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Business News
PITTSBURG —
Homer Cole, longtime member of Pittsburg Elks Lodge 412, is tremendously proud of the lodge’s annual Elks Student Government Day, which was held on Wednesday. He looks forward to it each year.
But this year, the day before the event was also very significant to him.
“This is a very important day for me,” he said Tuesday during a call to The Morning Sun. “This is my anniversary. It was 67 years ago today, April 10, 1945, that I was almost shot down over Brandenburg, Germany. I thought the world was going to end.”
Cole, then a Pittsburg High School student, had enrolled at Kansas State Teachers’ College, now Pittsburg State University, in 1943. He was able to attend for three months, then was drafted in September at the age of 18.
He was assigned to the 487th Bomb Group and stationed at an Eighth Air Force station near Suffolk, England, and flew a total of 19 missions. His first was on March 2, 1945, over Dresden. Other flights were over Brunswick, Frankfurt, Dortmund and Hamburg, along with several other cities.
“Four of us in the crew were 18 and the officers were 21,” Cole said. “I started out as a ball turret gunner, then became a tail gunner. I never saw where we were going, I could only see where we’d been.”
Brandenburg, a town deep in the heart of Germany, was the site of one of the first concentration camps in Germany. The Brandenburg Euthanasia Centre was where the Nazis killed people with mental diseases, including children. The town was also one of the very first locations where the Nazis experimented with killing their victims by gas.
It was an important military target and was heavily bombed during the later stages of the war because the Arado Aircraft Company had a plant there that produced trainers and other aircraft for the Luftwaffe.
Cole’s plane was flying behind the lead plane, and encountered heavy aircraft fire.
“My flak went through my helmet and just nicked my skull,” Cole said.
However, the plane was badly damaged, with both engines on the left side knocked out of action.
“We counted 124 holes in that plane,” Cole said. “We were carrying 20 bombs and the flak hit everything except them.”
Fortunately, the B-17 was not pursued by Germany fighter planes. Flying only 300 feet from the ground, the plane made its way to Brussels, Belgium for a forced landing.
That was another challenge, because the plane’s hydraulic system was knocked out, leaving it without brakes. Cole and the crew managed to rig a parachute out the back to bring the plane to a stop.
Cole observed this day with a telephone call to the only other person still alive who shares the anniversary with him.
“My co-pilot, Johnny Johnson, and I are the only ones left out of the nine-man flight crew,” Cole said.
Homer Cole, longtime member of Pittsburg Elks Lodge 412, is tremendously proud of the lodge’s annual Elks Student Government Day, which was held on Wednesday. He looks forward to it each year.
But this year, the day before the event was also very significant to him.
“This is a very important day for me,” he said Tuesday during a call to The Morning Sun. “This is my anniversary. It was 67 years ago today, April 10, 1945, that I was almost shot down over Brandenburg, Germany. I thought the world was going to end.”
Cole, then a Pittsburg High School student, had enrolled at Kansas State Teachers’ College, now Pittsburg State University, in 1943. He was able to attend for three months, then was drafted in September at the age of 18.
He was assigned to the 487th Bomb Group and stationed at an Eighth Air Force station near Suffolk, England, and flew a total of 19 missions. His first was on March 2, 1945, over Dresden. Other flights were over Brunswick, Frankfurt, Dortmund and Hamburg, along with several other cities.
“Four of us in the crew were 18 and the officers were 21,” Cole said. “I started out as a ball turret gunner, then became a tail gunner. I never saw where we were going, I could only see where we’d been.”
Brandenburg, a town deep in the heart of Germany, was the site of one of the first concentration camps in Germany. The Brandenburg Euthanasia Centre was where the Nazis killed people with mental diseases, including children. The town was also one of the very first locations where the Nazis experimented with killing their victims by gas.
It was an important military target and was heavily bombed during the later stages of the war because the Arado Aircraft Company had a plant there that produced trainers and other aircraft for the Luftwaffe.
Cole’s plane was flying behind the lead plane, and encountered heavy aircraft fire.
“My flak went through my helmet and just nicked my skull,” Cole said.
However, the plane was badly damaged, with both engines on the left side knocked out of action.
“We counted 124 holes in that plane,” Cole said. “We were carrying 20 bombs and the flak hit everything except them.”
Fortunately, the B-17 was not pursued by Germany fighter planes. Flying only 300 feet from the ground, the plane made its way to Brussels, Belgium for a forced landing.
That was another challenge, because the plane’s hydraulic system was knocked out, leaving it without brakes. Cole and the crew managed to rig a parachute out the back to bring the plane to a stop.
Cole observed this day with a telephone call to the only other person still alive who shares the anniversary with him.
“My co-pilot, Johnny Johnson, and I are the only ones left out of the nine-man flight crew,” Cole said.
