September 1, 2025 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, when Lt. Howard Snyder’s B-17 Susan Ruth was shot down over Belgium in February 1944, he could have ended up a prisoner or worse. Instead, he vanished into the resistance. Hidden by members of the Belgian Underground, he spent four months evading capture and another three fighting alongside Maquis guerrillas in France. He rejoined Allied forces only after the liberation in September. Steve Snyder shares his father’s incredible journey of survival, resistance, and redemption in the face of Nazi tyranny.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. Up next, a
story from Steve Snyder, author of a fantastic book, shot
Down the true story of Pilot Howard Snyder and the
crew of the B seventeen Susan Ruth. Today, Steve shares
with us a story of survival, determination, and America's efforts
to beat back Nazi Germany. From this guy, let's get
(00:34):
into the story. Here's Steve.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Being a combat crewman in the eighth Air Force was
the most hazardous, dangerous duty assignment in the United States
military during World War Two. Twenty six thousand men were killed.
That's more than the entire Marine Corps fighting in the Pacific,
and another twenty eight thousand men became prisoners of war
after their bombers were knocked out of the sky by
(01:05):
either German fighters or anti aircraft fire. And it was
dangerous from the time they took off to the time
they landed. And back then there was no air traffic control,
there was no radar.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Usually the weather.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Was socked in and it was all based on visual sites,
so you couldn't see anything until you got above the
cloud layer, so mid air collisions were not uncommon. On
trying to form up and then they had to face
the elements. These planes weren't pressurized back then, so above
ten thousand feet you'd have to go on oxygen or
else you'd pass out in a couple of minutes and
(01:38):
could die. Plus, it was so cold at the altitudes
they were flying, it with minus forty to sixty degrees
below zero, so frostbite was a huge problem. Then when
they got close to the target, they would run into
anti aircraft fire or flack. Flack was the German abbreviation
for the German word for aircraft defense cannon. And even
(01:59):
when they made it back to England, they faced many dangers. Again.
The weather could be lousy and overcast and socked in
and they couldn't even find their bases. You could have
planes that had crewmen that had been killed or seriously
injured men who needed immediate medical attention. These bombers could
be running out of gas, they could have suffered a
(02:22):
lot of battle damage, engines out landing gear that wouldn't
come down. So it was especially bad in the early
years of the war in nineteen forty two and nineteen
forty three, even though they implemented a mission limit of
twenty five in the spring of forty three, it was
statistically impossible to complete twenty five missions. In nineteen forty three,
(02:43):
the average number of missions flown was only six before
being shot down, and actually culminated in the fall of
nineteen forty and was referred to as Blackweek. They lost
one hundred and forty planes, that's almost fifteen hundred men
and four missions. The worst day was Black Thursday, the
second Swinefort mission on October fourteenth, Two hundred and ninety
(03:07):
seventeen's were sent and sixty of them were sent shot down.
And it wasn't until the P forty seven thunderbolts were
added that these bomber formations finally had fighter planes that
could escort him all the way to the target and
back again. My dad, like like most World War Two veterans,
(03:30):
you know, he was a pretty humble guy about it.
He didn't talk a lot about it, So I don't
think most people except for the immediate family and friends
members of his church, really knew that he was in
the eighth Air Force, or he was a B seventeen pilot,
or he was shot down. Well, my dad and I
(03:54):
had a great relationship. He was a very loving father,
and dedicated father. He was a tough guy. My two
sisters and I we always kind of compared him to
John Wayne. He was that kind of guy. Was six
foot three, was a big guy, was no nonsense guy.
I was a disciplinarian. There was black or white, there
was no gray areas.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
He was a.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Devout Christian, had very strong morals. But he didn't talk
a lot about the war. I knew the basics when
I was growing up. I knew he was a B
seventeen pilot. He was stationed in Europe with the eight
Air Force. His plane was named the Susan Ruth after
my oldest sister, who was one year old at the
time that he went overseas and then he was shot
down over Belgium and he was missing in action for
(04:38):
seven months. But it wasn't until nineteen eighty nine that
my dad finally started talking a lot about the war.
Nineteen eighty nine, in August, the Belgium American Foundation in
Belgium erected a memorial to my dad and his crew,
and my dad and the three other crew members that
were still living at the time went over for the dedication,
and there he was reunited with all these Belgian people
(04:59):
that hit him during the war revisited these places where
he was hidden, and that brought it all back, and
after that he started talking a lot about it.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Yesterday A seven, nineteen forty one, a date which will
live in infomatic.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
The US. Most of the people in the US were
against getting into a war that was brewing in Europe.
They didn't want to get dragged into another conflict and
involving the European nations like they did in World War One,
so there was a strong sentiment about staying out of
the conflict. After Germany invaded Poland in September of nineteen
(05:50):
thirty nine. Back then, the US is very provincial. There
was no TV, things by radio. You didn't get much
news about things that were happening in other parts of
the world. So that was a huge shock when Japan
bomb Pearl Harbor. I mean, the general public had no
feeling or belief that that could happen, and in the
(06:13):
country was in total shock when it did happen. My
mother at the time, she was really scared. My dad
was up and he was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington
at the time, and my mother decided to go up
and visit him over Christmas that year after the bombing
because the future was very uncertain, and then that's when
(06:34):
she got pregnant. Nine months later, Susan Ruth was born.
The only reason that he went into the Air Force
is because, you know, he had a new bride baby
on the way, and he didn't think he could support
him very well on a private's pay in the Army,
So that's why he volunteered to join the Air Force
(06:57):
where he could make more money, especially if he could
make it through pilot training become an officer. So that's
the only reason he really went into the Air Force
rather than just staying in the Army. But it was
a good decision, and pilot training was really rough. Forty
percent of the cadets that entered pilot training washed out.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
It was it was rigorous.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
During primary training, he was really unhappy just being a
newly weed and away from his bride and away from
his little baby daughter. He was really lonely. You know,
he didn't care about training really or the war. All
he could think about is being away from my mother.
(07:38):
But gradually, you know, that passed and then it kind
of became exciting, you know, flying airplanes and getting ready
to gear up fight in the war, so it became
an adventure when they were assigned overseas of the European
(08:00):
Theater of Operations. My dad and his crew after Dalhart, Texas,
they went to Scott Field in Illinois where they were
given a brand new B seventeen to fly over to England.
Seventeen had a ten man crew of four officers, the
first pilot, co pilot, navigator in bombardier, but there were
only three of the crew were married at the time.
(08:23):
But then my dad was the only crew member to
have a child, and so the crew came together, the
four officers and the six enlisted men. That would be
a good name for the plane, after the pilot's little daughter.
So that's how it was became the Susan Ruth.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
And you've been listening to Steve Snyder tell the story
of the Eighth Air Force in which his father served.
Twenty six thousand men were killed in the Eighth Air Force,
more than all of the US Marines killed in the Pacific.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
This was hazardous duty.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
When we come back, more of Steve Snyder telling the
story of his dad and Moore shot down is his book.
We continue with it here on our American story, and
(09:39):
we returned to our American stories and our story with
Steve Snyder, author of Shutdown.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Was a mission on February eighth of nineteen forty four Frankfurt, Germany.
The night before, the crew, my dad, the co pilot, navigator,
and bombardier, spent the night at the Falcon Pub and
they really tied one on. They said they had hangovers
the next morning, but getting up to ten thousand feet
and going on that pure oxygen.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Sobered him right up.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
But it was a beautiful day to fly, my dad said.
It was a clear blue sky, visibility was great, and
they went through their bomb run and they dropped their
bombs successfully. But during the bomb run, their bombay doors
were hit by flak and they couldn't get him back up.
As a result, they caused the dragon the plane, they
lost airspeed and they fell behind the bomber formation heading
(10:36):
back the bases in England, and they were singled out
by two German flock Wolf one ninety fighters like lions
or wolves coming down on prey. They swooped in and
attacked the Susan Ruth. All of a sudden everything just
blows up. Oxygen tanks in the cockpit catch fire. My
(10:56):
dad actually was knocked out for a brief period of time.
Came two know he's frightened. He looks over at George
ike Is co pilot. He's in shock, he's motionless, he's frozen.
He's so scared. The six enlisted men were all behind
the bombay, so he doesn't know what's going on there.
(11:18):
So he has the other guy's bail out. Being the
commander of the crew, he's the last one to bail
out of the plane. And they have to remember that
none of these guys had bailed out of a plane before.
But my dad's coming down and he could make out
objects on the ground, trees and buildings. So he pulls
his rip cord and he comes down into some trees
(11:38):
and his paracute got hung up on some branches and
he dangling twenty feet off the ground and couldn't get down.
But fortunately for him, a couple young Belgium men, Henri
Franken and Ramon der Van came to his rescue. Before
the Germans got there, they saw his plight, went back
to the farmhouse, got a ladder and a rope and
helped him down a tree. This occurred early afternoon, so
(12:01):
they told him to stay put and hide till nighttime
because they thought it was too dangerous to try to
move him in daylight. With German patrols call in the area.
That night, they came back and got him, took them
to the farmhouse. He had some minor shrapnel wounds in
his left leg. The woman of the house, Ramone's mother,
treated his wounds and he only stayed there one night
(12:24):
because again they thought it was too dangerous for him
to stay there any longer than that with those German
patrols still in the area. So the second night, Belgium
customs officer Paul till Can came on a tandem bicycle
to take my dad do a safer location. Were the
Belgian people who hid my dad and other members of
(12:46):
his crew, and any down Derman for that matter, were
unbelievably brave people. They risked not only their lives but
the lives of their family and friends. Because of the
Belgium secret police that Gestapo found out about it, they'd
be arrested, tortured and either sent to a concentration camp
or shot. They were unbelievably strong, people. From there, he
(13:09):
was moved from place to place to place. How long
he stayed in any given location dependent on how brave
the people were lived there and how how dangerous the
Rebelgium underground thought it was for him to stay there.
He might spend one night, he might spend six weeks. Finally,
my dad got tired of hiding. But word came that
the Allies had landed at Normandy on d Day, June sixth,
(13:29):
and he decided to get back in the fight. And
he decided to join the French resistance. He felt there
were US men out there dying, fighting and dying to
win the war, and he felt it was his duty
to get back into the fight. His Belgium helpers tried
to talk him out of it because it was so dangerous.
I mean, he could be killed fighting against the Germans,
(13:51):
or if the Germans captured him, he would have been
shot on the spot as a terrorist. But he said,
well that you know, to find If you won't help me,
I'll just go by myself. So but one of another,
one of his helpers, Amy Cools, escorted him. They rode
bicycles over the Belgium border into France to hook up
with a unit of the French Resistance. French Resistance was
(14:13):
called the Mackie or Maquee and they were made up
of small, independent ragtag guerrilla groups all across of France.
Their job was to mission was to harass the Germans.
They would sabotage railroad lines, disrupt communications, assassinate German officers,
attack convoys. Mackie group my dad joined with was led
(14:34):
by a French lieutenant who had escape from a German
prisoner of war camp, and they stayed in a farmhouse
and wallers Onfgna, France, just across the border. Seven months
after being shot down, word came that there were US
troops in the nearby village of trey Loan, France. So
on September second, nineteen forty four, my dad walked into
(14:55):
town and the town square, walked up to an army
major actually it was element of Patent's Third Army, identified himself,
interrogated him to make sure he was who he said
he was, and then he caught a ride on a
convoy taking German prisoners to Paris, and then hopped on
a transport from Paris back to England and went back
to his base where he sent a telegram to my
(15:16):
mother Western Union telegram saying fit as a fiddle, honey
bank the money because he had all that back pay coming. Well.
Five of the crew made it home. Five of them
did not. Two of the crew were killed in the plane.
Three of the crew, Joe Musual wastegunner, Richard Daniels bombadier,
and Roy Holbert, a flight engineer, were picked up immediately
(15:39):
after they bailed out. Richard Daniels and Joe Musual had
extremely serious injuries and they all three became prisoners of war,
but Joe Musual and Richard Daniels were repatriated back to
the US before the war ended because of the seriousness
of their wounds. One other crewman, the tailgunner Bill Schlinker.
He was also hit and missing an action for seven
(16:01):
months and invaded capture. But unlike my dad, who was
moved from place to place to place and then ended
up joining the French resistance, Bill Schlankers stayed with one
place the entire time. The other three members of the crew,
George Ike the co pilot, Robert Beninger, the navigator, and
John Pendrock, another waistegunner. They evaded capture for a couple
(16:24):
of months and they were hiding in a makeshift hut
in the woods just outside of Chemez, and a Belgium
collaborator ratted him out to the Germans. They took him
into the Chamae schoolhouse, which is still there today, interrogated
him and drove him back out in the woods and
murdered all eight of them. So there's tragedy and triumph
in the story involving the Belgium people of the underground
(16:48):
and members of my dad's crew and another eight Air
Force seventeen crews. Of all the people that evolved in
the shotdown story, the only person who's still alive is
Hans Berger, the Lufaffa pilot that shot down my dad's plane.
(17:12):
That was a thrill finding hans I can tell you.
During my research, my wife Glinda said, well, why don't
you try to find the German pilot that shot him down?
And I'm thinking she's naive, she has no idea what
she's talking about. It's ridiculous idea. But like a good husband,
I did what she told me to do and I
(17:32):
found Hans Berger and the man Michael mom Beat is his
name in Belgium who had contacted me was a Loufaffa historian,
had written a number of books about the Loufaffa and
New Hans, and he asked Hans if I could contact
him to talk to him, which Hans said, okay, But
unfortunately my dad died in two thousand and seven, so no,
(17:52):
my dad never met him. World War two was the
defining woman in my dad's life, and at one point
in time, Hans' path and my dad's path crossed, and
so Hans is a part of my dad's life, a
part of his, part of his story. And in nineteen
eighty eight, the Belgium American Foundation built a memorial in
(18:15):
the village of monsou Embershees and asked him if he
would come to the dedication ceremonies for this memorial. And
my dad and my mom were talking about it, and goes,
you know, I don't know, I don't even know this guy.
Just get a letter from out of the blue, and
they were debating whether or not going or not. Then
Paul Delahay sent him a second letter, and in this
(18:35):
one it had the program for the event which listed
my dad as the keynote speaker. So my dad says
to my mother, I goes well, I guess we gotta
go now. I probably wouldn't have written the book if
it wasn't for two Belgium gentlemen, doctor Paul Delahay and
Jacques lo Lowe. During the war, they were young boys
and greatly affected by it. They saw firsthand the trosses
(18:58):
committed by the Nazis against their family and their friends.
And later in life they became local historians and they
interviewed all these Belgian people and members of the Belgium
underground about events that took place involving my dad and
his crew, and they documented their testimony, and they gave
me unbelievably detailed information about events that took place involving
(19:21):
my dad and his crew. They would have been lost
forever without their dedicated research. So I owe them a
huge debt.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
And we owe him a huge debt as well.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
A special thanks to Monty Montgomery and to Jim Watkins
for putting this story together, and also for's Steve Snyder
for writing this book about his father. The book is
shot down the true story of Pilot Howard Snyder and
the crew of the B seventeen Susan Ruth, the story
of Steve Snyder's Dad, a love story between father and son,
between troops.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
And pilots and aviators.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
In the end, the love story of our American gis
many of them paying the ultimate price to defend freedom
against the Nazi menace. His story here on our American Stories.
And we returned to our American stories. Up next, a
story from Steve Snyder, author of a fantastic book, shot
Down the true story of Pilot Howard Snyder and the
crew of the B seventeen Susan Ruth. Today, Steve shares
with us a story of survival, determination, and America's efforts
to beat back Nazi Germany. From this guy, let's get
(00:34):
into the story. Here's Steve.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Being a combat crewman in the eighth Air Force was
the most hazardous, dangerous duty assignment in the United States
military during World War Two. Twenty six thousand men were killed.
That's more than the entire Marine Corps fighting in the Pacific,
and another twenty eight thousand men became prisoners of war
after their bombers were knocked out of the sky by
(01:05):
either German fighters or anti aircraft fire. And it was
dangerous from the time they took off to the time
they landed. And back then there was no air traffic control,
there was no radar.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Usually the weather.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Was socked in and it was all based on visual sites,
so you couldn't see anything until you got above the
cloud layer, so mid air collisions were not uncommon. On
trying to form up and then they had to face
the elements. These planes weren't pressurized back then, so above
ten thousand feet you'd have to go on oxygen or
else you'd pass out in a couple of minutes and
(01:38):
could die. Plus, it was so cold at the altitudes
they were flying, it with minus forty to sixty degrees
below zero, so frostbite was a huge problem. Then when
they got close to the target, they would run into
anti aircraft fire or flack. Flack was the German abbreviation
for the German word for aircraft defense cannon. And even
(01:59):
when they made it back to England, they faced many dangers. Again.
The weather could be lousy and overcast and socked in
and they couldn't even find their bases. You could have
planes that had crewmen that had been killed or seriously
injured men who needed immediate medical attention. These bombers could
be running out of gas, they could have suffered a
(02:22):
lot of battle damage, engines out landing gear that wouldn't
come down. So it was especially bad in the early
years of the war in nineteen forty two and nineteen
forty three, even though they implemented a mission limit of
twenty five in the spring of forty three, it was
statistically impossible to complete twenty five missions. In nineteen forty three,
(02:43):
the average number of missions flown was only six before
being shot down, and actually culminated in the fall of
nineteen forty and was referred to as Blackweek. They lost
one hundred and forty planes, that's almost fifteen hundred men
and four missions. The worst day was Black Thursday, the
second Swinefort mission on October fourteenth, Two hundred and ninety
(03:07):
seventeen's were sent and sixty of them were sent shot down.
And it wasn't until the P forty seven thunderbolts were
added that these bomber formations finally had fighter planes that
could escort him all the way to the target and
back again. My dad, like like most World War Two veterans,
(03:30):
you know, he was a pretty humble guy about it.
He didn't talk a lot about it, So I don't
think most people except for the immediate family and friends
members of his church, really knew that he was in
the eighth Air Force, or he was a B seventeen pilot,
or he was shot down. Well, my dad and I
(03:54):
had a great relationship. He was a very loving father,
and dedicated father. He was a tough guy. My two
sisters and I we always kind of compared him to
John Wayne. He was that kind of guy. Was six
foot three, was a big guy, was no nonsense guy.
I was a disciplinarian. There was black or white, there
was no gray areas.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
He was a.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Devout Christian, had very strong morals. But he didn't talk
a lot about the war. I knew the basics when
I was growing up. I knew he was a B
seventeen pilot. He was stationed in Europe with the eight
Air Force. His plane was named the Susan Ruth after
my oldest sister, who was one year old at the
time that he went overseas and then he was shot
down over Belgium and he was missing in action for
(04:38):
seven months. But it wasn't until nineteen eighty nine that
my dad finally started talking a lot about the war.
Nineteen eighty nine, in August, the Belgium American Foundation in
Belgium erected a memorial to my dad and his crew,
and my dad and the three other crew members that
were still living at the time went over for the dedication,
and there he was reunited with all these Belgian people
(04:59):
that hit him during the war revisited these places where
he was hidden, and that brought it all back, and
after that he started talking a lot about it.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Yesterday A seven, nineteen forty one, a date which will
live in infomatic.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
The US. Most of the people in the US were
against getting into a war that was brewing in Europe.
They didn't want to get dragged into another conflict and
involving the European nations like they did in World War One,
so there was a strong sentiment about staying out of
the conflict. After Germany invaded Poland in September of nineteen
(05:50):
thirty nine. Back then, the US is very provincial. There
was no TV, things by radio. You didn't get much
news about things that were happening in other parts of
the world. So that was a huge shock when Japan
bomb Pearl Harbor. I mean, the general public had no
feeling or belief that that could happen, and in the
(06:13):
country was in total shock when it did happen. My
mother at the time, she was really scared. My dad
was up and he was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington
at the time, and my mother decided to go up
and visit him over Christmas that year after the bombing
because the future was very uncertain, and then that's when
(06:34):
she got pregnant. Nine months later, Susan Ruth was born.
The only reason that he went into the Air Force
is because, you know, he had a new bride baby
on the way, and he didn't think he could support
him very well on a private's pay in the Army,
So that's why he volunteered to join the Air Force
(06:57):
where he could make more money, especially if he could
make it through pilot training become an officer. So that's
the only reason he really went into the Air Force
rather than just staying in the Army. But it was
a good decision, and pilot training was really rough. Forty
percent of the cadets that entered pilot training washed out.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
It was it was rigorous.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
During primary training, he was really unhappy just being a
newly weed and away from his bride and away from
his little baby daughter. He was really lonely. You know,
he didn't care about training really or the war. All
he could think about is being away from my mother.
(07:38):
But gradually, you know, that passed and then it kind
of became exciting, you know, flying airplanes and getting ready
to gear up fight in the war, so it became
an adventure when they were assigned overseas of the European
(08:00):
Theater of Operations. My dad and his crew after Dalhart, Texas,
they went to Scott Field in Illinois where they were
given a brand new B seventeen to fly over to England.
Seventeen had a ten man crew of four officers, the
first pilot, co pilot, navigator in bombardier, but there were
only three of the crew were married at the time.
(08:23):
But then my dad was the only crew member to
have a child, and so the crew came together, the
four officers and the six enlisted men. That would be
a good name for the plane, after the pilot's little daughter.
So that's how it was became the Susan Ruth.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
And you've been listening to Steve Snyder tell the story
of the Eighth Air Force in which his father served.
Twenty six thousand men were killed in the Eighth Air Force,
more than all of the US Marines killed in the Pacific.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
This was hazardous duty.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
When we come back, more of Steve Snyder telling the
story of his dad and Moore shot down is his book.
We continue with it here on our American story, and
(09:39):
we returned to our American stories and our story with
Steve Snyder, author of Shutdown.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Was a mission on February eighth of nineteen forty four Frankfurt, Germany.
The night before, the crew, my dad, the co pilot, navigator,
and bombardier, spent the night at the Falcon Pub and
they really tied one on. They said they had hangovers
the next morning, but getting up to ten thousand feet
and going on that pure oxygen.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Sobered him right up.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
But it was a beautiful day to fly, my dad said.
It was a clear blue sky, visibility was great, and
they went through their bomb run and they dropped their
bombs successfully. But during the bomb run, their bombay doors
were hit by flak and they couldn't get him back up.
As a result, they caused the dragon the plane, they
lost airspeed and they fell behind the bomber formation heading
(10:36):
back the bases in England, and they were singled out
by two German flock Wolf one ninety fighters like lions
or wolves coming down on prey. They swooped in and
attacked the Susan Ruth. All of a sudden everything just
blows up. Oxygen tanks in the cockpit catch fire. My
(10:56):
dad actually was knocked out for a brief period of time.
Came two know he's frightened. He looks over at George
ike Is co pilot. He's in shock, he's motionless, he's frozen.
He's so scared. The six enlisted men were all behind
the bombay, so he doesn't know what's going on there.
(11:18):
So he has the other guy's bail out. Being the
commander of the crew, he's the last one to bail
out of the plane. And they have to remember that
none of these guys had bailed out of a plane before.
But my dad's coming down and he could make out
objects on the ground, trees and buildings. So he pulls
his rip cord and he comes down into some trees
(11:38):
and his paracute got hung up on some branches and
he dangling twenty feet off the ground and couldn't get down.
But fortunately for him, a couple young Belgium men, Henri
Franken and Ramon der Van came to his rescue. Before
the Germans got there, they saw his plight, went back
to the farmhouse, got a ladder and a rope and
helped him down a tree. This occurred early afternoon, so
(12:01):
they told him to stay put and hide till nighttime
because they thought it was too dangerous to try to
move him in daylight. With German patrols call in the area.
That night, they came back and got him, took them
to the farmhouse. He had some minor shrapnel wounds in
his left leg. The woman of the house, Ramone's mother,
treated his wounds and he only stayed there one night
(12:24):
because again they thought it was too dangerous for him
to stay there any longer than that with those German
patrols still in the area. So the second night, Belgium
customs officer Paul till Can came on a tandem bicycle
to take my dad do a safer location. Were the
Belgian people who hid my dad and other members of
(12:46):
his crew, and any down Derman for that matter, were
unbelievably brave people. They risked not only their lives but
the lives of their family and friends. Because of the
Belgium secret police that Gestapo found out about it, they'd
be arrested, tortured and either sent to a concentration camp
or shot. They were unbelievably strong, people. From there, he
(13:09):
was moved from place to place to place. How long
he stayed in any given location dependent on how brave
the people were lived there and how how dangerous the
Rebelgium underground thought it was for him to stay there.
He might spend one night, he might spend six weeks. Finally,
my dad got tired of hiding. But word came that
the Allies had landed at Normandy on d Day, June sixth,
(13:29):
and he decided to get back in the fight. And
he decided to join the French resistance. He felt there
were US men out there dying, fighting and dying to
win the war, and he felt it was his duty
to get back into the fight. His Belgium helpers tried
to talk him out of it because it was so dangerous.
I mean, he could be killed fighting against the Germans,
(13:51):
or if the Germans captured him, he would have been
shot on the spot as a terrorist. But he said,
well that you know, to find If you won't help me,
I'll just go by myself. So but one of another,
one of his helpers, Amy Cools, escorted him. They rode
bicycles over the Belgium border into France to hook up
with a unit of the French Resistance. French Resistance was
(14:13):
called the Mackie or Maquee and they were made up
of small, independent ragtag guerrilla groups all across of France.
Their job was to mission was to harass the Germans.
They would sabotage railroad lines, disrupt communications, assassinate German officers,
attack convoys. Mackie group my dad joined with was led
(14:34):
by a French lieutenant who had escape from a German
prisoner of war camp, and they stayed in a farmhouse
and wallers Onfgna, France, just across the border. Seven months
after being shot down, word came that there were US
troops in the nearby village of trey Loan, France. So
on September second, nineteen forty four, my dad walked into
(14:55):
town and the town square, walked up to an army
major actually it was element of Patent's Third Army, identified himself,
interrogated him to make sure he was who he said
he was, and then he caught a ride on a
convoy taking German prisoners to Paris, and then hopped on
a transport from Paris back to England and went back
to his base where he sent a telegram to my
(15:16):
mother Western Union telegram saying fit as a fiddle, honey
bank the money because he had all that back pay coming. Well.
Five of the crew made it home. Five of them
did not. Two of the crew were killed in the plane.
Three of the crew, Joe Musual wastegunner, Richard Daniels bombadier,
and Roy Holbert, a flight engineer, were picked up immediately
(15:39):
after they bailed out. Richard Daniels and Joe Musual had
extremely serious injuries and they all three became prisoners of war,
but Joe Musual and Richard Daniels were repatriated back to
the US before the war ended because of the seriousness
of their wounds. One other crewman, the tailgunner Bill Schlinker.
He was also hit and missing an action for seven
(16:01):
months and invaded capture. But unlike my dad, who was
moved from place to place to place and then ended
up joining the French resistance, Bill Schlankers stayed with one
place the entire time. The other three members of the crew,
George Ike the co pilot, Robert Beninger, the navigator, and
John Pendrock, another waistegunner. They evaded capture for a couple
(16:24):
of months and they were hiding in a makeshift hut
in the woods just outside of Chemez, and a Belgium
collaborator ratted him out to the Germans. They took him
into the Chamae schoolhouse, which is still there today, interrogated
him and drove him back out in the woods and
murdered all eight of them. So there's tragedy and triumph
in the story involving the Belgium people of the underground
(16:48):
and members of my dad's crew and another eight Air
Force seventeen crews. Of all the people that evolved in
the shotdown story, the only person who's still alive is
Hans Berger, the Lufaffa pilot that shot down my dad's plane.
(17:12):
That was a thrill finding hans I can tell you.
During my research, my wife Glinda said, well, why don't
you try to find the German pilot that shot him down?
And I'm thinking she's naive, she has no idea what
she's talking about. It's ridiculous idea. But like a good husband,
I did what she told me to do and I
(17:32):
found Hans Berger and the man Michael mom Beat is his
name in Belgium who had contacted me was a Loufaffa historian,
had written a number of books about the Loufaffa and
New Hans, and he asked Hans if I could contact
him to talk to him, which Hans said, okay, But
unfortunately my dad died in two thousand and seven, so no,
(17:52):
my dad never met him. World War two was the
defining woman in my dad's life, and at one point
in time, Hans' path and my dad's path crossed, and
so Hans is a part of my dad's life, a
part of his, part of his story. And in nineteen
eighty eight, the Belgium American Foundation built a memorial in
(18:15):
the village of monsou Embershees and asked him if he
would come to the dedication ceremonies for this memorial. And
my dad and my mom were talking about it, and goes,
you know, I don't know, I don't even know this guy.
Just get a letter from out of the blue, and
they were debating whether or not going or not. Then
Paul Delahay sent him a second letter, and in this
(18:35):
one it had the program for the event which listed
my dad as the keynote speaker. So my dad says
to my mother, I goes well, I guess we gotta
go now. I probably wouldn't have written the book if
it wasn't for two Belgium gentlemen, doctor Paul Delahay and
Jacques lo Lowe. During the war, they were young boys
and greatly affected by it. They saw firsthand the trosses
(18:58):
committed by the Nazis against their family and their friends.
And later in life they became local historians and they
interviewed all these Belgian people and members of the Belgium
underground about events that took place involving my dad and
his crew, and they documented their testimony, and they gave
me unbelievably detailed information about events that took place involving
(19:21):
my dad and his crew. They would have been lost
forever without their dedicated research. So I owe them a
huge debt.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
And we owe him a huge debt as well.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
A special thanks to Monty Montgomery and to Jim Watkins
for putting this story together, and also for's Steve Snyder
for writing this book about his father. The book is
shot down the true story of Pilot Howard Snyder and
the crew of the B seventeen Susan Ruth, the story
of Steve Snyder's Dad, a love story between father and son,
between troops.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
And pilots and aviators.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
In the end, the love story of our American gis
many of them paying the ultimate price to defend freedom
against the Nazi menace. His story here on our American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.