213718 William Hogan United States Air Force from:Millville, NJ William Hogan served on bombers and flew dangerous missions from Foggia, Italy. He was a tail gunner on a B-24 bomber during his 16th and final mission on May 29, 1944. His plane was flying in a formation to bomb a German fighter-plane factory in a suburb of Vienna, Austria.
"The Germans knew where we were going, they knew our altitude and speed, and when we approaced, there was all kinds of flak. You couldn't go over it, under it or around it; you had to go through it. We had just dropped our bombs when we were hit by flak. The plane went into a steep dive, but the pilot straightened it out. The pilot was wounded, and the copilot and top gunner were killed. On the intercom, everyone could hear what was going on. The copilot's body was removed and the navigator took over."
But the crew had bigger problems now that their plane was separated from the protection of the formation. German fighteers hit the bomber with fire from 30-caliber machine guns and 20 mm cannons. Hogan fired back, but the outlook looked more grim with each passing second. The tail rudders were knocked out, and parts of the planes were ablaze. The crew bailed out over Austria. Hogan had to pull the lines of his parachute to avoid landing on top of a woman and instead hit the roof of a two-story farm house, then fell, breaking tow bones in his right leg.
He was taken prisoner by the Germans and after time in Austrian and German hospitals, an interrogation, and a stint at a POW camp in Poland, he was transferred to Stalag Luft 1, where he spent 11 months. The camp housed thousands of POW's, mostly American and British service members. What stood out? "Starvation. We didn't get much food."
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