Bombs Away: WWII Heavy Bombers Set Stage for America’s Strategic Deterrence

By Bennie J. Davis III,Airman Magazine

Sitting in his favorite chair at home in Edgewater, Maryland, only a shadow box of medals and patches on the wall offer a glimpse into Staff Sgt. Louis R. Perrone’s eventful past.

ENLARGE
A shadow box belonging to Luis Perrone, a B-17 ball turret gunner with the 533rd Bomb Squadron during World War II, at his home in Edgewater, Maryland. He completed 32 bombing missions over western Europe, represented by the five bronze oak leaf clusters on the blue and orange Air Medal for meritorious achievement in aerial flight.PHOTO // BENNIE J. DAVIS III

Jack Goldstein, 93, a World War II veteran, at his home in Annapolis, Maryland reflects on his time as a waist gunner for the 535th Bomb Squadron on a B-17 Flying Fortress with the Army Air Forces from 1943 to 1945. Goldstein completed 25 bombing missions over western Europe for the “Mighty Eighth” and is finally open to speaking about his experience. (U.S. Air Force video by Andrew Arthur Breese)

At 19, he went to war, and now at 94, he’s the only living member of his 10-man bomber crew who flew missions over Germany during World War II as part of the Eighth Air Force.

He wanted to sit in the cockpit as a pilot, but a failed depth perception test found him sitting underneath the plane as a ball turret gunner on the B-17 Flying Fortress.

But while his view of the ground may have changed, his view of the bomber never waivered.

“The B-17 was the best airplane ever built, ‘cause it brought you home,’” he said. “We’ve come home on a wing and a prayer, sometimes you come in on two engines, sometimes two engines and a half of a wing, but you got home.”