Andy Rooney, syndicated columnist and commentator, applied for and was accepted as correspondent for “The Stars and Stripes.” As an “inexperienced kid,” he learned journalism during the war from Ernie Pyle, Walter Cronkite and other professionals.
On Feb. 26, 1943, Rooney flew a mission to Wilhelmshaven with the 306th Bomb Group on the B-17 “Banshee.” On this flight, flak blew off part of the plexiglass nose and cut off the navigator’s oxygen. Rooney revived the navigator with a portable oxygen bottle. Forty years later, Rooney met the tail gunner at a reunion and learned that he lost two fingers on that mission, as his hands had frozen to his guns. in the preface of “One Last Look,” Rooney recalled, “I was there when they came back from a raid deep in Germany, and one of the pilots radioed in that he was going to have to make an emergency landing. He had only two engines left and his hydraulic system was gone. He couldn’t lower the wheels and there was something even worse. The ball turret gunner was trapped in the plastic bubble beneath the belly of the bomber.
“Later I talked with the crewmen who survived that landing. Their friend in the ball turret had been calm, they said. They had talked to him. He knew what they had to do. He understood. The B-17 slammed down on its belly and onto the ball turret with their comrade trapped inside.”
