| Summary: | Color; 66 minutes, 49 seconds. Paul Frederick Porter was born on May 12, 1920, in New Brunswick, Canada. His father was a civil engineer, and worked for the Canadian railway system until about 1930. Due to a job offer for his father in Norwich, Connecticut, Paul, his parents, 2 brothers, and 2 sisters moved to the United States in the early 1930s. Paul graduated from high school in 1938, and worked for Underwood Typewriter Company until February, 1942. He enlisted in the Army at that time, and was assigned to the Army Air Corps. Basic training was at Keesler in Mississippi. He was assigned to Ypsilanti, Michigan for a time. B-24s were built there in a former Ford Motor Company plant. Gunnery school for those who were to be part of a B-17 crew was in Wendover, Utah. The B-17 had a ten man crew; pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier, radio operator, engineer, two mid-gunners, a tail gunner, and a turret gunner. His crew was assigned to Blythe, California, for a time, and they thought they were headed to the Pacific. Instead, more training took place near Dalhart, Texas. The practice bombs they used mostly consisted of sand. In Gulfport, Mississippi, his crew served on submarine patrol of the Gulf of Mexico until they were assigned to the European Theater. They flew to Africa using the southern route: Miami-Trinidad-Brazil-Ascension Island-Liberia-Morocco-Tunis. Six airplanes made up a squadron; four squadrons comprised a group. Four groups (96 planes) had an area near Naples, Italy, as home base. American crews made daytime bombing runs, and the British crews flew at night. A typical day for the American crews was to be up at 0300, go to a preflight briefing, pick up aircraft guns from where you slept, install the guns, fly to the target or secondary target, bomb the target or secondary, fly back to Naples, be individually debriefed, and be to bed at about 2300. Seven of his ten crew members served together through 53 missions, including raids on Bologna, Monte Cassino, Anzio in Italy; Regensburg (a ball bearing plant); Wiener-Neustadt (a Luftwaffe plane manufacturing plant); and, three different times, the oil fields near Ploiesti in Rumania. His crew was loaned to the Russians for their final three missions to help bomb German installations inside Russia. The crew was on the way back to the United States for a bond drive in their faithful plane when an engine caught file near Puerto Rico. All of their possessions were lost, but the men all survived. Paul was assigned to an area in Ohio until the war ended, and in 1945 was a Tech Sergeant. He came to Offutt in 1948, and was in Oklahoma City in the 1950s. Both of his brothers also survived the war. Don was a combat engineer in Europe, and Felix served on a mine sweeper in the North Atlantic. His comment when asked about what he wants his family to know about his time in the Armed Forces is, “The Service made a man out of me.” According to the Social Security Death Index, Paul Porter died July 28, 2008.
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