There's a story online called "A Gunner's Tale", it was in the Army Times originally. His son in law wrote a book as well, "Trouble", that was released recently. There's an interview on Youtube and Twitter from last year, so proud of this man. I hope stories like this maybe can put a little perspective in some people's hearts about our country.
Here's a write up from a few years ago. I still think this story would make a great movie. He was married to Mary for 72 years, they had a small ranch in Brenham until she passed and he lives in College Station now.
During World War II, from 1942 to 1945, the Air Forces suffered over 90,000 casualties, with more than 35,000 captured and becoming prisoners of war. But more than 3,000 successfully evaded the enemy to return home. Robert H. “Bob” Sweatt of the Gay Hill Community in Washington County was one of those 3,000.
His story began on May 9, 1922, on a ranch 13 miles from Lovington, New Mexico. According to Sweatt, “I grew up riding a horse wherever I needed to go, to include going to Lovington. I attended and graduated from Prairie View School in a class of 17 ranch kids in 1941. I worked as a ranch hand and at other odd jobs until I received my greetings from Uncle Sam.
“I reported to the induction center in El Paso on September 2, 1941. I was given a bunch of tests in addition to my physical exam. After the tests were scored, I was told I was being assigned to the Army Air Corps and was sent to Salt Lake City, Utah, for more tests. While I was waiting for those results, I saw a lieutenant standing on a box talking to some GIs. I stopped to listen to him tell us that we were getting the “___” kicked out of us all over the world and the Air Corps was desperate for aerial gunners. He also said that the rumors were that the life expectancy of an aerial gunner in combat was three seconds. He said that is a bunch of “____”, it was 17 seconds. And, if I volunteered, I would be a sergeant in five weeks and receive flight pay. That all sounded good to me so, I volunteered.
“I was sent to gunnery school in Las Vegas, where I took a test for bombardier and was accepted, but was told I would have to wait six months for class to start. I decided I wanted to go now, so I attended armament school and joined the 389th Bomber Group as part of the original cadre.
“We assembled our B-24 crew and headed to England, landing there on June 16, 1943. We operated out of an air base located at Hethel Air Base, which was outside of Norwich, England. Our plane and crew were part of the 566th Bomber Squadron. Our crew had now been together for almost a year when we started flying combat missions. I was the waist gunner and we all were very close as a crew.
“We received orders to fly to Bengazi, north Africa, with our whole bomb group. On the way we ran into fog so bad we could barely see our wingtips. When an opening appeared, we were right over a British aircraft carrier and they sent up fighters after us. We dropped our landing gear to show we were friendly and they flew around us and headed back down.
“We still didn’t know where we were and were about out of fuel when another opening appeared in the fog and we found we were over Lisbon, Portugal. We were going to have to land. Even though Portugal was a neutral country, there were Germans all over the place and they had two planes on the runway. We started shredding paper and dropped all of that out our bomb bay. We destroyed the computer in the ball turret by shooting it up with my .45.
“When we landed, we had the turret guns pointed down and they drug two channels in the runway. The runway was short, and at the end it dropped about 200 feet into the ocean. The pilot and co-pilot had the brakes smoking. At the end of the runway the pilot had the co-pilot release his brakes and we made a u-turn with one wing out over the end of the runway.
“Portuguese soldiers came running to the plane and we were taken to the U.S. Embassy, where they put us in civilian clothes. We were in a really nice hotel, and for the first time in my life I ordered room-service breakfast. We were there about a month before being taken to Marakesh by a British cork boat and then on to Bengazi to rejoin our group.
“When we arrived at the air base in Bengazi, our group, or what was left of them, were still in their bunks sleeping. They had just returned from the raid on the German oil refinery at Ploesti, Romania. We found out later that none of the planes on that mission were expected to make it back. By getting lost in the fog we missed the raid on Pelosti, and that might have saved our lives.
“We flew some missions over Italy, to include the area around the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which we had to bomb in a circle so we wouldn’t hit the tower. That tactic almost got us all killed, as it did kill all in the plane ahead of us. One of the gunners came out in a chute and he was even with our wingtips in his chute when he came out, but in all that flack, I know he probably didn’t make it.
“Back in England we had another close call. We were on a mission with 1,000-pound bombs and on our bomb run, flak knocked out the No. 4 engine. The plane flipped over to a 45-degree angle and we headed down. We had to get rid of the bombs, but we couldn’t get the bomb bay doors open, so Captain Wilhite, our pilot, leveled the plane and hit the salvo lever, dropping those 1,000 pound bombs right through the bomb bay doors.
“We were losing altitude and air speed, but we stayed in the formation - or rather the formation stayed around us to protect us. We finally hit the coast of England at an altitude of 200 feet. We weren’t over land more than two minutes when the No. 1 engine ran out of fuel and then we lost the No. 2 engine. That left us with one engine. Captain Wilhite said we were going in.
“He pulled the left wing up in a turn, leveled for a few seconds and belly landed in a beet field surrounded by trees. He had put us down in a little cove without any injuries of any significance to any of the crew. He was awarded the Silver Star for that landing. We were safe once again until a mission on January 7, 1944, when all aboard, except me, were killed and my three months of evading capture by the Germans began.”
Part two
More than 3,000 men of our air forces who were shot down during World War II returned home. Bob Sweatt of the Gay Hill Community of Washington County was one of them. His three-month story of evasion in German-occupied France began on January 7, 1944.
According to Sweatt, “Our B-24 crew was on a mission to bomb a chemical plant in Ludwighaven, Germany, which was a success. Our B-24 group and a B-17 group, also on the mission, then headed home. That day on our plane we had Col. Caldwell as our command pilot flying in the co-pilot’s seat. Col. Caldwell was the ‘Fearless Fosdick’ type, and after we dropped our bombs he told the navigator to give us the most direct heading to England. Now, our orders called for us to follow the B-17s back for joint protection and cover, but Col. Caldwell said he didn’t want to wait around for those blankety-blank 17s, so we headed to England on the most direct route.
“You could see the 17s pulling off to our right as we went left. Things were fine for a while, until about 1:30 to 2 pm, when the navigator said, ‘Turn 90 degrees right; we are about 100 miles off course.’ That was when they hit us. We were hit by German Fw-190s that had four cannons in their wings and machine guns on top of their wings. I heard the top turret give two short bursts and that was it. The German shells poured into the cockpit, killing Captain Wilhite and Colonel Caldwell immediately as they slumped over the cockpit. The cabin caught fire and I heard a spewing sound. I was on the right waist gun. As I tried to pick up and put on my chute, everything in the plane seemed to move forward.
“Until I picked up my chute, I hadn’t realized until then that I couldn’t use my left arm. I put the chute on somehow with my right hand. The plane was starting to spin, and as I glanced out the window, the No. 4 engine and part of the wing came off and that side of the plane caught fire. That threw me over to the left window. The spin was accelerating, creating a sound sort of like a siren. I knew I was about to black out when there was a terrific explosion and I was thrown from the plane.
“As I fell I tried to pull the D ring on my chute, but couldn’t with my gloves on my right hand. I couldn’t use my left hand, so I pulled my gloves off my right hand with my teeth while falling. Fortunately, we were at about 21,000 feet when they hit us. As I pulled my rip cord, our engineer, Max Snyder, came falling past me without a chute. There was nothing I could do to help him. I could only watch him fall. All kinds of pieces of metal and equipment fell around me, but nothing hit me. It was like being in the middle of a falling junkyard. And then it was so perfectly quiet.
“After a chute opens, there is no sound. I would not have thought we were falling except my pant legs were flapping in the wind. After the war was over, they recovered Max Snyder’s body and returned it to his hometown for burial. I attended the funeral but I never told his parents how he died, and I haven’t talked about it until now.
“As my chute floated to the ground, I began to take stock of my situation. I still couldn’t use my left arm, and blood was squirting from my neck with each heartbeat. On the ground I could see the flames and smoke from the pieces of my plane. When I hit the ground, I packed some mud into my neck and with my scarf, stopped the bleeding. We were trained to bury our chute so the enemy wouldn’t know there were survivors. I tried to dig in the ground with my fingers without much luck. All I did was break fingernails in the partially frozen ground.
“I saw a haystack in the field and hobbled toward it. It was about then that I noticed a man approaching me slowly and without speaking. Without a word, this French farmer spat into his handkerchief and began cleaning my face of blood. Some other Frenchmen came up and gave me clothes to put on. It was then I heard German voices and the French farmer motioned for me to help them lift a part of the plane’s wings and carry it to a burning pile, as they were being ordered to do by a German soldier.
“As we went into a gully, a French boy took my end of the wing and I moved quickly down the gully to a small grove of trees, where I buried myself in leaves. The Germans came through the woods hunting for me. One soldier with a rifle walked within six feet of me, but they didn’t find me. Time passed and it was quiet until the nearby birds started stirring. I thought the Germans were coming back when I noticed the French farmer slowly loading hay onto his cart and coming my way. I was weak from loss of blood and couldn’t stand, so I rolled down the hillside toward the cart.
“When they came to the edge of the woods, they helped me into the cart and I sat lodged between two Frenchmen who kept me upright. We headed to their village down a road lined with German soldiers, who were obviously looking for me. We made it to the village and into a house. I don’t remember too much for the next few days.
“A week or so later I was moved to another house, eventually ending up at a house with a French family who had a young daughter of about 7 years old. Before she or any other member of the family entered the house, they gave a special knock. Living with that family made me realize the great danger this whole family was in and what it would mean for them if I were caught.
“I was eventually transported to Paris, where I came under the care and custody of three former members of the French Army, now wearing civilian clothes but still fighting the Germans. I was sheltered in the home of a French mechanic who worked for the Germans. I lived in his attic, and right across the street from his house were the quarters of several companies of German soldiers. I could see and hear them each morning out my window as the Germans completed their morning exercises. I guess the French figured the best place to hide me was right under the Germans’ noses.”
Next week, the conclusion of Bob Sweatt’s story of evasion and his ultimate return home.
Part three
In 1964, the U.S. Air Force organized “The Air Forces Escape And Evasion Society” to document the escape and evasion events of its members. Initially almost 400 veterans of World War II were members. Today that membership is down to three individuals. Bob Sweatt of the Gay Hill Community of Washington County is one of them.
Sweatt’s B-24 was shot down over German-occupied France, and he was the only member of his crew to survive. Local French farmers hid, clothed and cared for him and helped him avoid capture by the Germans. He eventually made his way, with the help of the French Resistance Forces, to Paris. It is in Paris that part three of his story picks up.
According to Sweatt, “I was given civilian clothes so I looked like the locals, but one thing all locals had that I didn’t was an identification card. If you were stopped by the Germans and you didn’t have an ID card, it was off to jail, and there I would have been found out. One of the guys that was taking care of me took me to a photography studio to have a photo made for a fake ID they were having made.
“In the photography studio the Frenchman with me told the photographer what we wanted. About that time two German soldiers came into the shop for photos. The photographer sat me in a chair and the photographer moved behind his camera and under a black hood. He said something to me but I didn’t understand French. He said it again. I didn’t know what to do so I turned the other way. He yelled something else and I moved the other way. He yelled, I moved. I guess I looked like an idiot, because the German soldiers started laughing. The photographer finally took a photo and waved us out of his shop.
“The photo was placed in a fake ID and I became Paul Louis Mariel. A few days later we attempted to leave Paris by train at night but couldn’t because the rail yard had been bombed. On the way back in an old delivery truck, we were stopped by SS troops at a blockade. The SS guy took my ID, looked at it with his flashlight, put the light on my face and then looked back at my ID and back at my face again. He slipped the ID into my coat pocket and patted me on the shoulder. I don’t think I took a breath the whole time he was looking at that ID and me.
“The second time we attempted to leave Paris by rail we were successful. They drove me to the station, where they pointed out a guy across the station who had a blue bag and wore tennis shoes. They told me, ‘When that guy starts walking to the train, get behind and follow him.’ He started walking and I did what I was told. I looked back to see if my guys were still there, but they were gone. But right behind me were five other guys following me and the guy with the blue bag.
“All six of us followed the guy through several cars till we came to a compartment where he waived us all inside and closed the door. Three sat on one side and three on the other. We sat there just eyeballing each other, with no one saying a word. Finally one of the guys asked if anyone had a light. To my relief, we were all evaders. One Brit, one Canadian, two Australian and two of us were Americans.
“We headed out of Paris for the French coast. On the way, the guy with the blue bag came back and said the Gestapo was on the train checking IDs. He said there were two of them, one checking IDs and one with a machine gun. I sat by the door, so one of the Australians handed me an old rusty knife and said when they come, they would grab and pull the Gestapo guy checking IDs into the compartment and when they did, I was to stab the guy with the machine gun. I had never killed anyone face-to-face, and my hand holding that knife really began to sweat. Fortunately, they never came.
“When the train stopped, we were motioned to get off by the blue bag guy. We were met by another Frenchman and led to a stone schoolhouse. A couple of nights later we left for the beach. It was a perfect night - no moon, no stars. We were told ‘absolute silence and do as you are told; our lives depend on it.’ They led us through a minefield, with each of us with our hand on the shoulder of the guy in front. At the beach, we had to slide down steep cliffs to the beach below. On the beach we waited in cold water for about two hours before two rowboats came out of the darkness from the channel. The boats, with all of us in them, were overloaded and leaked. We bailed water and rowed until out of the darkness we came to a PT boat. We climbed aboard the PT boat and headed to England. I am here to tell you, that was a wonderful feeling.
“When we landed in England, we were debriefed and asked to sign a pledge to never discuss what had happened for 50 years. We were told this was done to protect the French people who helped us. They had risked their lives for us when they could have turned us in and collected the bounty the Germans offered of $10,000 on each of us, dead or alive. I was sent home and served the rest of the war as an instructor in Florida. That was where I met Mary, who has been my bride now for 64 years.”
After the war Sweatt attended college, receiving a degree in geology from the University of Houston. He returned to school for his teacher certificate and then taught chemistry in Houston high schools until he retired and moved to their farm in Washington County.
This past year Bob and Mary returned to France, where he met that seven-year-old French girl from part two, now a grandmother. He also attended the last meeting of the Evaders Society in 2008. They decided it would be the last meeting, as there are now only three members.
As stated by Sweatt, “We managed to evade capture by the Germans, but one thing we haven’t been able to evade is Father Time.” When asked about his thoughts about the war, his response was, “We don’t ever, and I mean ever, want a war to come over here.”
Pearl snap shirts, a steak at K-Bobs and a wife of 70 plus years looking at you like y'all are still teenagers!
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