This Larry Martin’s World War II In Their Own Words program will be presented at the Carnagie branch library in Jackson Mi. on Saturday October 5th at 9:30 am
Barney enlisted in October 1942 in the US Navy. After training he was assigned to the USS Essex in the Pacific (PTO). He was 50 cal. Machine Gunner on the Grumman Torpedo Bomber. They were usually armed with 500 lb. bombs. There would typically be 32 planes on a mission with 8 planes being the Torpedo bomber’s. Barney made about 40 combat missions. Barney tells of once finding a Japanese troop ship carrying about 3,000 combat troops. Listen as Barney describes what happened next and how his bomber crew felt about it.
The Grumman Torpedo Bomber is the same type of plane the Pres. George H.W. Bush piloted and was shot down in. Actor Paul Newman was a machine gunner aboard the same type of Torpedo Bomber aboard the USS Bunker Hill during the fighting at Okinawa.