Staff Sargent John Henry Bell

I had the opportunity to interview a man by the name of John Bell after Christmas of 2007. We exchanged stories for a while and talked about how life had been recently. At the time, he was 87 years old, living in an assisted living apartment. Over the past few years, his eyesight has dimmed, but not his wit or his intellect. Once he became comfortable talking to us, I started asking stories about the war, for he is a veteran of World War II. Slowly, but surely, the stories once again began to come out.

The year was 1941, and John had recently enlisted in the United States Army. He was 21 years old. The war effort was underway, but the United States was not yet directly involved.
John was stationed near San Francisco, California. One day there was a Navy pilot flying above the city and decided to push the boundaries. So, he took the Navy plane, took a dive, and flew it under the Golden Gate Bridge. It was quite the dangerous stunt to pull off and could have gone disastrously wrong. The cost of this stunt? That pilot forever lost his wings. "Son of a buck!"

One Saturday night, he went to a football game with some buddies. They went out and had a good time, partying away. They received an order early Sunday morning to report back to base immediately: Pearl Harbor had just been attacked.

Their job soon evolved to include many new positions. One job was to "clear out the coast", so in following with orders, they moved all people of Japanese decent off of the coastline. It was a known fact that there were two little submarines patrolling in the bay. They may have been similar to two one-man Japanese subs that were found off of the coast of Australia. These were kamasaki submarines: the pilot climbed in, they clamped the door down, and "that was your casket".
(American B-25)

One day, John received an order to join a small grouping of soldiers on a mission. They were issued warm weather clothes, but no further details. They headed to their little B-25 plane with a group of 13 soldiers: an engineer, pilot, co-pilot, and 10 soldiers. They began to fly and headed into the night and began to island hop as they flew west. As they were flying, they headed straight into a huge thunderstorm with lighting shooting on either side of them. However, they were never struck by lightning because the plane itself was not grounded. This continued with close calls and constant lightning flashes for another half an hour. Then suddenly, the clouds opened, you could see the stars reflecting on the ocean, and they flew out into clear moonlight. (Japanese Zero)
"The Japs had planes called Zeros. They could take out B-25s right and left. But then we got P41s & P47 ad those could do something!"




(American P-41 & P-47)

"McArthur and Patton were tough SoBs. They were mean, but with good educations. There's smart people, and then there's intelligent people. Those two were intelligent." And speaking of education, John also mentioned that he had taken the pilot's test for the Air Force with no training to speak of. But, despite the fact that he passed, he was not accepted because he did not hold a high school diploma. John Bell served his country from 1941 - 1946. He was on his way to the Philippines when the war ended. Overall, there were 16 million soldiers who were drafted into the service.

Thanks, Grandpa.