Random Jottings 5 — Diary of an Air Gunner (Odell Dobson Memorial Issue)

TSgt Odell F. Dobson, 392nd Bomb Group (and father of Michael Dobson), was a gunner on the B-24 “Ford’s Folly,” shot down over Koblenz in 1945. His incredible true story, from hardscrabble beginnings through captivity and escape, is told here in his own words. Read a harrowing account of the last minutes of a doomed aircraft, a story of wounds and recovery, and the forced “Shoe Leather Express” march of Allied POWs in the final days of World War II.

This story was adapted as part of the book Four Men Went to War, by Bruce Lewis. This version, taken from the original oral history tapes, was published on the occasion of Odell Dobson’s death in 2010.