John Sacks learned about the airplane [Annotator's Note: the completely restored Boeing B-17-E heavy bomber named My Gal Sal that is now on display in the U.S. Freedom Pavilion: The Boeing Center at The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] through a guy at his church. Later, others came in to help work on the plane. They did anything on the plane that needed to be done. The engines were worked on by specialists who were brought in by Bob Ready. Ready owned the plane at the time. Other than the engines all of the work was done by Sacks and the others working with him. During the early part of the war a B-17 crash landed off the coast of Alaska and submerged. The plane was recovered and brought to the state of Washington. Ready purchased the plane for parts. He also bought spare parts whenever he could find them. Those parts are all being shipped down to The National WWII Museum. The parts were picked up by curators from The National WWII Museum. A few weeks prior to the parts being loaded onto the truck, Sacks had a stomach operation and was not able to take part in the process. Working on the plane was beneficial in many ways to Sacks. It gave him something to do, he met many good guys while working on the plane, and it brought back a lot of memories of his time as a crewman on a B-17 during World War 2. It was not uncommon for them to suffer damage to their plane when out on a mission. After one mission they had to land without functioning brakes. The pilot brought the plane in as slow as he could and when he got to the end of the runway he spun it around to stop it. Sacks got out and looked at all of the oil dripping out of the hydraulic system. On another mission, one of the waist gunners had to splice the cables to the ailerons back together. Working on the plane also reminded him of the day he was shot down. Completing the plane was very satisfying. The plane was originally supposed to remain in Cincinnati but that did not work out. It took the guys 12 years to restore the plane. The plane's original pilot visited the workshop once. Sacks is pleased that the plane will have a good home down in New Orleans. The plane ran out of fuel and crashed in Greenland and sat there for years. It was recovered by someone who wanted to use it for parts but ended up selling it to Ready.

[Annotator's Note: Segment begins with Sacks and the interviewer discussing the interviewee referring to his notes throughout the interview.] John Sacks was born and raised in the eastern part of Kansas. He was a senior in high school when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. The following day there was a lot of turmoil at his school. Over the next couple of months many of his classmates dropped out of school and joined the military. Two of them fought on Guadalcanal. One of them died and the other one was wounded. In late August 1942, Sacks turned 18. One of his friends was about to be drafted and wanted to join the Army Air Corps. He asked Sacks to give him a ride to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. At the time Sacks was working for a K Mart in the stock room. When they got to Fort Leavenworth, one of the officers present convinced Sacks to stay on base that night and take the tests for the Air Corps the following day. Sacks took the tests the next day and passed them. He was then sent home and told that he would be called when it was time for him to report for induction. The following month he was inducted at the county courthouse in Kansas City. There were so many volunteers for the Army Air Corps that there were not enough facilities to train them. Sacks got orders to report to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri in February 1943. In April 1943, after some training at Jefferson barracks, Sacks was sent to San Antonio for qualification. He scored well on the test for navigator so that was what he signed up to do. The first few weeks were basic training. Then in August he was sent to Laredo, Texas for gunnery school. Sacks was concerned because a lot of guys who were being washed out of pilot training were being trained as gunners. Gunnery training was not easy. A gunner who could hit the sock with his painted bullets 25 or 30 percent of the time was doing well. He was then sent to San Angelo, Texas where he took both navigation and bombardier training. Sacks completed his initial training and was commissioned in February 1944. He was then sent to Langley Field, Virginia for additional training with a new radar bomb sight. There, Sacks learned to navigate and bomb with the radar bomb sight.

In the mid to late May 1944, John Sacks was sent to England with Aerial Transport Command, ATC [Annotators Note: Air Transport Command]. After landing in Prestwick, Scotland he was sent by train to Alconbury, England for another four or five weeks of training on radar maps. The technology was very interesting to Sacks. He was then assigned to the 96th Bomb Group, 413th Wing, 3rd Division. Radar equipment was scarce. Out of 30 to 35 planes in each group, only about three planes would be equipped with radar. The lead plane on missions was always radar equipped. Sacks was always on the lead plane and would bounce around from plane to plane and from crew to crew. Sometimes they would lead just their group of 30 planes or they would go out as a wing and he would lead all three groups of the wing. The lead plane would drop red smoke and the following planes would toggle [Annotator's Note: flip the bomb release switch] with it. Not every plane had its own bombardier. The reason radar was used is because 40 to 45 percent of the time the targets were covered by overcast. On a mission Sacks would stay in touch with the navigator and let him know what he saw on his own radar. Once they reached the IP [Annotator's Note: initial point] Sacks would get the formation lined up. If the bombardier could see the target the results would be better since he could actually put his crosshairs on the target.

John Sacks' first mission was to Bremen, Germany to hit an oil refinery in that city. When they got over the target the bombardier picked up the target which was a relief to Sacks because just a few miles away was a POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] camp full of American POWs. On another mission they went to Stuttgart, Germany. During the war, the Daimler Benz factory in that city was building tanks. There were two railroad lines that converged in the city where the factory was located. Sacks locked in on the railroad tracks. The bombardier told Sacks that he had it but continued to drift off course. Sacks tried to get him to correct the drift but he did not. That night after the flight the colonel who commanded the bomb group [Annotator's Note: the 96th Bombardment Group, 45th Combat Bombardment Wing, 3rd Division, 8th Air Force] asked everyone how the mission went. He spoke with the plane's crew first then talked to Sacks. Sacks told the colonel that they had bombed the wrong side of the town and the colonel got mad. When film of the mission arrived it showed that they had, indeed, bombed the wrong side of the town. Sacks was immediately transferred to another crew headed by a guy named Bob Dunbar who was from the Carolinas. Another interesting mission Sacks flew took him and his group over the Baltic Sea. They entered Germany from the north as if they were going to bomb Berlin. Instead they continued on south to Brux, Czechoslovakia where they bombed an oil refinery. It was a 13 hour mission so after dropping their bombs they headed straight back to England. As they neared the English Channel, pilots started calling out that they were low on fuel. Some of the planes ditched in the Channel and others landed at the first airfield they could find. The plane Sacks was aboard landed safely at their own base. They were the last plane to touch down. It took two hours to form up before they ever even left England. The lead plane took off and had to wait for the rest of the group to form up. Once the group was formed up they went to the other bases to pick up the rest of the wing.

On 13 September 1944 John Sacks flew a mission to bomb an I.G. Farben refinery manufacturing synthetic fuel. The plant was 13 miles long. Whoever decided to knock out the oil refineries was brilliant as it resulted in the Germans running out of fuel. By the fall of 1944 the Germans did not have enough fuel to put planes up to challenge the Allied bomber formations or even to train their own fighter pilots. German refineries were high priority targets. Sacks was in the lead plane in the formation heading for the target in Ludwigshafen, Germany. Ludwigshafen is right across a river [Annotator's Note: the Rhine River separates the two cities] from Mannheim. When they went over, Sacks's plane was hit by flak. The number one engine was knocked out and numbers two and three were damaged. The plane started losing altitude and a few minutes later the jump bell rang. Sacks called the pilot to verify the order to bail out but got no answer. When he looked through the bomb bay he saw the pilot climbing out of the cockpit. Sacks told the radio operator and gunners and told them all to jump. Sacks was the last man out of the side door. Everyone on the crew survived bailing out of the plane. Sacks landed in a forest. They were flying at 27,500 feet when they were hit. By the time the crew bailed out they were down to around 6,000 feet. Shortly after he hit the ground, Sacks was captured by a German soldier.

After surrendering to the German soldier [Annotator's Note: see segment titled Shot Down Over Ludwigshafen], John Sacks was marched up a hill where 25 or 30 German civilians were gathered. The German soldier then left him there with the crowd. When the crowd got into a serious discussion, Sacks knew he was in trouble. Then, a young girl walked out of the crowd. She backed herself up to Sacks and talked the crowd out of assaulting Sacks. During a visit back to the area 60 years later Sacks learned the girl's name. A couple of months after Sacks was captured there, American forces moved through the area. During the fighting the young girl was accidentally killed by a hand grenade. Sacks was placed in a jail and waited while the Germans captured the rest of the crew. All but two were caught right away. They were taken out to where the plane crashed. It was still burning and .50 caliber ammunition was detonating. While there, one of the crewmen crawled up to the wreckage to retrieve his leather shoes. The Germans let him. Sacks always wore his flight boots over his shoes. That night, they were taken by train to Frankfurt, Germany to the interrogation camp in Oberursel. There, the four officers from the crew were lined up in a station that had suffered severe bomb damage. Those four were joined by four others and all lined against a wall. The Germans then brought in a firing squad. Sacks believes it was just a threat to get them to talk. They were then taken to an interrogation camp where he spent about six days in a six by six room. When it was discovered that Sacks was a radar operator he was treated more harshly than the others. On the last day, Sacks was questioned by a major. Things in the room were tense for a moment. After Sacks and the major stared at each other for more than five minutes, Sacks was taken to a different location within the camp and put in with others who had completed their interrogations. He and the others were put on a train and taken to Barth, Germany to Stalag Luft I.

John Sacks was in a camp [Annotator's Note: Stalag Luft I in Barth, Germany] with four compounds that housed about 9,000 fliers. There were Americans and British prisoners. Sacks was housed in North 1. The barracks were built on stilts about five or six feet high to keep the prisoners from tunneling out. There was no heater but there was a place to burn charcoal to cook. The rooms were 20 feet by 30 feet and 30 guys shared each room. For the first three months Sacks was a prisoner the International Red Cross got food parcels to them. The parcels weighed ten pounds and the prisoners received one per week. The parcels contained food and cigarettes. The cigarettes were used like money. The prisoners were allowed to shower once per week. Later on, as the food parcels ran out, the Germans would bring in wagon loads of rutabagas and potatoes and would feed them to the prisoners. Each prisoner also got an eighth of a loaf of bread per day. Sometimes they got a little cabbage too. On Christmas Day it was snowy and cold. The guards brought everyone out to count them and make sure no one escaped. After they were counted one of the prisoners walked down to a nearby pond that was partially frozen, took off his clothes, jumped in and swam across it and back. He had done this because he had lost a bet with another prisoner. The prisoners learned about the start of the Battle of the Bulge on 16 December [Annotator's Note: 16 December 1944]. Someone in the camp had a radio and would pass the word about the progress of the war. During the Battle of the Bulge the attitude of the Germans changed toward the prisoners. They got tough on them and were sometimes mean. The prisoners were allowed to write two letters per month. Some of the letters Sacks wrote home actually got through. He only received one letter while he was a prisoner. After the tide turned in the Battle of the Bulge things started changing. By 20 April 1945 they could tell that the Russians were getting close. They could see the flashes from the artillery in the sky.

During the day on 30 April 1945, they [Annotator's Note: John Sacks and his fellow prisoners in Stalag Luft I] were allowed to dig trenches to take cover in if the fighting reached their area. Around midnight on 1 May a Russian soldier on horseback arrived at the camp. The prisoners broke the locks on their barracks doors and all went out into the compound. The prisoners all cheered the Russian soldier who had come in. Later that night more Russian soldiers arrived. The Russians did not have food for their own soldiers much less the 9,000 prisoners they had just liberated. To feed the prisoners, the Russians would run in 200 head of cattle every other day. The prisoners were expected to butcher them and eat them. There was no refrigeration so they could not save the food. One of the prisoners, Colonel Zemke [Annotator's Note: USAAF, then USAF, Colonel Hubert Zemke, known as Hub], complained to the Russians that they wanted something different. A couple of days later the Russians brought them 200 pigs instead of 200 cows. The Russians wanted to take them to Odessa on the Black Sea. The prisoners suspected that the Russians planned to keep the prisoners as labor. Fortunately, Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: Supreme Allied Commander, US Army General, later President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower] sent in a major general who negotiated the release of the prisoners. The prisoners were flown out on B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers] from a small training field near the camp. The prisoners had lost so much weight that 33 of them could be carried out on each plane.

They [Annotator's Note: John Sacks and his fellow newly liberated prisoners from Stalag Luft I] were flown to an American army camp in eastern France then put on a train to Le Havre, France. The prisoners were sent to one of three cigarette camps. [Annotator's Note: These were rehibilitation and transit camps set up in France at which former prisoners of war and wounded servicemen would spend time getting into better shape before returning to the United States. The camps were named after popular cigarette brands.] Sacks was sent to Camp Lucky Strike while others went to Chesterfield or Old Gold. The prisoners were fed and could shower regularly. One day, Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: Supreme Allied Commander, US Army General, later President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower] visited the camp. He spent some time talking to the newly liberated prisoners. Eisenhower explained to them why it would take some time to get them home. He went on to tell them that he had dedicated five ships to make regular runs between France and the United States to bring the former prisoners home. Sacks and the others split up into squadrons and drew cards to determine the order in which they would go home. The squadron Sacks belonged to was selected to go home on the third trip. A guy in the camp named Bill Ramey [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling] from Oklahoma City told Sacks that he had been at another camp that was scheduled to ship out for the United States in two days and there were some places open on the ship. Ramey and Sacks got hold of their personnel files and brought them to the other camp. Around midnight that night they snuck out of their original camp and went to the camp they would be leaving from. They got aboard the ship and steamed to Norfolk, Virginia.

The trip home took 11 days. After docking in Norfolk they [Annotator's Note: John Sacks and his fellow newly liberated prisoners] were taken to a mess hall and fed steaks. The servers there were German POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoners of war]. After a few days in Norfolk they were sent by train to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas where Sacks was picked up by his father. He received a 60 day leave to recuperate. He had gone down to 106 pounds. He was then was to go back to Texas. He was still home when the war with Japan ended. Sacks went to Texas when his leave was up and spent a short time there. On 29 October [Annotators Note: 29 October 1945] he got back to his home in Kansas. He had been issued a certificate of service but not completely discharged because he was an officer. His certificate of service was dated 29 November 1945. Two days before he was separated from service he was promoted to first lieutenant.

When John Sacks retuned to Kansas there were no jobs and many of the factories were closing down. Many people were out of work. Sacks learned that as a former POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] he was eligible to draw 45 dollars per week for six months. He went to the government office to apply for the first payment. When he got home his father gave him a hard time because he considered the payments charity. Sacks went back to the government office the following day to cancel his application. Around Christmas [Annotator's Note: Christmas 1945] Sacks received a check from the government for 2,782 dollars. Adjusted for inflation, that same check would be worth close to 35,000 dollars today. Sacks decided to enroll at the University of Kansas in 1946 and completed an engineering degree there. He immediately went to work for Caterpillar then later went to work for Arco Steel. He worked in the steel industry until he retired. Sacks feels that he was lucky during the war. He survived his plane being shot down, being captured, and life as a POW. He also did not have to go to Japan.