I had the incredible honor of interviewing Len Estrin, who currently is a volunteer at the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum. Len was a ball turret gunner on a B-17 during World War II with the rank of Corporal/Staff Sergeant.
At 91 years old, his memory of locations and especially dates astounded me. Len, originally from Chicago, has been residing in the Denver area for the past three years. Too young to enlist when World War II started, he jumped at the chance, albeit before he turned 18, to join the aviation cadet program. With the backdrop of the museum, it was an appropriate place to speak with Len. The men and women who fought the Axis Powers and died during, what was the most widespread and deadliest war in history, should be honored and respected, as all veterans should. The cover of this months’ issue of A New Outlook honors one such person.
Howard Wedgle: Can I start with when you got into the Army/Air Force?
Len Estrin: Oh sure. On March 17, 1943, they opened up enlistments to the aviation cadet program if you were finished with high school. Well, I was going to be 18 in a couple of weeks and I didn’t wait. I enlisted right away. I was going to college at that time and they told me they would wait until I finished my term in college and then they would call me up. On June 8th, 1943, I actually went into service. I was sent down to Sheppard Field (Sheppard Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located five miles north of the central business district of Wichita Falls, in Wichita County, Texas) for basic training. They sent me to the University of Nebraska for 3 months. Why? I don’t know, but they did. Then I went to Santa Ana for primary training and I almost got through with primary training when it was April of 1944. I was told they didn’t need pilots anymore, but they needed gunners and since I was small, I had a choice. I could be either a gunner, a gunner or a gunner. What did I want to be?
HW: So you chose gunner.
LE: You have to remember. Anyone who flew was a volunteer. You didn’t have to fly if you didn’t want to. They would find some other spot if you wanted to. I wanted to fly, so I volunteered to be a gunner. I went to gunnery school in Las Vegas which was a really booming town then with about 23,000 people. From there I went to Lincoln, Nebraska and was assigned to a crew. I met my pilot and the rest of my crew there. The crew then went to Sioux City, Iowa. We finally were given orders to fly to Europe and we were supposed to be there for the Battle of the Bulge, but we didn’t quite make it.
HW: Publisher’s Note: The Battle of the Bulge started December 16, 1944 and lasted until January 25, 1945.
HW: You landed where?
LE: We picked up a brand new B17 at a factory in Iowa and we were supposed to fly to New York, but they had terrible weather, so we flew to Bangor, Maine. We were stuck there for a whole week. They finally cleared us to fly and we got as far as Newfoundland. We had to land there. We were stuck there for another week because of bad weather. We finally made it to Wales and I was transferred to the 384th bombing group. That’s when I started flying combat.
HW: When did you get into the ball turret for the first time?
LE: The first time was in Sioux City, Iowa.
HW: How did you feel?
LE: Small. Cramped. It was not very comfortable. It wasn’t to get in. Being small, I was able to slide pretty easily. I got used to it. Of course I had the best view of anybody. I had 360 degrees in horizontal and 120 degrees in vertical, so I could see quite a bit.
HW: That would make me nauseas.
LE; I always enjoyed flying-even in that position. That was no problem.
HW: How many missions did you fly?
LE: 18. Most of the them were nothing spectacular. However, the 7th mission stands out. It was supposed to be a short one. We were flying over the Rhine Valley (Germany) and we got hit by flack. We got damaged quite a bit. Our tail gunner got hit in the leg. We had almost 200 holes in the plane. We lost part of our hydraulics. Part of our stabilizer was shot off. We had a good pilot. We managed to get back to the base ok.
HW: How many guys were on the plane?
LE: We had the pilot, the navigator, bombardier, flight engineer, a co-pilot of course, the radio operator, waist gunner, the tail gunner, the top turret gunner and me.
Publishers note: Part two of the interview can be found in the next edition of A New Outlook. An audio podcast can be found on ColoradoGrandparent.com. There are a number of volunteers at Wings Over The Rockies Air & Space Museum who are veterans. I am appreciative of the museum for allowing me to do this interview. For info on the museum, go to wingsmuseum.org.