Just before our episode with the bail out, several crews of the squadron had been given a fifteen-day leave to go home before being sent overseas. Before we left Major Wallace, the Squadron Commander, had warned all of us to be sure we returned on time because things were in limbo and we never knew just when the Army would decide we should ship out. All of us went our respective ways.

I arrived early and reported in, Chuck and Bill and Art arrived on the next bus with Jim Rudy, the tail gunner, who got on the bus in Salt Lake City. We waited and waited but the other guys didn’t show up. There was no way we could cover for them because when you arrived you had to go to squadron headquarters and sign in. That night we heard news of a train wreck back in Iowa someplace, and sure enough, our guys were being held up because of the accident. Well, they were a day and a half late signing in and Major Wallace was hopping up and down mad. You had to know him to appreciate his thinking. He told Chuck and me that he was breaking all of those five guys down to privates for being absent without leave. Sure enough, two days later we had five privates and one staff sergeant on our crew. We protested long and loud, and when he finally relented, it was too late. As a compromise we were allowed to promote them one step at a time every week under the condition that they sew the appropriate stripes on their fatigue and Class A uniforms every time they were promoted, so in five weeks time we again had two technical sergeants and four staff sergeants on our crew.


...While .. at Herington, we found a man down on the flight line who would paint names and nose art on planes. Seeing that our new bird was named Gerocko, it was fitting that we get the name painted on it. We took up a collection from all of the crew members and contacted the guy. He said that for $30.00 he would paint the name on both sides with whatever we decided we wanted in the form of nose art. It ended up as Gerocko in a sort of an Oriental type script and a Chinese man riding on a yellow bomb. The bomb had a face and halter on it, and the Chinese character had a flowing red robe, a black hat, a long braided strand of hair and a very silly look on its face. All in all, we were rather well satisfied with it and it gave us a chance whenever we were asked to explain to people what Gerocko’s really were.