Distinguished Service

A Tribute to Bud Pollock - B17 "Flying Fortress" Pilot

By Bettye Weigand Pribyl

Inspired by Ellen Notbohm's article, Too Soon, Ancestry Magazine, September/October 2006 Issue

"What is the common thread to all lives that end too soon?" asks author Ellen Notbohm in her 2006 article Too Soon. "Their ability to overwhelm us with sadness. But when we're faced with a loved one whose life ended long before time ran out, it's the memory that remains in each of us. And it's our job to ensure that the life - short as it may have been - doesn't end but continues to live on."

I have always felt a special bond with my Uncle Bud even though we've never met. He died before I was born. Growing up, however, there wasn't a day I wasn't reminded of him and his sacrifice for our freedom. From my earliest memories, his picture loomed over me, larger than life, from atop my grandparent's vintage floor model Motorola radio. Only now, as a mother myself, can I truly relate to the depth of my grandmother's loss…the death of her firstborn son. A loss so deep, so devastating, that she could never put her feelings into words, yet we all "felt her pain" long before the phrase became fashionable.

I've always been fascinated with history. I was the kid who always bugged everyone with questions and early on, I became determined to uncover the answers to questions that lingered in the minds of our family about Uncle Bud's death. What reallyhappened? Why weren't we given more details? Why was he missing for so long?

Delmar Dale "Bud" Pollock, my uncle, was my mother's adored older brother. He taught her to roller skate, to dance and to drive. He was her hero long before the war took him away and made him a national hero. Not only a courageous officer and top notch Army Air Corps B17 pilot with movie star good looks, he was a devoted son and brother, as well as a gifted student with a photographic memory, who graduated at the top of the Quay, Oklahoma high school class of 1935.

He was also the mischievous big brother who unmercifully taunted his sisters, Mildred, Dorothy, Vina and Fern, and younger brother, Sid, and yet was the first to come to their defense. He challenged them to games of marbles, shared paper routes and was incredibly generous to all of his family members. He proudly bought his mother her first gas stove during the Great Depression, a time when all families struggled to just put food on the table.

The Great Depression gripped America and millions of households were affected with unemployment and poverty. President Franklin Roosevelt, shortly after taking office, pressed Congress to create the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). This program, although focusing on natural conservation projects such as road building, etc., promised to put young men to work. Most of the men were between the ages of 18 and 25, poor, unemployed, single and healthy. It was also required that they send most of their $30 a month pay home to their families.

CCC camps began to open as soon as the bill passed and Bud was one of the first to enroll. They built roads, picnic shelters, bathhouse, dams, bridges and fences. They dug irrigation canals and fought forest fires. They learned trades and took education classes. In return, they received food, clothing, and shelter. Bud served in Camp SCS-4-C in Cheyenne Wells, Colorado and received his "certificate of proficiency" on March 27, 1936. When the United States entered World War II, the funding for the CCC stopped and the camps disbanded with many of the workers going directly into the military.

On one of his trips home he met the girl of his dreams at a skating rink in Laredo, Texas. Younger sister Dorothy Elliott remembers him waking her up after first meeting Kathleen and telling her that he was "going to marry that girl." Bud Pollock and Kathleen Crane were married March 4, 1939 in Laredo, Texas and began married life just as all newlyweds do, blissfully in love and full of hopes and dreams. Then came the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and their world changed forever.

My favorite picture is one of him in uniform with his beautiful bride, Kathleen, at his side. Taken just before he went overseas, they look as if they could have been the lead actor and actress in any classic 40's movie. This portrait has always been part of my parents' and grandparents' homes, and it's had a special place in my home, too, as long as I can remember.

Bud had just turned twenty-four when he enlisted in the Army Air Corps on March 31,1942 in San Antonio, Texas. After months of flying schools, training and anticipation, he received his orders – and, the biggest disappointment of his life. He was chosen to fly the "big" plane.

He had his heart set on flying pursuit P51's, and as one of the best gunners in his class, he felt sure his chances for being chosen were good.

In a letter dated April 21, 1943 he wrote:

"Dear Mother, Dad and kids,

I hardly know where to start this letter. A week ago Monday I graduated and received my wings. It was the proudest moment of my life, five minutes later they knocked the wind out of me. I was to be sent here to Blythe for Pilot training on a B17 (Flying Fortress). Guess I should have been proud to have been selected to fly a ship which has made such a name for itself. It would take me too long to explain why, but that assignment was the greatest disappointment I've ever had. I've fought every way I could to have it changed. I haven't given up yet but I'm sitting on dynamite, my efforts may result in my being busted or permanently grounded, however, I consider the goal worth the gamble, so if you receive another letter from Private D. D. Pollock in a few days please don't be too disappointed."

Later he wrote:

"I had quite a time consoling myself to a B17 but I finally managed to do so. Yesterday I found out that a mistake had been made in my orders. I was supposed to have gone to Rice Field, Calif. to fly P51's. It's too late now to be mended. Boy, what I wouldn't give to fly one of those babys!"

Supposedly, he was too "big," meaning tall – he was just under six feet tall and only weighed 154 pounds. Not only was he too big but also too old to fly one of the pursuit planes. They wanted guys of small stature who were very young and "full of themselves," with no fear, six feet tall and bulletproof. Today's generation often forgets, or never knew, that the average age of the men who fought in WWII was 19. Some as young as 14 lied about their age to get in. Bud Pollock, at 24, was an "old timer."

Specialized training prepared Bud to pilot the Flying Fortress, and with his crew he prepared to ferry their plane, "Nobody's Fool," from Presque Isle, Maine across the "pond" to Rougham Air Base near Bury St. Edmunds, England. Because Northern Maine is the closest U.S. landmass to Europe, Presque Isle was the departure point for almost all of the planes and equipment going overseas. Until the end of the war in 1945, more combat planes left PIAAF for Europe than any other U.S. base.

Just before leaving, Uncle Bud came down with the flu and was unable to go with his training crew. Following at a later date, he was assigned to a new crew comprised partly of some of the old crew but with a few new members. This event created some confusion for me as a historian because it resulted in two different crew pictures.

The American bomber war began in the summer of 1942 with a strike by a dozen Flying Fortresses ("Forts"). Of all the military services in WWII, only the German U-boat crews suffered a higher casualty rate than the bomber crews. The U.S. had two air forces, the Eighth and Fifteenth, conducting strategic bombing in Europe during the war. Uncle Bud was a member of the Eighth, which was the more powerful unit and suffered over 26,000 fatal casualties, more than the entire Marine Corps. Additionally, 23,000 flyers became prisoners of war. In 1943 an airman's chance of surviving 25 missions - the number required to go home - was about one in four.

Berlin had long been a goal for American flyers ever since they began operations in the European theater. Initially, bombers only attacked under the cover of darkness. Daylight operations against the German capital had to await the development of P38 and P51 long-range fighters necessary to protect the bombers along the heavily defended course to the target, at least 575 miles from British bases.

That day finally arrived. The American Army Air Corps attempted a military first – a daring daylight strike on Berlin, the heart of the Third Reich. A B17 bomber stream, more than 500 strong, accompanied by B24 Liberators and pursuit P51s, departed England at 0736 hours. By 1003 hours the formation of bombers was nearing the English Channel, plowing through bitterly cold skies with temperatures as low as 45 degrees below zero. The heavy undercast was solid, allowing no view of the earth far below.

It was noted that the formation was approximately a minute late and slightly off course as it neared the enemy coast some 14 miles north of Dunkerque (Dunkirk), France. Sporadic flak rose up through the murk, its deadly flowers blossoming randomly, but nothing seemed destined to deter the bombers from their goal, a tiny point on the map hundreds of miles away.

On only his third mission with his own crew, after having flown previously as co-pilot, Bud was off the right wing of his element leader, 2nd Lt. James T. Bloyd, while across the way was another friend, 2nd Lt. R. A. Senior, all of the 331st Squadron. Things were deceptively calm.

It happened suddenly, it always did. There was a fire in the left wing! Warnings and commands flashed through the interphone system, efforts were made to shut down the flames, and then, the interphone went dead. The fire was spreading rapidly.

Lieutenant Pollock pulled his aircraft, fully laden with bombs and aviation fuel, sharply away from his squadron, standard procedure to protect the formation. He gave the order to bail out just as the plane went into a vertical dive, centrifugal force holding the crew fast. Pollock and co-pilot 2nd Lt. Warren Van Eschen fought the controls as the burning ship plunged down through the heavy clouds.

They managed to steady the plane for a few seconds, an almost impossible feat, allowing Staff Sgt. Kenneth O. Kirker (top turret gunner), Staff Sgt. Jay Summers (tail gunner), and Sgt. Walter Stevenson (left waist gunner) time to parachute out. Unfortunately, Summers’ ‘chute became entangled with the plane and did not deploy. At that point, an explosion ripped the plane apart and blew three more men clear, sparing Flight Officer Ralph Candiotti (bombardier), 2nd Lt. Bennie Zak (navigator), and a badly wounded Van Eschen the fate of their fellow crewmen.

According to German records Sgt. William Grocke (ball turret gunner) was still in the ball turret, Staff Sgt. Will H. Irwin (left waist gunner) was in the middle of the plane, and Staff Sgt. Gerald Silver (radio operator) was found under the right stabilizer.

Bud, as the pilot, was the only one left at the controls. Miraculously, Van Eschen survived the explosion that blew him through the cockpit windshield and cost him the lower half of one leg. Lt. Pollock's plane then went down in two pieces on the coast of France within sight of the White Cliffs of Dover. In the Missing Air Crew Report (MACR), the survivors credit Bud's actions with saving their lives.

After successfully completing 15 separate bombing missions over enemy occupied territory, 2nd Lt. Delmar Dale Pollock was killed in action on that historic day, March 4, 1944. It was his and Kathleen's fifth wedding anniversary.

Lt. Pollock was considered missing in action for one year before being declared killed in action on March 5, 1945, the day before what would have been his 26th birthday. His body lay unidentified in the British Military Cemetery at St. Omer-Longuenesse in France until 1950 when U.S. personnel recovered his body and dental records revealed his identity. All the while his family held out hope that perhaps the French Underground had hidden him, as they had one of his crewmates. As we know, this was not the case and eventually his remains were sent home to his family for burial in Hebbronville, Texas.

Regrettably, the military sometimes lacks in the area of sharing the details of a tragedy with distraught families. Families are left on their own, struggling for answers, with only that dreaded telegram in their trembling hands and the reality that their loved one is never coming home alive.

Bud's Purple Heart and other medals were not issued to his family until 62 years after his death. We only received his medals after many months spent working with our local Congressman Ron Paul, who petitioned the medals on our behalf. Currently we are still awaiting issue of two more medals, The Air Force Cross and Air Force Medal of Honor.

Although Bud's life was short, it mattered. Our family has kept Bud's legacy "alive" through the decades, refusing to let him fade quietly from memory into the listing of deaths in the yellowed pages of a family Bible.

In the more than sixty years that have passed since my uncle's death, two more generations carry on his memory. Just as he was named for his uncle, Delmar Dale DeLay, the name has been handed down to his niece Linda Dale, and numerous other relatives as Jerry Dale, Thomas Dale and Lonnie Dale. I, too, was supposed to be named Dale after him but an aunt claimed the name first for her daughter.

In her article, Ms. Notbohm quotes genealogist Jana Sloan Broglin, "Families share the legacies of relatives who died young in any number of ways, but one of the prevailing means is by doing just as my family did, passing down a given name to honor a special person. It's a way of remembering someone whose life ended too soon."

Perhaps Clint Eastwood said it best, "World War II was supposed to be the war to end all wars, and at its close everybody was dancing in the streets. But a few years later, we were in Korea, and then Vietnam. And now, Iraq. Who knows where it will end?" How many more young lives will end too soon? How many more big brothers and sisters will write last letters to loved ones back home? How many more will return in flag draped caskets or perhaps, never return at all?

My uncle lived to bear his country's arms and he died to preserve its honor. He was a proud soldier and he knew the risks involved. It is evident that nothing brought him more joy than being a pilot for his beloved country. His cherished scrapbook is filled with poems about aviation, pictures of planes and articles supporting "Uncle Sam." He repeatedly wrote home about his pride in being a pilot and the thrill of soaring out into the "wild blue yonder."

His ultimate sacrifice will help assure that countless numbers of future generations may know the priceless joy of liberty. And those of us who pay him homage, and revere his memory, must rededicate ourselves to preserving his memory.

I am often asked why we, as genealogists, are so interested in tracing our ancestry. My only answer is that it seems to be something that lives inside of us. Searchers, storytellers, and scribes, we possess an overwhelming sense of responsibility to tell the stories of our forefathers and especially the stories of those who died young…before ever having lived as fully as they deserved. As family historians, we are the chosen keepers of the past.

Delmar D Pollock