Crashed near Hof on 8 Apr 45 in B-17 #43-38688, Prisoner of War (POW).



My name is Edward Carl Massolo (Eddie to my friends). I was born

and raised in Oakland, California and graduated from University High

School in June of 1942. My father was a ship fitter building Victory Ships

at Todd Shipyards during the war. I was proud to say that as an Italian

emigrant he became a five star superintendent by the time the war

ended. Upon finishing school I too worked at the shipyard as a

machinist apprentice. I didn’t like the job and found it boring. My friend

James Blanchard who lived three doors from me decided to enlist in the

Army Air Corps rather than wait to be drafted. Promising my parents I

would seek a ground job and not flight training I joined him.

We enlisted at Lemoore Army Air Base near Fresno, California. It

was a second stage training base (using basic trainer plane models BT-13

and BT1-5, and advance trainer twin engine model AT-17). After seven

weeks of basic training, twelve weeks of prop and aircraft engine

classes, I was assigned to preflight the planes so that cadets could fly as

soon as they arrived. Preflighting meant draining water condensation

from gas tanks and warming engines, a bitter cold job at five in the

morning.



The urge to fly won over the promise to my parents and I applied

for cadet training. I was accepted and sent to the University of Nevada

for pre-cadet training which included flying instructions with civilian

pilots on Piper Cubs at Reno Sky Ranch Field near Reno.



[1]



After completing a three or four month course at the University we were

shipped to Santa Anna, California for exams and physicals. I felt I did

well on the test given but ran into a problem with the physical due to

an injury as a small child. My nose had been broken and for fifteen

years I could not breathe through the right side. I believe it’s called a

deviated septum. Flying above fifteen thousand feet required oxygen

and one must be able to breathe well. An operation and two weeks in

the hospital corrected the situation. To my disappointment and for

reasons unknown I was not sent on to continue cadet training.

I was now qualified for flying and ten weeks of both upper and

lower turrets at gunnery school earned me two stripes. Upon

assignment to a crew, plane and flying a combat mission made it three

stripes and rank of staff sergeant. In my later missions, due to my

classes in prop and engines, I was able to pass exams for flight engineer

and made tech sergeant, three stripes above and two below.



Bigg’s Field in El Paso, Texas was a staging area where crews were

assembled and trained. Our crew consisted of Sam Rodgers (pilot), Al

Holt (co-pilot), Warren Williams (navigator), Charlie Lauth (engineer),

Art Kepler (left waist gunner), George Burbridge (tail gunner), Ed

Massolo (right waist gunner), and Lowell Williamson (radio operator). I

don’t remember who our bombardier was at the time. We trained in

fairly new B-17s with the latest equipment. Turrets had an automatic

target device that kept you much more accurate than the old type that

required you determine the lead necessary to hit the target. We flew

two B-17s in combat that had the old type equipment. After six months

of training we were ready to ship overseas.



[2]



We were shipped to New York and boarded a British ship I believe

called the Aquatainia. She looked small compared to the Queen Mary

next to us, both loaded to capacity with soldiers. We were at sea for

seven days and docked at Edinburgh, Scotland.



In England we were assigned to the 94th Bomb Group, 8th Army Air

Force’s Fourth Wing, 332nd squadron. We lived in Quonset huts, each one contained a stove in the center. We used wooden bomb supports

for fuel which kept us warm at night. Lowell Williamson’s narrative was

quite descriptive about this and I believe accurate. I remember

breakfast, briefings in the wee hours of the morning and being taken

out to our aircraft at about 4 a.m.



One of our earliest missions was Nuremberg, Germany and we

received our first casualty. George Burbridge was hit in the temple with

flak. Having just dropped our bombs, Sam called me to go back to the

tail and bring George to the waist. Luckily he wasn’t hurt bad, the flak

hit the buckle on his headset causing swelling and a small cut on his

temple. It got him the Purple Heart. He was able to fly all his missions

with us. The ship received sufficient flak damage that we were assigned

to another ship, the Piccadilly Lilly.



No major incidents on the following fifteen or so missions until

the mission over Bremen, Germany. We lost one of our four engines

after the bomb run forcing us to leave formation and descend to about

two or three hundred feet. We were on our own flying over Lila, France

where thousands of our boys were buried, acre after acre of white

crosses. A few hours late but we made it back to the base.



The twenty third mission in the Piccadilly Lilly (not counting our

missions in the first plane) was over Hoff Germany. After the early



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breakfast and briefing we were taken out to our ship. I was surprised to

see that the lower ball turret had been removed and two of our crew

(lower ball turret gunner Lowell Kerr and left waist gunner Art Kepler)

would not be flying this mission. I know that in the last few weeks of

the war German aircraft had been near completely destroyed.



We were lead squadron over Hoff and on bomb run flak was

everywhere. In bursts of four you could almost count which one was

going to hit you. We received hit three and four. The right wing was hit

in the engine and fuel tanks causing a blaze at least two hundred feet long.

Lowell and myself were hit by flak, he in the temple and I in the left

forearm and palm. Sam gave orders to abandon ship, we snapped on

our chest chute and made for the rear door. I found Lowell and George

staring out our exit and somewhat petrified. I gave them both a hard

push and followed them out even though I was as petrified as they

were.



Though we had no prior training on parachute jumping we were

instructed to delay opening our chute for ten seconds and to be on our

back before pulling the rip cord so the shrouds on the chute wouldn’t

cut your face to ribbons when exploding open. We had emergency

chutes that fastened to the chest unlike the larger ones used by

paratroopers that were mounted backside. When it opened it felt like

some three hundred pound football player hit you in the middle. On

descending I could see a number of B-17s being hit and spiraling down,

some on fire, others badly damaged. Piccadilly Lilly went down near me

and I saw it take out a stand of trees in a fiery explosion. Sam always

said he would never jump, he would take his chances with the plane. Al

Holt, Warren Williams, Charles Lauth, Ralph Loechle the bombardier

who had only flown three missions with us went out the forward hatch.



[4]



Later, Warren told Williamson that he thought Holt was badly hit with

flak as he left the ship. Loechle got out okay but I believe he was shot in

the throat and hand as he came down. Of course I’m not sure of this

but there was small arms fire below, bullets whizzing by and holes in

our chutes as we came down. Holt, with the condition of his leg and

possible other wounds must have hit the ground hard enough to break

his back or hips.



We were told that jumping with an emergency chute was like

jumping off a two story building. I landed in a clean plowed field so

hard my knee hit my chest and was momentarily unable to breathe or

move. As I began to come around I discovered difficulty standing, I had

fractured my left ankle. My flak wounds though painful were superficial

and I realized I was going to have to get out of the open field into a

stand of trees not far off before the people in the village came after us.

Lowell and George landed close by and after burying our chutes all

made it to the trees. Lowell and George did much better landing than I,

they were great help in getting me there.



`We were told that if we had to surrender to be sure that it was to

a soldier, preferably Luftwaffe, because the civilians or farmers would

surely do us in. As luck would have it we watched a Luftwaffe soldier

advancing in our direction. George gave us a problem and wanted to

shoot our way out. I finally convinced him that would certainly be the

end of us. We surrendered to him and were escorted to the village

surrounded by about twenty or thirty villagers and farmers. Everyone

was yelling at the soldier who then made us kneel down and held a 45

caliber pistol to our heads. I told Lowell and George to say their prayers,

this was the end. He didn’t shoot and kept the villagers away for the



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time being. I believe they wanted our silk parachutes so we were

walked back into the fields to dig them up.



A lot of what happened thereafter remains almost a blank,

replaced with total exhaustion, pain, wondering how much more time

we had to live, and most of all what my mother and dad would be going

through. Following Lowell’s story I would have to believe he tells it the

way it was. How we got to the barn I don’t remember. Seeing Al and

Ralph lying there on the floor dying brought both prayers and tears. We

did not have the pleasure of knowing Ralph like the other officers on

our crew as he had only been on three missions with us. We don’t know

what happened to Al Holt after that, I have to agree with Lowell that he

never made it. Sam, Al and Ralph were the real heroes of the Piccadilly

Lilly. They gave the ultimate sacrifice.



I remember being loaded on a truck and warned to remain quiet

and not to open the canvas covers while we passed down the town

main street in Hoff. Peeking out the canvas joint and holes we could see

the devastation, destruction and fires still burning Hoff. I have some

memories of the old German castle, the German air base and the make

shift French hospital. They cleaned and dressed my arm and hand. Not

much could be done to my left ankle except to put a light wrap around

it and my sock over it. Lucky I had my sheep skin boots on, I never could

have walked with shoes.



As we were escorted from one place to another our group kept

getting larger. The crews of the other planes that got shot down were

picked up, many injured or wounded. One that remains in my mind had

flak hit the oxygen tank next to him. The explosion peeled most of his

face and hands off, what pain he must have suffered. Those that could



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not continue on their own were left behind. God only knows what

happened to them.



I remember all of us being taken to the old building or so called

the castle for interrogation. The officer who interrogated us had the

rank of Major and had spent a number of years studying at Yale or

Harvard University in the United States. He returned home to visit his

parents and was not allowed to return to the U.S.A.. He knew more

about the Bomb Group, squadron, time of departure than I did. I found

him most gentle and understanding of our situation, telling us the war

was almost over, escaping meant crossing German borders and worse

yet our own lines.



Lowell Williamson must have confused someone else for Warren

Williams around then because he wasn’t with us. When Warren (our

navigator) and his wife visited me in the late 1980s we compared that

last day on the Piccadilly Lilly. He parachuted and landed near a farm.



Holding his hands up he surrendered to the man and wife. It seems

they had a son in the German army that was captured by the Americans

and sent to the U.S.A. as a prisoner. He had sent back word of how well

he was treated and allowed to visit German families. (The Italians had

that privilege here too. It was the only way the Italians or Germans who

had emigrated here had to know about their hometowns). They put

him up in the barn hay loft after feeding and bathing him. They kept

him hidden until the U.S. army came in and liberated him. His last letter

to me said how much our visit meant to him and hoped we would get

to see each other at the Tucson reunion. I received notice that his wife

had died and I was never able to reach him after that.



[7]



Williamson mentions the awards he or us received and I believe

he made a mistake when he claimed the Distinguished Flying Cross with

three Oak Leaf Clusters. I’m sure he meant the Air Medal and three Oak

Leaf Clusters. The Air Medal was issued for seven missions and one Oak

Leaf Cluster for every other seven missions. I’m not sure what Charley

Lauth, Lowell Kerr and Art Kepler received but George, Lowell, Ralph,

Sam, Al and I received the Purple Heart. I believe that Ralph and Al Holt

who were still alive and being held by German guards when we arrived

should be issued the P.O.W. medal. They were in fact prisoners.



Two guards with machine guns started us off in groups of fifteen

or eighteen to an unknown destination by truck, a lot of walking and by

train. One of our guards was an elderly man that had lost two sons in

the war and was as weary of walking as we were. The devastation and

destruction was everywhere, I don’t know how anyone survived.



Lowell’s description of the train ride was true. That’s where we were

informed that President Roosevelt had died.