Since the WWII US Army 23rd Headquarters Special Troops unit was a secret and covert group, there was no official military patch. This “ghost patch” symbol was painted on the cover page of the Official History of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops document written in 1945 by unit member Captain Fred Fox. The original document is in the National Archives.
Planning for the WWII Allied invasion of Europe began in 1943. Operation Bodyguard and Operation Fortitude were employed as Allied landing deception plans with three objectives: (1) to conceal the chosen Allied landing at Normandy, France, (2) to mislead the Germans as to the actual location, date, and time of the landing, and (3) to divert and keep German troops from reinforcing the Normandy area. Operation Neptune, the naval planning phase to cross the British Channel, and Operation Overlord, the landing and battle plan, were closely coordinated for the Allied landing initially planned for June 5, 1944. Weather conditions would eventually change the landing date to June 6, 1944.
Before the actual invasion of France, deception plans included double agents, false information passed through diplomatic channels and wireless activities, and physical deceptions such as dummy tanks placed strategically in Britain to confuse and fool any aerial German reconnaissance activity. These methods were referred to as “Special Means.” The British had great success using deception tactics during the North Africa Campaign [June 10, 1940 – May 13, 1943].
In late 1943 a United States (US) Army Captain Ralph Ingersoll was working with Allied planners in London to develop plans and strategy to deceive the Germans before, during, and after the planned 1944 Normandy invasion. He had an idea to establish a separate American military deception unit. The US Pentagon approved the idea, and a new Army unit with a mission of deception, the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, was activated on January 20, 1944. Colonel Harry L. Reader was named its commander.
Members of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops were a carefully chosen group of 1,100 men who were artists, sonic (sound) technicians, meteorologists, actors, set designers, engineers, camouflage experts, illustrators, architects, and other creative people and ordinary soldiers. Their combined talents would be used to deceive, confuse, and mislead the German Army.
Of the 379 men in this unit, many were artists recruited from New York City and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, art schools. Using props such as inflatable rubber tanks, jeeps, artillery, and aircraft they staged visual deceptions to trick and confuse the Germans.
It took under 30 minutes to inflate a rubber tank with an air compressor. An inflated tank weighed 93 pounds.
This 296 man unit mastered the use of radio deception, also known as “spoof radio,” and sent fake transmissions trying to bluff the Germans as to the location, strength, and readiness of other Allied units.
The sonic (sound) effects of this 145 man group, usually used at night with sound recordings projected from 500 pound powerful speakers on the back of jeeps or half-tracks, could project previously recorded “noise” associated with a military group changing locations or operating in a certain position. In some scenarios the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops would “cover” a secret departure of a military unit to another location, and then they would move in and impersonate them. With the information from a mobile weather unit and an ideal setup location, sound transmissions could be heard by the Germans as far away as 15 miles (24 kilometers).
This fourth unit of 168 men was trained as combat soldiers. They had skills in demolition, construction, and provided security for the 23rd. With their bulldozers they could simulate the tracks of dummy military vehicles to add to the illusion of vehicle deployment.
On May 2, 1944, three units of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops sailed to England. The 3132 Signal Service Company Special was still training in the US.
Combat action started for the 23rd when a 15-man platoon from the unit was sent to Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, on June 14, 1944.
All four components of this secret Army unit would be brought together in France in August 1944 when the 23rd participated in Operation Brest (August 20 – 27, 1944) to capture the French seaport of Brest from the Germans.
The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops existed to make “make-believe” believable to the enemy. They would manipulate sight and sound to bewilder the Germans. They had the capability of impersonating two divisions of thirty thousand men.
Creativity, deception, and courage were literally the order of the day. When the 23rd would impersonate other units, they set themselves up for attacks by the Germans who didn’t know who they really were.
23rd Headquarters Special Troops unit deceptions and activities needed to be kept secret from both the enemy as well as other Allied units.
Some of their tactics included set ups of dummy aircraft on dummy airfields, dummy artillery positions with dummy shells nearby, wearing their handmade shoulder patches to impersonate other units, setting up phony command posts with 23rd Headquarters Special Troops pretending to be US generals and high ranking officers, moving into the military position of an actual infantry or armored division so that the division could strategically move to another location, driving into a town with fake vehicle identification markings, or spending time in local pubs and seemingly during small talk and drinking give away secret and classified information to any potential spies in the vicinity. Their job was a creative and theatrical show as the men deceived, manipulated, mimicked, created illusions of sight and sound, and befuddled intended enemy targets.
In Operation Bettembourg (September 15 – 22, 1944) General George Patton’s Third Army planned an attack on the French city of Metz. A 70 mile (113 kilometer) gap along the US front line north of Metz was critically undermanned and weakly fortified. The US 83rd Infantry Division (ID) arrival at that location had been delayed. The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops covered the gap by impersonating the US 6th Armored Division until the 83rd ID arrived.
From Operation Elephant (July 1 – 4, 1944) to Operation Viersen (March 18 – 24, 1945) the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops had participated in 21 WWII operations in the European Theater of Operations.
The Germans referred to this illusive military group as the Phantom Army.
The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops through their deceptions and impersonations have been credited with possibly saving the lives of an estimated thirty thousand Allied troops in WWII.
Information about the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops was not declassified until 1996.
Many of the talented and artistic members of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops went on after WWII and had successful careers in the Arts. Photographer Art Kane, artist Ellsworth Kelly, wildlife artist Arthur Singer, and fashion designer Bill Blass were a few of those who served in the secret unit with a mission of deception.
This publication announced the winners of the LIFE magazine sponsored art contest. Copyright 1942 by Time, Inc.
In 1941 the US Navy Combat Art Program and in 1942 the US Army War Art Unit were established. The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops was activated in 1944. Artists were being sought to fill positions in these and possibly other military units.
LIFE’S Art Competition for Men of the Armed Forces drew 1,500 entries from the Army, Navy, Air Corps, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. Pictures were submitted by military personnel assigned throughout the US and included entries from as far away as Trinidad, Greenland, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii.
Before serving in the US military Ralph Ingersoll [a name mentioned in the first part of this WWII story] was general manager of Time, Inc., and is credited in part with the founding of LIFE magazine. He would inspire the formation of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops and would be a staff officer in the deception unit.
Was this WWII art contest a secret plan between the US government and LIFE magazine to find needed artists using the pretense of a public competition?
The art contest did attract many very talented artists from all ranks of the US military.
First Prize Troop Movements by Private (Pvt.) Robert Burns. He was 25 years old and had attended the Yale School of the Fine Arts. Pvt. Burns was teaching at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida, when he was inducted into the US Army. The painting was inspired by his first ride in a truck convoy at Fort Blanding (correct name Camp Blanding), Florida, while in military training. Copyright 1942 by Time, Inc.
Second Prize Practice Landing by Sergeant Bob Majors and Third Prize Convoy Practice by Pvt. Edward Chávez. Copyright 1942 by Time, Inc.
LIFE magazine art contest First Prize winner Robert Clayton Burns and Third Prize winner Edward Arcenio Chávez had successful art careers after WWII. No information has been found on Sergeant Bob Majors.
The book The Ghost Army of World War II by Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles (her father William Sayles was a member of the Ghost Army) is an excellent telling of the story of the US Army 23rd Headquarters Special Troops in WWII. The story is also told in a PBS documentary The Ghost Army.
Thank you to historian Dr. George Kelling who gave me the publication which announced the winners of the 1942 LIFE magazine art contest. It is from that publication that I started connecting the possible “covert” dots between the story of the Ghost Army and the art contest.
Second Lieutenant Adrian E. O’Konski, November 1943.
“They call him the Little Tin Guy.
His nerves seem all metal, his mind works like a compass, and his job is to get our bombers there and get ’em back, over land, over water, through weather and rain and hail and fog — through anything! He is better known as the navigator.
Without the navigator, bombers would be freight loads of destruction rushing at terrific speed through tractless space but rushing without purpose, without destination.
To be classified as navigator he must be a steady-nerved, cool-headed individual capable of making lightning decisions. … He must have the brawn and the wind to move around in a plane at high altitudes, forsaking his oxygen. He must be able to work complicated problems at dizzy heights where the average man cannot add three and six.
Adrian was born November 4, 1917, to Frank and Antonia (Paska) O’Konski who owned a farm in West Kewaunee, Kewaunee County, Wisconsin. He was one of 10 children. Two of his siblings, Genevieve and Lawrence, died as young children. Adrian’s grandparents had emigrated from Prussia [present day Poland] to the United States (US) in the late 1800s.
The O’Konski family circa late 1930s: (left to right) sitting–Tom, father Frank, mother Antonia, and Mary; standing–Stanley, Alvin, Frank, Jr., Leo, Adrian, and Anna.
Adrian was a schoolteacher when he enlisted in the US Army Air Forces (AAF) in May 1942.
Appointed an Aviation Cadet and due to class scheduling issues, Adrian initially attended the Flexible Gunnery School at Buckingham Army Airfield at Fort Myers, Florida, before reporting to an AAF Classification Center. He graduated from gunnery school July 8, 1942.
After gunnery school, Adrian reported to the 52nd AAF Flying Training Detachment in Albany, Georgia. At this AAF Classification Center the aviation cadets were administered weighted psychological tests and mental examinations to determine those men who would best be qualified to become pilots, bombardiers, and navigators. After being classified a navigator, Adrian began weeks of elementary navigation ground and flying training before being sent to a navigation school.
After Classification Center graduation, Aviation Cadet O’Konski was sent to the AAF Navigation School at Selman Field in Monroe, Louisiana, for advanced training. The School had a difficult curriculum of ground and flying instruction which was 18 weeks long. In peacetime the course of instruction was given over a two year period. Instruction included plotting flight direction and alternate routes, monitoring fuel consumption, locating targets and alternate targets, flying in all types of weather conditions at different times of the day and night and at different altitudes. Pilotage, dead reckoning, radio communication, and celestial aspects of navigation were stressed.
Zero Zero navigation would play a major role in a July 24, 1944, combat flying mission to the Saint-Lô area of France. All the instruction and flying training would prove vital in the quickly and ever changing environment of combat flying. Comprehensive training before going to war can save lives.
Aviation Cadet Adrian O’Konski graduated from the AAF Navigation School on November 13, 1943. After graduation from a military school, aviation cadets were discharged from the US Army. As was the custom, a few days later the men were again sworn into the US Army as a Second Lieutenant (2nd Lt.).
2nd Lt. Adrian O’Konski’s first assignment as an officer was crew training in the B-17 Flying Fortress at Army Air Field Ardmore, Oklahoma.
In June 1944 the B-17 Walter Sumner crew with 2nd Lt. O’Konski as navigator arrived in England ready for combat. They were assigned to the US Eighth AAF, 306th Bombardment Group (BG), 368th Bomb Squadron (BS), based at Thurleigh.
306th BG, 368th BS, Sumner crew with Ground Maintenance crew based at Thurleigh, England, 1944: (left to right) sitting–Ground Maintenance crew for the Sumner B-17, no names available; Sumner crew kneeling–Tail Gunner Roy Ficklin, Jr., Ball Turret Gunner George Barber, Waist Gunner Robert Horste, Radio Operator Richard Hobbs, and Flight Engineer Roger Combs; standing–Pilot Walter Sumner, Co-Pilot Robert Scolnick, Navigator Adrian O’Konski, and Bombardier Parker Snead. Ground Maintenance crews are often the unsung heroes of the war. They worked long, hard hours to repair aircraft and keep them flying and safe for the men flying combat missions.
[Seven weeks after the D-Day landings at Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944, the British, Canadian, and American units were at a stalemate against the German defensive lines around Caen and in the bocage areas of Normandy. Operation Cobra was an offensive launched by US Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, Commander of the First US Army, to push back and push through the German lines. The First US Army would then be able to advance into Britanny. The British Second Army and the Canadian First Army launched concurrent offensives with the US Eighth AAF which resulted in the success of Operation Cobra, and the Allied lines advanced.
In a 2008 telephone interview* Sumner crew B-17 Waist Gunner Robert (Bob) Horste recalled the July 24, 1944, mission to Saint-Lô, France, in support of Operation Cobra. He said 306th BG B-17s were following a formation of B-24s. A smoke bomb dropped from the lead B-24 which was interpreted as a signal to other aircraft to begin dropping their bomb load. Bob spoke of 2nd Lt. O’Konski, realizing the bomb drop was three miles short of the designated target, got on the radio to notify Pilot Walter Sumner. Sumner radioed the information to the other aircraft, and the mission was halted. Bob surmised the smoke bomb released from the B-24 was accidental in that he says B-24 bomb bay doors could open in a jerking motion and that may have dislodged the smoke bomb from inside the plane as the B-24 readied for the bomb drop. He felt that many American lives on the ground were saved that day because of the action of 2nd Lt. O’Konski.
On October 2, 1944, now First Lieutenant (1st Lt.) O’Konski completed his required 35 combat flying missions with his final mission to Kassel, Germany.
1st Lt. O’Konski rotated back to the US and was assigned to Rapid City Air Field [now Ellsworth Air Force Base], South Dakota. It was in Rapid City that he met a local girl who would become his wife. On January 3, 1945, Adrian married Almeda Kollars at the Rapid City Air Field Base Chapel.
First Lieutenant Adrian and Almeda O’Konski wedding photograph, 1945.
1st Lt. O’Konski completed his last operational WWII missions flying B-29 Superfortress Air-Sea Rescue over Alaska and the Aleutian Islands.
For his military service 1st Lt. O’Konski was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
After WWII Adrian and Almeda moved to Adrian’s hometown of Kewaunee, Wisconsin. Adrian’s mother, Mrs. Frank O’Konski, was one of the lucky mothers — her boy came back home after the war.
Adrian with Almeda and his mother, Mrs. Frank O’Konski, circa 1946.
Adrian was elected Kewaunee County Clerk and served from 1949 – 1961 before going into the local banking business.
Adrian remained in the US Army Reserve after WWII and was Commander of the US Army 887th Field Artillery Battalion Armory in Kewaunee until his retirement in 1974 as a Major.
Flyers often carried with them on combat missions a symbol of something they hoped would bring them luck. A niece of Adrian O’Konski, Esther Nemetz, said Adrian always wore the same trousers when he flew and carried a rosary in his pocket. The rosary was a gift from his beloved sister, Anna.
Thank you to Karen and Sharon, the daughters of Adrian and Almeda O’Konski, for their help in researching this story. Photographs are used with the permission of the family.
*Thank you to Dr. Vernon Williams, Military Historian and Director, East Anglia Air War Project for access to his 2008 telephone interview with WWII B-17 Waist Gunner Robert Horste. For more information about Dr. Williams’ project visit East Anglia Air War Project.
Thank you to WWII 306th BG Historical Association Historian, Cliff Deets, and 306th BG Echoes Editor, Nancy Huebotter. Further information about the WWII 306th BG can be found at 306th Bomb Group Historical Association.
Thank you to the Kewaunee, Wisconsin, County Clerk’s Office for their research assistance.
Major Thurman Shuller, WWII 306th Bombardment Group Surgeon, with a patient circa 1943.
Born on May 6, 1914, Thurman Shuller was the youngest of six boys born to E.W. and Sarah Shuller on their farm located five miles north of Ozark, Arkansas.
Thurman graduated from high school in 1932 and enrolled in Arkansas Polytechnic College, a two year school in Russellville, Arkansas. Tuition was five dollars a semester, room and board was twelve dollars and fifty cents per month, and he earned extra money sweeping floors for twelve and a half cents an hour. In 1934 he attended Hendricks College in Conway, Arkansas, for one year before being accepted into medical school at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, Arkansas. [At that time one needed only medical school prerequisite courses and not a college degree to be considered for medical school admission.] Graduating from medical school in 1939 Thurman did a two year internship at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana.
While in medical school Thurman and seven of his classmates joined the Arkansas Army Reserve. In the summer of 1941, they were called up for one year of active duty training. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The United States (US) declared war on Japan the next day. One year of active duty turned into five years for him.
First Lieutenant (1st Lt.) Schuller trained at Randolph Field, San Antonio, Texas, graduated as a flight surgeon, and arrived on April 15, 1942, at Wendover Field, Utah, to become part of a medical unit for the newly formed 306th Bombardment Group (BG) of the Eighth United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). The 306th BG would fly the B-17 Flying Fortress. Dr. Shuller was assigned as flight surgeon to the 369th Bomb Squadron. In August 1942 the 306th BG would begin the move that would take them to their wartime base at Thurleigh, Bedfordshire, England. Captain (Capt.) Shuller left Wendover for England as the 306th BG Surgeon. The 306th BG personnel, equipment, and B-17s would arrive at Thurleigh in September.
The 306th BG flew its first combat mission on October 9, 1942, to bomb the metalworks factories at Cie. de Fives-Lille, France. This mission resulted in the first 306th BG combat death, Staff Sergeant (S/Sgt.) Arthur E. Chapman, a gunner on the 1st Lt. Robert W. Seelos crew. Chapman lost his left hand and was shot in the chest by an attacking German fighter plane. S/Sgt. Chapman died October 14, 1942.
When the bombing war began in 1942 for the Eighth USAAF there was no stated number of combat missions a flyer was expected to complete before finishing a wartime tour. Flight crews were then required to fly until they died, crashed and became a prisoner of war (POW), were wounded or injured or medically removed from flying status, or WWII ended.
Crew and aircraft losses took a serious toll on morale of flight and ground personnel. The medics were at the flight line as B-17s returned from missions to care for the wounded and the dead. The B-17 ground maintenance crews were nearing exhaustion repairing the planes and dealing with the loss of the flyers they knew. The medics were also encountering serious flight issues such as frostbite and anoxia at high altitudes. Other medical problems included flying and combat fatigue, flying “jitters,” and the physical and emotional stability of the men.
By early 1943 twenty of the original flying crews and some replacements had been lost. Major (Maj.) Shuller wrote a letter to General Ira Eaker, 8th USAAF Commander, and requested a limit of 20 combat missions be established after which a flyer would be relieved of flying duties. The response to his letter did establish a limit of 25 missions. This change gave flyers a goal and hope that they had a chance to live through the war.
“Officers of the 423rd Squadron were planning a party for the night of 26 June  because on this day Capt. Raymond Check, an original pilot and a very popular member of the squadron, would be completing his twenty-fifth mission, along with his navigator, 1st Lt. M. Prue Blanchette. A short hop over the [English] Channel to an airfield at Tricqueville [France] looked like an ideal run for those winding up tough combat tours. Because it was Check’s last ride, Lt. Col. [Lieutenant Colonel] J.W. Wilson, his original squadron commander, came back to Thurleigh to fly with him.
Lt. William Cassedy (left) and Capt. Raymond Check.
As the crew was preparing for the mission, it was noted that a waist gunner was needed. Lt. William Cassedy, Check’s regular copilot who had had his seat preempted by Col. Wilson, said that he needed a milk run as badly as the next person and would fly as the waist gunner, a circumstance which proved most fortuitous for members of this crew. The takeoff of twenty-one planes at 1555 [3:55 pm] was uneventful, and the mission proceeded to Tricqueville under the command of Maj. Henry W. Terry. Two planes aborted and nineteen were on the bomb run.
Col. Wilson was flying in the left seat and Check was serving as copilot as the nineteen planes turned on the bomb run. At almost the time of ‘bombs away,’ Check’s plane was hit by 20 mm cannon fire in the cockpit area by a German fighter attacking out of the sun. One shell exploded just above Check’s head, sending fragments into the cockpit and killing Check instantly, nearly decapitating him. At the same time a machine gun bullet hit the flare box behind the pilot’s seat and 20 mm fragments punctured the oxygen system.
Check was dead; T/Sgt. [Technical Sergeant] James A. Bobbett, engineer, was wounded and flames were dancing through the cockpit area, severely burning Col. Wilson’s hands and face. Bobbett fought the fire and extinguished it. When flares exploded, the concussion blew open the bomb bay doors and the doorway behind the top turret was filled with flames, reported Lt. Cassedy from his vantage point in the waist.
The alarm bell rang! Lt. Lionel Drew, bombardier, squeezed between Lt. Blanchette and Maj. George Peck, a visiting surgeon who insisted on flying, and bailed out. Those in the rear of the plane were preparing to jump when Lt. Cassedy told them to wait while he investigated; the plane was flying all right and the engines at the moment sounded good. Cassedy pushed through the radio room, across the bomb bay catwalk, crawled through the turret frame and came up between Wilson and the bloody body of Check. The plane was in a climb and Cassedy reached in and pushed the yoke forward to get a more level flight attitude while he assessed the situation.
Col. Wilson turned to him and motioned Cassedy to take the oxygen mask off his burned face. Cassedy shook his head that he would not, Wilson had been flying the plane with his elbows as long strands of skin hung off both hands. Wilson finally forced his mask off, got out of the left seat and went down to the nose where Dr. Peck was. Sgt. Bobbett had already been there for treatment of his wounds.
Once the way was cleared, Cassedy got into the left seat, trying to ignore the body of his close friend and flying mate a couple of feet away from him. He began to get the plane oriented for the short flight over the English coast and north to Thurleigh. Soon Col. Wilson came back to the flight deck and, as the English coast disappeared under the nose of the plane, he motioned for Cassedy to take the aircraft down and land. Cassedy, a second lieutenant, ignored the hand motions and the implied order and kept the plane churning northward toward Thurleigh. He reasoned the medical treatment for the wounded would be faster and better at the home station than at some other base. There were other problems for him to consider as well. As they closed in on the base how was he going to handle the traffic problem and the landing pattern?
In all of the intense enemy fire, the plane had had its flare gun destroyed, and it was therefore unavailable for signaling. The radios had also been shot out. Cassedy did not think the plane was in condition to fly by the tower to convey any messages. He did not want to get into the traffic pattern already being flown by the other aircraft of the group that had arrived before him. Nor did he think that to land on one of the short runways intersecting the main runway was the safest way to get to the ground either. There was another complicating factor in all of this, a human equation that must have run through Cassedy’s mind during these tense moments. A big party was being planned that evening and among those attending was an American nurse. Check and the nurse were to be married the next day. She was in a jeep at the end of the active runway waiting with others for the momentous conclusion of Check’s tour. Not wishing to bring his planeload of misery to a stop there, Cassedy decided to land down wind, against the incoming traffic and to take his chances.
In a 2005 oral history interview, Dr. Shuller emotionally recounted the story of his friend, Raymond Check. Maj. Schuller was in the base emergency room when his friend’s body was brought there. He said Capt. Check’s funeral was the only one he attended during WWII.
In October 1943 Maj. Shuller was named US 1st Air Division Surgeon and was transferred to Eighth USAAF Headquarters at High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England.
The 306th BG flew its last wartime combat mission on April 19, 1944, to the marshalling [railroad] yards at Falkenberg, Germany. WWII officially ended on May 8, 1945.
When WWII ended the 306th BG reported the following: 38 men were killed in flying accidents after the group left the US, 738 men were killed on combat missions, 855 became POWs, 44 were evadees, 1 escaped a German POW camp, and 69 were interned in the neutral countries of Switzerland and Sweden.
Dr. Thurman Shuller returned to the US after the war ended, completed a residency in pediatrics, and practiced medicine in McAlester, Oklahoma, for 41 years before retiring.
Captain Raymond Check had a WWII US Navy fighter ace brother, Leonard J. Check. He was killed in a flying accident over the Philippines on January 5, 1945.
Dr. Thurman Shuller (left) and William Houlihan, 306th BG medic, discuss their days at Thurleigh while attending a 306th BG Reunion in San Antonio, Texas, in 2005.
The WWII experiences of William Houlihan are told in two other stories on this website. See The Story of WWII 306th Bombardment Group Medic William F. Houlihan and Last Flight of a B-17 Named “Combined Operations”: And Emily Harper Rea.
Thank you to Dr. Vernon Williams, Military Historian and Director, East Anglia Air War Project for access to his 2005 interview with Dr. Thurman Shuller. For more information visit East Anglia Air War Project.
Thank you to WWII 306th BG Historical Association Historian Cliff Deets and Board members Nancy Huebotter and Deborah Conant. Further information about the WWII 306th BG can be found at 306th Bomb Group Historical Association.
WWII era photographs used in this story are in the 306th BG Historical Association Collection.
“Rosie the Riveter” became a cultural icon in WWII history. But not all “Rosies” used rivet guns. During WWII women went to work in factories, shipyards, and munitions plants. They made war supplies and did industrial work when the men went off to war. This story is about a “Rosie” named Katherine (Kay) Sakalay who worked (without a rivet gun) at Willow Run in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bombers were produced during WWII.
Willow Run is remembered as one of the major manufacturers of the WWII Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber. The first B-24 rolled off the assembly line in September 1942. By the end of WWII, 8,685 B-24s were produced at the Willow Run location.
In 2013 Kay wrote of her working life at Willow Run during WWII.
I am Katherine Sakaly Brown. I will be 90 years old this August and now live in San Antonio, Texas.
My parents George and Eva Sakaly immigrated from Greece, my father from Bergama (then Greece, not Turkey) in late 1910 and my mother from the island of Lesbos in the early 1920s, both coming through Ellis Island on a quota. They met and married in 1921, and I was born in 1923 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where the stadium for the University of Michigan is now located. They [the State of Michigan] declared my parents’ property eminent domain, and they had to move. I was told I was born on the 40 yard line.
My parents moved to Petersburg, Michigan, about 60 miles north of Ann Arbor, built a home and grocery store with a gas station. I went to school in Petersburg from 1st grade to high school graduation in 1941.
I was hired for my first job at Willow Run (Ypsilanti, Michigan) I believe in February 1942. This plant was to build the B-24 bomber known as the Liberator. At the time I started working only part of the structure was built, only the tool and dye shop was completed, and the remainder of the plant was wide open with construction. We were given uniforms in about a year, and our name badges designated the area which you were supposed to be working. The plant worked 3 shifts a day non-stop until 1945. I believe it numbered something like 40,000 employees, trains were sent to the south to hire people to staff the factory, most of them never returned to their hometown. All employees had to punch a time clock, in and out, and if you were a minute late you were docked 15 minutes of time.
Henry Ford was instrumental in building the factory, staffing, and producing the B-24 Bomber. I remember seeing him walking through the plant at various times with a couple of his staff. He was reported to be a stern, non-smoking, non-drinking, non-union individual. There was no smoking in the factory at any time. He did not live to see the final plane leave the plant, however, Henry Ford II was there when it was towed from the plant to the hangar. There was a picture of this event, and I was seen in it, my rear view that is.
I first worked at a crib, which was a small station within the factory, keeping inventory of parts used and parts to be ordered. From there I became something like a runner, taking small parts where they were needed. Our lunch period was 15 minutes, and they would bring in caterers in portable chuck wagon types of structures. You ate wherever you were standing or sitting. The food was typical GI food in the military, served on metal trays; it was this or bring your own meals. We had lockers on the second floor; these were located around the sides of the plant also the laboratories, etc. were on the balconies.
The parking lots were a nightmare. You had to remember where your car was and which side of the plant you had parked or you would be there for hours looking for your transportation. Car pooling was a must. I had a 1940 Buick that we used when it was my turn to drive. We changed cars, each passenger taking their turn, and we paid the driver when we were passengers. I don’t remember how much we paid. We had gas rationing; when you worked for a defense plant you had ample gas for your trips. The coupons were a must for us. During the first 2-3 years, most employees had to work all 3 shifts when their turn came. Later on, when I was transferred out to the hangars, my shift remained on the day shift.
I wish I could remember when the first plane was finished and taken out to the hangar, but it was a great day for all of us. The plant itself was a mile long in size, not counting the hangars and the administration building which were separate buildings. From the parking lots one had to climb a very tall staircase to cross over to the factory itself, you could not walk in from the parking lot to the plant. Your ID was checked when you got to the inside of the plant. Badges were part of your anatomy, pictures, and IDs as to which part of the plant you had to access.
Underneath the balcony were offices for different officers to conduct their operations. I wound up in one of them for quite some time. There were offices up on the balconies also as well as a cafeteria later on. If you did not have the proper identification you could not walk through the plant to look around. You stayed in the area where you were assigned to work. I never had anything to do with putting the airplane together; I was always in a clerical type of job. I never got inside of the B-24 until I was assigned to the hangar areas and then only to stow the confidential information aboard and get off.
There was an altitude chamber in the hangar which dropped the oxygen, temperature, etc. ranging from the ground level to several thousand feet in a very short time. I got in it when it went up to 12,500 feet, and it was a light-headed feeling. You were told to talk a bit when you were in various stages of rising altitude. It was rather large, capable of holding several people at one time.
There was a huge mound on the grounds where they practiced shooting all the [B-24] guns.
Over 8,600 aircraft were manufactured and an equal amount of parts manufactured for planes already in service.
In one of Kay’s great stories about Willow Run she tells of attending a meeting there with B-24 pilot James Stewart who was visiting the plant. She said Hollywood actor Jimmy Stewart was a friendly, down-to-earth man who was very tall.
In the late 1940s Kay accepted a job with the United States (US) State Department and worked for a time in post WWII Germany. From Germany she relocated to Paris, France, and worked on special assignment to the US Ambassador. For her entire life Kay had a special place in her heart for Paris.
In the 1950s Kay moved to Texas and became an assistant to then US Senator and future President of the US Lyndon B. Johnson.
Kay married Harold Brown, a Texas businessman, in 1965 and spent the rest of her life in Texas.
Kay Sakaly Brown died on July 24, 2017, in San Antonio, Texas. In August of that year she would have been 94 years old.
I knew Kay to be a wise and spirited lady. She was a woman ahead of her time and a wonderful friend.
Certificate American Rosie the Riveter Association.
The Yankee Air Museum located in Belleville, Michigan, at the Willow Run Airport tells the story of the WWII Willow Run B-24 Bomber Plant. The museum’s collections span the history of aviation from WWI to present day. For more information about the Yankee Air Museum see http://yankeeairmuseum.org/.