SHERWIN P. BOSSE
Age: 85
Born: May 10, 1925
Hometown: Steubenville, Ohio
Residence: Palm Desert
Military branch: U.S. Army Air Corps; 8th Air Force; 487th Bombardment Group; 839th Bomb Squadron
Years served: Sept. 24, 1943 - Oct. 23, 1945
Rank: Staff sergeant
Family: Wife Selma; three children, Michael and Steven Bosse, both of Chicago, and Jon Bosse of Beverly Hills; four 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 Air Corps veteran Sol Seligman of Palm Springs.
LEARN MORE: Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at mydesert.com/wwii.
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Of the 30 combat missions Sherwin Bosse flew as a tail gunner on a B-17 bomber, the mission of Dec. 24, 1944, was the most horrifying of all.
That morning, thousands of bombers and fighters from the 8th Air Force assembled in formation above Liege, Belgium. It had been more than a week since the Germans broke through the Allied front lines in Europe, marking the start of the Battle of the Bulge.
On Dec. 24, the stormy skies finally cleared enough to allow the United States to launch an aerial attack on German ground troops and enemy installations.
The 487th Bomb Group was out in front, leading the way. Bosse's crew was flying as the number two plane in the formation. If anything happened to the number one plane — it was carrying the ranking officer, Gen. Frederick Castle — Bosse's crew was next in line to lead the bombers to the target.
“Out of the sky came a bunch of German fighters — Me-109s they came in on us from the rear with their guns blasting away,” he said.
An entire formation — 13 of the bomb group's 39 aircraft flying that day — immediately came under attack and were shot down. However, many crewmen were able to bail out before the bullet-riddled planes hurtled to the ground.
As Bosse watched the men float down to earth, enemy fighters took aim on the slow-moving targets.
“The German pilots were going around shooting all of the boys in the parachutes,” Bosse said.
During the enemy assault, the number one plane got hit. Gen. Castle was killed when the aircraft blew up. Bosse's crew took over as lead plane, as enemy fighters zeroed in on the B-17.
“They came to get us, and I shot down a plane,” he said.
It was one of three enemy aircraft the sharpshooting tail gunner knocked out of the skies that day, but he was only credited with one, he said.
When Bosse unloaded his twin .50-caliber machine guns into the fighter plane, the pilot “slipped the canopy back and tried to bail out, but he never made it. I shot him to pieces. I did what they did to our boys in the parachutes.”
An Associated Press dispatch from London, featuring Bosse's description of the event, appeared two days later in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
“I picked out one fighter and poured three long bursts into his belly and then watched him go down in flames,” he said.
Although Bosse had never fired a gun before being drafted, he didn't hesitate to use the weapon when confronted with a life-and-death situation.
Bosse said there was only one thing he was thinking about: “To save myself,” he said. “Better he should go then me. I was too young to die.”
Bosse flew 30 combat missions during his tour of duty in Europe but always thought the next mission would be his last.
“I never expected to do that 30 times,” he said.
“I was scared beyond belief,” he added. “Scared to death. Who the hell wants to die at any age? I'm 19. I don't want to die at 85.”
It was difficult for Bosse to shake the images of planes getting hit by enemy fire and exploding in midair.
“That was a terrible thing to go to bed with at night,” he said. “These were the guys I just had breakfast with that morning.'
In addition to his tail gunner duties, Bosse also served as formation control officer.
“We wanted the planes to fly as close together as they could,” he said. “I'd call it into the pilot if someone was straggling, and he'd call (that plane) and say, ‘Tighten it up.'”
Bosse had his share of narrow misses as flak flew precariously close on numerous occasions.
“I got hit three times in combat, but I never even put in for the Purple Heart,” he said. “Medals didn't mean anything to me.”
Bosse has been a survivor since the day he took his very first breath.
“My mother died the day I was born,” he said. “My grandmother took me to Steubenville, Ohio, and raised me.”
Bosse was attending Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, when he was drafted. He was inducted at Fort Hayes in Columbus, Ohio, and took basic training at Jefferson Barracks in Missouri. After basic training, Bosse applied for and was accepted as an Army Air Corps cadet.
“I did very well,” he said. “I was number two or three in the class.”
Bosse's hopes of becoming a pilot were dashed when the base received a letter saying the air corps was in need of gunners.
“The next thing I know, I was on a plane to Kingman, Ariz., for gunnery school.”
After gunnery school, Bosse was sent to MacDill Field in Tampa, Fla., “And the next thing I knew, I was assigned to a (B-17 bomber) crew,” he said.
The crew was sent overseas and was stationed in Lavenham, Suffolk, England.
Gen. Jimmy Doolittle — leader of the famed Doolittle Raid, the first retaliatory air attack over the Japan homeland after Pearl Harbor was bombed — asked to meet with Bosse during a “rest and relief” break between combat missions.
“I found out that Doolittle was coming in because he wanted to know what happened during the mission,” when Gen. Castle was killed.
“We had a nice dinner and a nice conversation,” he added.
Bosse, who kept his war memories to himself for years, recently began sharing them with his family.
“It was more than I could think of,” he explained. “There was so much killing and bombing and bombing people. We went to Berlin once just to bomb people. I felt funny about that. I thought, ‘Not everybody could be bad.'”
