LEE YOSS
Age: 86
Born: Dec. 23, 1923
Hometown: Woodsfield, Ohio
Residence: Palm Desert
Military branch: U.S. Army Air Corps; 10th Air Force; 5th Bomb Group; 492nd Bomb Squadron
Years served: July 1943-January 12, 1946
Rank: First lieutenant
Family: Wife Shirley; five children, Barry Yoss (deceased), David Yoss (deceased), Denise Freitag of Easton, Md., Mark Yoss (deceased) and Lori Demorest of Coto de Caza; six grandchildren; two great-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 Floyd McDonald of Cathedral City.
LEARN MORE: Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at mydesert.com/wwii.
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U.S. Army Air Corps veteran Lee Yoss flew 62 missions as a B-24 bomber navigator in the China- Burma-India theater of war during World War II.
Yoss had a year of college under his belt at Ohio State University when he enlisted in the air corps.
The engineering major entered the service as an air cadet and later, because of his engineering background, was assigned as a navigator.
He trained at Ellington Field in San Marcos, Texas and was assigned to a bomber crew at March Field in Riverside County.
“We were there for about four months training for combat missions,” he said.
At Hamilton Field, near Sacramento, “We were assigned a brand-new B-24,” to fly overseas to India, Yoss said.
The crew took the long way to their assigned air base. The group flew across the U.S. to Newfoundland, then to the North African cities of Marrakesh, Tripoli and Cairo, among many other stops.
“We saw the Taj Mahal,” he said. “As long as we were going, I made sure we went to all these places,” he said, laughing. “I was the navigator.”
In Cairo, “We stayed there two days,” Yoss said. “We got to see the pyramids.”
The crew managed to buy time and extend their “vacation” by blaming it on the aircraft.
“Our pilot always had something ‘wrong' with our engine that had to be ‘repaired,'” Yoss said, laughing.
The crew caught hell for its leisurely jaunt across the continents.
“The commanding officer said, ‘It took you three weeks to get here. From now on, you're going to be flying in combat!'”
On the first few missions, the pilot and navigator flew with experienced pilots and their crews to get an idea of what it was like to be in battle.
Yoss' first mission with his new crew was Mandalay, Burma, and he asked what kind of resistance they'd be facing over the target.
“The pilot said, ‘Look, it's a piece of cake. It's a milk run,'” Yoss said.
As they approached Mandalay, things went sideways quickly.
“Holy smokes! All of a sudden here comes the Zeroes, the Japanese fighter planes, shooting at us. Ack ack (anti-aircraft fire) was coming up at us. We could see the flak. We could hear the flak hitting the plane and knocking holes in the plane.”
The aircraft managed to land safely, but all aboard were shaken by the experience.
“The crew kissed the ground,” he said.
Yoss thought the pilot had downplayed the danger of the bomb run — but in fact, the pilot was just as surprised as Yoss.
“He said, ‘This is one of the toughest missions we've ever had,'” Yoss said.
After a couple of missions, Yoss and his original crew were reunited and were on their way, for the first time as a group, into combat.
“We started flying in formation,” Yoss said. “We had to fly as tail-end Charlie — the last plane in the formation.”
On the ground, it took awhile for the Japanese to adjust their anti-aircraft guns to the correct height to hit the incoming bombers.
The plane flying last in formation, “was the one that got the very bad ack ack,” he said. “Our plane flew tail-end Charlie for about four missions. That was rough.”
After flying about 10 missions in regular formation, they were assigned as the lead crew; Yoss was the lead navigator.
“We bombed airfields, munition dumps, fuel supply depots and railroads,” he said. “I had 38 missions. We thought maybe they would be sending us home, but we flew four more missions.”
“The scariest times were when the Japanese fighters were coming up after us,” he said. “The fighters would dive through our formation. Our guns were shooting at them. The Zeroes knocked down a couple of our planes.”
After the crew tallied its 42nd mission, they were assigned to assist the Air Transport Command — the group in charge of delivering supplies to troops fighting in China.
The transport planes flew perilous missions over the Himalayan Mountains — dubbed “The Hump” — and many were lost due to bad weather conditions or engine troubles.
“They needed fuel transported,” Yoss said. “They converted some of our B-24s into fuel tankers. They took three bomb bays out and put big tanks in and loaded them up with fuel. We had to fly over The Hump and deliver the fuel to China.”
Although the transport planes didn't face enemy fighter pilots or anti-aircraft fire, the rugged terrain and poor visibility claimed many planes and their crews.
“We lost more planes flying The Hump,” he said. “They'd lose an engine and with that heavy load of fuel so many planes exploded on the mountain.”
Then the “B-29 dropped an A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and they allowed our crew” to return to the States.
The crew's original aircraft, nicknamed “The Old 97,” survived all of its missions, including the flight home.
After the war, Yoss returned to Ohio State University and earned his engineering degree.
Yoss went into business for himself after spending a few years in the workforce after graduation.
He owned Lee Foam Products Inc. for 50 years, operating three plants in Southern California and two plants in Mexico.
