Will Rogers once said, "We can’t all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and cheer as they go by!"
My Father was a hero. Not content with merely sitting on the curb he, and other men like him saved our country and our way of life from the evil that threatened the world in the 1940’s.
We have all heard and seen the stories of sacrifice and courage in the face of over-whelming odds at places like Normandy Beach, the Battle of the Bulge and Iwo Jima. One battle fought over the skies of Europe was just as fierce but is seldom told.
In the summer of 1944 the men of the 15th Air Force stationed in Foggia Italy took to the skies over Romania in an attempt to destroy the Polesti Oil Fields, Germany’s largest fuel depot. They eventually succeeded but at a terrible loss. From June to September 1944 allied forces lost 270 planes and over 2300 men were killed or captured.
This book is the collaborative efforts of my Father John William Shepherd who flew into Polesti, my Mother Norma Sue Shepherd and hours spent pouring over clippings of a tattered and worn old scrapbook that my Grandmother Minerva Shepherd lovingly and painstakingly pieced together while praying every night for the safe return of her loving son.
Growing up as a child in the Ozark Mountains of southern Missouri I did not appreciate the stories of his experiences during his days as a waist gunner and radio operator aboard a B-24 Liberator Bomber called the Dazzlin’ Duchess. It was years later as an adult that I realized they were not just stories but epic tales of daring heroism, poignant laughter in the face of death and the unmistakable swagger of the men who were "Our Greatest Generation!"
This is his story…
