World War II Experiences
"Timeless Voices" Oral History Project
Interview with
T/Sgt. Louis Stoffer, 398th Bomb Group Engineer/Gunner
600th Squadron, Eighth Air Force
Interviewer: Randy Stange
Interview conducted at the
398th Bomb Group Annual Reunion
The Radisson Hotel, Covington, Kentucky, September 14, 2003
Background:
The 398th has been interviewing its members as part of the Timeless Voices of Aviation project. More information about the project and a current list of video interviews can be found at 398th Timeless Voices Interviews. In addition to the video interviews, some of the interviews have been transcribed to text.
Interview with
T/Sgt. Louis Stoffer, 398th Bomb Group Engineer/Gunner
600th Squadron, Eighth Air Force
RS: Interviewer, Randy Stange
LS: 398th Engineer/Gunner, Louis Stoffer
Time of Interview: 0:28:08
RS: For the record, this is Randy Stange interviewing Louis Stoffer. We’re at the Radisson Riverfront in Covington, Kentucky for the 398th Bomb Group reunion September 14th 2003. And [Louis], where were you born and raised?
LS: I was born in Tacoma but at an early age I went to Centralia, Washington.
RS: Okay, do you have any brothers or sisters?
LS: I have one sister.
RS: Did she happen to serve in the war?
LS: No.
RS: What did your parents do for a living?
LS: My dad was a sheet metal man – he had a business. It started in 1932 and it’s still in existence.
RS: And, what do you remember of the years prior to the war?
LS: Oh – not much – I worked for my Dad from the early age of about 10 on, to help him out.
RS: Right.
LS: And of course, I went to school, played baseball and was on several teams. That’s about it.
RS: Do you remember where you were when you found out about Pearl Harbor?
LS: Yeah, my uncle had appendicitis. He was operated on the day before so we went to Tacoma to see how he was making out, and in those days it was kind of tough. We stopped at a Japanese fruit market. There was a whole bunch of them as you came into Tacoma on the side of the street – like probably six or seven or maybe even more – and we were parked in front getting some fruit for their family and heard the news. That kind of surprised me.
RS: What did you feel about it or what did you think about it?
LS: Well, yeah, it kind of worried me and of course when we went by the front door [gate] of Fort Lewis and they had all kinds of soldiers out there controlling traffic and doing various guard things. It was kind of interesting and I thought “Boy, War!” and of course those Japanese markets were out of business in about 2 weeks – and those were nice markets too.
RS: Did you enlist or were you drafted?
LS: I was drafted.
RS: Did you have any interest in aviation prior to the war?
LS: I built model airplanes until I was blue in the face.
RS: Right.
LS: Gas models and stuff like that and that seemed to have a pretty good influence [on me]. And also, I worked for a coppersmith outfit and I was a journeyman at age 17. I made pretty good money - like $108 a week which was considered pretty good in those days.
RS: Right.
LS: Nobody would believe me I was making that kind of money but I did.
RS: Did you or your parents ever travel prior to the war?
LS: Oh – yeah, we went to Minneapolis that was where my other Uncles live but my Dad took us around locally, you know, quite a bit.
RS: That was a long trip in those days.
LS: Yeah well we went by train.
RS: Oh – okay.
LS: Yeah.
RS: Where did you go to your Basic Training?
LS: Jefferson Barracks, Missouri.
RS: Do you remember when?
LS: July 25th 1943 – something like that, shortly thereafter being inducted.
RS: What are your recollections of your first days in the service?
LS: Well, this was an old Civil War fort and they hand dug holes in the ground about, I don’t know, 300 feet across and they put a warehouse in the bottom so if it blew and the charge went up. They had a whole bunch of these holes and our tent was in the bottom of that hole, in the Army there was a bunch of other tents – it was kind of interesting. Of course, it was big change going into the military – really.
RS: Where did you go after basic?
LS: Well then we went to Lincoln, Nebraska and I stayed there about 2 days for P-51 Mechanics School. They had an overage of it [students] so they sent me to Amarillo, Texas about a week later.
RS: And what was in Amarillo?
LS: That was B-17 Mechanics School.
RS: Anything in particular you remember about that?
LS: Oh – the day I arrived there was a sandstorm and the buildings were all anchored in concrete blocks so they wouldn’t blow away and then we had a great big blizzard in the middle of winter and then there was an ammunition plant a few miles away that blew up one night and burned for a day or two. And then of course when I finally graduated from school, we got shipped off to Gunnery School and the day we left there was another sandstorm. Those were the only 2 sandstorms while I was there.
RS: Where did you go to Gunnery School?
LS: Las Vegas.
RS: When did you graduate there?
LS: Oh – I would say June of ‘44 – yeah. It was hot and they had gunnery ranges shooting in all directions and Las Vegas was about the size of a little burgh. There wasn’t much there and they wouldn’t let the whole camp go all at one time because it [Las Vegas] just wasn’t big enough for people to support it.
RS: Right.
LS: The thing I remember there was you weren’t supposed to fly over Hoover Dam and – big as life – what do we do right over the top of Hoover’s Dam and I’m sitting right in the nose. And then we weren’t supposed to fly into Grand Canyon and right down into the bottom of Grand Canyon – not quite the bottom – but we were right in there. Really kind of surprised me.
RS: Where did you go after Gunnery School?
LS: Well I went back to Lincoln, Nebraska and got transferred to Sioux City, Iowa. That’s where our crew came together.
RS: And whose crew were you on?
LS: I was on Don Grinter’s crew.
RS: That was with the 398th?
LS: No – we were just a crew and then they sent us over to England and became the 398th.
RS: Okay. Which route did you take – did you fly over?
LS: Yes – when we got down to Sioux City, Iowa (we were the first 12 plane group that never crashed or lost anybody – usually they lost somebody) and then we went down to Lincoln, Nebraska again and they got us there and there was a bunch of new B-17s there and they said there’s one there and fly it to England and like a bunch of dummies we flew it to England.
RS: Which route did you take?
LS: Oh – we went to Grenier Field [New Hampshire] and then to Goose Bay [Labrador, Canada] and then to Iceland and then Iceland to Scotland.
RS: And then you were classified and assigned to the 398th?
LS: Yeah – well I went off to a Gunnery School and then…
RS: Oh – at the Wash?
LS: Yeah – the Wash.
RS: What were your first impressions of Station 131?
LS: Well – oh I don’t know – it was alright. I kind of enjoyed it there really. I never had any bad feelings about Station 131. We were right next to a bunch of houses really. There was cobbler there… and there was also a guy who made moonshine. Of course, that didn’t interest me any but a couple of the other guys it did and I guess he made pretty good moonshine.
RS: You had enough food?
LS: Oh yeah - absolutely. We had a dog – Flak we called him. Grinter had picked up a dog and it was pregnant… Grinter was my pilot…. and the dog had pups and so we had a pup.
RS: How many combat missions did you end up flying?
LS: 35.
RS: 35? And ah, what were your thoughts on the first time you flew combat?
LS: I felt like a guy that was going to be taken out and shot the next morning! What had happened when we got over there, Grinter got drunk and fell off a bicycle and broke his arm. So we had a new pilot whose name was Weums [1st. Lt. Roger J. Weum] and we flew 5 missions with him. Heck of a good pilot. Probably the best pilot you could ever… he could put a ‘17 [B-17] down just smooth. Grinter would drop it in from about 20 feet or something like that. I thought Weums was really the best pilot and we ought to go with him but we had a choice – we could go with Grinter who was 5 missions behind us or we could go with Weums. The final discussion was, well some of the gunners had 10 and only flew 9 [missions] so some of the gunners were left a little bit behind and if we went with Grinter they would finish up either before Grinter or with Grinter. So we went with Grinter and two weeks later Weums was shot down and everybody was killed.
RS: Yeah. What position did you usually fly?
LS: I was a Flight Engineer.
RS: Any other memorable experiences in combat?
LS: Well, of course the big experience we had was the crash on December 24th [1944] taking off from the field. Now this was… Grinter was 5 missions behind me. This was my 18th mission and Grinter’s 13th.
RS: Right.
LS: It kind of made a lasting impression on me on that 13th mission. But anyhow, you know we took off and I was calling off the airspeed and I was kind of surprised that we lifted at a lower speed than we normally did. We lifted at about 120 [knots] or so lower speed and then we went into a….1 wing went down and they blamed it on ice. I don’t know, it may have been some problem with controls on the plane but I looked down at 300 feet and there’s the ground and the wing’s pointing right at it and Grinter and I turn around (that’s between the pilot and co-pilot) and Grinter and White are looking at each other eyeball to eyeball fighting the controls for all their worth. They flattened it out but it violently started to bite into the air stalling out and plowed into this forest, the Oak Forest, and everything was on fire. Hmmphh! We came to a stop, I dived behind Jim White’s seat and I put Jim into the dashboard, broke his leg in 6 places they tell me and his arm in a couple of places. He has no feelings against me - he said that was the end of his flying days right there. Then we came to a stop on that plane, you know it was on fire, and I said “We got to get the heck out of here!”. I didn’t realize Jim couldn’t move really, he had one [good] leg and one [good] arm.
RS: Right.
LS: So anyhow, I turn around and went through the bomb bay and it was on fire. I get back to the radio room and there were three, four, five guys there… and the ball turret had come up and pinned the radio door, we couldn’t go out the back door. You know everything’s on fire….everything’s in an uproar, so the Radio Operator was fighting trying to get the overhead hatch [open] (which when you ditch you go through that overhead hatch) and it was pinned in there and all of a sudden he tore it out, really, it came out and all of us went out. I was the last one out, I had a separated shoulder and a bunch of cuts. I dove out of the plane. I couldn’t use my left arm. And there was wing panel gone and my foot got in there and I was stuck. Everything’s on fire and I said “Stoffer, if you’re ever going to move, now’s the time to move!”. With tremendous effort, I got up but Johnny Contento and Kenny Kiser they both came back and grabbed a hold of me as I got up and twisted me off. They went back around and went into the plane, the burning plane, and rescued White and also drug out Flores who died shortly thereafter. The other guy, Lt Harrod, he was a Navigator. He was pinned in the wreckage and they could not remove him and he blew up with the plane.
RS: So you lost 2 crew members?
LS: Yes. They took me to an ambulance and I just crawled in about 300 feet away from it and the whole thing blew up. I took a look around and realized there’s all these bombs around this place so I got out of there and ran to the middle of the field until they caught me in the middle of the field and took me to the hospital. I spent about 11 days in the hospital. Jim White spent well over a year mending his leg and he was out.
RS: Yeah.
LS: That was the big event.
RS: What about other events that you were caught up with?
LS: Well, we were flying over…going past Cologne, no Frankfurt. We were going past it, we were not bombing Frankfurt, and all of a sudden I look out and there’s flak coming up about a half mile over and I said “Gee, I don’t have my flak helmet on” and I better do something real catty like putting it on. I had just gotten out of the turret, put it on, and just as I put it on we got boxed. It knocked out 2 engines and the 3rd one was throwing oil. It knocked the plexiglass out of my turret as I was still down. I had my helmet like this (and of course I didn’t have my goggles on) and a piece of flak came around and hit me right [pointing to the bridge of his nose] and it just burned me. It [the shell] was spent but just hotter than all get out. I always say, it must have missed by eyeball by a quarter of an inch or less.
RS: And luckily your head was down too.
LS: Yeah, right! Because it went right through the turret. And then of course we had a heck of a battle. We had to drop the bombs and head back towards the Belgian line and we kept dropping and dropping [altitude] so we dropped the ball turret. That’s kind of unusual, not many guys drop the ball turret. You know, they tell you how to do it but nobody told you there’s an oxygen line that’s armor plated and you gotta saw that in two and if you don’t have a knife with you (which we didn’t) I had to go up front and get one out of the lifeboat. I got the knife, cut that [oxygen line] off, and then took a gun barrel, broke off the latches and pushed it off and there it went just like this [moving his hands in a circle], end over end. I often wonder what it did when it hit the ground.
RS: Yeah.
LS: I often wondered. We had to throw all the guns out. We threw fuel overboard. You can do that by transferring fuel from the high side and you had to keep one wing low (just two engines on one side) so the fuel would go out. There’s a vent on the engines that would put a lot of fuel out and we came over the [Belgian] lines I don’t think we’re [flying higher than] 5,000 feet. I’m surprised we didn’t get shot down there but not one shot came up. We flew into a, there was a captured German (this is the Battle of the Bulge area) a captured German fighter strip. We had no brakes, no nothing, and we came in and hey we landed pretty good but when we got to the end of the runway no brakes and it [the runway] was short and we got into the mud and cartwheeled. After that things were pretty normal.
RS: Everybody survive that?
LS: Oh yeah. The thing that really bothered me was that we were all shook up, and I mean really shook cartwheeling around there, you know, and in comes a guy who wanted to buy all our shoes (a GI). We kicked him off that plane fast I tell you because what are we going to do without shoes? I thought that was interesting.
RS: How did you get back to the base?
LS: Well there was another crew that landed behind us. I think they had one mission but they landed and we went into Brussels and got drunk for three days. Then all of a sudden orders came to go back to that airfield and we get in and that crew flew us back to England. While we were in Belgium the Germans sent some fighters over to strafe various airfields including ours (the 398th) and so the British were really touchy. Here we come a separate B-17 all by our self and up comes the flak from the British. And so we’re going up the coast wondering how we’re going to get this radio operator from the other crew (you know one mission, didn’t know nothing) to get through and finally our radio operator (who had at that time had about 31 missions) said “let me get on this radio” and he gets on and all of a sudden we had a clear coast and we came in. I think we would have still been flying to the North Pole if we hadn’t gotten the okay because they meant business, they weren’t horsing around. Stray B-17, funny time, and it’s war.
RS: How about what did you do on leave? Did you ever get flak leave?
LS: No. What happened was when the crash came the crew that was okay, they all went on flak leave. I was in the hospital.
RS: Oh.
LS: When they got back, I was 11 days in the hospital and they were gone for 2 weeks [on flak leave]. Then they decided that I would go with another crew. I didn’t know who they were. Sheeesh! What am I going to do up there (I had developed some comradeship [with the current crew]) so I said “No, I ain’t going!”. So, I didn’t go. I flew 2 or 3 missions in that period of time and I thought “Well, I’ve lost nothing. I’m 3 missions down the road”. And the crew had their Flight Engineer and everything’s fine.
RS: So how did you end up finishing your missions and coming back?
LS: It was around the 1st of April… I can’t tell you exactly… I can if I look it up.
RS: ’45?
LS: Yeah, ’45. I might tell you I had on my 35th, Grinter still had 5 missions to go and he turns to me as we’re landing and says “Stoffer, I want you to volunteer 5 more missions and fly with me”. And I said “Grinter, you gotta be nuttier than a fruitcake!”. Anyhow, he made it though. You know and it was a 42-mission spread. We went 5 and then Grinter had 5 more. It made it a 42-mission spread.
RS: Did you carry anything for luck?
LS: Oh, yeah. I had a lucky dollar bill. It had a short snorter.
RS: Short snorter?
LS: Yeah. And on the day we crashed, I had lost my billfold in the latrine and I didn’t have it with me – and the Radio Operator the day we crashed had his daughter’s baby shoes hanging up in the latrine and he forgot them. And then one of the guys forgot his towel to wrap… to keep from burning your neck in the turret. He never did anything for anybody but that day he comes over to me and says “Stoffer, do you want me to get you something?” and I say “Yeah, I need that towel, I forgot the towel” and he went and got it. I thought that was interesting.
RS: So how did you get back to the U.S.?
LS: By boat. Well four of us finished up in 2 missions but we ended up on the same boat. We all went in different directions; I went to Charlie, and others went to Southampton but all of a sudden we’re on the same boat. 400 guys and 4 guys on the same crew. That was a big deal there all on the same boat.
RS: How did you like the boat ride?
LS: Oh it was alright. It would hold 4,000 people and there was only 400 of us. Fed good. Well, it took 2 weeks, I was kind of surprised.
RS: Where did you end up landing?
LS: New York. Up in New Jersey somewhere. Then rode a train to Fort Lewis [Washington state]. Eight days.
RS: What happened when you were done with leave?
LS: Well I went down to Santa Anna. The war was over and you could get out on points, but I didn’t. It was just the week before and I didn’t know my point system and I thought I had 75 and needed 85, well and I had 115 or so and I was way over and I didn’t know that and that guy I was interviewing with didn’t know that either. I stuck in and went into the B-29 Program at Chanute Field. Ten days before I graduated there the war ended.
RS: What did you think about when you heard the Atomic Bomb was dropped?
LS: Well, I was tickled pink. I thought that saved a lot of lives, really.
RS: When the war ended, they pretty much ended your training and sent you out?
LS: Oh yeah. Right. Then they sent me back to Lincoln, Nebraska. Fourth time. Well I took off from Lincoln, Nebraska and heading for England and I look back and I said… and this was just kind of an off thought in my mind, I said… “You know, I think I’m going to be getting out of here, out of the army, at Lincoln, Nebraska”. I don’t know why I thought I was going to make it overseas but it turned out to be that way. I was ready to get out at Chanute and all of a sudden, I showed up an order to go to Lincoln, Nebraska, and was booted out and went home.
RS: What did you do after the war?
LS: I went to the University of Washington for a while.
RS: On the GI bill?
LS: Yeah. And then I met my wife. And then my dad reorganized the business and brought me into it as a partner. And then, you know, we got married. The business was started in ’32 and still alive today. My son is running it. That’s what we did. It’s always been good for us though.
RS: Other than the 398th Memorial Association, what other Air Force or Veterans organizations do you belong to?
LS: Well, I belong to the 8th Air Force. When the 8th Air Force [organization] went to England the first time, there were six of us – Crouch, Berryhill, Bradshaw, Stallman, and myself, is that six? Today, Stallman and me are the only two alive.
RS: Right. You’ve been involved with the 398th for quite some time and you missed very few of the reunions.
LS: That’s right. Very few. I think I missed just three and that because I’m a chairman of other things, and had a class reunion a couple of times on the same weekend, of course. Oh, you know, I have other commitments.
RS: Sure. Well unless you can think of something else Lou, thank you for your time and thank you for your service to your country.
LS: Well thank you. Randy, it’s always been a pleasure.
RS: It’s been a pleasure.
See also:
- Grinter's Crew - 600th Squadron - July 1944
- No Forgetting Christmas Eve Mission by Lou Stoffer, Engineer/Gunner, 600th Squadron
- 398th Combat Mission: 24 December 1944 to Koblenz
- Grinter's Crash the Day After at the Nuthampstead Air Base
- "We Fly at Dawn" by John Contento, Tail Gunner
- Jim White, 398th Pilot - 600th Squadron Video Interview (1hr 3m 17s)
- Return to 398th Timeless Voices Interviews to view and listen to the interview.
Notes:
- T/Sgt. Louis Stoffer was the Engineer on Donald Grinter's 600th Squadron crew.
- The above transcription was provided by Capt. Eric Johnson, USAF Retired, in September 2020. Eric is the nephew of Sgt. Harold D. Johnson, Radio Operator on the Grinter Crew.
- The transcription was obtained from a video file.
- Punctuation, grammar and minor word changes may have been made to improve readability.
- Additional information may be shown in brackets [ ].