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Over the last several years the Experimental Aircraft Association has brought a number of historical and educational programs to the Morristown Regional Airport. This year’s program featured a World War 2 B-25 bomber and several distinguished veteran guests. Among those was Major Gerald Lay, a World War 2 B-17 pilot and German prisoner of war. With our World War 2 veterans down to a small few, a recent chat with Major Lay told some of his amazing story..

Born September 17, 1924, at Jasper, Tennessee, in the Sequatchie Valley, he was one of eight children of minister and truck farmer William and wife Vivian Lay. While still an infant, Gerald would move with his family to Victoria, where they lived until Gerald was 10 years old. A further move would be to Sand Mountain, about a mile from the Alabama/Georgia state line. Along with his ministry, father William sold much of his fruit and vegetable produce on the Chattanooga market.

With World War II going strong, and with his desire to be a fighter pilot, Gerald headed to join the Army Air Force following his high school graduation. With the pilot school being full, his induction was put off from September 1942, until January 1943. Two older brothers had already entered the service, with one serving in Italy and the other in the Philippines.

Following his training as a P-51 pilot, the handsome dark-haired Gerald was sent to Lincoln, Nebraska, where he found that the military was desperate for B-17 bomber pilots and where he was assigned to a B-17 crew, which was soon given a spanking brand new B-17 bomber. The crew would fly the new bomber to England to be used in the war.

“It was the sweetest thing I ever hoped to see”, Gerald recalled. “The other pilot and I were both Second Lieutenants and all the crew got along well together. We were all one bunch. After our training, we delivered the new B-17 to England and were assigned to the 848th Squadron, 490 th Bomber Group of the 8th Air Force to become the crew of the B-17G “Pennsy Belle”.After our first mission, our squadron was supposed to be off the next day”, Gerald started, “but about 4 in the morning on November 25, 1944 an orderly was shaking us and told us we were going on another mission. They took us to the flight line, and we didn’t really care. We were young and stupid.

“Our plane and about 5 others were loaded with metallic chaff to drop to confuse the German radars. They told us to pull up front when we were flying over Germany and I could hear the artillery down below. We lost 3 of our 4 engines and turned to head home. We were 30 miles from the Rhine River when our plane started dropping down to about 5,000 feet, we bailed out.The plane would crash over into a house at Marienbeig. Our tailgunner was lost in the river. I evaded capture for 5 days with nothing to eat but a few wrinkled apples and turnips, before I finally surrendered and was interrogated.

“I was taken to Stalag, where there were 24 in the same room and all were Air Force officers. Our pilot, navigator and bombardier were in the same room. They weren’t bad to us in the camp and we figured that they were going to use us when they made prisoner exchanges. Word got back home pretty quick that I was a POW.” .

Stalag 1 was a German prisoner of War camp for captured airmen near Barth in Western Pomerania near the Baltic Sea. The camp held about 7,600 American and 1,400 British airmen. The camp was of rough wooden structures on poles about 8 or 10 inches above the ground. The two components of the camp were separated by buildings used by the Germans. Shallow trenches were dug under the building for dogs to travel to check for tunnelers. Soldiers would sometimes crawl under the barracks to listen to the conversations of the prisoners. The prisoners had an escape committee where the senior officer would approve all escape plans. In all, around 140 escape tunnels were attempted.

The North component of the prisoner barracks had the mess hall which prepared German bread, potatoes and vegetables which were sometimes supplemented by Red Cross food packages which contained such supplements as jam, cheese, powdered milk, sardines, margarine, raisins, chocolate, coffee, sugar and crackers.

With the coming of the Red Army, the camp was ordered to be evacuated on April 30, 1945. The camp senior officer refused to give the order, but after negotiations to avoid useless bloodshed, the guards left, leaving the prisoners behind. The Soviet troops soon arrived and treated the German citizens badly, but the inmates were respected and issued armbands to denote their nationality. They were then locked back up, with the gates guarded and the inmates not being released.

The Americans would arrive in two weeks and threaten to shoot the Russian commander if the prisoners weren’t released. The Russian officer wisely complied and the inmates were freed. Stripped down B-17’s were brought in to carry the freed Americans to Camp Lucky Strike in France and on to England, while the British were flown directly to Great Britain..

Gerald told of the experience: “The Russians had heard that our troops had stopped short of the Baltic Sea. When they showed up, they were really happy for us. They had quite a bit of our equipment and even had Jeeps. We stayed at the camp until the Americans showed up and then went back to England. After I got back home in 1945 I had a bunch of leave pay coming and got a job at the K-25 plant in Oak Ridge. They figured that if I could fly an bomber that I could learn to be an apprentice draftsman and do that job. Oak Ridge was still muddy then”

Back in his school years, the then ten-year old Gerald had been introduced to seven year-old Mamie Tinker by his youngest sister as they were walking to their school that was held in a church. The two stayed in contact, and when Gerald returned home they got closer. Soon being married they would first move into a pre-fab house on a gravel road. Gerald would work a long career before retiring as an Architecture and Civil Engineer.

Gerald and Mamie would have two children, daughter Shirley, now 74, and son Gary, now 72. Having been promoted to First Lieutenant at the end of the war, Gerald would stay in the reserves where he retired as a major. He would enjoy a reunion with his old World War 2 mates in 1988. Moving to the Sycamore Assisted Living Home in Kingston, Gerald would soon lose his beloved Mamie after 70 ½ years of marriage.

“I couldn’t live in a nicer place than here”, Gerald smiled. “I think that some of them know that I’m an old man and they treat me well. I still take a sunset picture every day.