Page 111 - Lubbock Senior Link Magazine Fall 2019- Online Magazine

world war ii
engines and one of the wings caught fire. The plane
was a flying firebomb. The pilot couldn’t land, so
he tried to gain some altitude so they could get rid
of the dangerous cargo. Then the bomb bay doors
jammed, and Skeet heard, “Hey, you!” “I was the
only one small enough to fit through the hatch to
use the manual crank to open the door. The side
gunner from Georgia was hollering, ‘Lawd! Lawd!’
I told him not to worry, that I’d spoken with Him
that morning.” After Skeet successfully opened
the bomb bay manually, he crawled back inside.
The alarm was blaring, “Get ready to bail!” but the
pilot activated the built-in fire extinguisher on the
engine, closed the flaps around it, and the fire went
out. With the bay open, he triggered the “salvo
switch” to dump the cargo. Miraculously, they
were able to unload all the bombs, and the pilot
returned the crew safely to the base. When asked if
he was frightened, Skeet said, “What good does it
do to get scared? I already told you I talked to the
Lord that morning and told Him where we’d be.”
Skeet was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross
- a military decoration given to any member of the
United States Armed Forces who “distinguished
himself by heroism or extraordinary achievement
while participating in an aerial flight.”
After the war ended, Skeet flew all around Japan
taking photos for Air Force records. “It was still
burning,” he remembered. The crew flew home
army air corps
to California in the middle of the night but was
directed to an airport with an inadequate runway.
“The plane was practically buried in mud.” They
were loaded onto an old coal-fired troop train,
and by the time they reached El Paso, they were
covered in black soot. He was to be discharged in
San Antonio, but he went to Pampa to get Louise
first. When they arrived in San Antonio, it was
New Year’s Eve, and no one was there to sign the
papers. So, he and Louise were put up for the night
in the historic Gunter Hotel and told to come back
after New Year’s.
After being discharged, Skeet was hired by Mobil
Oil Co. “They asked me if I minded moving. Louise
and I moved 27 times in three years. She didn’t
divorce me. She
was quite a gal.” He
worked for Mobil Oil
for 40 years in the
pipeline department,
the right-of-way
department and
in the claims
department where
huge settlements
were made. The man
who never finished
high school “wasn’t
scared of the big
boys. Not one claim I
was involved in was
ever challenged.” He attributes his success to his
willingness to do whatever was asked of him, like
crawling through the hatch on a flying firebomb.
He also learned to “find out who was running stuff
and get to know them.”
Mobil moved the Pollacks around quite a bit.
Among the places he lived were Corsicana,
Seminole, Kilgore and Midland, TX, Vivian, LA
and Lovington, NM, but Skeet made friends
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