Joseph Richard Bernardi, Senior was born in March 1923 in the Bronx [Annotator's Note: the Bronx is one of the five boroughs in New York, New York]. His father was a cabinet maker. They moved to Olean, New York during the Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States]. His father took the job to feed the kids. There was not anything else available. He was 13 years old when they moved out of the Bronx. He went to Olean High School. He made a lot of friends. They went dancing together. He was at Turner Field [Annotator's Note: later Turner Air Force and then Naval Air Station Albany in Albany, Georgia] when he heard about Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He joined the service on 14 February 1941. He loved airplanes. He wanted to learn a trade. He learned airplane mechanics. He went to a school in Illinois where he became a crew chief. He got to Turner Field before it was Turner Field [Annotator's Note: Air Corps Flying School, Albany]. He was a crew chief at 18 years old. They were helping the English cadets learn how to defend England. He learned about Pearl Harbor at about noon that Sunday. They were told they were going to war. They lowered the age from 21 years old to 18 years old to fly the planes. He took the test to become a pilot. He went to Maxwell Field [Annotator’s Note: now Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama] to train. He was married. Cadets were not supposed to be married. For primary training, they flew PT-17 Stearman [Annotator's Note: Boeing-Stearman Model 75 Kaydet primary trainer aircraft]. These planes were the most fun to fly. He graduated and got his wings. Then he was sent to Sebring, Florida where he was in transition school to be the first pilot to fly B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. He was skipping the co-pilot position. They needed pilots for all the planes they were planning to build. He passed the exam and became the first pilot. Next, he went to Texas for more training. They trained for night flying and bombing missions. He got along with his crew. He was younger than the crew. He learned his job well. He learned the instruments well.

Joseph Richard Bernardi, Senior flew formation over the Gulf of Mexico when he was sent to Alexandria, Louisiana. They did gunnery practice. They instructed them to unload the breach of the .50 caliber gun [Annotator's Note: Browning ANM2 .50 caliber machine gun] because they would fire so many rounds and then the gun would get hot. If there was a shell left inside, it would go off without pulling the trigger. This happened to one guy, and Bernardi’s tail gunner got hit. His elbow was torn open. They had to get the man to a hospital. The closest hospital was in Mobile, Alabama. By the time he landed there were ambulances on both sides. They had to amputate the gunner’s arm. After this, they got their orders to go overseas. They had to go to Nebraska to pick up a new plane. When they got there, they opened their orders. They were headed to Scotland. They had to make two stops on their way. They flew from Nebraska to Maine where they refueled. Then they flew across the North Atlantic in December [Annotator's Note: December 1942]. They were told to fly between two layers of clouds. When they were supposed to take off, he ran into a Navy pilot. The pilot told him they were grounded because they would run into ice otherwise. That night when they took off, they found the ice. He had seven or eight inches of build-up on his wings. He could feel it affecting his controls. He went down to three thousand feet and then the ice came off. He stayed at that altitude the rest of the night. He was 90 miles off course at daybreak. They made it to Northern Ireland. He had to land because he was low on fuel. They had to light a fire on the runway in order for him to find it. When he landed, he had about 20 minutes of fuel left.

Joseph Richard Bernardi, Senior was assigned to the 351st Bomb Group [Annotator's Note: 509th Bombardment Squadron, 351st Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] in southern England [Annotator's Note: at Royal Air Force Station Polebrook in Polebrook, England]. He started to fly missions in late December 1943. He popped an eardrum. He was used to flying in warm weather. Now he was flying in extreme cold. He was there for about two months before he flew again. He started flying missions again on 4 February 1944. On the first mission he went on he was co-pilot with an experienced crew. The early missions were interesting. He saw planes exploding. They went to Holland one time, but they mostly stayed over water. They saw flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire], but they did not see any fighters. The escorts were British Spitfires [Annotator's Note: Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft] who would take them across the English Channel and then turn back. There was a formation in front of them that got attacked by what looked like P-38s [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft]. They were captured by the Germans in Italy. The planes were painted black and had German markings on them. Later on, they had better escorts. The P-38 was not a match in dogfights. Later on, they got the P-51 Mustangs [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] as their escorts when they went into Germany. The only nice part about it was when they got home, they lived a decent life. When they flew at high altitudes their internal organs expanded. Everything would turn to ice at those altitudes. The night before the mission was the hardest. He would think about whether or not he would make it through the mission. He would say his prayers and then fall asleep. They would be briefed and then they would have breakfast. Then they would pick up their parachutes and take a truck to the planes. They would do the preflight inspection and then get ready for takeoff. Then they would get into formation and head across the Channel [Annotator’s Note: English Channel]. Then they would get up to the right altitudes. Different targets varied for different altitudes.

Joseph Richard Bernardi, Senior went on a mission to Berlin [Annotator’s Note: Berlin, Germany with the 509th Bombardment Squadron, 351st Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force]. He flew at a high altitude the first time he went. He was above the flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. His second time flying over Berlin he was in the thick of the flak. His plane was being hit by shrapnel. They got hit by a shell that was a dud. It went through the engine and left a hole, but it did not explode. Later on, the Germans were using radar on their guns. The lead group would then dump aluminum tinsel so the Germans could not use the radar. Occasionally they would see a German B-17 [Annotator's Note: a captured Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] fly near them. They would give the gunner their altitudes. They were told not to unload their guns until they made it back because the captured B-17s would follow them across the Channel [Annotator’s Note: English Channel]. They were on a bomb run to Berlin and the leader of the formation was hit. Bernardi had to take over. He led the formation over their target and then led them home. The next day, he was made deputy group leader again. As they crossed the Channel the group leader gave him the signal to take over. The group leader was having issues with his automatic pilot. On one mission they were bombing a target and taking pictures of the target as the bombs hit it.

Joseph Richard Bernardi, Senior [Annotator's Note: a pilot in the 509th Bombardment Squadron, 351st Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] flew missions to Schweinfurt [Annotator’s Note: Schweinfurt, Germany] which was heavily fortified. There were a lot of fighter attacks and flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. There was a lot of flak when they flew over Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany] as well. This is where the military [Annotator's Note: German military] had their headquarters. The capital was defended quite heavily. A lot of the other targets were guarded by fighters. The Germans did not fly in formation they flew like a swarm of bees. They called their fighter escorts their little friends. If the fighter was running low on fuel, they would have to leave formation, and another would take their place. Sometimes it would take up to half an hour for the replacement to get to them. Sometimes the fighters would make like they ran out of fuel and would head back to England. Then once the Germans came in close, they would turn around and fly back to fight. One day this happened when they were heading to Berlin and the fighters shot down 217 German fighters as opposed to the regular 20 fighters. From then on, the P-51s [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] came with their wing tanks on so they could stay with the bomb group both going and coming. Bernardi saw one plane get shot down. The co-pilot was decapitated from the shrapnel of a 20mm shell. The pilot was knocked unconscious. The gunners managed to bring the plane back to England, but they did not know how to land it. The crew had to bail out. Two crew members stayed because the pilot was still alive. They had to have help landing the plane in a field. When it crashed landed in the field, the two crew members died on impact. Both men were awarded the Medal of Honor [Annotator's Note: the Medal of Honor is the highest award a United States service member can receive who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor] posthumously.

Joseph Richard Bernardi, Senior [Annotator's Note: a pilot with the 509th Bombardment Squadron, 351st Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] had a mission on 3 June 1944. They took off at night. He was looking out for other planes and trying to fly with instruments. He tried to miss a light on the ground he thought was a plane. He told the co-pilot to look for them, and he would fly instruments. Their navigator took them north so they could get up to altitude. Then they went back to get into formation. They went to the point where the Channel [Annotator’s Note: English Channel] was the shortest between England and France. They flew down the coast of France. Then they bombed somewhere in France. On 6 June 1944, they went to a briefing, and they were told it was D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. They were told the ships had left and how many planes would be in the air. They were told not to attempt to make a U-turn if they were having issues. There would be 10,000 planes in the air, and they would not make it back. If they continued to have issues they needed to land on the coast and join the troops on the ground. The weather was not as good as they expected. As they approached, he could not see the ships. He felt bad for the kids in the first landing because the Germans had the beach heavily fortified. He felt lucky that he was in the air. The German fighters did not dare come out because they had so many planes in the air. They were sent in to bomb the railroads. They made a big circle and made their way back. This was his 30th mission. They celebrated to the point they thought they were finished. He flew two more missions. Due to the urgency of the invasion, all crews remained on active duty. The flight surgeon put them on flak status in a flak house [Annotator's Note: a designated rest home for American airmen who required downtime after flying a number of combat missions]. They were off combat duty. They went up to a house that a noble let them use. A few days later he got word that he was going home. He could fly home, or he could take a ship. If they flew, they had to take an old war plane across. After his trip on a new plane, he did not want to fly an old plane. It took them 13 days to get home by ship. When he saw the Statue of Liberty [Annotator's Note: in New York, New York], he was very happy. He met his son when he arrived home. The boy was eight weeks old.