My cousin Pete was a country boy who joined the Army Air Force during
the 1930s depression and rose to the rank of supply master sargeant.
When the buildup for ww-2 began, he became a logistics officer and was
posted to Britain during the war.
As was common during the Great Depression, Pete developed the art of
story telling which often didn't adhere completely to the truth, so I
can't vouch for the following story that he told us after the war, but
it's still an intriguing tale about "can-do" American soldiers of that era.
One day during the war Petes CO told him that supplies were badly needed
in one of the battle zones, it was his responsibility to get them there
any way he could.
The only planes available were bombers that had been deadlined for
various problems; being shot up, metal fatigue, etc.
Pete rounded up all the mechanics he could find and told them to patch
up the derelicts as best they could into flying condition.
That night he sent out a "Midnight Requisition Squad" to "liberate" all
the whiskey they could find.
The next day he invited a group of bomber pilots on R & R to a party
that evening with promises of whiskey flowing like water. The party was
a great success and the tipsy pilots had nearly all signed an agreement
to deliver loads of much needed supplies the next day.
Needless to say, when the pilots were rousted out of bed the next
morning with fierce hangovers and found that they had agreed to fly
derelict bombers overloaded with munitions into one of the deadly battle
areas, they were not happy. But their sense of duty prevailed, they
delivered the supplies, and all returned safely.
A few days later a top level British officer made a furious complaint to
the U.S. high command that "thieving American soldiers" had broken into
his private store room and stolen all his scotch whiskey.
Pete became known as the "go-to" guy if a job had to done one way or the
other, and by the end of the war, he had become a colonel. He finished
out his career as base personnel officer at MacDill AFB, Florida.
Gerry
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