Onesi was born in Pennsylvania, but moved to Niagara Falls, New York at a young age. He was drafted into the Air Force in 1942. He attended radio training school in Chicago, Illinois. He transferred several times for various schools. He went to gunnery school in Las Vegas, Nevada. They trained on the west coast, looking for submarines on training flights. He was assigned as the waist gunner immediately. They flew overseas and landed in England. It was a long flight from the US to England. When they got to England, they wanted to split up Onesi's crew, but the pilot, Dick Smith, refused to let them do it.They arrived in England on 3 May of 1942. For the most part, they had the same aircraft. They named their second airplane Destiny Taught. They had the name painted on the airplane. Onesi remembers the Air Force treated very well, the food was good. He recalls flying his first mission into Germany. They did not have an escort into Germany, just to the English Channel. He remembers they were on their own until they made it back to the channel.

Onesi recalls the aircraft flying in a very tight V formation to protect each other. They bombed their targets during the day, while the British bombed at night. He was told it "was all politics," but he did not like it; they did what they were told to do. They had extensive equipment to keep warm in the airplane, all fleece lined and heated. If they lost power in the airplane, they had to decrease altitude or freeze to death, their flight suits were tapped into the power on the B-17. Onesi did not fly in Black Week in October of 1942 [Annotator's Note: Onesi probably means October 1943, or the second Schweinfurt raid, called Black Thursday because the loss of aircrewmen was the highest for any USAAF mission.]When they arrived in England, they flew training missions with the 95th Division. Onesi flew with the same crew, the pilots flew with other pilots to train. From the time they woke up, to the time they came back to England after the mission, they had 13-14 hour days. Onesi was more afraid of the flack than the German fighters. On 30 December of 1943, Onesi's plane was shot down over Germany. At first, they lost one engine. They were at the channel when they were attacked by German fighters. The gunners were not were they were supposed to be, they were not firing. They knew they were going down without the warning from the pilot.Onesi and the other waist gunner stayed were they were in the airplane, they could not move. The other waist gunner was impaled by a 20mm machine gun. He was taken to a barn by a doctor, where one of his kidneys was removed. The underground resistance could not take Onesi and the other man because they were too much of a liability.

Onesi and the other waist gunner were taken to a German hospital, he was wounded by a machine gun, but the Germans did not help them at all. After some prodding my his family, Onesi tell how he got out of the airplane. They saw the fighter plane, but it was out of range. As they were going down, he told the other waist gunner to get to the door. Onesi tried to get the door off, he finally his the door with this shoulder and he was sucked out of the airplane. Onesi and the other waist gunner landed close together.A French doctor found them and operated on the other waist gunner in a barn. They turned them over to the Germans at a hospital. They landed on the border of France and Germany. Onesi had a punctured lung from his shoot. They were in the hospital for a month and they both survived. He never thought of dying in the airplane or when he reached the ground. The Germans never interrogated him at the hospital. An older German soldier was able to communicate with Onesi through hand signals about the crew.After being in the hospital for a month, the Germans sent Onesi to Stuttgart for interrogation. They asked him about the US and the plane's crew. They did this for a week. The Germans knew more about his crew than he did.

Onesi recalls his time in the prisoner of war (POW) camps. If they were not sergeants, they would have been better off. The other men were able to work in the fields. The food was terrible, they never received a full, solid meal. When Onesi entered the Air Force, he weighed 145 pounds. He weighed 98 pounds after being liberated from the POW camp. Some of the men discussed escaping and tried to get out. He recalls two men taking refuge in a barn to escape, but the Germans killed them.Onesi remembers receiving packages from the Salvation Army. This helped them pass the time. He was able to write home to his family, but the letters were censored. His family initially received a telegram that he was MIA [Annotator's Note: Missing in Action]. The Germans shipped them on trains to the various camps, anywhere from 3-5 days. When they transferred Onesi to Heidelberg, he remembers going on a coal barge. They could not breath until one of the men persuaded the Germans to open some of the planks and canvas on the decks.Onesi remembers being placed in a camp in Stuttgart. Some of the men smuggled in radios, they knew what was happening in the war. He never thought about dying or being liberated from the camp, he lived day by day.

Onesi remembers the first prisoner of war (POW) camp he was in. It was an older camp that the Germans added barracks to. The Americans were in the new part of the camp, the English in the older portion. When they reached Stuttgart, he remembers being shackled together and forced to march by a large, red headed German officer. He remembers the German police dogs and machine guns. They carried whatever they wanted to take with them, but they were marched so fast they had to drop all of their possessions. Onesi's friend Roger tried to take a phonograph with him, but Onesi forced him to drop it because they could not run fast enough. Some of the men could not make it. The younger German soldiers were not as understanding as the older soldiers.Onesi remembers one incident when a German soldier was electrocuted while working on an electrical pole and the American POWs cheered. The Germans fired straight into them. While they were transported between camps, they had some water, but the conditions were horrible. He remembers at least 200 men in the boat. The cattle cars were worse than anything else. They could not move at all and they had nothing to eat.

As they traveled through Germany [Annotator's Note: during his time spent as a prisoner of war (POW), Onesi remembers seeing the damage from allied bombings in the various cities. That was one of the coldest winters in German history. He remembers going ahead of the rest of the men and finding ingredients to make bread so the men had something to eat. The civilians were cruel to the Air Force POWs, they would throw rocks at them and in some instances they would kill some of the men when they were shot down. The younger German soldiers were more cruel than the older one's.Onesi remembers he was making bread when he was liberated. He remembers British soldiers coming up to him on tanks. One British soldier told them to take a German officer's car and they drove to France. They made it to Camp Lucky Strike. He remembers thousands of G.I.s at the camp. He recalls seeing his cousin at Camp Lucky Strike, he stayed with him for a week. He could not eat because he was so sick. It took him about five days to get back to the states. They had no idea they were free until they saw the British tanks. Onesi was liberated in April of 1945. Onesi did not find out anything about his crew until he was back in the states.

Onesi remembers Dick Smith's [Annotator's Note: Onesi's pilot] mother keeping in touch with the crew and their families. He recalls the attack that brought their airplane down. He tried to fire at the German fighter plane, but it was out of range. Fighters moved in on both sides and on top of his airplane. Most of the men were getting ready to bail out, not shooting their guns. He saw the airplane crash after he bailed out. The remains of the aircraft were recovered in later years. If he met the German pilot that shot him down, he would congratulate him because he was a good pilot that did his job. There was a certain respect between the American and German Air Forces. Onesi stayed in touch with most of the crew, mostly Dick Smith. Onesi and his wife attended some of the reunions of the escapees and French underground.

Onesi never returned to England to see his old base. He has no desire to go back, that chapter of his life is over. He recalls his crew coming together over a period of time, as they traveled from school to school. The majority of the crew was together before they went overseas, but their navigator was replaced in England. He knew he was hit while he was still in the airplane, the bullet remains behind his heart. When he was discharged from the Air Force, he received a full physical. He told the warrant officer that he was not going to put in for disability, so the officer did not tell him about the bullet. He found out 10 years after the war that he had a bullet behind his heart. He would choose to do it again if he had to. He has no regrets. He knew the war had to happen, the fighting, not the politics. He states he had nothing against the Germans, they were fighting the Nazis.