Linus Bergman

War memoirs of Linus Bergman

Part II (Part I)

DK: When you were in Africa and Europe, you had a chance to see a lot of sights. Please describe some of those sights, especially any that have religious significance.

Like I say, I was lucky enough to be near London. I got to the big cathedrals. I was always interested in that. Like St. Paul’s Cathedral. I had an opportunity to go to Mass at Notre Dame in Paris. In my travels I had an opportunity to go to Rome—went to all the major ports of Rome, had to go to St. Peters Cathedral [sic].

DK: Did you see the pope while you were there?

Yes, that’s right. I walked the way of the dungeons where the monks lived. We had a candle to find our way through it. They said that in the morning if we would buy religious articles, we would have an audience with the pope and he would bless that for us. So I bought a cross, and we all got into a hall and they carried him through there—the Swiss guards—and [he] gave us all a blessing and so forth and then when he came back there were about 5 or 6 of us in a row, but I was about the second one ... when he got near me he reached out to me and grabbed my hand where I had the crucifix in. I thought that was quite something to remember.

DK: Which pope would that have been?

Pius XII

DK: And what happened to that crucifix that you had blessed by him?

Oh, I gave it to my mother and then before she died, about the last year or two, she returned it back to me and I still have it today.

Of course I had the opportunity to go to Egypt. Since I was flying for supreme headquarters, I had the opportunity to see many countries, many sights, whether it was in Athens, Greece or any country. I went through Israel; the officers took me along. We went to the wailing wall, to the crypt of Our Lord, walked the way of the cross.

DK: Can you describe what the wailing wall is like?

It's just a wall. Actually, where they lean their head up against it, it’s polished. It’s a long wall. They leaned their head up against the wall and prayed. And the way of the cross, it goes right through Jerusalem, through town—on each side, maybe a store or an object like that. We went backward from 14 to 1, then we ended up at the church where Our Lord was crucified. There were some trees there that were supposed to be there when Our Lord was there. We went down to King Solomon’s mine. That was a job walking back up again.

I, as a soldier, was very lucky to have survived flying 500 hours over there, because what goes up must come down. It was sometimes difficult to find a landing strip. You had cripples ahead of you landing and you were low on fuel. But it was a great life as far as I was concerned. i tried to behave myself, I tried to watch myself. I never was sick. It was sometimes awful cold—was up in Czechoslovakia one time and it was 17 below in the morning—I was taught to start the airplane engine when it was that cold. Yes, combat flying is difficult, each mission is almost like going to hell and back. And our casualties were nearly 10 percent. One out of ten we lost. if we’d go with 100 of 'em, we’d lost 10 on a day. And we all knew if the airplane were shot down or crashed we would die. But I was one of the lucky ones.

But I have no regrets for serving, because Hitler had to be stopped. What kind of a world would we have today if he would have been in charge of Europe and Japan would have been in charge of all the islands...

DK: Do you think in any way your faith helped you get through those times?

Yes. I actually did not think that I would die. I never gave it a thought that when I left in the morning-—sometimes we did two missions a day—it just never entered my mind. But only once, when we almost crashed because we got flipped upside down. From 12000 feet we went all the way down to 2000 feet, then I said, “Dear Lord, here I come.” But we made it home!

DK: Were there any other places? You said you want to Athens, Greece. Can you describe anything there you saw?

I must say, when I flew for supreme headquarters, I usually flew with high echelon officers, like colonels and majors and generals. They were very nice to me. They always took me along. Whenever there was anything interesting to see, they asked if I wanted to go along. So they told me, when we stopped at Athens, would I go along to see the Forum? But I had never gone to school beyond the eighth grade, because I had no opportunity to go to high school. I graduated in 1931 from grade school. So we got to the Forum. When I flew in I'd seen that building way on top of the hill and I thought, "What a bother to build that building way on top of the hill." We got over there and it was in broken pieces here and there and an officer said to me, “Isn’t that something to see?” I said, "It sure is," but I hadn’t the slightest idea what we were looking at. I didn’t know. I never studied that in school.

The one cathedral—I think it was either in Milan or Bologna in italy, way up in the north end over there—it took 300 years to build the church. I was, after the war was over, to Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s place. I ’d never seen or heard of the Holocaust. Maybe some of our officers went there and never said anything, I don’t know. I was overseas for five months more after the war ended before I got to go home. When we would leave, when we would go to Egypt or like that, it would be a week, or there were times we’d go on a trip, to London, Scotland or other places, that would be three or four days. And I’ve gone already for 6 days and traveled to 6 different countries before we’d get home. It was quite an experience. And since I love to travel and see things, I did get the opportunity to see Europe.

DK: When you saw places and didn’t know what you were seeing, did you find out later on what you had seen?

Oh yes. I read a lot. I’m a bookworm. I read many things. A few years ago, when the Olympics were there, it really brought the picture home to me, when they showed the Forum up on there and I thought to myself, "These are the things that I've seen." The officers would take pictures of the things we saw on the missions we flew, so they would give me pictures. You couldn’t have your own camera over there. You couldn’t get no film, or you couldn't get it developed, so I had very little opportunity for that.

But like in Africa, meeting the Arabs and so forth, it was quite an experience. Like in Italy, ladies would come up to do our laundry for us and since I didn’t smoke and didn’t care for chocolate or candy, I would always give her a pack of cigarettes or a bar of soap or something like that and she would treasure that. So I asked her for a pillow—we didn't get anything like that overseas. So she got me a pillow. For two years I used the pillow. At the time I didn’t think about it—it looked to me like it had been a used pillow—but now I can see: I’m sure she just gave me one out of her household. And two years later or so, when I went home, I finally gave it back to her. With it I gave her a carton of cigarettes and some candy. She laid it out on the floor and she gave me a hug. I thought she was going to squeeze [chuckling]... but anyway, friendship went farther than hate.

...

DK: How long did it take from the time you flew back across the ocean to South America to when you were actually discharged?

Oh gee, I landed there a few days before, I ’d say August the 3rd or 4th, then they put us on the train, of all things, believe it or not. We landed there at three or four in the morning, and of course nobody was there with a cup of coffee or a donut. That didn't make no difference to me, I was just glad to touch American soil again. Then they put us on a boxcar, believe it or not—a boxcar!—and went all the way to Washington. Nothing to wash us or anything like that, coal dust all over our face. We stopped there—I guess in Union Station—there was a water faucet there, we were all trying to wash; that was a sight to see. So we went to Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania—by Hershey, you know—and lo and behold, they wouldn’t discharge me. I had enough points to be discharged, but no, they wouldn’t discharge me; they needed us air force guys to fight in Japan. So we got 30 days en route. So I went home and then I had to report. By that time the war was over in Japan, but I still had to report to California. So I went to Santa Ana Air Base, they called it, between Los Angeles and San Diego—got there about the 6th or 7th of Septemeber, and then, there we were, nothing to do. We all had passes, could do what we wanted to, and I did. I went to Big Bear Lake and Arrowhead Lake and Los Angeles. I seen Groucho Marx, we went to ballgames, football games...

DK: Can you say, in general, the experiences you had in WWII, did they have any effect on your life later on, in the practice of your faith?

No, no, I was always glad that I was born a Catholic. My mother’s last request was that I should marry a Catholic girl. So I did not become involved with women overseas, nor did I associate with guys who did. The job the last couple years had rules. One of the rules was that you could not have venereal disease; if you did, you were out of the outfit. You couldn’t lie, you could not be late, you had to do a perfect job and you had to keep your mouth shut. I came home just ast staunch a Catholic as I had left.

END