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September 02, 2010
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Veterans Day tribute: Oliver Emerson
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by Maury Gallagher
Oliver J. Emerson was born in Strawberry Point, IA and graduated from high school in Littleport in 1936. February 5, 1941 he enlisted in the U.S. Army at Fort Des Moines and, after a few days at Fort Snelling in Minnesota, he was transferred to Fort Benning, GA for Basic Training.
Following Basic Training, Oliver was assigned to the 14th Quartermasters, a unit of the 2nd Armored Division which had formed up at Fort Benning the previous year. “General Patton was the Commander of the 2nd Armored when I was there,” Oliver said. “In the Quartermasters unit we had 60 two-and-a-half ton trucks that we were responsible for. I was sitting in the barracks at Fort Benning when I heard about Pearl Harbor.”
Later that year, Oliver was selected for aviation training and was sent to Selman Field in Monroe, LA. He was then sent to a classification center in Nashville, TN, and it was there that the determination was made that he would be trained as a Navigator. His navigation training was completed at the Pan American School of Navigation in Coral Gables, FL. “We had our flight training in Commodore Flying Boats,” Oliver said. “They took off from the water at 69 knots, climbed at 69 knots, and flew at 69 knots.”
After he completed navigation training, Oliver was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant March 27, 1943 and was transferred to an Operational Training Unit (OTU) at Rosecrans Field in Saint Joseph, MO. After additional training, he was transferred to the 7th Ferrying Group at Great Falls, MT. In Great Falls, he served as an air crewman on ferry flights and as navigation briefing officer for aircrews who were ferrying aircraft to other units. Most of the aircraft ferried from Great Falls were flown to Fairbanks, AK where they were turned over to the Russians.
On one flight to the Northwest territories, the temperature reached 54 degrees below zero. “We put canvas over the radial engines,” Oliver said, “and blew heat into them all night. If we didn’t do that, we would never have gotten them started in the morning.”
From Montana, Oliver was transferred to Wales for a navigation briefing school, and then on to Orly Field in Paris, France, where he spent three months briefing aircrews on navigation routes in Europe.
From Paris, Oliver was transferred to a Royal Air Force (RAF) base near Loch Ness in Scotland. “Sweden was a neutral country during WWII. From Scotland we flew missions over Norway into Sweden. On those flights the officers were airline officials and the enlisted crewmen were airline technicians. We wore uniforms in flight over Norway but had to wear civilian clothes when in Sweden. Our aircraft was a CB-24. It was basically a B-24 with floors over the bomb bays, which basically made it a cargo aircraft. In Sweden you could see Americans working to repair our aircraft in the hangar, and across the hangar would be a German crew working on one of their aircraft. Most of the Germans spoke English, and both sides visited with each other. We hauled all kinds of weird stuff out of Sweden. We hauled big wicker baskets which held 15-gallon bottles of ether, ball bearings, etc. We also hauled Danes out of Sweden. They had never been in a plane before. The British would train them for espionage and then parachute them out over Denmark or Norway. The German Air Force was headquartered in Lillehammer, Norway during the war. They had night fighters on the coast of Norway at Bergen and Stavanger. If we were flying at night and encountered the German nightfighters we would head for the North Atlantic Sea and hit the deck (Fly at low altitude over the water). They would not follow very far out over the water.”
Oliver’s next station was an American AAF base at Metfield, England. “When I got there I got a three-day pass to spend some time with my brother, Jim. Jim had been in the Canadian Air Force before America entered the war. When we got into the war, he transitioned to the U.S. Army Air Force. He was a pilot in the 734th Bomb Squadron, a unit of the 453rd Bomb Group which was then commanded by Jimmy Stewart. He had completed his required 35 missions and could have gone home, but he volunteered for 10 more. On his fourth extra mission, which was a bombing mission over Hamm, Germany in the Ruhr River valley, he was killed in action when the bombers from his group that were flying above him dropped their bombs on his plane. One crewman, a waist gunner got out of the plane. Jim is buried in the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, Netherlands. I have visited there.”
Oliver’s final duty station overseas was in Berlin after it was liberated. He subsequently returned to the United States and was separated from active duty at Fort Sheridan, IL as a Captain. He had accumulated 2,000 hours of flight time and had flown across the Atlantic Ocean 11 times. “On those 11 flights,” he noted, “I never saw the water. We left from New Foundland at night and landed in Ireland at daybreak. One time, I came back by boat, a troop carrier. I didn’t get seasick, but I looked at all that water and it made me sick worrying about submarines. You could see a whitecap and make it into a submarine periscope pretty easily.” Oliver remained in the Reserves and retired as a Major after 20 years. For 10 years of his reserve service, he went to Prairie Du Chien, WI for weekly drills on a non-pay basis.
Oliver and Emma Christine “Chris” Meiners of Eitzen, MN were married Christmas Day in 1941. Chris passed away New Years Eve of 2005. Oliver and Chris had four children. Alice Lynne, James “Joe”, Dianne, and Kevin.
Alice Lynne is married to Mike Hart, a retired Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer. They have two children, Carrie and Dean.
James served 26 years in Army Aviation as a helicopter pilot. He served two tours of duty in Vietnam and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. His wife, Sandra, is deceased. He has three daughters, Niki, Jamie and Katie.
Dianne, married to Tracy Thompson, is a teacher at Newman School in Mason City. They have three children, Justin, Hollie, and Troy. Troy is a career military soldier, a Tech Sergeant in the U.S. Army.
Kevin and his wife, Janet, farm near Dorchester. They have three children, Matthew, James and Angel.
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