I Will Remember You!
In
Loving Memory of 1st Lt. Robert N. Austin Bombardier 9th Army Air Force,
98th Bombardment Group, 344th Bomb Squadron, (lead aircraft of the final
wave of bombers for the Raid on Ploesti Romania-August 1, 1943) and All
of our men and women serving their country.
Bob’s family would like to extend their gratitude to the family of Captain Wallace C. Taylor whose kind words still comfort us.
I Will Remember You!
I will remember you, but you don’t remember me. My children will never forget you, even though they will never meet you. You are in my soul and in my blood. You are my hero!
Today is Veteran’s Day. It is a day for Veterans to be remembered and honored. Your family goes on without you. It has for sixty-four years now. We carry you with us, so you go on. We will never forget that to you “Coming back was secondary!”*
How does a little girl grow up never knowing the physical presence of
a cousin that died thirteen years before she was born, and yet she knows
you? You are in the faces that surround me during the holidays, during good
times and the sad times. I see you in the faces of your brothers and sisters
and hear your laughter in your cousins. I love you for who you were, for
what you still stand for and for all you gave up for our family.
For years,
I have looked upon your face, in my 8 x 10 black and white photograph, at
that smile so wide. Your special goodness is as palatable as if you were
here in the room with me. Your smile always makes me smile back at you.
I have been told of your infectious good humor. The first thing when I ask
about you everyone says, “Bob always had time for us kids”. Those
kids are now Grandparents, but it is your eyes sparkling from under your
United States Army Air Corp. cap that make me believe it. You were a small
town boy with a love of airplanes and yet there was never anything small
about you. You signed up before there was a draft, before Pearl Harbor.
It was your love of flying, still visible today in your childhood scrapbooks,
which led you to the Army Air Corp. However it was your love for us, for
your family, for your way of life, for your love of country that led you
to choose to go on that 36th mission when you were already ten missions
beyond what had been asked of you.
You had already saved your crew once out over Italy. At 20,000 feet up
with a hand held oxygen tank, you crawled across the catwalk out over the
freezing open bomb bay doors to hand release a one thousand pound bomb that
was armed and had only partly dropped out of the plane. Bob Hope awarded
you your citation on the Jack Armstrong Radio Program that night. Your Captain
later wrote your parents of this brave act for which you were awarded the
Silver Star.
Writing
to them after his escape from POW Camp in Romania, Captain Wallace C. Taylor
said in his letter “this is an instance of his undaunted courage in the
face of extreme danger, on the most dangerous missions including our last,
Bob directed us into the target with a cool voice and steady hands on the
bomb sight controls. I think the Lord had need for such a man as Bob. He
does not find fellows like your son every day.”
You were so loved by your squadron, that when Hollywood came calling they voted for you to have the walk on part in the movie, “Bombardier”.
When asked about what made you so special your brothers said “he was
like our Mother”. Having known and loved my Great Aunt Ida, I believe this
to be true. After all you weren’t her only son in the war she also had three
more serving. When the telegram arrived, everyone thought it told the news
of your safe arrival back in the United States. It actually brought the
news that you were reported “missing in action”. After all “you always had
time for everyone” and volunteering for a suicide mission so far from home
was just like you. I doubt many people in our home town even knew where
Ploesti, Romania was. What were you thinking as you flew in so low over
those oilfields at treetop level, when the haystacks became alive with enemy
88mm flack fire and the targets that you were bombing were blowing up in
your face?
Somehow,
I do not think you were thinking about your ten brothers and sisters or
your beloved Mother and Father or even your fiancée back in Albuquerque,
N.M. I believe I know what you were thinking, it was of your crew, your
plane, “The Vulgar Virgin” and getting all of you back to Africa safely,
because that was your job…because that is what you were taught in a little
upstate town in NY. It is what we still teach our children in this tiny
piece of the country. I am sure that you were scared beyond imagination,
but you knew the drill. You had already completed 286 hours of combat
flying and you did not have to volunteer. You had even been awarded the
Purple Heart for the wound you had received in your leg in a bombing mission
over Italy.
This love I have for you came from your family, It is a gift they gave to me. You would be proud of us this big gang of siblings and cousins you left behind. We hold ourselves to a higher standard because of you. You can hear it in our voices when we speak of you. You can hear it in their united laughter over the good times you all shared. Even simple moments like when you gave them soda pop while working at the gas station was a symbol of your kind and loving spirit. I can see you now popping the cap of the bottle with the opener on the side of the red cooler, or did it hang from a piece of twine near the door? Your cousins and siblings look forward to the day when they will hear you singing “Chattanooga Choo Choo”** again. For some of them that time is not far off. Yet it is by your example that we, the next generation will continue to remember you. So here is to you my cousin, the boy I know so well in my heart, but won’t meet until I join in on the last chorus of “Chattanooga choo choo, won’t you choo choo me home?”**
Another
Picture Of The Vulgar Virgin
Old
Glory Prints: The Aviation Art of Michael W Wooten.
The Internet B-24 Veterans Group - A Picture Of The Vulgar Virgin and Crew.
The Free Republic: The FReeper Foxhole Revisits The Ploesti Raid - (Aug. 1, 1943) - May 15th, 2004
Home Of Heroes - Wings of Valor II- The Ploesti Raid
Air Art Northwest "OPERATION TIDAL WAVE - THE PLOESTI MISSION," by BY NICOLAS TRUDGIAN
Air University Library - Maxwell AFB, AL - OPERATION TIDAL WAVE--1943 and RAIDS ON PLOESTI," Compiled by Terry Kiss Bibliographer.
Honorary Consulate of Romania in Boston: Ploesti Air Raids on Romania Oil Fields World War II
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia: "Operation Tidal Wave"
Google Search: "Ploesti Raids" - "Operation Tidal Wave"
*“Coming back is secondary” Brigadier General Uzal G. Ent
**“Chattanooga
Choo Choo” written by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren is best known for being
performed by Glenn Miller and his Orchestra.
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