Richard S. Zuber
Age: 90
Born: March 2, 1920
Hometown:Monessen, Pa.
Residence: Palm Desert
Military branch: U.S. Army Air Corps; 15th Air Force; 376th Bomb Group; 512th Bomb Squadron.
Years served: 1942-1971
Rank: First lieutenant; retired as colonel
Family: Wife Lois; two children, Valerie Burke of San Diego and retired Army Col. Darlene Zuber (deceased); three stepsons, Jeff Haskell of Palm Desert, Steve Haskell of Springfield, Mo., and Ken Haskell of Mesa, Ariz.; six grandchildren.
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
Coming tomorrow
U.S. Army veteran Raymond R. Guyovich of Rancho Mirage
LEARN MORE: Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at www.mydesert.com/WWII
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Richard Zuber, a B-24 bomber pilot, was shot down on his 39th mission, parachuted into Austria and hid out from German patrols — living on tree bark, weeds and two Hershey bars he stashed in his socks.
Weeks later, he was rescued by a Hungarian woman named Helga who arranged for the Yugoslav underground to smuggle him to safety.
Zuber, who flew missions out of North Africa and Italy with the 376th Bomb Group, was squad leader for the group's 512th bomb squadron.
On April 2, 1944, he was called on to fly a mission for a 515th squadron pilot who was hospitalized. The target was an aircraft manufacturing facility in Steyr, Austria.
“After the six-hour flight we came to the initial point near Vienna and I saw dots out in the distance,” he said. “All of a sudden, I saw the yellow noses of the 109's (German fighter planes) and they beat us up pretty good.
“As soon as bombs away, the heavy flak knocked out the number three and number four engines,” he said. The B-24 is a four-engine aircraft. The three and four engines are on the same side of the plane.
“I was standing on the left rudder with both legs. We were losing altitude sideways. After losing 10,000 fleet, I pulled the power from engine one and two and put the airplane in a shallow dive. I proceeded to the bomb bay — it was raining fuel — and I bailed out,” Zuber said.
On the way down, his boots flew off. He landed 10 feet off the ground in a tree. Below, 2 feet of snow covered the ground.
“I eased my way down into the snow, took my compass out and looked for the southern heading,” he said.
“After a short climb my chest was in pain. It was my .45-caliber pistol (hanging around his neck). I took it off and threw it into the snow. If they caught you with a gun they'd shoot you as a spy,” he said. Besides, he said, “It was too darn heavy to carry.”
Prior to combat, the airmen wrapped their bodies in the Stars and Stripes newspaper for extra warmth before putting on their GI underwear.
“I had two big Hershey bars I kept in my extra socks,” he said. “That lasted a few days I ate snow, tree bark and leaves when they started coming out. I ate all the weeds I could get my hands on.
“I was running mostly at night,” he said. “Later, I got bold and started running during part of the daytime.
“I was just looking to find a way out. There were lots of patrols. When it was snowing all you had to do was lay down on the ground. They'll never find you.”
The freezing weather made it difficult for Zuber to rest.
“I could only sleep 10 minutes at a time so I wouldn't freeze to death,” he said.
He walked for many days and many miles, making his way into Hungary by this time, and able to stay out of sight of the Germans.
Then one day, “I thought I heard an engine,” he said. “No one had engines except for the Germans. I found a ditch and jumped over on the side where there was no water. While I'm laying there, I'm getting covered with dirt and manure.”
A woman noticed Zuber hiding in the ditch and, unbeknownst to him, was trying to give him extra cover from the nearby patrol.
“She didn't want the Germans to see me,” he said. “She called me up, reached down with her hand and she helped me out of the ditch I was looking at a lady dressed in black and a jackass, with all of its bones hanging out, pulling a two-wheeled cart.”
The woman, whose name was Helga, put him in the cart and covered him again, “with all that crap,” he said.
In a short while, they came to a small, lean-to house. She swept the manure off of Zuber with a crude broom.
“She undressed me and found all the black newspaper glued to my unclean body,” he said. “Soon, I was put into a wooden tub with hot water from a huge fireplace and given a bowl of hot potato soup.”
The woman, who he thought was around 45, had lost her husband fighting with Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps. He said Helga put him into bed in a loft and later told him he'd slept 14 hours.
“She forbade me from going outdoors,” Zuber said. “After a few days, she contacted the Yugoslav underground. They came at night and they escorted me out.”
He said members of the underground accompanied him over the mountains to the Adriatic shores, then by boat to the Island of Vis, then on to Italy. He arrived back in the United States, 45 pounds lighter than when he went overseas, at the Miami Reception Center, where dentists fixed his decayed and broken teeth — damaged from eating tree bark.
Zuber, who retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1971, flew more than 13,000 hours in 23 different aircraft in his career. In the early 1950s, Zuber flew a highly secretive and dangerous mission in the new B-47 six-jet bomber.
“That was the first time we carried nuclear weapons across the country,” he said.
Zuber was stationed at the front line of defense in the event of a Russian attack.
“My cold war target was the Kremlin.”
