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Honoring our heroes on Memorial Day
Mr. Horace Ball of Leroy in his mid-eighties is one of our local WWII veterans. He was in the Air Force, a "fly-boy" as they were called then. He went into the military in October 1944 and was discharged in January 1946. He was in the 5th Air Force, the 312th Bomber Group, and the 387th Bombardment Squadron.
Buck Sergeant Horace Ball's tour of service was mostly in the Philippine Islands where the 387th bombarded Clark Field (on Luzon Island), which the Japanese had occupied when U.S. forces surrendered on Bataan. "We flew right at treetop level," he said. He explained that their mission was to bomb airfields and destroy Japanese planes on the ground and any other Japanese military equipment. Sgt. Ball said the A-20s carried six guns: four .50-caliber machine guns on the front and two pods on each side. The A-20 had a three-man crew: the pilot, the turret gunner and the third gunner. Ball was the turret gunner. "We flew in elements of three," he said, "with a flight leader, and a left and right wing plane." He asked if I had ever seen film of the B-17s or B-25s flying in those tight formations. " We didn't do it that way. We didn't fly in strict formation. We weren't the glamour boys," he smiled. Ball added that A-20's never got much publicity, "But we did a lot. Usually we were given three targets. We just went to the target and dropped the bombs." He stated that they often were given three possible targets and if the crew saw that the weather would prevent them striking one, they had the leeway to go to the next one. The A-20 could carry as much as 4,000 pounds of bombs. They also carried para-frag bombs which were bombs fitted with small parachutes to retard their descent, so they could be dropped from a very low level without resulting in damage to the bombers. "The cargoes were never mixed," Ball emphasized. "We either carried regular bombs or para-frags, never both." The 50 caliber machine guns were used for low-level attacks. I asked about the rank of those who manned A-20s and Ball told me that the flight leader might be a captain or major, sometimes a lieutenant, but the others were often sergeants. Sgt. Ball was one of the fortunate ones. "We never got a scratch he said. Our plane was never damaged." The A-20's cockpit was small like that of a fighter plane, with only room for one man, the pilot. The other two crew members were separated from him within the confines of the different compartments and once airborne, there was no way to cross into another compartment. As there was no copilot, I asked what they were supposed to do if a pilot got hit. He answered, "That was all she wrote. The pilot (if conscious) would radio the base that the crew was bailing out." When I asked Mr. Ball if there was anything he'd like to say, any message he'd like to leave, he said, "The people were behind us 100 percent." He spoke of the pervasive patriotism of the country during that era of history. Statistics tell us that America is losing her WWII veterans at the rate of about 1,500 a day. Mr. Ball is one of the approximately 3.7 million WWII veterans left; men who considered themselves just ordinary citizens just doing duty when they were needed. But someone has said, "In extraordinary times, there are no ordinary people." And as I listened to Mr. Ball's account of his service to country, I have to agree these were no ordinary men.
Horace and Alline (Gray) Ball have been married since April 14, 1941, and that too, is no ordinary accomplishment. Mrs. Ball told me "It was love at first sight. We never dated anyone else after we met. I was only 18 and he had just turned 20 when we married. Everyone said it would never work."
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