I was born in Baltimore, MD on Feb. 25, 1923, and enlisted in the Army Air Corp on Oct. 10, 1942, as an aviation cadet. I entered active duty Jan 29, 1943, and to Miami Beach, FL, for basic training and went to Selman Field, Monroe, LA, for both primary and advanced navigation, and then went to Ardmore Army Air Base in Ardmore, OK, for transition training.

I then went to Kearny Army Air Base at Kearny, NB, where our crew was assigned a B-17, and then went to Gander, Newfoundland, and on to Northern Ireland and then by boat to England. I was assigned to the 457 Bomb Op, 751st Bomb Squadron as a lead navigator.

I completed 17 missions over Germany and was shot down on my 18th and taken prisoner. My last mission was directed at the synthetic oil refinery at Merseburg in what became the biggest air battle of the war. Before we bailed out we'd had our controls shot out, our aircraft was on fire and our left wing had been taken off when we were rammed by an FW 190. Our co-pilot was lost in the battle. He was riding as tail gunner because our aircraft was serving as a lead ship.