Father was the top armorer sergeant in a light bomber squadron in the Pacific during WWII. Asked him one day what was funniest thing that occured to him when in the Pacific in MacArthurs air force. Without hesitation, he recounted this story.

Whenever they moved to a new island airfield, first priority was to get it operational and as soon as possible, build a place for the men to take a shower. They'd just built such a shower building and he went to take his first shower in it. Just as he stepped into the shower, butt naked of course, he heard the first bomb hit their airfield. Son, he told me, you didn't want to be in or near any structure when the Japs attacked, besides our planes it was something they'd attack.

He promptly exited the shower, not bothering to grab even a towel and ran towards the nearest trench dug to take refuge in. He dove headfirst into it. Much to his surprise, it was occupied by three army WACS and a full bird colonel. Seems their plane had landed a short time before the attack to refuel and had exited the plane seeking something to eat.

So, there was my father in the slit trench butt naked with 3 women and the colonel, who was upset with him being out of uniform. The women did a lot of giggleing at Dad's predicament as he squatted besides them covering his privates with his hands. They had a nice converstion while the Japanese planes bombed and straifted their airfield.

The japs left and Dad said he was the first out of the trench and tried to clamly walk back to the shower like nothing special had happened. Unfortunately, his fellow squadron airmen in the area had quite a laugh at my Dad when the women climbed out of the same trench.

My Grandfather told a story where he was in a foxhole guarding a perimeter one night. He said he heard something coming down the fence row. slowly moving along. Said "I checked my Thompson to make sure it was ready to go. Blood was pumping hard waiting to get sight of the German patrol." Pulled the Thompson up finger on trigger and then................... A horse whinnied and walked right past his foxhole like business as usual.

In 1944 in North Africa my mother's husband, being the best wireless operator in his British Army unit volunteered to go up in a Martin Baltimore being used by the RAF when they could not get their radios to "net" in with the ground units.

A Corporal, attached to the unit had never been in an aeroplane before and asked if, if there was room on the flight, he too could go aloft.

As there was a place available, where the bomb aimer would normally have been, he was told that he could join them.

He was delighted. His first time ever in an aeroplane.

It came down into the sea.

My mother's husband was killed.

But the real tragedy was that the Corporal, going on what for him was a pleasure flight, was, being in the bomb aimer's position, the first to die as it hit the water.

I will get most of this right without looking it up.
A US service man hitched a ride on a B-25 during WWII. I don't think there was any record of his being on the flight. In the fog the plane hit the Empire state building. Some time later in the clean up of the building the young service man's body was found beneath miles of cable at the bottom of one of the elevator shafts.

SR4759,

My father told me a story once of hitching a ride back to his squadron on a C47. As top noncom Sgt Armoror, he'd been sent to another Pacific island airfield to receive training on some new bomb/fuses or something.

He'd watched the C47 being loaded with supplies for his squadron. Planes pilot had a sliderule and used it to calculate weight of material being loaded. With each pallet of supplies, Pilot would ask its weight, use the sliderule and OK its loading. Dad said he was surprised by how much cargo pilot with sliderule allowed to be loaded, but didn't say anything about it, since he only had a 7th grade education and how do you say anything to a college grad who knew how to use a sliderule.

Runway of airfield ended at a clift and there was a 150 or so foot drop to the water of the Pacific. Pilot reeved the C47's engines pretty good and plane lumbered down runway. Just before reaching clift, plane seemed to try to lift off runway and pilot was giving engines full power.

Well, plane never did gain altitude, instead it was obvious to him they were on a slow descent into the waters of the Pacific. Dad said the c47 was just too heavy with its load to gain altitude.

What seemed an eternity went by before the co-pilot came back saying, the pilot finally admitted he made a mistake with the slide rule and start throwing cargo out of the plane. Something my Dad willingly helped the plane crew to do. "Son", he told me, "I don't know how much material we threw off that plane, but I was about worn out before the plane leveled off and began to gain altitude." "By that time we were maybe 30' or so above the water."