Wesley Loosemore enlisted in the Army Air Force Cadets with the intention of getting his college degree before joining the fight in World War II as a pilot. He was already taking classes at Michigan Technological University in February 1943, when a meeting was called at the school and the reservists were told they’d be called to active duty by the end of the month.

**The Majestic Hotel as seen in 2012. You can** **click here** **to see a postcard showing an illustration of how it looked in the 1940s.** Image from Wikimedia Commons.

“I only had one term in at college,” Loosemore told me during our interview.

Loosemore and five others from Michigan Tech took a cramped train trip all the way to Miami Beach, Florida. When they arrived, he was assigned a room at the Majestic Hotel. The army used many of the local hotels to house the thousands of soldiers training in the area.

While in Miami Beach, Loosemore started through basic training.

“We learned how to march, drill, sing, shoot, perform guard duty and K.P.,” he writes in his memoir. “…lectures on hygiene, security, military courtesy, concealment, gas warfare, first aid, etc.”

As a Yooper, suddenly transplanted to Florida in March, Loosemore couldn’t avoid burning in the sun when drilling outdoors. The sunburns were so bad at times he struggled to lie down or dress himself.

“This and the sore arms and headaches from shots and vaccinations made the first few weeks torture,” he writes.

That April, Loosemore traveled to Greenville, South Carolina, as part of a College Training Detachment (CTD) to Furman University. There he took classes on math and English, and learned about subjects like the theory of flight, navigation, and civil air regulations.

Click here to see a Furman University Bulletin with pictures and an article about training there in 1943.

**Piper L-4H Cub ‘330372’. Built 1943 for the US military with the serial 43-30372. Seen arriving as a visitor at the 2017 Flying Legends Airshow, Duxford Airfield, Cambridgeshire, UK.** Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Also in Greenville, Loosemore got his first flight training, in a Piper Cub. He worked out regularly, and had the chance to see several movies, something he enjoyed regularly throughout his service.

During his time in Greenville, Loosemore took note of “the intense intolerance and hatred between the blacks and whites” in his memoir.

Loosemore and other soldiers left Greenville late in May, via troop train, for San Antonio, Texas. During the three-day trip, rumor spread on the train that the pilot training schools were all full, and everyone would be reassigned to different technical schools.

They arrived at the San Antonio Classification Center disappointed and glum. They were put through a myriad of tests, gauging their physical and mental acuity, and in between tests spent time cleaning around the base.

“…raking stones, cleaning barracks, KP, pickup cigarette butts, and we even picked the weeds out of the lawn and nipped the longer grass with our fingers,” Loosemore writes.

Choosing radio operator as his preference of the available technical schools, Loosemore once again shipped out, this time to Sheppard Field in Wichita Falls, Texas. They started going through tests, classes and physical training again.

The June and July heat in Texas stands out in Loosemore’s memory. He remembers almost every day being over 90 degrees, and men regularly passing out from the heat. They often drilled with full gear, including gas masks.

**Portrait of Loosemore taken in Sioux Falls.** Courtesy of Wesley Loosemore.

On July 23, 1943, Loosemore arrived with other soldiers at the radio school in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He earned his Radio Gunner classification and attended school on the night rotation, starting late in the afternoon and getting to bed at about 2 a.m., after his classes finished. He graduated on Dec. 14, 1943, with “very good grades”.

“I was always anxious to learn,” Loosemore said. “I figured I could use that information after I got out, so I buckled down, and I learned.”

There was a USO club near the base that Loosemore and the other GIs took advantage of, but as winter set in, the cold and sicknesses were difficult to manage.

“We were issued extra blankets and still had to keep all three coal stoves in the barracks going to keep warm,” he writes. “There were lots of colds and flu going around and at times it seemed that half the barracks was on sick call or in the hospital.”

Loosemore was happy when, after his graduation, he was sent to the Yuma AAF Flexible Gunnery School in Arizona.

“It was hotter than heck,” Loosemore said.

They lived in tents on this base, and when it was windy, all of their belongings would get covered in dust. They learned to be careful to check their shoes and clothes in the morning for snakes and scorpions. The nights got cool, but the days were warm.

Here, Loosemore learned about guns, from the M1 carbine to the .50 caliber machine guns. They learned how to shoot them, maintain them and repair them. They learned to disassemble and assemble them blindfolded.

“There was a theater on the base, but we didn’t have much free time to take in the shows,” Loosemore wrote. “I think I only saw one movie here – “The Gang’s All Here”, with Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda and the Benny Goodman Orchestra.”

**Carmen Miranda in “The Gang’s All Here”.** Image via Wikimedia Commons.

In February, after graduating gunnery school, Loosemore was transferred to the base in Salt Lake City. It took a couple of weeks before he was placed on a B-17 crew, #3915, and sent to the Army Air Field in Pyote, Texas.

**B-17 crew # 3915, Wesley Loosemore stands top center-left.** Photo courtesy of Wesley Loosemore.

“Our crew was comprised of Harry F. Jenkins, pilot; Samuel B. Blanchard, co-pilot; Gordon B. Nute, navigator; John W. Protzman, bombardier; Norton A. Gillespie, Flt. Engineer; Charles G. Allen and Robert Francis, waist gunners; John J. Fydrychowski, ball turret gunner; John M. Cregan, tail gunner; and myself, radio operator,” Loosemore writes.

Take a virtual tour of a B-17G Flying Fortress at the Air Mobility Command Museum.

This is when their training began to get more intense. Rising at 4:30 a.m. for many of their flights, they practiced bombing runs, shooting at targets towed by other planes, practice take-offs and landings, and more.

“My flight record shows that I got 128 hours of flying time on 30 separate days during March, April and May,” Loosemore wrote.

Loosemore shared his trick for keeping his signal strong when tuning for long distance broadcasts with the trailing wire antennae from the B-17. He calculated the ideal length of the antennae for the frequency they were using that day and matched the trailing wire to that length.

At the end of May, the crew shipped out by train for Kearney, Nebraska. The base at Kearney was for staging, so excitement began to build as they knew they would likely be assigned overseas soon.

“The dangers involved were not stressed, or understood, and we were confident that we could handle whatever situations confronted us,” Loosemore writes.

At Kearney, they were assigned a plane, a new B-17G, which they flew from there to Bangor, Maine. On the way, they ran into a thunderstorm.

“Our pilot, Jenkins, called our attention to the prop tips which were trailing St. Elmo’s fire and it looked like four rings of fire,” Loosemore writes.

They left Bangor for Gander Field, Newfoundland, and from there made the nearly 12-hour flight to Nutt’s Corner, Northern Ireland.

“I heard reports of the D-Day landings on my radio on the way over, first I had heard the news,” Loosemore writes in his manuscript.

Aerial photograph of Molesworth airfield looking east, (the main runway runs north-south), 9 May 1944. Photograph taken by 7th Photographic Reconnaissance Group, sortie number US/7GR/LOC334. English Heritage (USAAF Photography). Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

From Nutt’s Corner, they traveled by boat and train to Stone, England for their orientation before being assigned to their operational base. The B-17G they had ferried over would be reassigned to a different crew.

Effective June 27, 1944, their crew was assigned to the 359 Bomb Squadron, 303 Bomb Group at Molesworth airfield. Shortly after their arriveal, they were assigned barracks in a Nissen hut.

On July 4 of that year, Loosemore watched a “fireworks” display. It was put on by airmen firing off flares into the sky.

“Every time an appeal to stop came over the PA system, another volley of 50 or more flares went up,” Loosemore writes.

Each airman was required to fly 35 combat missions. Loosemore flew his first combat mission two days after Independence Day, on July 6. Their target was launching sites for V-1 flying bombs in France.

“The mission was a real milk run,” Loosemore wrote. “But it served to introduce us to the procedures to be followed.”

Loosemore’s crew continued flying missions, bombing targets in Germany and France. Targets included airfields, factories, and infrastructure. They flew ten missions between July 6 and July 20. On July 21, they got a 48-hour pass off base. Some of the crew, including Loosemore, went to nearby Nottingham.

“It was nice to sleep between sheets at the hotel, but it was hard to find good food in town,” Loosemore writes.

The war had so depleted England that there was better food available to the soldiers on base.

“They’d been through hell with the bombing and all that,” Loosemore said.

Food on base was comparatively flush with selection, as it was shipped from the United States. Restaurants off base couldn’t get meat other than mutton or fish.

“You couldn’t get beef,” Loosemore said. “Beef was out of sight for civilians.”

On their next two missions, Loosemore and the rest of his crew took part in the bombing runs supporting Operation Cobra, considered a decisive victory in the Normandy campaign. Unfortunately, two friendly fire incidents marred the Air Force attempts to support ground forces. Loosemore’s crew was uninvolved in either.

**Wesley Loosemore, front and center, with his B-17 crew, taken July 16, 1944.** Photo courtesy of John Loosemore.

As radio operator, Loosemore was also responsible for dispensing chaff during bombing runs. When lining up for a run, the aircraft couldn’t take evasive maneuvers, which made them an easy target for anti-aircraft guns. Chaff confused radar equipment and made it more difficult for anti-aircraft fire to be accurate.

“Everybody was afraid,” Loosemore said. “It seemed like our clothes would get this stink, from fear.”

With anti-aircraft flak exploding around them, enemy fighters stayed clear. The B-17 gunners had nothing to focus on. All they could do was “sweat it out” until the run was over.

“You’re watching these planes get hit,” Loosemore said. “You see the explosion and the plane goes down, nobody gets out. The ones that do get out, it’s still a worry.”

Loosemore’s crew kept flying missions, bombing targets from shoe and boot factories to the Experimental V-Rocket Station at Peenemünde, Germany. From Aug. 17 to 26 they had ten days off, but it was rainy, and they didn’t find much to do on base.

Their August 27 mission, however, was far from boring. After cloud cover spoiled their opportunity to bomb targets in Germany, the general in charge of the mission chose to attack a target of opportunity in Denmark. Accurate anti-aircraft fire over the airfield they bombed damaged or shot down several planes. It knocked out two of the engines on the plane Loosemore’s crew was in that day, ‘The 8 Ball Mk. III’.

“The Air/Sea Rescue was in constant touch with our base, telling them what was happening to us,” Loosemore said. “He said my signal was so strong it well about blown them off their seat.”

They managed to get ‘The 8 Ball’ back to Molesworth, only about an hour behind the rest of the group. Emergency vehicles were waiting at the air strip in case of a fire or injuries upon their landing. Another group of people cheered them in to a safe landing. The pilot managed to set it down smoothly on a flat tire.

**The 303rd Bomb Group's control tower at Molesworth, Huntingdonshire, England (Station 107) on September 28, 1944.** Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

After a warm reception from the ground crew, they took stock of the damage. They found over 90 flak holes in the fuselage, and discovered that a third engine had an oil leak and likely would have seized within ten minutes. The following day, the count of flak holes was revised to 120.

After a few more missions, the crew got a seven-day furlough, starting Sept. 13. They visited Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland. There, they took in some movies, visited the university, and saw some Scottish dancers, wearing kilts.

“… it looked like two days’ work to get through one number,” Loosemore wrote.

They also went ice skating in nearby Paisley. They tried attaching the removable skates to their GI boots.

“They didn’t stick very well,” Loosemore said with a laugh. “So we were always stumbling around the rink.”

Some of the local women helped them figure things out, and the crew returned to the rink several times.

At the end of their furlough, they took the train back to Molesworth, a 12-hour ride. But when they got back, they took a B-17 for something of a joyride.

Loosemore said it was a shakedown flight to test repairs made to the aircraft. They were gone for more than four hours. They flew north, over the castle in Edinburgh, the Red Cross where they stayed in Glasgow, and the ice rink in Paisley.

**Wesley Loosemore, who still lives in Houghton and turns 100 years old this October.** Photo by Joshua Vissers.

Loosemore flew his final, 35th combat mission on Oct. 22, 1943. The target was a tank assembly plant in Brunswick, Germany. Since some of his regular crew had already completed their 35 flights, Loosemore flew with an unfamiliar group.

“It was kind of nerve wracking,” Loosmore said.

They flew in ‘The 8 Ball’ again. The run was uneventful, and some of his regular crewmates were waiting to celebrate with him when he landed.

They’d made it through.

“During the time I flew combat missions, I participated in the Battle of Normandy, the Battle of Northern France, and the Battle of the Rhineland, for which I am entitled to wear the ribbons,” Loosemore wrote. “I also earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters.”

Loosemore shipped home on Nov. 11, but his military service continued. Among his post-combat duties, he helped train other airmen, drove as a military chauffeur, and as the war came to an end he helped prepare airplanes for long-term storage at the Garden City Army Airfield in Kansas.

He was discharged on Oct. 29, 1945, and returned to his studies at Michigan Tech the following January. In June 1946 he married his wife, Helmi, and after graduation worked as a civilian contractor for the military. He still lives, retired, in Houghton today.

Wesley’s manuscript, interview, and photos have been submitted to the Veteran’s History Project at the U.S. Library of Congress.