Truman Kennedy
 T/Sgt. Truman Kennedy passed away on 12-14-10 in Greensburg,PA. He flew missions on a B-24 Liberator named "Hot Shotsie" during WWII.
Technical Sgt. Truman Kennedy was lucky
By Anne Griffis FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, May 28, 2006
In April, Truman Kennedy consented to an oral history interview, which was audiotaped and transcribed by Anne Griffis and donated to the Rivers of Steel National and State Heritage Area Archives in Homestead.
Perhaps Truman Kennedy was drowsing in English class or dreaming about his uncle's home-brew hidden under dead leaves in a hollow in the cow pasture. Somehow, he missed the vocabulary lesson on retirement.
At 89 come Friday, he continues to run the farm in Ligonier that he has managed for 60 years.
He also missed the lesson on self-preservation. When called to serve his country in 1943, he responded, "That's fine. I'm ready to go."
This is the story of Technical Sgt. Truman Kennedy, U.S. Army Air Force, 15th Air Force in Italy, 758th Bomb Squadron, 459th Bomb Group.
At the time, Kennedy learned he would be drafted for the war against Germany, he was a laborer in the open hearth department in the Clairton steel mill. It was dangerous work. He would help prepare the steel, cook it until it got to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit and tap it into big ladles. Kennedy's job was to open up what they called a tapping hole. He'd line the 3-foot long tapping hole with crushed limestone -- dolomite -- then pack red clay in behind it. It took time for the steel to liquefy dolomite, which would be long enough for the steel to be tapped off.
"You're right by it when you work opening that hole up, that tapping hole," Kennedy recalled. "We used long bars to break the material loose. In order to burn the rest through, we had to use liquid oxygen. When I was doing it one day, something seemed to tell me it didn't feel right. I jumped back and as I jumped back, it blew out. If I had hesitated a second, I would have lost my whole face."
The superintendent came one day and said he was sorry but he couldn't get Kennedy deferred from the military draft any longer. He'd been on a critical job making steel for the war service. Kennedy didn't know he had been deferred. So, he thanked the superintendent and said it was fine, he was ready to go. He had lost a brother the year before on the destroyer, the USS Simms, which was sunk in the Coral Sea Battle with Japan.
Kennedy always wanted to be a pilot, so he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force. At a testing center in Pittsburgh, he earned the second-highest score in the group.
"Then they put me in gunnery school," he laughs. "They had enough pilots. They needed gunners for the B-24 bombers."
Kennedy was sent for special gunnery training in Laredo, Texas.
"That was to learn machine guns, and just how good a shot I was," he said. "We did a lot of trap shooting, clay pigeons. I was pretty good. I was getting over 90 out of a hundred shots. That was on a pickup truck. Riding on the back of a pickup truck going around this track, and they were shooting clay pigeons out at all angles."
In Casper, Wyo., Truman did all his gunnery training from an airplane. Ranchers would manage to get their sheep on the shooting ranges, and some of the guys would shoot them.
"If we killed a sheep, the ranchers brought it in to the base," Kennedy said. "We had sheep on our menu all the time I was there."
Kennedy then was assigned to a squadron to be shipped overseas. Personal letters were censored, so in order to tell his wife, Geneva, where he was and where he was shipping out he used a code. His sister's middle name was Virginia. He wrote something about seeing his sister, so Geneva would know he'd be shipping out from Newport News, Va.
In Italy, Truman was assigned to a battle group and sent to Cerignola, where he had his Thanksgiving dinner in an olive grove. He took a crash course in photography, and his rating went up. His job was critical. He'd man the machine gun when they weren't on target. But, when they were starting to bomb, his job was to take pictures.
Unlike today, when everything's electronic and bombs can be released 25 miles or more away from the target, in 1944 they had to do visual bombing. Flying at 18,000 to 21,000 feet, they were low enough to be hit by artillery shells. Kennedy would put the camera on automatic and keep it aimed on the target.
A lot of people were killed by shrapnel. Kennedy was lucky.
"Well, one day we were on a bomb run and something seemed to tell me, just like a voice said, 'You go down and get a closer look,'" he remembered. "Well, I bent over to look past my camera. As I bent over, a big piece of shrapnel came clear through the airplane, about the size of my fist, right where my head had been. There was a big hole on each side of the airplane."
When they landed, the squadron commanders inspected Kennedy's pictures to see how much damage had been done. That would determine whether they'd have to go back the next day or two and rebomb the target and destroy it. The interrogation room was in an old winery. The walls were lined with hogsheads that would hold a couple hundred gallons of wine. Drinking the wine was not permitted.
The Stars and Stripes, a publication for military personnel, often used the expression, "Well, the boys dropped everything today but the kitchen sink." Two or three of Kennedy's buddies went into town and scrounged up an old kitchen sink. Next trip up, they dropped a kitchen sink.
The bombers couldn't get across the highest part of the Alps because of their loads, so they flew through Brunner Pass into Germany.
"One trip, the Germans were waiting for us," Kennedy said. "Believe me, they hit a lot of planes that day; they shot a lot out of the sky. I saw a lot of my friends parachuting out on those Alps. The pilot in our plane was an old lumberjack from Maine. He was 27 or 28. He said, 'Boys, the hell with this.' He could dump the bombs from the pilot's seat. So, he dumped the bombs and that (B-24 bomber) went straight up. They can't do that, but that one did. We made it back to base, but we'd blown up one engine and the other one was smoking, ready to go. The plane looked like a sieve."
The Germans were low on fuel and couldn't send up as many fighters. They relied on artillery.
"You could look out in front of your plane and it looked like you were flying through a black wall, there'd be so many shells exploding," Kennedy recalled.
About midway through his tour of duty, Truman was asked to fly extra missions with other crews and groups because there was a shortage of photographers. He flew 14 missions in 15 days. He said his primary interest was trying to get the job done and get out and get back home.
Kennedy completed 35 combat missions, then caught a ship in Naples, the SS Mariposa. He was leaning on the rail of the ship looking at the Rock of Gibraltar when it was announced via the ship's public address system that Germany had capitulated.
After his discharge from the service, Kennedy and Geneva, who died last August, began their family. Their marriage of 65 years produced two daughters, Beth Kennedy and Susan Kidney. They also have two granddaughters and two great-grandchildren.
Kennedy didn't think much about his combat experience for years. He lost track of his buddies and never saw them again after he left Italy.
Read more: Technical Sgt. Truman Kennedy was lucky - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/rss/s_455811.html#ixzz1N0Eubqlt
T/Sgt. Truman Kennedy was assigned to the 459th BG 758th Squadron.
Military Occupational Specialty (MOS): Gunner/Photographer.
The following information on Truman Kennedy is gathered and extracted from military records. We have many documents and copies of documents, including military award documents. It is from these documents that we have found this information on T/Sgt. Kennedy. These serviceman's records are nowhere near complete and we are always looking for more material. If you can help add to Truman Kennedy's military record please contact us.
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Rank |
General Order |
Date |
Notes |
Award |
Ribbon & Device |
TRUMAN KENNEDY |
SGT |
972 |
02/26/1945 |
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AM |
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Truman Kennedy |
Sgt |
972 |
02/26/1945 |
|
AM |
|
Kennedy Truman |
T/Sgt |
3379 |
05/23/1945 |
|
AM/3OLC |
|
Kennedy Truman |
T/Sgt |
3379 |
05/23/1945 |
|
AM/OLC |
|
Kennedy Truman |
T/Sgt |
3379 |
05/23/1945 |
|
AM/2OLC |
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