The Newman Crew

When our crew left Rapid City the ten crew members were:

Pilot	Herb Newman	27 years	Little Rock, Arkansas
Co-Pilot	Paul Deininger	26 years	Scranton, Pennsylvania
Bombardier	W. Dean Whitaker	19 years	Maywood, California
Navigator	Bill Frankhouser	20 years	Honey Brook, Pennsylvania
Engineer	Cornelius Harrington	22 years	New York City, New York
Radio Operator	Norman Bergsma	20 years	Lafayette, Indiana
Ball Turret	Arnold Money	23 years	Tacoma, Washington
Waist Gunners	Bernie MacKenzie	18 years	Framingham, Massachusetts
	LeRoy Kucharski	18 years	Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Tail Gunner	Steve Kernitz	27 years	Buffalo, New York

Collectively we ranged in age from eighteen to twenty-seven years, and we came from both large and small communities scattered across the entire country. We came from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and religious affiliations or beliefs. Surprisingly, however, I never learned what the older crew members had done to earn a living prior to joining the Army Air Corps. Obviously, the eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds were just out of high school. None had been to college except for me. Despite this prior diversity, we knew now that we had to become a close-knit working crew.


From World War II Odyssey by Bill Frankhouser, pages 59-60. Published by Hamilton's, Bedford, VA, 1997, ISBN 1-883912-03-2.