A fellow pilot, David Lytle, discovered a cassette tape in a small recorder he purchased for $3 at a flea market last week. It contained a recording made in 1978 of a few World War II bomber gunnery crew members who hadn’t seen each other in many years and were reminiscing about their experiences during the war. David mentioned the tape on a forum for other pilots that I frequent, and with everyone’s encouragement converted the recording to an MP3 file and posted it online.
There are some pretty good stories on the tape. The quality is not so good, but then the tape is over thirty years old and hadn’t been cared for at all. It will take about 80 minutes to listen to the whole thing. David did the best he could to enhance the quality. It starts out a little garbled but gets a lot better further in. Be patient.
I’m posting this because these guys are heroes, very funny at times with great stories, and deserve to be heard. We all owe them our gratitude, and to never forget.
I hope you enjoy listening.
Post Script from David: From the recording, it sounds like it was made by Joe Kaczynski, probably about 88 now, from the western Pennsylvania area. David is not sure about the spelling of that name or how to find Mr. Kaczynski, who apparently (according to the recording) served as a member of the 410th Bomber Group.
David managed to find one of the friends of Mr. Kaczynski mentioned on the tape, a Mr. Bill Miller of the Penn Hills area of Pittsburgh Pa. He passed away about three months ago.
If anyone has any information that might help David locate the men on the recording, or their families, contact him at magmag@stargate.net.
Crossroad Junction 