Darrel D. Gust was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin in November 1921. His mother died when he was 11 years old, and, at the same time, his father's assets were wiped out by the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945]. Gust was pretty much on his own after that. In 1936, his father got a job as a sausage maker, and moved the family to La Crosse [Annotator's Note: La Crosse, Wisconsin]. Gust graduated from high school in 1939. He very vividly remembers when he heard about Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He had just returned from ordering a Christmas goose, and his future father-in-law, who was listening to the radio, announced that the Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] had just bombed Pearl Harbor. No one among them knew the location of Pearl Harbor. Gust thought to himself that it wouldn't be long before he was in service. He really became intent on enlisting. He was 20 years old and learned that 15 of his friends had already undergone a course put on by the Elks [Annotator's Note: Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, American fraternal order] "Keep 'Em Flying Club", and they were all set to go. Gust took the aviation cadet's test, passed it and enlisted with his friends. During the duration of the war, four of the 16 were killed. Gust had his first taste of alcohol on the train trip leaving La Crosse in 1942 while on his way to the aviation cadet base at Santa Ana, California [Annotator's Note: Santa Ana Army Air Base in Santa Ana, California]. The base was still under construction in March 1942. Gust wanted to be a pilot but could not pass the eye examination so he chose to be a navigator. America was really unprepared to a terrible extent for the war. What was amazing was the relative speed at which so much was accomplished.

When Darrell D. Gust concluded his 12 weeks of training at Santa Ana [Annotator's Note: Santa Ana Army Air Base in Santa Ana, California], he shipped out for Sacramento, California for navigation school. There he lived in barracks with two cadets to a room. He trained for 14 weeks in star identification, pilotage, radio navigation, dead reckoning navigation and celestial navigation. Under the circumstances, he was trained very well. He also trained to become an officer. He graduated with Class 42-15 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He was assigned to a heavy bombardment division and went on to additional training at Salt Lake City [Annotator's Note: Salt Lake City, Utah], primarily in B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] and B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber]. Throughout the war, B-17s carried ten man crews. Gust moved to Washington state, where the weather was lousy for flying, but the crewmen were designated into specialties. Gust named the gunner on his crew. He became good friends with his pilot, John V. "Vince" Lemmon [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Captain John Vincent Lemmon]. Gust and Lemmon had the utmost faith in each other's abilities. The crew was formed in Spokane, Washington, then moved to Walla Walla, Washington for their next phase of training. There, the flight officer and copilot, Elmo E. Clark [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Second Lieutenant Elmo E. Clark], came on board. The crew went through two more training sessions in preparation for combat, one at Smoky Hill [Annotator's Note: Smoky Hill Army Airfield in Salina, Kansas], another at a base where they picked up a brand new B-17.

The fighting in Africa was ongoing [Annotator's Note: in March 1943] when Darrell D. Gust was preparing for combat. He was sure he would be going to Africa from his last training station in Florida. The officials made sure they each had a will and had their financial affairs in order. When the squadron was organized to depart, the pilot was advised that his first stop would be Borinquen Field, Puerto Rico [Annotator's Note: in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico], but any further instruction was in sealed orders that he could only open after he was five miles off the coast of the United States. The crew learned they were going to report to the commanding officer of the 8th Air Force in London, England. That was a thrill. They flew the southern route, through British Guiana; Natal, Brazil; and Ascension Island [Annotator's Note: British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha]. Gust had to use every form of celestial navigation he had ever learned during this challenging trip. After going through a horrible storm and making an emergency landing in Africa, they took off for Marrakesh [Annotator's Note: Marrakesh, Morocco], then flew a circuitous route avoid enemy fire. They approached a small airport in England, used only for flights coming in from the United States. The pilot asked for landing instructions and misunderstood the traffic controller's English accent. When he began his descent, crewmen on the ground started sending up flares until the landing pattern was adjusted 180 degrees.

Darrell D. Gust's squadron [Annotator's Note: 358th Bombardment Squadron, 303rd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] spent one night at Land's End [Annotator's Note: Land's End, England] before taking their aircraft to the Army Air Corps field at Bobbington [Annotator's Note: Royal Air Force Bobbington; then Royal Air Force Halfpenny Green, England]. Their plane was taken away. They were crying because they had customized its insides to make it more comfortable. The B-17F [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] that his crew flew over had a mount for a bombsight, but, as it turned out, only the lead plane and the wing man who followed the lead plane would sight with the bombsight. All the other planes in the formation opened their bomb bays when the lead plane did. Gust was assigned to the 358th Bombardment Squadron, one of the four squadrons in England at the time. Officially, the base was Field Number 107, but called Bobbington for the little town nearby, that had a tavern and a church. Three bomb groups constituted a wing, and a division was composed of three wings. In total, a formation was made up of 90 B-17s followed by a division of B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber]. The third division would be another group of B-17s. The instructors were fellows that had completed their combat tour of 25 missions. The Germans were extremely proficient, not only in their flight skills, but also in their armament skills. In the fall of 1942, the Germans had reconstructed a B-17 from a crashed American airplane, painted it like a Luftwaffe [Annotator's Note: the German Air Force] aircraft, and took it up. They learned that the Achilles heel [Annotator's Note: term used to indicate a weakness] of the B-17 was a head-on attack, because there was less armament there. Gust's crew flew its first 15 missions in a B-17 called "Charley Horse" [Annotator's Note: B-17F Serial number 42-29571], that had been augmented with twin .50 calibers [Annotator's Note: Browning ANM2 .50 caliber machine guns] mounted side-by-side in the nose. That accounted for the crew downing a German airplane during combat.

When he arrived in England, Darrell D. Gust knew that at least a third of the original 28 crews that had gone over in 1943 had been shot down. As the navigator Gust was responsible for two guns, the twin .50 caliber guns [Annotator's Note: Browning ANM2 .50 caliber machine gun] above his navigator's desk on the left side, and a single .50 caliber gun on the right side. The German Fw 109 [Annotator's Note: German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter aircraft] was a beautiful airplane. RAF [Annotator's Note: British Royal Air Force] pilots flew several captured German airplanes to his airbase and staged synthetic battles where the German planes excelled. The Americans were not allowed to go within about 100 yards of the planes. At Molesworth [Annotator's Note: Royal Air Force Molesworth in Molesworth, England], Gust's squadron [Annotator's Note: 358th Bombardment Squadron, 303rd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] was assigned to a barracks. Initially the base was run by English personnel, but in time the location became headquarters of the American 8th Air Force. The 303rd Bomb Group became known for its ability to fly in close formation. It meant that the guns were brought to bear in a more effective manner when attacked by an enemy airplane. The COs [Annotator's Note: commanding officers] made the squadrons practice flying close formations any time they were not in combat. Gust feels that resulted in the 303rd having less losses than many other groups. Gust's group flew all its missions without any loss of crew or engines because of fighters. Gust is here today because of the skill of the pilots in his group.

[Annotator's Note: Darrell D. Gust served in the US Army Air Forces as a navigator aboard Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers in the 358th Bombardment Squadron, 303rd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force.] On the night before a mission, a teletype would come in with the battle order. It would indicate what kind of bombs would be dropped and identify the target. The group navigator and the squadron navigator would get together and complete the flight plan. The crew would get up around two in the morning and go to the mess hall to eat. If it was a combat mission, they were served a fresh egg, maybe two, at a time when fresh eggs were really scarce in England. Then, Gust would go to group headquarters where the crew was counted and the weatherman would report on the weather over the target area. Then the group intelligence officer would go over a map of Europe, tracing in chalk the proposed bombing route to and from the target. Gust's first mission was a maximum effort, which meant that every plane that could fly would be engaged. There were 105 B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] involved. When the map was revealed, there were all sorts of groans. The CO [Annotator's Note: commanding officer] quieted them down. He told them it was going to be rough but he wanted a tight formation. When the CO of the base flew with you, it gave you a lot of extra confidence. The group was told the number of enemy fighters to expect, and where the antiaircraft [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery] was located. Then there were separate meetings for the navigators, for the bombardiers, and for the pilots. Then the groups would reconvene. They had a ritual of playing a record titled "Let's Get Lost" [Annotator's Note: jazz music performed by Chet Baker]. Contrary to orders, Gust would load an extra box of ammunition in a compartment near his position. At the end of difficult missions, like Hamburg [Annotator's Note: Hamburg, Germany], Bremen [Annotator's Note: Bremen, Germany] and Kiel [Annotator's Note: Kiel, Germany], the front of the plane would be filled with empty shell casings. If Gust was wading in cartridges after a mission, he knew it had been a pretty rough experience.

If the aviators saw a plane hit, they would count the parachutes that came out. According to Darrell D. Gust, if the count was ten, things were going to be okay. Sometimes the plane blew up when only a few parachutes had gotten out. It was not a very Christian-like thought, but the expression "better he than me" would come to mind. Some of the fellows that came after D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] flew their 35 missions without seeing an enemy plane, because the German Luftwaffe had been decimated by then. What that meant, was that the antiaircraft weapons were being driven further and further back to where the Allies were bombing near the front. Gust later heard that at the end of the war there were children manning the German cannons. A piece of shrapnel the size of a big potato coming through the bottom of his plane, upending the nose gunner, and busting that whole nose cone into a million splinters. On his first trip to Bremen [Annotator's Note: Bremen, Germany], the fighters started hitting them about 30 miles off the coast and continued pecking at the group of 105 airplanes. The Germans shot down 16 B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. His plane took off with ten 100 pound bombs. It was the job of the bombardier to pull the pin on the safety device, putting the bomb in motion and arming it. Many times, they were instructed to drop their unused bombs in "the Wash" [Annotator's Note: a rectangular bay and estuary at the north-west corner of East Anglia, England] in northern England. However, at the end of the war, if the target was in Germany, then they just let them drop anywhere on German soil. On his first mission, he remembers having to scrape frost off his little window with a ruler. Later, the old timers told him how to circulate fresh air in the nose of the plane by holding an opening with a .50 caliber shell casing. On his first mission, all of the airplanes were bombing the same target as it came underneath them. Gust was scared to death. He carried his Colt .45 automatic pistol [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] and thought afterward that the last thing he would have wanted to do was bail out and fight a gang war with that pistol.

Darrell D. Gust's second, third and fourth missions happened one day apart. Then a fog moved in, grounding the group [Annotator's Note: Gust was a navigator in the 358th Bombardment Squadron, 303rd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force]. When that kind of weather happened, the men just sat around playing cards or something. Toward the end of the 14 months he was in England, Gust served as an unauthorized assistant to Vince Lemmon [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Captain John Vincent Lemmon]. Of his other missions, the one that sticks out the most was his very last. He had transferred from the 358th [Annotator's Note: 358th Bombardment Squadron, 303rd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] to the 359th squadron [359th Bombardment Squadron, 303rd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] and was ready to complete his tour of duty. The night before the mission of 11 January 1944, Gust was in the club when he received a phone call summoning him to Operations right away. When he got there, he began preparing a flight plan for a mission that called for a huge force. The target was a German Focke-Wulf [Annotator's Note: Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG; German aerospace manufacturer based in Bremen, Germany] manufacturing and assembly plant. Gust would be in the very lead airplane among the 600 or so that were going on the mission. They took off first, circled until the rest of their group was assembled, then met groups from two other airfields. All told there were about 650 to 700 planes. Coincidentally, it was also his first wedding anniversary. Everything went fine assembling the formation. Deep into Germany, General Travis [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Brigadier General Robert Falligant Travis] called the squadron to inform them that most of the formation was being recalled because of weather. But they were close to the target, and General Travis elected to continue with his squadron on the original plan. When all the other bombers turned around for England, Gust noted in his log that the P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] were flying all around like birds, but suddenly they headed back, following the others. Gust figured there was some screw up with communications, because they should never have left.

Within three to five minutes of the rest of the group turning back, Darrel D. Gust's squadron [Annotator's Note: 359th Bombardment Squadron, 303rd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] was hit by about 300 German fighter aircraft. The German's did an excellent job of anticipating an Allied raid, and they had a series of fighter bases all over north Germany. They could readily muster a large number of fighter planes to intercept the English and American bombers. By many accounts, Gust's last mission [Annotator's Note: bombing the Focke-Wulf fighter aircraft factory at Oschersleben, Germany] was one of the greatest air battles ever fought. When everything shook out, the general [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Brigadier General Robert F. Travis] was harshly criticized, but it was his prerogative to make the command to go on with the attack. When they did get smacked, several planes had to bail out or crash land before they reached their target area. Gust had to switch from being a navigator to being an aerial gunner for about 40 minutes of the trip because there was a steady stream of German fighters coming in. When they reached the initial point of their bomb run, about 30 miles away, Gust could see the target through the windshield. The fighter opposition had diminished, and antiaircraft fire was only moderate. The older B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] had a drift meter, which Gust used to watch the bombs leave the plane. The bombardier hit the target smack on the nose. After their bombs were dropped, the squadron experienced pretty heavy flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] going back to the coast of Germany. The weather had turned nasty over the English Channel, so they had to take the aircraft dangerously low before they broke the cloud cover. Gust did his share of praying, and through the grace of God, they landed by the light of magnesium flares. It was about a seven and a half hour mission.

Darrell D. Gust has been a student of the 8th Air Force since he left service. Its growth has been phenomenal. He left in April [Annotator's Note: April 1944], three months after he had reached his mission quota. He was glad he was with the 303rd [Annotator's Note: 303rd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force], which operated in tight formation. He is sure that saved his life. Gust never heard one peep about the Holocaust, and he knows he must have flown over hundreds of those camps [Annotator's Note: concentration camps, death camps and labor camps]. One thing that gave them inspiration was clearing the sea route to Russia. The Atlantic was filled with German submarines. He estimates that one third of his missions eliminated some phase of their ability to operate. Gust thinks that if it hadn't been for the 8th Air Force, we never could have won the war. He doesn't think the war changed him all that much. He compares his service to that of the infantryman and said his was a different kind battle and a different kind of emotion. Just flying, was a danger in itself. Add to that hundreds of German fighters pouncing down on your formation and it is a different feeling of death up there than death on the ground. Never once during the war did the 8th Air Force turn back because they were afraid of the mission. Gust has a very strong religious belief, and many times he prayed short and hard. It was a relief to have gotten through it, and he wouldn't take a million dollars to go through it again. He and his colleagues were young, and felt they had tremendous amount of weight on their shoulders. He was recalled in 1949, at his own request, and became a navigation instructor at Ellington [Annotator's Note: Ellington Field in Houston, Texas]. At about the time the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 1950 to 1953] was over, he decided to get out of the Air Force. He was a Major. He became a personnel and labor relations officer at a public utility, from which he retired after 29 years. He then moved with his wife to Texas for six wonderful years. He is now 90 years old and jokes that he is waiting for the Good Lord to call him. He is ready to go and always available.