A World War II bomber tail gunner who was sure he would never live to come home - is planning to attend two celebrations this year honoring the outfit he served in and the plane he flew in, the B-24 Liberator bomber.
Joseph M. Hebert, 65, Salt Lake City, a retired General Electric Industrial Sales Division employee, survived enemy flak and fighter planes' cannon fire during 36 missions in North Africa and Italy."Nobody was more surprised than me that I made it home in one piece. I had heard about fear when I was a boy, but I didn't know anything about it. I learned what fear was inside that rear gun turret.
"When they told me, on Aug. 14, 1944, that I had enough missions under my belt and could go home, I don't think there was a happier man alive."
His Liberator, named Salvo Sally after the pilot's year-old daughter, and its crew were lucky, Hebert said. "Six weeks after our crew returned to the States, I heard that the bomber had been shot down over Yugoslavia. I never learned if any of the new crew survived."
A veteran of the 826th Bomb Squadron, 484th Bomb Group of the 15th Army Air Force, Hebert will attend a 15th Air Force reunion Aug. 13-17 in Las Vegas, Nev., and will go to San Diego, Calif., Sept. 20-24, for a special salute to the Liberator bomber.
"Bob Hope will attend our unit reunion in Las Vegas and the salute to the Liberator in September will include a thorough discussion of this famous plane."
Hebert said the Liberator was designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego in 1939. "The Navy called them PB4Y-1. They were four-engined bombers and more of them were built than any other American military plane.
"Factories in San Diego, Fort Worth and Dallas, Tex., Willow Run, Mich., and Tulsa, Okla., made more than 18,500 of them by the end of the war in 1945. The Liberator was the workhorse in the Pacific, Alaska, Europe, the Mediterranean, Southeast Asia and the North and South Atlantic."
He said the Liberator sank more enemy submarines than any other plane. Many were produced as cargo planes. "Winston Churchill used a Liberator for his travels.
"The liberator had a crew of 10: a pilot, co-pilot, bombardier and navigator, who were officers; the radio operator and flight engineer, who doubled as waist gunners; and four gunners. It had 10 50-caliber machine guns: one waist gun on each side of the plane and two each in the nose, in the tail, in a ball turret on the bottom of the plane and in the upper turret on top of the plane."
Hebert grew up in Oregon and South Bend, Ind., where he graduated from high school. He was drafted into the Army in Indiana Feb. 4, 1943, when he was 18. After basic training, he saw a notice on a barracks bulletin board saying the Army Air Force needed aircraft gunners - at a pay of $96 a month.
"I was making $54 a month, so I signed up and was sent to gunnery school. After graduation, I was sent to southeastern Italy, to a small air base called Torretto, about 10 miles from a little town called Cerigola. We flew one bombing mission out of North Africa. All the rest were from Italy.
"Our Liberator could carry 4,500 pounds of bombs. I can't remember all the places we bombed, but some of our targets were Lyon, Marseille, Toulon and Avignon in France; Zagreb, Yugoslavia; Blechhammer and Munich, Germany; Piombino, Italy; Ploesti and Bucharest, Romania; Vienna and Weiner Neustadt, Austria; and Budapest, Hungary."
Hebert said he and his crew always flew in a formation of from 24 to 30 Liberator bombers. "We had some fighter cover part of the way - a little ways going out, when we were over the target and part of the way back.
"Several formations of planes would fly to the target at an altitude of from 22,000 to 27,000 feet. Each formation would be five minutes apart and each would fly over the target at a different altitude so the enemy gunners on the ground would have to keep changing their range.
"Most of the time it was cold in the tail gun position, even with the heat on and working. We had electrically heated suits like a bunny rabbit outfit. When the heat went off and the suits didn't work you practically froze to death.
"I'd sit down in the rear turret and hold onto the air cooled Browning machine gun handles. They were like bicycle handlebar grips. I could control the side-to-side movement of the turret and the up and down movement of the two 50-caliber machine guns.
"Once we were over the target, we'd throw metal strips of confetti - like tinsel on a Christmas tree - out of the plane to confuse the enemy's radar. Sometimes in the heat of battle all the planes would be throwing out so much metal confetti you could practically walk on it. I don't know if it ever worked or not. We took plenty of anti-aircraft hits. All the planes did.
"When enemy planes attacked us, I'd start shooting my twin 50s. The empty cartridges flew out of the gun outside the plane. They must have littered the ground below. Each machine gun could fire 650 rounds a minute.
"If your plane got shot up and couldn't keep up with the formation, you were a sitting duck for enemy fighters. All of our missions were bad. We always got flak from enemy 88 millimeter anti-aircraft guns and got holes all over the plane. And enemy planes hit us with their machine guns, too.
"I'll never forget May 10, 1944. We were over Austria. There was so much flak I practically went deaf from the noise, and there were so many explosions and so many fighters and so much going on outside it was maddening.
"We lost two engines. We could still fly. The Liberator was a great plane. But we couldn't keep up with the formation on the way home. We were dog meat. But we were lucky. We made it home. I could never figure out how, though.
"When we landed, I knew I would never live through the war. But I did. I never figured out the why of that, either."
Back in the States, Hebert was a gunnery instructor in Texas until the war ended. After the war, he joined the Air Force Reserve, graduated from college and became an officer. He retired from the reserves in 1963 as a captain.
"After the war, everybody in our crew kept in touch. I palled around with the ball turret gunner - Edward McDonnell, of San Antonio, Texas - and married Ed's sister, Eleanor, in 1949."
Hebert joined General Electric Co. in 1950, was transferred around the country for several years and came to Salt Lake City 24 years ago.
Those who would like more information about the two reunions can contact the 15th Air Force Association, Box 6325, March Air Force Base, Calif., 92518, or the B-24 Liberator Club, Box 15-2424, San Diego, Calif., 92115.