2000, No. 3 Cindy Goodman, Editor Coffeyville, Kansas, originally a trading post to the Cherokee and Osage Indian nations was made famous by cows, bricks, and by the infamous and inept Dalton Gang. It’s a sleepy, little town in the middle of the country, and you really […]