John J. Connelly was born in Newark, New Jersey in January 1925 as the youngest in a family of eight children and grew up in the city’s Ironbound section, an industrial area with many metal pressing factories nearby. His mother came to the United States from Ireland at the age of 16 in the steerage of a ship. The family lived on a 20 by 80 lot and were the only family on the block to own their house. In 1933 during the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States], the family was faced with the loss of their house but avoided that fate with the help of the Homeowners Loan Company (HOLC). Connelly was a typical city kid who played baseball in the streets to keep out of trouble and wanted to be a big league ballplayer. He stayed informed about the outside world through the family’s broken radio. Connelly and his siblings walked to their nearby Catholic school every day and passed a soup kitchen operated by the Salvation Army. He did not consider his family to be poor. On 7 December 1941, Connelly was playing ball in the street when the news of the Pearl Harbor attack [Annotator's Note: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] came over the radio. He did not react to the news and kept playing. It was not until the next morning in school that he truly became aware of what had happened. When his eldest brother entered the service, he began to pay attention to the course of war. After the outbreak of war, there were many job opportunities for anyone who wanted to work. He worked in various defense jobs for 25 cents an hour. During the Depression, his father worked for the WPA [Annotator's Note: the Works Progress Administration was a federally sponsored program that put unemployed Americans to work during the Great Depression] tearing up the cobblestones and trolley tracks that covered Newark’s streets. His older brother collected scrap metal which was being sold to the Japanese in the years before the war. Connelly and his neighborhood friends also collected scrap and used the money to buy their own sports equipment and uniforms. Another of Connelly’s brothers, who was sickly, worked at the local draft board and his mother and sisters worked in a nearby pie shop.

In 1943, John J. Connelly graduated high school and went to sign up for the Air Corps with a friend of his. He flunked the written portion of the test and was told to come back to try again later in the summer. After trying and failing again in August, Connelly was drafted in September. He reported for a physical at the armory in Newark [Annotator’s Note: Newark, New Jersey] and was given the option of joining the Army, Navy, or Marines. He chose the Army and was sent to Fort Dix [Annotator's Note: now Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Trenton, New Jersey] for induction and qualification tests. He qualified for service with the Army Air Force and was sent to Miami Beach [Annotator’s Note: Miami Beach, Florida] for basic training. Upon completing the training, all the men there assumed they would go on to flight training and were shocked when they were sent instead to gunnery school at Harlingen, Texas. From Harlingen, Connelly was sent to Salt Lake City [Annotator’s Note: Salt Lake City, Utah] for crew selection and onto Biggs Field, Texas for training flying night missions and becaming familiar with the members of his crew. In Topeka, Kansas they picked up a brand new B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] and flew the northern route to Scotland where the plane was taken to be weaponized. The officers were sent for further training, and the enlisted crew members were sent elsewhere. After training was completed, they became part of the 44th Bombardment Group and flew to their base in England. On 4 July 1944, Connelly flew his first mission as a gunner over Nuremburg [Annotator’s Note: Nuremburg, Germany]. The sight of flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] was frightening and his baptism of fire was a strong one. He flew every other day for the next 17 days and never once left the base. He slept in a Nissen hut [Annotator's Note: prefabricated metal building] and when he was off from a mission, he mostly slept all day.

In the summer of 1944, John J. Connelly was serving with the 44th Bombardment Group [Annotator’s Note: 44th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] as a waist gunner. During Connelly’s sixth mission over Munich [Annotator’s Note: Munich, Germany], he encountered the heaviest flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] he had witnessed, but made it back to base largely unscathed. His eighth mission took him back to Munich, and this time he knew what to expect. At the start of the bomb run, the pilot announced that they had been hit. They quickly dropped out of formation and the bombardier dropped the bomb load. Knowing he could not make it back to England, the pilot managed to execute a 180 degree turn to the south toward Switzerland. The plane began to lose altitude as it flew near Freiburg [Annotator’s Note: Freiburg, Germany], prompting Connelly and the other waist gunner, Paul, to begin jettisoning all the equipment that weighed them down. To take his mind off the situation and the flak exploding around him, Connelly pulled out his homemade escape kit which contained a clean uniform and grooming equipment and changed out of his flight suit in preparation for his escape. As they flew over Freiburg, the planes left inboard engine was taken out and began to smoke badly. Connelly later learned that a Hitler Youth [Annotator's Note: a youth organization of the Nazi Party for young men] outfit in Freiburg had taken out the engine, but their gun jammed before they could inflict further damage and possibly kill all the men aboard. Connelly observed many smalls bodies of water below and pulled on his Mae West floatation device just as the pilot gave the order to jump. Paul tapped Connelly on the shoulder and jumped with Connelly following close behind. The last thing he heard before jumping into silence was the bombardier telling everyone to find their way to the American consulate in Switzerland. With no prior parachute training, Connelly leapt from the plane and watched in horror as the parachute ran along the bottom of the plane, but luckily did not become hooked on the static line. He calls this divine intervention. The other crew members were scattered across the sky as he prepared for a landing in a thicket of trees. He quickly cut himself free from his parachute and fell gently to the ground, uninjured. He experienced the best landing of all the other crew members and explains each injury the others sustained. Connelly had landed along a narrow, wooded lane with a log cabin a short distance up the road. Instead of heading north toward the cabin, Connelly recalled a lecture from his training and headed south towards Switzerland. Using his escape compass, he followed the lane off the mountain to a road where he saw a man with a rifle. Believing himself to be in Switzerland and out of danger, he was shocked when he approached the man who began screaming in German and hitting him with the butt of his rifle. At that point, a group of men emerged from the woods at the side of the road and took him captive. One of the Germans told Connelly in broken English that he had been a British prisoner in World War 1 [Annotator's Note: World War 1, global war originating in Europe; 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918] and that Connelly was now a German prisoner.

In the Summer of 1944, John J. Connelly served with the 44th Bombardment Group [Annotator’s Note: 44th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] as a waist gunner and was captured by Germans when he bailed out of his plane. Connelly then led his captors up the mountain to where he had landed. Four of the captors broke off to search for the other survivors and two led Connelly to a small village. There, he was reunited with his navigator and bombardier who signaled to Connelly to remain quiet as he was about to be interrogated. The officer in charge of the interrogations became suspicious of Connelly because he was dressed differently than the other captives. The officer sent one of the guards out who quickly returned with a boy who translated in accented English to Connelly, “If you don’t talk, we will kill you.” Connelly refused to speak and was handed over to the German military who marched the captives (Connelly, the bombardier and navigator, and the tail gunner who he called Little Chum) down the main street in the village. A German woman emerged from a house and screamed in Connelly’s face, “Gangsters, murderers, killers” before being restrained by one of the guards. This outburst was caused by the nickname “Luft Gangsters” which Joseph Goebbels had given American airmen after reading an article which proclaimed, “Criminals make the best soldiers.” They spent the night in a small jail cell, naked on the concrete floor. He was given a black piece of bread to eat. In the morning, they were marched to a railroad station where the rest of Connelly’s crewmen joined them except for the ball gunner and co-pilot who were badly injured and left behind in a hospital. They were taken to Freiburg [Annotation Note: Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany] and placed in a cell for the weekend. Connelly was still afraid to speak to anyone. [Annotator’s Note: It is difficul to hear the interviewee at 0:50:24.000.] Connelly boarded a second train to Frankfurt [Annotator’s Note: Frankfurt, Germany] and was briefly housed at Dulag Luft, a transient intake center for prisoners, with a man he did not know and with whom he did not speak. Connelly was once more placed on a passenger train for a three-day and three-night journey to Stalag Luft IV [Annotator’s Note: in Gross Tychow, Pomerania, now Tychowo, Poland]. Before boarding, he received a Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization] parcel in a large suitcase containing cigarettes, food, and other comfort items. While aboard the train, many of the German guards became friendly and provided the Americans with food and beer.

In the summer of 1944, John J. Connelly was captured by Germans after he bailed out of his plane and was transferred to Stalag Luft IV [Annotator’s Note: in Gross Tychow, Pomerania, now Tychowo, Poland]. Connelly and the other captured crew members were greeted by a German captain dressed in all white who encouraged the guards to be harsh on the prisoners as they were still the enemy. Connelly screamed at the German guards throughout the march into the camp. Though he did not speak English, Connelly believed the captain was encouraging the guards to hit the prisoners with the butt of their rifles and eventually with bayonets if they fell out of line. After a lengthy march, the prisoners arrived at their barracks bloodied by dog bites, bayonet pricks, and rifle butts. Some men soiled themselves and others dropped their Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization] parcels. Thankfully, he did not. Connelly and his crew mates, Paul and Little Chum, ended up in the same room together while imprisoned. By 1 January 1945, the group had become very depressed concerning their situation after the camp guards had distributed English-language copies of German newspapers claiming the stunning successes of the Ardennes offensive [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. By 25 January, the camp began to be evacuated due to the threat of advancing Soviet forces. Paul was evacuated separately from Connelly and Little Chum so the two remaining men befriended Jack Schister [Annotator’s Note: phonetic spelling] in his place. On the morning of 6 February after receiving a parcel of winter clothes, Connelly and the others were marched west in the frigid winter. They were given a small food parcel which proved to be inefficient as the march stretched on for 52 days. They slept in barns or in open fields each night and rotated sleeping in the middle of the other two every third night. They boarded barges and crossed the Oder and Elbe Rivers. The march continued in all weather conditions, and they were fed potatoes every two days. By 1 April, they arrived in Bad Fallingbostel, Germany at the site of Stalag XI B, a camp containing men of different nationalities. The airmen were placed in an annex tent away from the main camp and were due to be evacuated once more. Connelly, Schister, and Little Chum refused a second march and snuck into the main camp to avoid re-evacuation. They traded their winter coats for Polish dress jackets and attempted to appear as un-American as possible. From inside the camp, Connelly and the others watched as the airmen were marched away without a roll call being taken. They were safe. A column of English and American prisoners from the Battle of the Bulge was marched in the next morning. Not long after arriving, Connelly was awakened one morning by the sound of British tanks breaking down the camp’s gates. He was amazed at how fast the British liberators worked to overturn the camp and organize it.

John J. Connelly was captured by Germans when he bailed out of his plane and was transferred to Stalag Luft IV [Annotator’s Note: Gross Tychow, Pomerania, now Tychowo, Poland]. He described a typical day at his first place of captivity, Stalag Luft IV. He woke and washed between eight and nine in the morning before reporting for roll call. Roll call sometimes lasted 90 minutes if a man was reported missing and the camp was locked down to locate him. As a sergeant, Connelly was not subject to any manual labor. [Annotator’s Note: Interviewee steps away from camera to get a cup at 1:12:09.000.] The main meal was dished out each night after one man from each barrack went to the kitchen to get a bucket of soup for the others. His room leader, a German guard named Deacon because of his habit of quoting scripture, then ladled soup into the bowls of each man. The best meal was a sweet barley cereal, something craved by the starving men. Whenever the soup had meat in it, it was more than likely to be horse meat. The only thing that prevented mass starvation as seen in the concentration camps was the Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization] parcels that arrived on occasion. Connelly was liberated by the British in April 1945. He was on board a ship in the middle of the Atlantic when news of the German surrender reached him. He was at a rest home in North Carolina when he learned of the Japanese surrender. After spending time in the rest home, he was sent to Atlantic City [Annotator’s Note: Atlantic City, New Jersey] and was assigned duty in the physical education department. He was discharged in October 1945 with the rank of staff sergeant. Using the G.I. bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment], he registered for college at Seton Hall [Annotator’s Note: Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey] and graduated with a degree in English. He may have suffered once returning to civilian life, but then he used sports to keep his mind at ease.

John J. Connelly’s most memorable experience of the war was during night training at Biggs Field [Annotator’s Note: Fort Bliss, Texas]. Upon returning to his barracks, 18 bunks were being removed from the room after the men had died when their plane crashed on a mission. He fought in World War 2 because he wanted to be part of the team and would have felt like half of a man had he not served. The war gave him a chance to go to college on the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] and to see the world. Without it, he may have never left Newark [Annotator’s Note: Newark, New Jersey]. His service means a lot to him today. [Annotator’s Note: Interviewee leaves the camera to get his World War 2 hat at 1:26:00.000.] He thinks more American conservatives have an appreciation for World War 2. Connelly believes there should be institutions like the National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], and that we should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations.