THEN AND NOW

The article below is reprinted with permission of Jefferson Middle School, Jefferson, Wisconsin. It was done for a class project. Carl's daughter, Terry Snyder, is a cook at Jefferson.

Carl Borgstrom was born on December 10, 1922 in Duluth, Minnesota.  His family moved to Wisconsin because they lost everything in the Depression.  Carl's father found a job in Waukesha and the rest of the family came the next day by train. In November of 1942, he joined the Army Air Corps at the age of nineteen. 

Carl had an unusual basic training.  The Army Air Corps had no facilities.  He was sent to St. Petersburg where he and the other enlistees lived in a hotel.  Basic training was held across the street at the Yankee baseball team's training ground.  He was paid $165 a month but they had to pay the hotel cook, hotel laundry, and hotel bellhop before they could see any of that money.  They had $21 left. Carl attended a civilian school called the California Flyers in Santa Monica where he learned aircraft mechanics and engine maintenance. From there he moved to Missouri to the Curtiss Wright factory to observe A-25 dive bombers being built from start to finish.  The bomber, nicknamed the Helldiver, was big enough to hold two people.  After the bombers were built, they were sent to a military base where the armament was attached.  From here, Carl headed to gunnery school in Fort Meyers, Florida.

While in Missouri, Carl met a local girl named Helen on the 4th of July at a swimming pool.  They corresponded.

In Arizona, he became part of the 380th Bomb Group that flew B-24s. The Liberator was the most produced plane during the war.  It was an easy plane to fly but it was terrible if it had to ditch into the water.  It would usually break into two and the crew usually had only 30 seconds to get out before the plane sank. Ten men made up the crew of a B-24 Liberator.  Four of them were officers - the pilot, co-pilot, bombardier, and navigator.  The rest of the crew was enlisted - nose, tail, Sperry ball turret, top turret and two waist gunners.  One of the waist gunners also served as the radioman.  Carl was the top turret gunner as well as the flight engineer.  The crew wore gloves to protect their hands and had both a summer and a winter helmet.  They also wore coats and boots.  They wore no ear protection or flak jackets.  Another important item that Carl did not wear was a parachute.  There just wasn't enough room in the top turret.  He did have it handy in the event that it was necessary and could snap it right on. Carl was not only a gunner but also the flight engineer.  On the flight deck was an entire panel of fuel transfer valves.  His job was to watch the engine RPMs and to transfer fuel back and forth to keep the ship in balance.  He also kept the propellers in sync.

They made their way to the South Pacific in a roundabout way because of the Japanese occupied territory.  The Japanese had conquered a big chunk of the South Pacific.  They had few oil supplies on Japan so had their sights on oil fields of Borneo.  This was one of the main reasons the Dutch East Indies were taken.  Before they left Walla Walla, Washington via California, they flew the B-24 on three or four missions to test it out before the long flight.  It took nearly 16 hours to fly the Liberator from California to Hawaii.  Their maximum air speed was 220 mph.  From Hawaii, they flew to Christmas Island, then to Canton, Tarawa, Guadalcanal, Biak, and finally to Nadzab, New Guinea.  From there they began flying their bombing missions.  When asked if they were ever worried about finding these tiny airstrips on these small islands in the vast Pacific Ocean, Mr. Borgstrom stated that they had extreme confidence in their navigator.  On the long initial flight to Hawaii, his estimated time of arrival was only off by ten minutes.  They gave the navigator the nickname of Pope Pius and called him Pope for short.

Carl Borgstrom missed some of his first missions.  When asked why, he said, "Stupidity."  They were in Nadzab, New Guinea for a week of jungle training.  His training lasted a day because when using a machete to get rid of a vine, he sliced off the edge of his shoe and a toe.  A decade after the war, he had to have the entire toe amputated because of complications.

The total bomb load for a B-24 was 3000 pounds.  Sometimes they would carry three 1000-pounders.  Saturation bombing was done with 100-pounders.  Fragmentation bombing used 500-pounders.  This was most used when they were going after ships.  They were flying 10,000-11,000 feet above the target and were lucky if the bombs even hit the ship.  Targets would be shipping, sea ports, or shore batteries.  There would always be a lead bomber.  When it would open its bomb bay doors, they all would do likewise.  When the lead bomber would drop its load, the others followed suit.  This was not always successful especially if the lead bomber missed the target.  Mr. Borgstrom recalled, "We killed a lot of fish that day."  The bombs all fell short of the target directly into the bay.

On a bombing mission, once they reached the initial point (IP), the bombardier took over.  Their biggest fear during this time was the flak.  The Sperry ball turret was especially susceptible to flak.  Many times Japanese fighters were up in the air with them radioing down the altitude, compass heading, and air speed of the B-24's so the ground artillery could adjust the height of the flak.  It could some times take 8 hours, most of it over ocean, before they were even near the target. For Carl, the worst time was the anticipation just before getting to the IP.