John Bertram Baker

On my first tour, I did 34 operations and I instructed for a year and a half and then I went back on ops [operations] and got another half a tour in. To go in operations and know that you might be shot down, you have to. I was a rear gunner and had to look after, if there’s any fighters around that’s looking for us and going to shoot us down. I saw a 109, that’s a Messerschmitt [BF] 109, just off our port and I told the pilot and told them what to do, and he got out of the way. And on another trip, we had a 190 very close to us. And if he could have seen us, he would have attacked us of course. I found it very exciting, extremely exciting. You could be killed any time. My job was to protect the rest of the crew and their job was the same, to protect the rest of the crew too. Everybody was excellent. It’s something to go out on operations, go for a flight over Germany and I went over there 49 times actually. My job was to protect the aircraft, protect my buddies. We did pretty well. Yeah, we got caught in searchlights one time, and I used to carry bricks in my turret and bottles. Bricks and bottles. The bricks might do some damage if they hit the ground, but the bottles whistled on the way down, and the Germans didn’t know what was happening. They had us in searchlights one night, and I dropped about three or four bottles and the searchlights went out and we escaped. It’s very interesting. I taught the fellows that were coming onto, going to war, going to really get in the war. And to get really in the war is to be shot at, shot at so many times, it’s unbelievable. I can’t really believe how the Germans were so accurate with their flak, with their gunfire. It was bursting many times, many times, all around us. Came back one time and right above my head, two pieces of flak went through there, just above my head, right through my turret. I was the rear gunner at that time. But anyway, I’m not here to boast, to say what a marvelous fellow I am because I came through it. That’s bullshit. I was just lucky.