IN THE SUMMER OF 2019.....
my cousins Carmen and Yvonne and their husbands traveled to England. One of their goals was to visit the airbase locations where their father Damacio “Deano” and Uncle Cruz (my father) were stationed during WW2. Both men had served in the 8th Air Force as bomber crew men in 1944 and 1945.
Carmen contacted the 493rd bomb group museum and informed them her uncle was an ex-airman. Subsequently she was contacted by Mr. Darren Jelley who was the museum archivist and 493rd bomb group historian. Darren surprised her by volunteering to send information about T/Sgt. Cruz Nogales and his all missions. To make a long story short, Darren provided us with detailed information for every mission and sortie my father flew during WW2.
Receiving this information was a huge astonishment. Three years earlier (when I retired) I had contacted the National Archives and requested my father’s service records, only to be informed that a fire in 1973 had destroyed his records and that of millions of WW2 veterans! I now understood that I needed to find their history outside the National Archives, I decided to research and discover the details of all my family members who served in WW2.
I must declare, the process of discovering and verifying these stories was long and at times very frustrating. I needed to reconstruct their stories from various other military archives, ancestry websites, bomb group archives, action reports, naval war diaries, and multiple Facebook WW2 forums.
Without the help and mentorship of Darren Jelley, the historian of the 493rd Bomb Group, I would still be wandering in the forest. In addition, the stories, letters and support provided by my cousins (some of which I never knew existed) were invaluable. Not just the war information, but the personal stories of how these men dealt with the memories of their war experiences. The one common statement was “they did not like talking about it”.
The effort has been very educational, since in parallel I read many books about the battles and operations these men were part of. From the air campaigns against Nazi Germany, the battles of the 1st Infantry division in Northern Europe, the naval invasions of New Guinea, Leyte and Luzon in the pacific, the horrendous destruction of supply convoys in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, and much more.
I feel so fortunate that I have been able locate the detailed stories of these men. As a young boy growing up in the 1960s, I was very interested in war stories and movies, especially about World War II. One of my hobbies was assembling and painting plastic models of vintage war planes. At around this age, I became aware that my father had experienced combat during WW2, after I discovered his service medals in his bottom dresser drawer.
At first, my dad did not want to talk about his experience. Gradually over time he shared some remarkable stories of combat like the time his B-17 took a direct flak hit explosion over Germany, and he was severely injured. He also mentioned that his older brother, Francisco, was in the US Army and fought in France, Belgium and Germany in an antitank unit. His younger brother, Damacio, flew combat missions over Germany as a B-24 waist gunner.
He also told me he had a nephew that was a B-17 pilot, another nephew who was merchant marine officer and two more nephews that served in the military. The 4 nephews (Ramon, Albert, Manuel and David) were from his older sister, Donaciana, and all seven boys were born and grew up in the same home.
It’s time to share these remarkable stories.
I would like to thank and acknowledge:
Darren Jelly – The historian of my father’s bomb group, the 493rd.
Patrick Flores – Son of Albert Flores
Jimmy Flores - Son of Albert Flores
Steven Flores – Son of David Flores
John Raymond Flores – Son of Ramon Flores
Carmen Nogales – Daughter of Damacio Nogales
Sandra (Nogales) Henry - Daughter of Damacio Nogales
Mark Henry – Son in law of Damacio Nogales
Barbara Nogales - Daughter of Damacio Nogales
Francisco “Rocky” Nogales – Son of Damacio Nogales
Roger Watts – Admin of the 94th Bomb Group Forum (FB)
Scott Gibson – Admin of the 634th Tank Destroyer Battalion Forum (FB)
Thomas Savitsky – 4th Armored Division Forum (FB)
Professional Biography - Charles Nogales worked in the computer and data storage industry for 43 years. He held multiple engineering and management positions for Litton Aerospace, Burroughs, Unisys, Emulex and Broadcom corporations. He has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Cooper Union College and a master’s in electrical engineering from New York University.