 My
five brothers and I grew up on a farm in the lean years. My dad
could not promise anything, but we all went into the service,
got good educations and good jobs with pensions. Before being
drafted two of my brothers, Clarence and Veryl and I worked for
North American in Kansas City building B-25’s. We three got into
the Air Corps.My parents, Charles and Tressie Wilch, worried
about us being in the war, but were also very proud of us. There
is a photo of mom in a rocking chair on the family farm and in
her arms are her son’s photos; Cletus, Kyle, Harold, Clarence,
Veryl and Merton. Cletus, the oldest, was in Patton’s 3rd Army
as a chaplain. He was the first to enter the service in 1942. In
1947, he was the last son to come home.
By 1943 Kyle was in the Navy. The 72nd Naval Construction
Battalion was sent to Honolulu to build living quarters, then to
Guam. Airfields used by B-29’s to drop the atomic bombs on Japan
were built by the Seabees. Kyle came home in 1945.
Harold was the last to enter the service and chose the Navy.
He became a metal smith as well as completing engineering
school. First Class Petty Officer Wilch was assigned to the
transport ship Newberry, which carried men and supplies for the
attack on Iwo Jima. On December 24, 1945 the Newberry sailed
under the Golden Gate Bridge and Harold came home.
Clarence volunteered for the cadet program in the Army Air
Corps in 1943, but the need for ground troops
reassigned men to the infantry. What no doubt saved his life was
that he was skilled in plumbing and had not been trained for the
infantry, so he was assigned to Guam for refrigeration
maintenance duties. Most of the men that went into the infantry
units ended up at the Battle of the Bulge and were killed. One
interesting thing happened while Clarence and Harold were at
sea, of the hundred of ships docked together their ships happen
to be moored next to to each other and they had a brief but
happy reunion. In 1946 Clarence came home.
Veryl, was in the Army Air Corps as a ground crewman and was
stationed in the South Pacific on a island about 400 miles for
the Philippines. The island still had Japanese soldiers on it so
there was little time to let your guard down. Veryl came home in
1946 after being based in Korea.
I was in the Army Air Corps, 8th Air Force, 100th Bomb Group
on the Murray D. Johnson crew as a top turret engineer. Of the
fifty-five crews that we trained with in Dalhart, Texas, five
were sent to Thorpe Abbotts a few weeks before D-Day. The first
of our five crews (the crew John F. Ryan, Jr.) flew their first
mission the following Sunday, June 12th, to Rosieres, France and
were shot down along with the Edward P. McKeague crew. On Ryan’s
crew only the radio operator, George L. Sherback, survived. On
McKeague’s the TTE George H. Penman and RWG Robert Gallagher
were rescued from the English Channel. My 19th mission was July
29th, to Merseburg. Another of the five crews were shot down.
The Eden C. Jones crew lost all but four, the NAV Albert B.
Fincher, Jr., BOM Cordy A. Ramer, Jr., WG Frank J. Moran, Jr.
and TG Jerry R. Cassell became POW’s. We lost a total of eight
crews that day. Of the crews that joined when we did three of
the five crews finished their missions. My last mission to
Magdeburg was on September 12th, 1944 in the B-17 42-32090 known
as "Silver Dollar". I flew 32 missions and when the pilot got in
35 we got to go back to the States. I was glad to be going home.
I enjoy Splasher Six and have contact with only one crew
member, our tail gunner, Richard Thormahlen who lives in
Arkansas.
Of the six of us that were in World War II Clarence and I are
left. We lost Cletus in 1993, Kyle passed away two years later
in 1995, Harold passed away in 2003 and we just lost Veryl in
October 2004. When Clarence and I were recently interview by Tim
Carpenter of The Topeka Capital-Journal newspaper we told him we
were lucky all of us made it back and without a scratch.
The crew of Murray D. Johnson (Pilot)
Donald G. Rohlfs (Co-Pilot)
Robert J. Lehto (Navigator)
Louis Bartoy (Nose Gunner)
Richard J. Moran (Radio Operator Gunner)
Merton H. Wilch (Top Turret Engineer)
Clyde E. Forrester (Ball Turret Gunner)
John J. Coffelt (Waist Gunner)
Earl E. Williams (Waist Gunner)
Richard K. Thormahlen (Tail Gunner)
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