News-Info-Alerts

Re: Survival a Miracle for Ex-POW

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: May 26, 2002

"Air corps veteran's survival was miracle

Published in the Asbury Park Press 5/26/02
By JOSEPH PICARD
TOMS RIVER BUREAU

BRICK -- Memorial Day takes on added significance for World War II Army Air Corps veteran Nicholas Hoolko.

"You almost never hear stories like mine," said Hoolko, 76, of Mansfield Drive in Brick, "because the people these kind of things happen to usually die."

Staff Sgt. Hoolko was one of six survivors of the nine-member crew of a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, unavailingly nicknamed Methuselah, that was shot down over Germany in September 1944. Afterward, he spent nine months in a German POW camp. Hoolko remembers his lost companions. But what is always foremost in his memory is his own remarkable survival.

In 1943, Hoolko, then from Newark, was a construction worker on a government project, but he waived his deferment and went into the Army. In December of that year, he was shipped to England and hooked up with a friend from Newark, Billy Bell, who was a tailgunner in the Army Air Corps and part of the 306th Bomber Group, affectionately known as the Reich Wreckers. Hoolko visited with Bell one weekend. By the time of Hoolko's next weekend leave, Bell was dead, shot down over Germany.

Hoolko was deeply moved.

"I wanted to take his place, to sort of take up where he left off," he said. "I asked to be transferred to the 306th."

The Army, Hoolko explained, frowned on soldiers transferring once they were overseas. His commanding officer suggested he tell his notion to the chaplain. Hoolko did so. A month later he was transferred to the bomber group and became part of the Army Air Corps. Because he showed himself able, and because "no one else wanted the job, I became my plane's ball turret gunner," he said.

The ball turret is the windowed compartment protruding from the belly of the bomber, where the gunner squats in a space too small to include a parachute. In that position, Hoolko flew 12 bomber missions over France and Germany. The Methuselah's 13th mission was part of the "Tour of Germany" air assault of Sept. 12, 1944, in which 900 Allied aircraft flew a wide arc over the country, targeting enemy troops and industry.

According to the Air Force Historical Research Agency, located at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, accompanying ball turret gunner Hoolko on that flight were: 1st Lt. Earl R. Barr, pilot; 2nd Lt. Robert E. Reid, co-pilot; 2nd Lt. Mathew A. Myerson, navigator; 2nd Lt. Garland A. Montague, bombardier; Tech. Sgt. William J. Bauer, top turret gunner; Tech. Sgt. Hector A. Chavez, radio operator; Staff Sgt. Alfred R. Capen, waist gunner; and Staff Sgt. Wilbur A. Whitaker, tailgunner.

The bomber was about halfway through its 12-hour mission, still several miles south of Berlin, when its luck ran out.

"We'd been taking flak for some time," Hoolko said. "First the flak, then the fighters. I swung my turret around and, suddenly, a German fighter was directly in front of me, no more than 300 yards, firing away."

Hoolko returned fire and saw the fighter pass overhead in a ball of flames. But the bomber had already been hit.

According to U.S. Army documents, other bombing crews witnessed the Methuselah's destruction. One crew reported a direct hit on engine No. 3, another crew saw all four engines on fire and spied several parachutes. But Hoolko was still in the burning, falling plane.

The turret was getting hot. Hoolko tried to get out.

"I calmly unlocked the two handles of my hatch and pushed the door up," he said. "It opened about six inches, then stopped and would not budge."

He tried to force the door, to no avail. He shouted for help. No answer. He peered through the six-inch slot, saw blood splattered on the floor and the rear escape hatch wide open. He had not heard the bail order. As he later learned, the pilot and four crew members had gotten out. Three other crew members -- Bauer, Myerson and Whitaker -- were dead.

"There was an eerie quiet, only the sound of air rushing through the plane," Hoolko said. "I felt tired now. I remember sitting back down and saying to myself, 'the hell with it.' "

But Hoolko gave his hatch controls one more try. The door popped open. He tried to climb out, but found his left foot was stuck in the turret. He struggled to pull the leg up, but a new horror was upon him. The plane had been hit at 30,000 feet, or more than five miles up. Its oxygen supply was now blown away, and Hoolko was losing consciousness. Even as he blacked out, he realized the plane was exploding.

"When I came to, I saw white above me and heard a whistling in my ears. I thought I was in heaven. Then I started to realize where I was."

He was at 10,000 feet, where oxygen-rich air had revived him. He was lying on his back, with multiple injuries, on a large, open-air piece of fuselage lazily spiral-ing groundward, like a gigantic iron leaf.

"I turned my head and could see my parachute right where I placed it before getting into the turret," he said.

Without the use of his left arm, which was pinned beneath him, Hoolko managed to grab the parachute and clip it on. With the ground getting ever closer, he realized that, if he opened the chute where he lay, it would pop off his chest. He needed to be in the air. Unable to greatly move, he rocked his body to the edge of the metal floor and pushed himself over into a free fall.

Then the chute would not open. Once, he tried, and twice. On the third try, it opened and he floated. He landed in a tree, fell to the ground, crawled into some bushes and fell asleep.

Shortly thereafter, he was captured by German soldiers. He refused to give information and was beaten.

"I was finally hit over the head, and that is my last memory of anything," he said.

Hoolko spent nine months in a POW camp. He remembers nothing of it. He also does not remember being liberated or how he got back to the United States. Moreover, he can recall almost nothing of his first 12 missions. But the Methuselah's end -- that's crystal clear.

"It is now 58 years later, and I remember every second of every minute in my struggle to survive," said Hoolko, who is now retired from a family construction business.

He is well-decorated -- the Air Medal, the European Theater of Operations Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, the POW Medal, four Bronze Stars, a Purple Heart, the New Jersey Distinguished Service Medal and, recently, a Certificate of Recognition from France for having contributed to that nation's liberation. He is also a member of the Ocean County chapter of Ex-Prisoners of War.

Still, he has never before told the detailed story of his survival.

"I've started to tell it at the POW club, but I always break down and can't do it," he said.

He's never even told family members. But this Memorial Day, those surviving will be able to read about Nick Hoolko's ordeal.

"I'm glad to be finally getting this out," he said. "I want my children to know what happened." "