My daughter, Sarah, called me on Friday to tell me that she was on her way to the Mall in Washington, D.C., so that my grandchildren, Harper and Sykes, could see the fly over of vintage aircraft commemorating the defeat of Germany and victory in Europe 70 years ago. She wanted the children to see the airplanes that their great-grandparents, my parents, flew during World War II.
The end of April and the beginning of May mark dates that bring to mind stories of my parents. My father, Rufus Ward Sr., was a tail gunner on Smokey Stover Jr., a B-17 bomber shot down over Frankfurt, Germany, on May 12, 1944. He was captured and held as a German POW until he was liberated on April 26, 1945. Today being Mother’s Day brings to mind my mother, Ida Billups Ward, who worked at Columbus Army Air Field during World War II and flew a Piper Cub in the Civil Air Patrol. Both of those airplanes were to be in Friday’s Washington flyover.
Like so many other members of the “Greatest Generation,” my parents reacted immediately when Pearl Harbor was bombed on Dec. 7, 1941. My father was living in Washington, D.C., where he was attending George Washington University and working as a clerk for the FBI. He immediately enlisted in the Army Air Corps. My mother was attending Virginia State Teachers College (now Longwood University) and came back to Columbus, going to work at the Columbus Army Air Field Hospital.
My father would seldom talk about his war time experiences and when I would ask him about them he always just said “that there were so many stories of heroism that were unknown outside of the POW camps because those stories could not be passed along and were thus lost to time.” It was not until after he died that I found out his story was one of them.
It was only about a month after my father died that I started learning his story. A letter from a member of his crew appeared in the 96th Bomb Group Historical Association newsletter describing what he had done. Several years later I heard from Chief Justice Sharon Lee of the Tennessee Supreme Court, whose father, Charles Lee, was waist gunner on Smokey Stover Jr. In 2002, Manuel Van Eyck published “Silent Heroes,” a book about American Air Crews lost in air operations over occupied Czechoslovakia, my father was listed in the book’s acknowledgments.
On May 12, 1944, my father was a staff sergeant and the tail gunner on Smokey Stover Jr., a B-17 from the 337th Squadron of the 96th Bomb Group based at Snetterton Heath, England. That day his bomb group was on a mission to bomb oil refineries at Brux, and Zwickau, Czechoslovakia. Near Frankfort, Germany, the squadron was attacked by about 50 German fighters. Smokey Stover Jr. was heavily damaged — its left wing was almost shot away and two engines were on fire. A lost aircraft report stated that “left wing destroyed and went down out of control.” Communications had been cut to the tail, and Ward did not hear the pilot’s orders to bail out. He was still firing his 50 cal. guns at a German fighter when he suddenly saw his pilot and co-pilot parachute past his window. He went to his escape hatch to bail out but saw the waist gunner and the ball turret gunner lying wounded further inside the plane. He crawled into the waist of the out of control plane and assisted each of them with their parachutes, helping them out of the aircraft before he bailed out. Justice Sharon Lee related what her father had told her happened when Smokey Stover Jr. was shot down: “The pilot rang the bell and ordered everyone to bail out of the plane but he (Charles Lee) lay unconscious. The tail-gunner of the plane, Rufus Ward, would not leave him and worked with him as the plane was going down. He saved Charles’ life by placing a parachute on him and getting him out the door.”
My mother Ida Billups Ward was in college when the U.S. entered the war. She left college and went to work at the Columbus Army Air Field base hospital in the spring of 1942. She also joined the Civil Air Patrol, where she was the first girl from Lowndes County to solo. She flew a Piper Cub. The most poignant story I heard her tell concerned an enjoyable date she had with a pilot from the base one Sunday. She and her cousin Emmaline Hardy had a double date with two pilots. They all had a delightful time and decided to all go back out together the next weekend. The next week while working at the base hospital she learned that both pilots had just been killed in an accident. On a much lighter note, my mother said she quit being a pilot after she was dispatched to Birmingham alone in a Piper Cub, a small single engine two seat plane that had a top air speed of only about 85 mph. She got stuck in a lengthy holding pattern over the Birmingham airport with a number of large fast four engine aircraft. She said it scared her half to death, so she turned around and flew back to Columbus.
The 70th anniversary of VE Day is a time for all of us to reflect on the sacrifices of those in the “greatest generation” and all who have served their country. It is also a reminder that every family has stories that need to be preserved and if we don’t preserve them they will be forever lost.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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