Red Remembers (3/11) - WWII Fifteenth AF Decorated Veteran's Story
Channel: ancientlightsvideo
Date: 2011-08-30

Staff Sergeant Clarence W. "Red" Eudaily (born 1924 in Illinois) shares his World War II eyewitness-accounts of 50 harrowing missions he flew as Flight Engineer aboard B-24 Liberator bombers of the Fifteenth Army Air Force, 776th Bomb Squadron, 464th Bomb Group---from their base at Pantanella, Italy, between July 1944 and Spring 1945. 

In these segments, Red takes us from his Depression-era boyhood, through military training to the formation of his original 10-man flight crew, and into vivid memories of bombing missions over Nazi-occupied southern-European targets, all of them surrounded by murderous flak and fighters. Missions of the time lost 18 B-24s and 180 men with them while daily grinding the Nazis' empire to a powder.

Episodes include Red's and young crewmates' training and days in combat (only he and 3 others of these 10 fliers ever got home); the many kinds of courage all around him; how Red won the Distinguished Flying Cross by helping to save their shot-up Liberator in the air; and, the day he shot down an attacking German FW-190 fighter at close range. 

These were people willing to die rather than let each other down in their duties, in their defense of The Constitution, and in their friendships. And like Red, none of them saw themselves as heroes.

Produced by Dr. Jack Dempsey (August 2011) as part of his "Family Veterans of World War II" webpage at http://www.ancientlights.org, where you can discover more about these men and their experiences. The 464th's leading website is at http://www.zplace2b.com/464th/index.htm with a wealth of documents, photos and excellent further links. See also the web-page devoted to Red's fellow-crewman, Navigator Lt. Ray Farquhar Jr., at http://ray.mlwsw.com, including Ray's wartime poem "Flight." 

Recent books include: "The Wild Blue" by Stephen E. Ambrose; "B-24 Liberator Units of the Fifteenth Air Force" by Robert F. Dorr; and, "The 464th Bomb Group in World War II" by Michael Hill & Betty Karle.

***
VERY SPECIAL THANKS to Red's dynamic daughter, Ms. Jeanie Eudaily Cummings and her husband Alan, whose generous help and lively hospitality made this interview with Red possible.