Page 24 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2021- Online Magazine

high altitude).” 1st
Lieutenant Naylor
and his crew went
on to fly 30 bombing
missions over
Germany.

As the war was
winding down in
Europe in May 1945,
Naylor was given
a choice – fly back
to the states or ride
back on a boat. “I
picked the boat.”
After docking in New
York Harbor, they
(the Army Air Corps)
wanted me to stay
in the military and
said that I could be a
assigned to the 490th Air Group, 61st Squadron. Lieutenant Colonel in
Everyone was assigned a code name; mine was six months and go to the War College if I would take
‘Broomstick Charlie’. I have no idea where that came a job in Washington, D.C. or Barksdale, Louisiana.
from. I remember having to travel on a train to Diss When they said my flying days were over, and the
(England) to take a bath. The bath was free, but you job was to be strictly administration, I answered, ‘I’m
had to pay a half a crown for the towel! a pilot; I don’t shuffle paper!’”

“On our first B-24 bombing run, we lost an engine After his service, Wilford went back to Wichita Falls
over a target in Germany. The rest of the planes went where Vera had been staying. “I tried working at a
off and left me. I was trying to keep the plane level. laundry called ‘Tidee-Didee Laundry’. They picked
We kept pretty busy keeping the plane in the air and up and cleaned
barely made it back (to Eye). We were running out of diapers. That
fuel, and one of the other engines quit. We saw the didn’t last long. I
air base under the cloud and landed with only two eventually went
engines.” to Texas Tech in
Lubbock. I had two
After five missions in a B-24, Naylor’s crew switched years of college
to the bigger B-17 Flying Fortress. He recalls one when I got a severe
mission over Germany where his plane “received eye infection and
flak, and it broke my oxygen bottle which severed had to drop out.
the hose, so I had to use walk-around bottles of Vera had worked
oxygen. Our targets were mostly rail yards and for the MKT
transportation sites. We may have hit an ammunition (Missouri, Kansas,
dump – it sure made a big explosion. On one flight, Texas) known as
our tail gunner was having trouble with his oxygen the ‘Katy’ Railroad
mask. He passed out once, and when we took off in Wichita Falls
his oxygen mask, his nose was frostbitten (from the

24 Lubbock Senior Link