Garanflo was the burr under my saddle. Personally I liked him but he was not suited to combat. If you saw the movie "Twelve O'Clock High" you probably have the best picture that I can give. He was a afraid of “death" case who wanted to do right. He was a weak pilot in the States. I flew with him after rumors as to his ability. I flew formation with him as a check pilot. I would put the wing in close to the lead plane then turn it over to him. He would hold it for a while then start backing away. When it came time to go overseas, I had my operations officer fly with him to be sure they got there. They arrived at Rackheath late by Air Transport Command. Their plane (42-52556) was later ferried to England by ATC. Officially they had had engine problems. I accepted that from the operations officer.


I never knew the real story until after the war . Eugene Long, who was their engineer told me the real story. The Ops officer (I can't think of his name right now - Charles Horne Brandon ) and Garanflo took turns in the pilot's seat. On the take-off from Marakesh for the flight to Ireland. Garanflo was in the Copilots seat. He would hit the number four engine switch with his knee to turn it off. The next day they would test flight the airplane with Garanflo as pilot--no problem. The events were repeated until ATC took the airplane away and sent the crew as passengers on an ATC flight.


On one of his very early missions, Garanflo turned back because of engine trouble. A test flight of the airplane found no problems with the superchargers. I took his crew away from him.

Later he begged to have another chance. I gave it to him. I can't remember the exact reason for my taking the crew away again. I tried him as a substitute copilot but he wasn't well received and it wouldn't be fair to the regularly assigned copilot for him to be regularly assigned. I created a position of "Formation Control Officer" especially for him. He flew in the waist and reported on "formation discipline”. I could not see grounding a first pilot for "fear of flying" for fear of its impact on morale of the crews and it would provide a way out for anyone who might be “queezy” about flying combat.


Shott was to be transferred to another group. His Copilot Shaughnessy was one of the next in line to be checked out as first pilot. I put Garanflo on Schott's crew when they shipped. Since Schott was going to be a Mickey lead crew after training he would be flying with command pilots , there was no need to waste a good (co)-pilot who deserved a chance.


In the interim, I arranged with 96th Combat Wing to fly a special mission. I was briefing officer when orders came into operations in which the group was going to pass right by a bridge that the 2nd AD had missed the day before. They gave me permission to take two (volunteer) crews and peel off from the main formation and go down to take out the bridge. The Sheehan and Thompson crews volunteered to go with me. Garanflo pleaded to be allowed to go with us. I refused his offer. The overall mission was scrubbed so that we never got o try to complete it. Later General Peck made the comment at a briefing that "there is a Squadron Commander around here with rocks in his head."-- I still think it would have worked. I think that the element of surprise would have enabled us to have completed the volunteer mission. Later in the war I had the opportunity to take out a bridge at low altitude. Col Shower led the group. I led the 2nd( ?) squadron with Campbell's crew.