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Dr. Herbert J. Wilson flew 31 combat missions in WWII

Eloise Ogden/MDN Dr. Herbert J. Wilson wore his World War II uniform to the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial celebration near New Town in August 2006. Wilson, a longtime physician on the Fort Berthold Reservation, flew 31 missions during World War II.

BISMARCK – Dr. Herbert J. Wilson, Bismarck, formerly of New Town, flew 31 missions in World War II as a substitute crewmember.

“Whenever someone was ill and could not go up, I would take his place to round out the crew,” said Wilson in a book he authored, “The Memoirs of Dr. Herbert Joslin Wilson. In Search of a Purposeful Life.”

“There was a rule that no plane could participate without a full crew. So sometimes, I wondered why a particular crewmember would go on sick call,” said Wilson. Wilson would wonder if the crewmember who was on sick call was superstitious or had some information that the raid would be particularly difficult that day.

“I will never know as I asked no questions and was told nothing by my officers or the crew I flew with,” Wilson said.

Wilson flew with the 44th Bomb Group, a unit of 8th Air Force’s 2nd Air Division, out of England. From February to May 1944. During those bomb runs in World War II, Wilson served in various crew positions including tail gunner, belly gunner, ball turret gunner, bombardier, nose gunner/togglier, and left and right waist gunner.

The missions took him over Germany, France and Belgium as well as an accidental bombing of a Swiss water front.

Wilson, who celebrated his 96th birthday on April 15, is well-known in the local area. He was a physician on the Fort Berthold Reservation for more than 40 years, first at Elbowoods and then at New Town, until retiring.

Born in Bethel, Vermont, Wilson was a student at Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass., when Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941. He was inducted into the military in September 1942 (his father served in World War I) and after basic training and studying aircraft hydraulics and armament stateside, he traveled in 1943 on the Queen Mary ship to Shipdham Air Base at Norfolk, England, his home for the next two years with the 44th Bomber (Heavy) Group.

“I was classified as an armorer. I later became a flyboy,” Wilson said.

“When I first arrived in England, I was a member of the ground crew assigned to the 506th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy) as an armorer. An armorer is a soldier (we were still considered Army Air Corps at that time) who looks after the armament, the bombs, and the guns,” Wilson said in his book.

When a notice went up on the bulletin board to all armorers who wanted to become air gunners to “sign here,” Wilson volunteered and in three weeks he was flying his first mission. The mission was on Feb. 6, 1944, to Siracourt, France.

Wilson wrote in his book that the B-24 missions ran from four to 10 hours, and during most of the time, the enlisted crewmembers needed to be at their gun stations looking for enemy fighters. Each would check in every so often on the intercom to let the rest of the crew know everything was going okay. He said those who rode in turrets were confined to a cramped space. He said the B-17 and B-24 later models had a ball or belly turret.

“I believe I made about seven missions in the ball. It was not a very popular place,” Wilson said.

Wilson made his last mission on May 19, 1944, to Brunswick, Germany.

After his 31 missions Wilson stayed on to give instructions in navigation and the use of the Sperry and Norden bombsights. He said he stayed on because he felt a sense of need to help the war effort.

While stationed in England Wilson met his future wife, Lilian Osborne, at the USO. They were married Jan. 20, 1945, on the Isle of Wight.

Wilson was discharged from the U.S. Army Air Forces in August 1945, then returned to his studies at Harvard, graduating in 1945. He went on to Tufts College Medical School, graduating in June 1950. After his internship and a short time with Public Health Service in Tampa, Fla., he began practicing medicine on the Fort Berthold Reservation, where he and Lilian remained until he retired from his practice in New Town in 1995 and they moved to Bismarck. He volunteers twice a week at the information desk in the North Dakota Capitol and once a week at the N.D. Heritage Center.

“Why do we go to war?” Wilson wrote in his book. “It was the love of adventure and camaraderie that sustained us combat airmen in trial and in danger. Looking back to when we were recruited, the desires of our hearts, our goals, were quite different. Then, we were demonstrating our patriotism and our love of the nation. In combat, we fought to protect our fellow soldier.”

Wilson included in his book his motto while flying: “Freedom means Happiness, and Courage means Freedom. Do not Trouble me unduly about the Dangers of War.”

He is donating the last copy of his book that he has available to the Dakota Territory Air Museum in Minot.

(Prairie Profile is a weekly feature profiling interesting people in our region. We welcome suggestions from our readers. Call Editor Mike Sasser at 857-1959 or Regional Editor Eloise Ogden at 857-1944. Either can be reached at 1-800-735-3229. You also can send e-mail suggestions to msasser

@minotdailynews.com.

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