One man behind the men on D-Day. How Daddy played his part.

Daddy on cold day in England wearing a sweater from the Red Cross.  Original photo in the possession of the author.

Daddy in fatigues at Knettishall RAF, Suffolk, England.  Original in the possession of the author.

"Daddy, what did you do on D-Day?"  we would ask when the subject of WW II came up.

"Not much", he would always say.  "I was on leave.  The base was on lock-down and I couldn't get back on."

All through our childhood our father played down his military service.  He made it sound to us that he pretty much goofed off all those years he spent at Knettieshall RAF in Suffolk, England.  It wasn't until I was an adult and my husband and I got to see his papers from his time in service that I learned the truth.  Jimmy, my husband, was the first to realize what Daddy had done during the war.  Jimmy started asking questions and he got answers that Daddy never shared with Lydia and me.

The papers Jimmy was looking at were Daddy's certificates of his pre-deployment training.  I knew he had spent time in Pocatello Idaho and maybe in Salt Lake City.  I didn't know what kind of training he had been doing. His separation papers said that he calibrated and made minor parts for the Norden (Norten?) bomb sight and the Honeywell automatic pilot.  Daddy had told us he had worked on B-17s.  He had prepared all the planes from that air field that were among the first planes to fly over the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.  He wasn't there in the planes that day.  But without his precision work on those bombsights and autopilots, the success of the men who did fly would not have been achieved. 

To further emphasize the importance of his role, we eventually learned that he was one of only two men on the base who calibrated the sights.  Daddy finally told us that he worked under armed guard to protect the security of the bombsights.  Sounds to me like Dad played an important role on D-Day.  He may have been on leave the day the planes flew, but without his preparation on those planes and that of countless other men who did prep work and stayed behind, D-Day could not have happened.

A few months ago, Lydia and I decided to do a little research on Daddy's time in service.  We found internet sites with information and pictures of Knettieshall RAF.  Lydia found a site that had pictures of the nose art of some of the B-17s at that air field.  When she enlarged the photos, she noticed that one called "Gremlin Gus II" had a man in the nose canopy who appeared to be working on something inside that area of the plane.  It sure looked liked Daddy.  Other websites on the Norden bombsite indicated that the nose canopy was the location of the sight. Since only one other man on base did the same type work that Daddy did, it is a 50% chance that it is Daddy.

  I definitely like to believe that I have had a glimpse of my daddy doing what he did almost seven decades ago getting the planes ready for the men who flew on D-Day.  It is ok that he was on leave the actual day of the Normandy invasion.  Daddy's job was already done.