Page 22 - The Jewish Voice - April '24

Page 22, The Jewish Voice

arts & entertainment

Try to picture in
Book Review your mind, on a single but it didn’t stop him from flying; he was back in action
the next day. The author notes, “My father’s frostbite,
I Will Tell No War Stories: What Our Fathers mission, the staggering three weeks shy of his twentieth birthday, would bother
Left Unsaid About World War II sight of as many as 1,400 him for the rest of his life. It was on his bad left hand.
B-24 bombers filling
Into his nineties, he was seeing doctors to have parts cut
By Nils A. Shapiro the skies (plus hundreds off. When I asked him why he was seeing a doctor for his
As we near the century of roving escort fighter hand, he said only, ‘It’s nothing. An inconvenience.’”
mark since the end of World planes), in a carefully Between what was for some a terror that was so intense
War II only two decades from organized formation, it would last a lifetime, for others a guilt at the realization
now, we have all seen many often with fewer than that their job was to kill over and over again, we begin to
movies and read books about 100 feet between wing understand in these pages why so many World War II veterans
what our military forces tips, and—for fear of could never speak about their wartime experiences to anyone
experienced during those crashing into their own but each other for the rest of their lives.
years in combat overseas. very close bombers— Here is one more brief excerpt that provides a glimpse of
But what has been being unable to move what it was like in the skies of World War II:
strangely missing is out of position despite “Sometimes the planes would blow up, the bombs aboard
a n e xpl a n a t i o n, a nd being attacked by enemy fighter planes and flak from ground- exploding, or the fuel in the tanks, or both … The aircraft splits
understanding, of why our veterans—those who survived to based anti-aircraft cannons. into pieces of metal … You might see bodies … Men, pinned to
return home when so many did not—locked their wartime Equally tense was the situation for the onboard gunners the walls and floor by the centrifugal force of a spinning plane
memories within themselves, refusing to discuss such whose job was to protect themselves and their crews from had little time to escape before the bomber hit the ground …
experiences with family or friends for the rest of their lives. the attacks of enemy fighter planes. Some of the following The crews in other bombers could only watch as men fell five
One of today’s finest historians and most skillful text has been deleted for lack of space here and been replaced miles down through bombers and fighters in battle, fell without
researchers, Howard Mansfield, grew up in that kind of home. by ellipses (…). a parachute or with a parachute on fire, or were machine-
His father, Pincus Mansfield, had joined the Army Air Force “The big problem was the obvious one: aiming the gunned to death as they hung from a parachute.”
in 1943 at the age of 19. Although the truth was not known by gun … the gunner, cold and on oxygen after hours of But Howard Mansfield’s book is not all a history of
the general American public at the time, training for wartime inactivity had to exercise split-second judgment … 1) tragedy. His Dad made it home, and the last two chapters
air combat was woefully inadequate. The result was that only Recognize the airplane (enemy vs. friendly fighter)—at describe the life he returned to – a touching and emotional
one of every four bomber crews—each consisting of a pilot six hundred yards it would appear no bigger than a dime reminder of why these men kept the demons of memory to
and copilot, a bombardier, navigator and gunners—completed held at arm’s length, edgewise; 2) Estimate its distance themselves, refusing to share them with loved ones.
its full tour of 25 missions. The rest were shot down, killed (The gunsight made planes look smaller than they were.) “My father, like most of the men of his generation, chose
in action, missing in action or taken as prisoners. As United The plane’s vibration also made accurate aiming difficult silence … By his silence he said, I give you peace. Take it.
Press reporter Harrison Salisbury said, “To fly in the Eighth … 3) Estimate the difference in the speeds of his bomber Take the yawning days of summer boredom, the hours on
Air Force then was to hold a ticket to a funeral. Your own.” and the enemy aircraft … 4) ‘Compute the Lead’ – how the floor watching TV shows with a talking horse or a wily
Like most men of his generation, Pincus refused to talk far in front of the attacker to fire … 5) And then fire … all coyote, the hours lost with a coloring book on a rainy day
about the war throughout his lifetime, even to his family. He within three to six seconds.” … take the school days and proms … touch football in the
said a few things about his time in England but nothing ever On Sept. 8, 1944, a few days before his 20th birthday, street … Take it all. I give you peace. Take it and don’t ask
about combat. Pincus Mansfield’s last note about his crew’s mission me questions. I will tell no war stories.”
It was not until many years later, after his father’s passing over Karlsruhe read: “Temp. -38 C. (-34.6 F) Froze two To all of you who are veterans of any war, or who now or
and while cleaning out the old family home, that Howard fingers.” He was later to lose two fingers of his left hand, in the past have had veterans in your lives, those words alone
Mansfield found in a small drawer with his dad’s cufflinks amputated because of the below-freezing cold that gunners are all you need to know about Howard Mansfield, and why I
and tie clips some small, unlined, pocket-sized notebook were exposed to in the cramped, clear plexiglass “bubbles” recommend this as just the first of this wonderful historian’s
pages, folded over and tossed aside, sitting as they had for in which they were restricted during flight. He had frostbite books you will want to read.
almost 65 years. It was an account of each bomber mission
Pincus had been on when he was 19 and 20 years old!
Eventually serving as a belly gunner on B-24 Liberator
bombers for many missions over Germany, the young man
had kept a handwritten diary describing after each mission
what he and the crew of his plane had just gone through—an
extraordinary document that reveals a view of aerial warfare
so intimate and detailed that to read its pages is as close as
one can ever get to living the experience.
That was the inspiration and motivation for a new book by
his son, Howard, who—starting with those faded old pages
and a series of private tape recordings made by his father 75
years after the war and discovered along with the diary—takes
it from there and uses his own brilliant research skills to add a
wealth of information gleaned from sources that fill a reference
section of six full pages at the end of this book. I Will Tell No
War Stories is officially being published this month.
After training in Colorado, Pincus Mansfield was sent
overseas to Old Buckenham military air base in East Anglia,
England, and assigned as a belly gunner on the crew of the
B-24 Liberator, Mary Harriet, in the 453rd BG (Bomber
Group). He was one of nearly 3,000 men stationed there
as either crew or ground support for flying missions over
Germany in the years to come.

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