Page 28 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2024 - Online Magazine

worLD war ii

Homer Jones

The Long Road Home omer Jones was born “on the farm” near
Slaton, Texas on April 23, 1923, as one of
H9 children. He graduated from Slaton
High School in 1941. He enlisted in the Army Air
Corp in December, 1942, because he “wanted to
learn to fly.” His basic training was at Kelly Air
Field in San Antonio where he trained on a PT-19
(Primary Trainer). Due to depth perception issues,
Homer “washed out” of flight school but wanted to
remain in some flight capacity. He then trained at
Ft. Stockton and Scott Field in Illinois for radio and
Morse Code. Then it was on to Yuma, Arizona, for
gunnery school and Tucson for combat and crew
training. This is where Homer found out he would
be flying in a B-24 which consisted of a crew of ten.

Homer’s war began with a flight from Tucson to
Bangor, Maine, where the crew then began the long
trek to Europe. They flew over Newfoundland,
Azores Island, Casablanca, North Africa and
finally on to their base in Foggia, Italy. His first
mission was in September, 1944, where they flew to
bomb a railroad yard in Yugoslavia. They flew 21
straight missions, one every night for three weeks.
While the allies “owned the skies,” they were still
subject to flak on every mission. Homer said that
“when the flak hit your plane, there was shrapnel
flying everywhere.” Their luck finally ran out on
September 24th, 1944, when they were shot down
over Saloniki, Greece. All the crew, except the pilot,
parachuted out together. Homer said this was his
scariest moment in the war. He said he “didn’t
like jumping six feet, much less jumping out of a
spiraling plane going down!” His crew was taken
prisoner by the Germans upon landing. They later
found out that the pilot of the plane, James Cameron,
had jumped out later and was being hidden from the
Germans by Greek mountain people. Homer and his
crew were interrogated by the Germans immediately
upon capture. Their primary mission was to bomb
the ports and railroad yards to disrupt supply
This article (from 2015) is the second shipments to German troops. They were then loaded
of ten articles we are reprinting to on a train and headed to Germany. Even this was
celebrate Senior Link's decade of a harrowing trip as the train was being bombed by
honoring area veterans. Yugoslavian troops and to add insult to injury, they
were even strafed by American P-51’s. They finally
made it to their prison camp just inside the Austrian
border. The camp held 3000 Russian soldiers and
only 56 American and British. He stayed in this
camp until he and one of his crew, Wilson Leon,

28 Lubbock Senior Link