Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbas. Our guest in this edition is
Melvin Jenner. He is a retired Chief Master Sergeant in the United States Air
Force. He served as part of a B seventeen bomber crew and successfully served
on thirty one American bombing missions in the European theater, and as we'll soon
learn, he also took part in fifteen missions before that with the British.
Mister Jenner was also part of a flight over the beaches of Normandy that he
could not talk about until many years later. We'll also hear about his service
as part of the Berlin Airlift and being part of the crew that helped Chuck
Yeager achieve aviation immortality. But Jenner began our conversation by discussing his roots in
the Midwest. Born in Goodrich, Kota, I was just a baby when
my parents moved to Michigan. Was there a history of military service in your
family, No, not of it that I know of. Anyway, What
are your memories of hearing about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. At the
time of the attack, I was already in the Michigan International Guard and of
course Pearl Harbor happened, and it was long that the National Guard was mobilized
in the federal service. How did that change what you were doing in the
National Guard? I was, of course mobilized into the federal service. They
told us what would take place, that we would be to set to a
combat unit. And it wasn't long and I was gone to a gunnery school,
an air gunnery school, and after graduation from that in August, I
was put on a ship and set overseas. Now, at first you were
flying A twenties, correct, right, eight to Well, when we first
got over there, we had no airplanes. In fact, we didn't know
what type of airplane we would get. But a couple three weeks past and
we got the word that our airplanes would be Boston bombers or the A twenty.
Described the A twenty, well, the eight twenties, a twin engine,
fast, fast bomber. When we started flying combat out of the A
twenty, we never had any fighter problems because we were as fast as they
were. And of course when we was attacked by German fighters, we just
kicked her and Fanny and went home. At the age twenty that I was
in only had a pilot, and of course I was a radio gunner sitting
in the back, so there was only the two of us. Once our
bombs are gone, and we usually hit power stations and air dromes and marshaling
yards. And but once our bombs had gone we were we went to the
deck and started looking for convoys and trains and airfields that we could just shoot
up. Tell us about the job of a radio man. I was a
radio man, but never got a chance to use the radio except communicate with
the pilot. That was a break, because I was always very busy as
a gunter. What would you be communicating with the pilot? Well, the
only communication I had with a pilot was the intercom, and of course he
would be telling me what where we were going, or how fast we were
going, or what was up ahead, to be on the lookout for a
train that was still on the tracks. And that was it. What was
the range of the A twenty the furthest we ever went was France, and
once and a one went to Belgium and Holland, but most of the time
our missions were in France, and I flew a total of fifteen of those.
How did you receive your assignments for each mission. Well, we were
called into the commander's office and had a big map on the wall, and
of course they would tell us where we were going and the route. We
would show us the route we would take, and how many airplanes were going
to be in the mission, and where we would go after we dropped our
bombs, if we were going to do any sight seeing sort of, and
the way home. So just two crew members and it seems like a shorter
range than the bigger bombers, is that right? Oh? Yeah, our
missions. Our missions were at the most maybe three hours long, and of
course that was to our benefit because the show time we were over enemy territory,
the less chance they had of getting us. So, oh, I
was pretty happy about that. Were they fairly evasive? Yeah, they had
a good maneuverability. And the thing is was there speed? They was?
Like I said before, they were as fast as the German fighter and we
could outrun them or get away from So how much anti aircraft or flak did
you have to deal with? Most of our flat that we received in the
twenty was from airfields or a machine gun fire. Very seldom did we ever
incur any anti aircraft like the heavy bombers did, because we were always after
we had dropped our bombs, we were on a deck and we scooted it
along pretty good. Did you have to deal with German planes the Luftwaffe?
The ones that we would go after would be parked on the aerodrome, and
of course we'd go flying across an aerodrome and I would shoot at the planes
that was parked, and you know, once in the long one would break
into fire and had burned. But most of the time we just make one
or two passes over an aerodrome and the airplanes could not get up and get
to us, so we were pretty safe that way. Are there any missions
in the eight twenty that stand out in your mind? No, not really,
except one we went after and as we was going by, of course
I was firing at the box cards and we'd come up to the engine part
and we started firing as the engine and this one fella came to the door
and he started the waving and he was giving me the finger, so I
turned the gun on him and gave him a short burst and he fell out.
That afternoon, at our interrogation, I was telling our interrogation Ulcer about
this what had happened. And he said to me, he says, are
you sure that fireman wasn't going like this? And I says, well,
it didn't look like it. But that has been in my mind ever since
because the V victory sign was kind of a prominent in them days. What
caliber gun did you have? Some of the A twenties had thirty calibers,
but some of them had fifties in them, So it all depends on what
airplane is you had. But the Americans run out of airplanes, and of
course we had nothing to do. But the British had a squattern of eight
twenties and they call them the Boston Bomber. They were similar to the ones
that we had. So they transferred two of us two airplanes to the British
RAF and I flew with them, you know, for a total of fifteen
missions. Explain how you made the shift back to the beach seventeens, Okay,
after a certain period of time, and I don't remember how long we
were were with them, but it was two three months maybe, and we
got word that the my old squadron was going to get their airplanes, and
so that we went back to the to the base American base. Well,
it's just so happened. I don't know. The airplanes that we were supposed
to get went to North Africa, so I'm woman. We got the word
of it and it was announced that our airplanes were we wouldn't get our airplanes.
I went into my commander and asked if I could get a transfer and
he said it's to where, and I says it's to a B seventeen outfit,
And of course he looked at me and he says, Melly, says,
are you crazy? But I says, no, sir, I just
want to get it over with. Well, anyway, in a couple of
weeks, I had my orders to go to BE seventeen and it happened to
be the four to fifty second. When I reported it in to the squadron
commander, he said, I see by your records that you already have some
combat missions in the A twenty And I says yes, sir. He says,
I'll see if I can get you some credit for what you have.
Well, it just so happened that never happened. That's Melvin Jenner, a
US Air Force veteran of World War Two. The Berlin Airlift, and much
more still ahead. In this edition, Chief Master Sergeant Jenner takes us on
that flight over Normandy on D Day, tells the powerful story of his involvement
in the Berlin Airlift and what it was like to be part of the team
that helped Chuck Yeger break the sound barrier. Mister Jenner tells us what it
was like to switch to the B seventeen bomber, dealing with the enemy flack
and watching his friend get shot down. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans
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The project has been in the works for two years and it is expected to
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Nor worked at the Brown County Veteran Services Office for six years and would
get calls from veterans every day who were about to lose their homes or couldn't
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understood the struggles veteran's face. For more great veteran stories, just go to
National Defense Network dot com. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus.
Our guest in this edition is one hundred and one year old retired US Air
Force Chief Master Sergeant Melvin Jenner. In just a moment, we'll hear what
it was like to encounter deadly German anti aircraft fire more commonly known as flak.
We'll also hear how Jenner watched one of his good friends get shot down.
But we now pick up his story as mister Jenner describes what it was
like to finally join an American B seventeen bomber crew. When I joined up
be seventeen, I was centerson introduced to the pollen of the serplane and it
happened to be Lieutenant Walters, and he took me out to the airplane and
we walked around and talked about they had just arrived in England and had already
flown two missies, and he told me about some of the things that happened,
and it's just so everent. We went up for a couple rides in
the B seventeen the next few days, and we were scheduled to go on
a mission. On that first mission I had in the B seventeen. After
flying a total mission of three hours in the eight twenties, my first mission
lasted eleven hours and fifteen minutes. And on top of that, we lost
in our formation. We lost six airplanes. We landed back at the base
in England. I got out of the airplane, walked to the tail and
looked up at the sky and I says, oh, Lord, did I
do the right thing by asking for a transfer? You to this out.
But that has been with me ever ever since. But I was a member
of a wonderful, wonderful crew. Every time we flew, whether it was
a mission or a training floid or what. Every one of us switched around
to different positions and we learned to handle what was present at that time,
and I'm sure that that helped us to get by our thirty one missions.
Now, oftentimes the crew came together in the United States, and so were
you a replacement? I was a replacement in that because those crews were all
made back in the States. And I don't remember what happened to the guy
that I replaced, but somebody had told me that he he just couldn't handle
the first two missions, and he asked to be relieved. So this happens
once in a while, and nobody feels or you know, bad about losing
a crew with that way, if they can handle it, they don't need
it to be on an airplane. So did you still have both roles on
the B seventeen? Were you both radio man and gunner? Yeah? Yeah,
we know, we still do. My crew was we had finished and
we split up. It was many many years before I ever got back in
touch with any of the crew members, and of course by that time,
some of them have already passed away. And it wasn't long and I found
out that I was the only only man left from our Lady Satan airplane.
What was the name of your plane, Lady Satan? Really, how did
it get that name? I don't know. It was named that when I
got older. So on those missions, I'm guessing you did experience a lot
of flack. Oh yeah, fact, well you can't. You can't deal
with flack. You're either going to be a hit or you miss. But
I had a buddy that was in the same position as I was in the
twenty and him and I was the best of friends. And he liked to
drink a little bit and everyone. Once in a while he'd go to town
and the police air police would call and ask somebody from the square to go
get him, and it was always me that was set to get him.
But he was just that kind of a fella. And one day I was
walking to the mess hall after I was in the four fifty second and I
saw this man walking towards me and I said to the man that was with
me, I says, I know that man coming, I says, I
recognize the walk. Well, sure enough, it was this buddy of mine
named Oscar McClure. And I, of course I asked him what he's doing.
He says, well, you didn't think he was going to get away
from me, did you? Because he was with the Boston Bombers in the
RAF with me, and he was on his fourth mission and I was on
my tenth mission in the B seventeen. Of course, I was in the
left waist, and he happened to be flying in an airplane off of our
left wing, and he saw me, and he was a ball turning operator.
He saw me and he waved his guns at me. Of course I
weighed mine back. But about that time we started getting some flack, and
I duck behind the windowsill. And of course I don't know why, because
you know, the skin on an airplane it's not very thick. But anyway,
that lasted a minute or so, and I turned around to look out
the window again, and all I saw was a wing of an airplane and
with two engines on it, and it was props on. The wings were
still turned. And I looked over and I could see Oscar's airplane going into
a spin. And of course, you know, after so many times that
I would take care of Oscar when he was in trouble, it just stuck
with me that now I could not do anything to help me. I went
for about seventy years and could never even mention his name to anybody without just
coming to pieces. I joined a group of guys. There was about twenty
one guys, most of them were Marines and the Army. I was the
only air horse, and it was a couple of Navy guys, and every
one of us had PTSD. Once a week we'd meet, and I did
that for seventeen years. One by one, though every one of them,
twenty guys passed away, and I ended up the last one, and the
only one was still alive as the last one. Do you feel an obligation
to continue to tell your story in mass It sure does. I met.
I met somebody. I lived in Orleano, Florida, and I got a
telephone call from the marror's office stating that they were having a BE seventeen fly
into the city airport and they wanted to know if I would like to come
out and visit it that I said, sure, I sure would. Anyway,
I went on when this airplane landed, and as I was walking across
the ramp, this gentleman come on of me an office building that was close
by, and he started walking towards me and of course to that airplane.
And when I got to the airplane, he got there about the same time,
and he wanted to know if my name was mel Jenner, and I
said yes. His name was Gary and he was a lawyer in downtown Orlando,
and he wanted to know what I knew about to be seventeen. We
started a program. Gary would be sure to get me in all the parades.
That's retired US Air Force Chief Master Sergeant Melvin Jenner. When we come
back, Jenner tells us about flying over Normandy on D Day, flying in
the Berlin Airlift, and being part of the team that helped Chuck Yeger break
the sound barrier. That's all straight ahead. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is
Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is one hundred and one year old retired US Air Force Chief Master
Sergeant Melvin Jenner. In just a moment, we'll hear all about Jenner's hush
hush flight over Normandy on D Day and what he saw from above that day.
He'll also tell the emotional story of his involvement in the Berlin Airlift.
But up next the first part of his story on having a front row seat
to history. As Chuck Yeger broke the sound barrier, I was stationed after
the war. I was stationed at Edwards' Air Force Space, Edward's Air Force
Spaces, a flight school and expert in the old station. And I flew
with guys like Chuck Yager when he broke the sound barrier, put them in
this airplane in this be twenty nine, and I'd get him in there and
make sure he was all secured and the door was locked properly, and I'd
give him a big salute and we'd drop him out of the bombay. And
I did this for I don't know a dozen times. Probably was Chuck.
He was a wonderful winner whole pilot. Was there any concern about what would
happen when he broke the sound barrier? No, not a bit, as
far as I know. He just put the cold to the meddle and the
way he went. We're going to get to some of the things you did
after the war in just a moment, but I want to go back to
your time in World War Two for a few more questions. After you shifted
to the Best seventeen. Are there any missions that stand out as particularly harrowing
or memorable. I went to Berlin six times, and Berlin was the most
heavily defended city at that time in the world. And when I mentioned something
about going to Berlin and they said, well, how did you survive?
I don't know. All did our job like we were supposed to do,
and it wasn't easy, and sometimes we were hit and sometimes we were hit
hard. And I remember a couple times when my pilot would say, well,
we had an engine out and one is not working too good, and
he said, right over the hill is Switzerland or Norway or one of those
cities neutral cities. He says, we could go over there and beyond the
war for the rest of the war, but he says, we have to
all agree to go. There was a couple times when I said, oh,
I think we can get back, and of course Duc Wallers would say
did everybody hear that. They said yes. He said, well we're going
to try to get back, and of course we did. But this happened
a couple times with a lot of guys too. Says, oh, we
can make it back, and we were lucky enough we did. When you
come under fire with the flack, what does that sound like? It sounds
like to me that like you're in a tin can and somebody throwing rock.
Says, you can hear every burst, and you can hear the shrap will
when it hits the airplane. Now, your very last mission was doing reconnaissance
over Normandy on D Day. Tell me about that. I had finished my
tour. The crew had two missions ahead of me. So when they finished
and Duck Wallers buzzed the field and did a wonderful job. But when he
buzzed the field, the commander drove up to the airplane and he says,
Lieutenant, he says, that was a wonderful buzz job you did. But
he said, if you ever do it again, he says, I'm gonna
bust you. After that, we were waiting for a trip back to the
States because we were finished, and one evening my plant came into the Quartzet
Hunt where we where we were quartered, and he's his it. They have
asked him to be the pillen of an airplane that they needed to go on
with special mission, and he says it won't be our lady Satan. But
he says I don't have any idea what airplane it's going to be. And
he says, they want me to get a crew together. He says there
will be a couple special observers that's going to be flying along with us,
and he says, I want you to think about it for a while.
He says, you don't have to go if you don't want to, but
he says I'd appreciate it if you did go. So after a period of
time he came back and I says, I'll to go with you. Well,
they're just so appen he i. And he was the only one from
our crew that agreed to do this, but he had worked up a crew
and we took off the next morning, and of course we for weeks we
had seen the build up out in the channel in the North Sea where all
these ships were, and we knew what was going to take place, but
of course we didn't say anything about it to anybody. But anyway, we
got to the coast of France on this mission and there was just thousands of
ships and the men were already going to shore and some of them were in
the water. So we started flying up and down the coast of France.
We had this special observation crew up in the nose. They were I think
two colonels whatever they were. But we did this for a month three hours,
and then we turned around and went back to our home base. But
I saw things in the water that unbelievable, like tanks in the water.
Out of a dozen tanks, I think two or three maybe made it ashore,
the rest of them all went down, and of course a lot of
boys didn't make it. Their bodies looked like logs in the water, and
it was just very, very heartbreaking. But well said, no that it
could happen so quick we got back to the base, and my pallet says,
don't ever say anything, ain't to anybody about what you saw. And
I carried it along for many, many, many years. But I was
so grateful that I had a chance to witness what I did. I thank
our heavily pot for their riding with me. It was quite an experience,
and a lot of people always said, well, how did you survive?
Well, I just had somebody taken care of me. And you know the
best thing about it was a couple of years after the war was over,
I was selected to go to Germany for the Berlin, and of course my
job was at that time was not flying anymore. I was in charge of
an engine build up shop. But periodically one of my friends would come to
me and says, mell, you want to take my mission tomorrow, and
I said sure, Or sometimes they just say you want to go with us?
I said sure, and I'd fly in the Germany in the temple Hof
and we had a load of cold or all the food you can think of.
You know, we probably started dropping candy to the children. Lieutenant Halbertson
was the guy that started that. One day, there was a little boy
there with his sister. His sister was four years old and he was I
think eight, and we dropped our candy bars and they had little parachutes on
them, and you know, and they'd flowed down. This boy caught one
of the parachutes and had a candy bar on it, and he turned around
and gave his sister the candy bar and she took a bite of it.
It was the first time she had ever tasted chocolate. Well, many,
many, many years later, I lived in Wintergarten, Florida, and my
wife was going to church there in Windergarten. She had my car parked in
the drive at church, and this lady got out of her got out of
the church and went to her car to get something out of it to take
back, and she was a school teacher. She got something out of the
trunk of her car and turned around and right behind her was my car.
And I had a bumper sticker on the back of my car that says Berlin
Airlift nineteen forty eight nineteen forty nine. Well she saw that, She said
she almost passed out because she had never met a veteran from the Berlin Airlift.
She went back in and asked the pastor of the church if he knew
who belonged to that car, and he says, no, he didn't,
but he would find out. Anyway. He did find out, and somebody
says, well, that was missus Jenner's car and her husband was a Berlin
Airlift. Well, it so happened that we made arrangements to meet, and
one day I went to the it was destroying. I got the largest Hershey
candy bar you get sick. I guess it was about five pounds. But
anyway, we made arrangements to meet at the church on Sunday, and I
was going to the first Baptist church in Orlando at that time. And after
this service was over, I drove home, picked up that candy bar,
and went to the Wintergarden. And when I got to Windygarden there was people
outside the church. They had got word that there was going to be a
pretty important meetia. I parked the car in the drive. They got out,
of course, and the pastor come walking towards me, and he pointed
me down this sidewalk where there was a group of people. I started walking
with towards that one lady that was walking towards me, and as we met
her, eyes started crime. And of course I was two, I guess,
I said I, And I called her name and said I gave her
that candy bar. Well, it just so happened that lady was in her
early seventies. All those years, from the time she was four years old,
she'd always wanted to beat Oh, I bet her from the Berlin Airlift.
And of course a lot of times when I was out telling my story
and I would tell this story about the Berlin Airlift, she was in the
audience with my wife sitting here, and I'd walk off the stage down to
where she was sitting and I would reach one hand and grab her and take
her out into the aisle and I said, ladies and gentlemen, this is
that for your old girls. Oh boy, it was very nice. Tell
me a little bit more about the Chuck Yeger story, because that was such
a huge event at the time. Well, Chuck Yeger, you know,
he was a captain, and so whenever he'd come out to fly an airplane,
he just come out, get out of his the jeep or whatever,
and he'd just go up there, you know, and we'd all go over
to him and tell him, you know, wish him luck, and especially
in a BE twenty nine, and we'd all get inside the airplane and the
crew would take off, and after we'd get to us their altitude, we'd
go back to the bombay and put him in the in the X one,
get him in there, and I'd make sure that he was in there good
and the seat was properly positioned and uh, and then closed up the canopy
and he'd give me this signal, Okay, I'd give him a big salute.
I'd walk back into the cockpit. When we got the certain altitude,
the altitude they was looking for, bombay doors and out he would come and
it wouldn't take him too long, and he was going. What was the
reaction when he broke us the way? All everybody just clapped, everybody because
everybody, you know, everybody could see what was going on, and of
course everybody on the ground was, I'm sure was doing the same thing.
To be twenty nine. Then would go back and land, and we'd get
out of the airplane and everybody would clap, and it wouldn't be long before
here he coming back over the field. But you know, at that time,
who would have thought, you know, eighty years later, here you
are telling that story. I love telling this story, and I couldn't always
do that because of the problem with PTSD. I've had so many want to
put people that work with me and help me, and I just kind of
thank the Good Lord for sparing me. What are you most proud of from
your time in the service. Most proud of I think the time that I
spent on the Berlin airlived. We fought that Germans for you know, four
five years. I'm sure that there was times when we did things that we
just had to do. I've seen and talked to a number of German people
and they says, what a wonderful group. They would bomb the Germans like
we did in the Eighth Air Force, and two or three years later turn
around and load a bunch of coal and food into sea fifty pores and make
them landing every three minutes. Every three minutes, we had a seat fifty
four land and unload their coal, had food and every kind of commodity that
you can think of. I think what President Too said, we're staying because
the Russians was trying to run us out. That was the greatest humanitarian saying
the United States has ever done, as far as I know. And I'm
just so proud that I had a little bit of hand. Well, mel
it's an incredible story, and you tell it so compellingly. Thank you very
much for your time. Thank you, sir, and thank you most of
all for your service. Thank you, thank you. We've been speaking with
Melvin Jenner, a US Army Air Forces veteran and a US Air Force veteran.
He served in World War Two. Served as part of a B seventeen
bomber crew. Also successfully survived thirty one bombing missions in the B seventeen in
edition to fifteen in the A twenty also took part in the Berlin Airlift and
was present at Chuck Yeager's breaking of the sound barrier shortly after World War Two.
I'm Greg Corumbus. This is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg
Corumbus, and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of the American
Veterans Center. For more information, please visit American Veteranscenter dot org. You
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