052424 Jared Frederick

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
History. I loved the WW two, one of my favorite eras of American
history. My grandfather was a greatbuff of WW two history. He was
the services in WW two. Iused to bind books, I used to
buind videos, timeline books and videosas always a Christmas gift got my grandpa.
He was born in nineteen nineteen.Been gone for several years now,

(00:23):
but I always like WW two andjust listen to Grandpa's stories. And there's
a new memoir out it's called Intothe Cold Blue, and it is the
account of a gentleman who's named JohnHolman, and he's written the book with
Jared Frederick, and it's called Intothe Blue My WW two, My World
War two journeys with the Mighty EighthAir Force. And I have again co

(00:46):
author of the book with the WWtwo veteran Jared Holman. His co author
is Jared Frederick, and he's onthe hotline. Jared. Welcome to the
program sir, how are you good? Thank you for having me. Well,
let's dive in here. You've cowritten this book with John f.
Talk about mister Holman, how didyou find a connection and who is he?
And start telling about a story forus. John Homan is now one

(01:08):
hundred years old. He turned thatage in January, and he has quite
a life story. I came ininteraction with him over the years at various
historical functions and lectures, and abouttwo years ago I finally committed to sitting

(01:29):
down with him to have a morein depth interview, just to get a
sense of his experiences. And afterabout thirty five minutes, I said,
John, I think your story isworthy of a book, and he said,
well, we better get started becauseI have an expiration date. And
so that sort of airman gallows humorthat still pervades a little bit in regard

(01:55):
to his outlook. But my questto create a narrative of his story was
greatly helped by the fact that one, he is a very sharp memory.
He can remember back to specific missions, and he can remember what the weather
was like, he can remember whatsort of enemy resistance they encountered, he
can remember what engine problems they had. And we had all the documentation in

(02:20):
the form of his original records toback all of that up. And so
it turned into this odyssey to notonly create a personal perspective of what he
endured, but also to give usa snapshot of his crew in action and
what that can tell us about theoverall experiences of these young men who were

(02:43):
in the Mighty eight Air Force eightyyears ago. The voice of Jared Frederick.
He's co written a book with theWorld War Two veteran John Holman,
who's it's called Into the Cold BlooMy World War Two Journeys with the Mighty
eighth Air Force. Let's talk aboutthis Mighty eighth Air Force and what they
did. It's a riveting account.I read excerpts from the book and excerpts

(03:05):
from the publisher, I believe,and it's about the air war that happened
over Europe and a lot of stuffhappened there, and John Holman is in
the middle of it absolutely. Inabout two weeks we're going to be commemorating
the eightieth anniversary of D Day,and that is often considered the opening of
the Second Front. The vice continuesto tighten around Nazi Germany. But for

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a lot of men in the EighthAir Force, the invasion of the European
continent began a year before with theserelentless bombing campaigns to weaken German industry,
fortified positions in occupied countries, submarinepens, railroad marshaling yards, anything conceivable

(03:53):
that could have aided the enemy wasbeing targeted. And in the due course
of all of that at the EighthAir Force suffered horrible casualty race and in
fact, the Eighth Air Force lostmore men in the skies over Europe than
the US Marine Corps did in theentirety of the Pacific War waged against the

(04:15):
Japanese. And I really think thatstart statistic really puts things into perspective.
Now, when you talked to misterHoman, was there one particular battle or
one particular segment of this invasion ofEurope that he focused on, or did
he have stories for the whole thing? He had stories for the whole thing.
And once again that was aided bythe fact that he had all of

(04:38):
his records. Those were able totrigger his memories with very sharp precision.
But there's one moment in particular thatcomes to mind. It was about halfway
through his mission Quota. It wasSeptember eighteenth, nineteen forty four. He
was tasked with dropping supplies to surroundedAmerican pair troopers in Holland. And this

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was something very different for him becausehe was accustomed to dropping bombs from twenty
thousand feet, and now he wasdropping supplies from five hundred feet. And
along that journey his plane encountered witheringground fire. Two of their engines were
shot out, the hydraulics went out, the interior of the plane filled with

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fog. He couldn't see his copilots sitting next to him. The tail
was shot out, the plane waspunctured full of holes, and somehow they
were able to gain elevation, workedtheir way back to England, and when
they arrived at an emergency air strip, they found that there was another B
twenty four bomber that had crashed nearthat airstrip immediately before them, and so

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they had to be exceedingly careful asthey were landing. And then when they
did land, they found out thatone of their tires had been shot out
as well. And that was hiswords, a very dicey proposition. But
miraculously his crew, Mats and himselfwere able to survive that although their plane

(06:10):
did not now what were they flying? What was the aircraft that they were
He was having all these adventures,and I use air quotes when I say
adventures. What was the aircraft.It was the B twenty four Liberator.
That was a heavy bomber that wasthe cutting edge technology of the time.
It had a ten man crew.It had about a range of about three

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thousand miles, so it pretty muchhad the capacity to fly across the continell
United States on a single tank ofgas, which was revolutionary for the time.
It had a very heavy bomb loadand that's what made it one of
the primary workhorses of the American aircampaign. You mentioned him and his crew

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survived and how much crew was onthat plane? I mean, because that
could have been multiple casualties if theywould have gone down. What was the
crew like it was a ten mancrew. There would be four officers and
six sergeants, and the officers flewthe plane and did the navigation and dropped

(07:15):
the bombs. The sergeants did radiowork and also manned the heavy machine guns
that were intended to help fend theship against German fighters that might swoop into
attack. Give Usten the voice ofmister Jared Frederick. He's co written a
book with John Holman. John Holmanis a World War Two veteran. The

(07:36):
name of the books it's run hisstory it's called Into the Blue. My
World War Two journeys with the Mightyeighth Air Force. Jared a couple more
questions here, kind of talk aboutthe young John Holman. How did he
end up in the military and flyingaircraft. That's a great question, And
like so many other young men ofhis generation, he was somewhat hardened by

(07:59):
the mans and the riggers and alsothe shortcomings of the Great Depression. And
he was a very adventurous, somemight say spunky young man. He hung
around with a gang and they gotinto mischief when he was a youth,
and so I think there was alwaysthat daredevil persona that was in him,

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and that is what one of thefactors that motivated him to join what was
then called the Army Air Forces.The Air Force was part of the Army
back in the nineteen forties. Andabove all else too, I think he
wanted to be on the cutting edge. He wanted to embrace this new technology.
He didn't want to be in thehull of the ship and not see
anything. He didn't want to bean infantryman and be living in perpetual mud.

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And so he figured the Air Forceswas the ticket for him, and
quite a journey. It was,you know, we heard and we kind
of know that the US was reluctantto jump into WW two until the attack
on Pearl Harbor, and then ofcourse we jumped into the theater of war.
Did the Pearl Harbor attack did hetalk about at the time? Was
that something that was motivating people likehimself and his peers to jump in and

(09:11):
sign up for the military. Absolutely. He can remember exactly where he was
when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Hewas walking into a shop with some of
the friends of his gang and theyheard the news over the radio, and
it was one of those sorts ofgenerational shocks. You know, the baby
boomer generation can remember the Kennedy assassination. My generation can remember nine to eleven.

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There's these distinctive moments in American history, and for him, it was
Pearl Harbor. And the great challengefor him, though, was that he
was seventeen when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and many of his friends were eighteen,
and so his buddies were of militaryage, but he was not,
and initially he felt that he wasleft out. All his buddies left for

(09:54):
war, and he had to playthis wedding game where he was chomping at
the bit to get in there andservice country. Accordingly, the name of
the book is called Into the ColdBlue My World War two Journeys with the
Mighty Eighth Air Force. We're headinginto Memorial Day weekend, and obviously we
commemorate all those that paid the ultimateprice defending our freedom of here in America.

(10:18):
You mentioned that the eighth Airborne hada lot of casualties in WW two.
How did he reflect on those ofhis fellow airman that lost their lives
during this war? What's his memoryof that and what's his reaction to it
even so many years later? He, I think very accurately reflected on all

(10:41):
those losses and looking at the bigpicture, he said that the side that
screws up the least wins, andultimately that's the calculation of how he looks
at the Air war in Europe.He said, a mistake were made.

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There were very steep learning curves throughoutthe process, but in many ways it
was by pure willpower and overwhelming numbersthat the Allied forces were able to prevail
in the way that they did.So the war comes to an end.

(11:22):
Talk about the post war life ofJohn Holman. I believe, if I'm
reading correctly, he had a sweetheartwaiting for him. He was committed to
a lady. What was family lifeand what was life like after mister Holman
returned home and he had a highschool sweetheart named Irene who was going to

(11:43):
high school and college while he wasin the search. And at first when
he came home, he didn't getalong with her as well as he thought
he would because he was having difficultyadjusting back to home front life and he

(12:05):
needed some breathing space before he couldrecommit to that sort of relationship. But
ultimately the fences were mended. Theydo get married, and he ends up
going to Rutgers University on the GIBill, which he considers one of the
great American achievements of the twentieth centurybecause it allowed so many young people like

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himself to attain higher education when itotherwise wouldn't have been possible. And throughout
the rest of his career he workedin industrial manufacturing. He worked for Johnson
and Johnson for a time, andhe's been retired for over forty years now.
He and Irene ended up getting married. Family you know what day,

(12:50):
he says, has an expiration,Dave Well, who will still be here
remembering that his family member John Homan, he had three children and his marriage
with Irene lasted for nearly seventy fiveyears. Wow, John Holman's doing well

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today, you said, And ona Memorial Day? Do you know you're
not in his brain, but youknow the Memorial Day, a lot of
our focus is on the losses andcasualty and reflection of those that gave their
life in WW two. What doyou think goes through mister Homand does he
talk about that? You have aMemorial Day where they're talking about D Day

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and all these European cemeteries that haveso many American soldiers that are born there,
and a lot of those were hispeers. A lot of those were
people that he went off to warwith. What do you think his reflections
would be on a Memorial Day?His reflections don't do it again unless it's
absolutely necessary. He believes that warand democracy they come at a very high

(14:03):
price. Their consequences shouldn't be takenfor granted. And I think that's what
he would say we should keep inmind on Memorial Day. The Voice of
Jared Frederick. He's co written abook with the World War Two veteran John
Holman. The name of the bookis called Into the Cold Blue, My
World War Two Journeys with the MightyEighth Air Force. Jared, I'll just
ask, I guess the book isavailable online Amazon, et cetera. Any

(14:26):
other special instructions about the book,sir, And that's correct. It can
be found at find booksellers everywhere.And we think your listeners will enjoy the
narrative. You got it. We'llgive mister Homan our best and God bless
him and thank him for sharing hisstories and leaving that his history and his

(14:46):
tales for us. And we hopehis expiration date is a long ways away,
but we really appreciate you sharing hisstory. Thank you, Jared Frederick.
Again, the name of the bookis called Into the Cold Blue,
My World War Two Journeys with themy Eighth Air Force and available anywhere fine
books are sold. It again,it's written by John Hohman and Jared Frederick,
and Jared of course tells the storyabout mister Homan, and it's fascinating.

(15:09):
I mean, the guy was flyingbombing raids over Nazi Germany. Germany.
It wasn't you a euro of ahere going into Germany, right over
Hitler's Germany and dropping bombs out ofthis beef twenty four Liberator. It's a
worthy read into the cold Blue MyWorld War Two Journeys with a Mighty Eighth

(15:30):
Air Force by John F. Holmanand Jared Frederick. I'll be back.
Final half hour of the program iscoming up. Jimmy Lakey, that's my
name. It's six hundred k COL. Good morning, Colorado, Glad to
have you here. Six hundred kcol.