The Bomber Boys (34 page)

A close inspection of the flak damage proved just how lucky the crew of
The Stork Club
had been. The twenty-millimeter explosions had missed the internal fuel tank by a mere six inches. A direct hit on the fuel tank could have blown away the wing. At four hundred feet, there would have been no time for any of the crew to bail out.

Fate had spared the men of
The Stork Club,
but questions remained: Why had the Germans fired on them? Would the incident affect the truce or even stop the mercy missions to Holland? The latter question was answered quickly by the Eighth Air Force headquarters. The Chowhound relief missions would continue. In fact, Mike Swana’s crew would participate in three more flights aboard a new bomber.

There would be no further incidents with the Germans, who claimed the 550th Bomb Squadron had ventured out of the designated flight area on May 2. Bob and everyone else in the 550th knew this was a lie, because
The Stork Club
had just finished dropping food on the racetrack infield when it had been hit. The truth of why the German gunner had fired on their bomber would never be known.

On May 7, 1945, the incident at the Hilversum racetrack, along with other events of World War II, became a part of history. The war in Europe, half of the greatest armed conflict the world has ever known, officially came to an end at 2:41 a.m. that day (the Japanese would surrender in August). The men who had taken part in operations Manna and Chowhound were told they should be proud of what they had accomplished. In a single week, British bombers had dropped 7,029 tons of food and the American Fortresses had contributed another 4,155 tons. Tens of thousands of Dutch citizens had been saved from starvation.

Before they packed to head back to the States, Swana’s crew paid a visit to an old friend. Bob walked underneath the nose of the bomber with the familiar painting of a stork. He climbed through the hatch as he had done so often before. Inside, he retrieved a string of rosary beads that hung over his navigator’s table.

Maybe I should leave them here in the old girl,
Bob thought.
No, the war is over for her, too.
The war
was
over for them all—the airmen in Europe who had given their lives, the airmen who
had survived the long odds, the ground crews who had kept them flying and the families and loved ones who had waged a war of waiting at home. And yes, the war was also over for
The Stork Club—
the last Eighth Air Force bomber to be hit by German antiaircraft fire during World War II.

Bob Valliere
returned to Michigan State University and graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1948. After graduation, he maintained a long-distance relationship with Nancy Dalzell, a fetching coed he had met during his junior year. Bob and Nancy were married on June 24, 1950. Later that summer, he took his new bride to her first major league baseball game. She was quite impressed with her new husband when he introduced her to Leo Durocher, who was by then the manager of the New York Giants. Bob assured Nancy that his cousin Leo would someday lead the Giants to a World Series championship. Four years later, Durocher did.

The newlyweds made their home in Brooklyn, and Bob joined his grandfather’s importing business in New York City. Bob would spend the next forty-five years building and improving the company. He traveled the world searching for new and unique products, and Nancy happily went along with him. In 1952, Nancy gave birth to Patricia Valliere. A second daughter, Roberta, was born two years later.

The year 1985 was a busy one for the Vallieres. Bob moved the import company that he now headed to New Haven, Connecticut, where he had built a new headquarters. The family celebrated Bob’s sixtieth birthday in August. However, a phone call shortly afterward began the most monumental event of that year and one of the most memorable events of Bob’s life.

The man on the other end of the line identified himself as the secretary of the Dutch Freedom Committee. Twenty-eight American and British bomber veterans were being invited to come to the Netherlands for the fortieth anniversary of the Chowhound and Manna relief missions. Bob was both surprised and pleased that there were people in Holland who still remembered. He accepted the invitation, unprepared for the reception he and the rest of the former airmen were about to experience from people they had once helped but had never met.

Serving as representatives of all the airmen of Chowhound and Manna, the twenty-eight visitors were honored by the Dutch in ceremonies and with medals. There were dinners, parties and tours of the small towns and villages that had benefited from the food drops. As rewarding as the official events were, for Bob, nothing compared to actually meeting the people who had waved to the Allied bombers as they had dropped food forty years before.

Many who came to shake his hand remarked that though they had been mere children in May 1945, the memory of the friendly bombers was still vivid. Smiling strangers pressed pictures and small items into the hands of the American and British veterans. As Bob and Nancy returned to their hotel one evening, he discovered his jacket pockets were filled with these little gifts. A decorative tile caught his eye. Hand-painted on one side of the tile was a Dutch windmill. Bob turned the tile over and he could not stop the tears that came to his eyes. When Nancy noticed his reaction, he showed her the words that were written on the back of the tile: “Thanks for saving my life.”

Ten years later, the Dutch government invited all living air veterans of the Chowhound and Manna missions to Holland for a second celebration. What had begun in 1985 as a heartfelt but contained anniversary commemoration had become a national holiday of appreciation by 1995. Bob and the other visiting airmen
rode in vintage WWII Jeeps through the streets of Rotterdam, while ticker tape rained down and an estimated five hundred thousand spectators cheered them as heroes.

Bob closed his import company in 1993 and retired to spend more time with Nancy. For the next ten years, the Vallieres lived happily in Branford, Connecticut, enjoying their five grandchildren. Bob was active as the treasurer of the Connecticut Chapter of the Eighth Air Force Historical Society. In 1985, he became director of the Chowhound organization, a position he held for more than ten years, and from 1995 to 1997 he served as president of the 385th Bomb Group Association. Nancy Valliere passed away in 2003. Bob Valliere continued to live in Connecticut near his two daughters until his death on January 7, 2006.

Michael Swana
earned a degree in physics from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. After college, he found work with the General Telephone & Electronics Corporation, where he remained for more than thirty years. Swana became a valuable member of GT&E’s equipment design department, often working on classified radar and communications systems for the U.S. government.

In 1952, Swana married Phyliss Bukowski. The couple raised three sons (Michael, David and Steven) and three daughters (Linda, Susan and Mary Ellen). The Swanas were rewarded with seven grandchildren. Phyliss Swana passed away in 1978, and Linda (Swana) Allard passed away in 2008.

Mike Swana retired in 1987. He currently lives in Stow, Massachusetts, and in recent years has enjoyed travel to the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, Israel and Italy.

Leonard Weinstein
resumed his college studies after the war, earning a BA in business from New York University. He found employment as an insurance broker and soon opened his own insurance agency in New York City.

In 1961 Leonard married Sheila Finkel. The couple’s first child, Rita, was born in 1961. Their first boy, Bruce, was born in 1964 and another daughter, Amy, in 1965. The Weinsteins raised their children in the Dix Hills community of Long Island, where Leonard had relocated his insurance business. Leonard and Sheila Weinstein separated in 1998.

Leonard now lives with his son, Bruce (and Bruce’s wife, Celeste, and their two children), in Fairfax, Virginia. He enjoys playing Ping-Pong and pool at the local senior center and spending time with his grandchildren.

Crew Reunion
: During the mid-1950s, Bob Valliere and Michael Swana met again at a 385th Bomb Group Association gathering in New York City. Over the years, Bob visited his former pilot in Massachusetts, and Swana maintained a correspondence and telephone contact with Charlie DuShane.

Bob and Marvin Hydecker became even closer friends in the postwar years. Decades following the war and after Hydecker had retired to Florida, Bob paid a visit. Displayed prominently in his friend’s home was a string of rosary beads that Bob’s mother had sent to Hydecker back when he was a young bombardier.

In 2008, a twelve-year-old boy named Kalman Weinstein was passing time doing an Internet search of his grandfather’s name. The search took Kalman to
TheBomberBoys.com
, where he discovered a photo of three World War II airmen—his grandfather, Bob Valliere and Michael Swana. The Weinstein family contacted the author of
The Bomber Boys
to inform him that Leonard Weinstein, of the
The Stork Club
aircrew in the picture, was alive and well. As a result of young Kalman’s interest in his family’s history, former B-17 pilot Mike Swana and former B-17 radio operator and gunner Leonard Weinstein were reunited via telephone.

Author’s Research Note

The primary research sources used in writing
The Bomber Boys
were individual in-person interviews conducted by the author with the five main subjects. Ahern, Frechette, Seniawsky (Scott), Teta and Valliere were each interviewed (and recorded) for a minimum of five hours, beginning in 2001. In addition, follow-up interviews, both in-person and via telephone, were conducted as needed until the book’s completion in 2004. The author estimates that the total interview time for these five men exceeds forty hours.

Also contacted and interviewed were the living former crewmates of the five main subjects. Armstrong, Chart, Cuffman, Duke, Lyon, Pearson, Pogorzelski, Swana and Weinstein each participated in numerous telephone interviews. Spodar was interviewed in person. Sons and daughters of former airmen, now deceased, provided additional details of their fathers’ postwar lives (and occasionally their wartime memories).

Due to the volume and lengthy time span of the interviews, the author has chosen not to list individual interviews as part of the bibliography and hopes his explanation of his interview process will be sufficient to the reader.

It is the author’s intention to eventually offer the actual audio recordings of
The Bomber Boys
interviews to the U.S. National Archives in Washington, D.C., or to the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah, Georgia.

Ahern, Frechette, Seniawsky, Teta and Valliere, as well as Cuffman, provided official wartime documents, letters or diaries that were used in research. These items are listed in the bibliography under the name of the person who provided them. Pearson and Pogorzelski contributed memoirs that have previously appeared in veterans organizations’ newsletters. These are listed under Articles in the bibliography.

Selected Bibliography

Angelillo, Barbara Walsh and Sullivan, George / Andrews, Robert / Davenport, Giuliana / Davenport, Fionn.
Italy ’97: The Complete Guide with the Great Cities, Tuscan Hill Towns and Renaissance Treasures.
New York: Fodor’s. 1996.

Angelucci, Enzo and Matricardi, Paolo / Pinto, Pierluigi.
Complete Book of World War II Combat Aircraft.
New York: Barnes & Noble. 2001.

Baily, Ronald H. and the editors of Time-Life Books.
The Air War in Europe (WWII).
Chicago: Time-Life Books. 1981.

Baily, Rosemary (Project Editor).
France (Eyewitness Travel Guides).
New York: Dorling Kindersley. 1994.

Bishop, Cliff T. and Stanley D. Bishop.
Fortresses of the Big Triangle First.
East Anglia Books. 1986.

Breeden, Robert L. (Editor).
The Alps.
Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society. 1973.

Caidin, Martin.
Flying Forts: The B-17 in World War II.
New York: Ballantine Books. 1968.

Castiglioni, Dr. Manlio (Chief Editor).
The International Atlas.
Chicago: Rand McNally & Company. 1969.

Cooksley, Peter G.
Flying Bomb: The Story of Hitler’s V-Weapons in World War II.
New York: Scribner, 1979.

Craven, John V.
The 305th Bomb Group in Action: An Anthology.
Burleson, TX: 305th Bombardment Group (H) Memorial Association. 1990.

Daniel, Clifton (Editor in Chief).
Chronicle of the 20th Century.
Paris: Jacques Legrand International and Mount Kisco, NY: Chronicle. 1987.

Editors of Fodor Travel Publications.
Fodor’s France 2002.
New York: Fodor’s Travel. 2001.

Hess, William N. and Johnsen, Frederick A. / Marshall, Chester.
Great American Bombers of WWII.
Osceola, WI: MBI Publishing Company. 1998.

Jablonski, Edward.
Flying Fortress: The Illustrated Biography of the B-17s and the Men Who Flew Them.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company. 1965.

Keegan, John.
The Second World War.
New York: Viking Penguin. 1990.

Matthews, Georgina (Managing Editor).
Italy (Eyewitness Travel Guides).
New York: Dorling Kindersley. 1996.

Miller, Russell (and the editors of Time-Life Books).
The Resistance.
Chicago: Time-Life Books. 1997.

Morrison, Wilbur H.
Fortress Without a Roof: The Allied Bombing of the Third Reich.
New York: St. Martin’s Press. 1982.

Overy, Richard.
Why the Allies Won.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 1995.

Read, Anthony and Fisher, David.
The Fall of Berlin.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 1992.