On D-Day's anniversary, area vet recalls tales of valor

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June 6, 2012

On D-Day's anniversary, area vet recalls tales of valor

By JOE MAHONEY Staff writer The Daily Star Wed Jun 06, 2012, 03:30 AM EDT

RICHFIELD SPRINGS -- Nearly seven decades have passed since the last time James Andrecheck sat hunched inside the cramped ball turret of a B-24 Liberator bomber.

The year was 1944, and he was a sergeant in the U.S. Army Air Forces, serving in the 757th Squadron of the 459th Bombardment Group of the 15th Air Force. He remembers how he'd take his position as a gunner and engineer on missions intended to wipe out the war machine of Nazi Germany, which at the time was holding much of Europe in its cruel grip.

Now, at the age of 90, Andrecheck still remembers the brave crew mates who accompanied him on the 50 missions he flew from January to June in 1944. He remembers how he had to slip into an electric suit before boarding the planes to keep from freezing to death at high altitudes.

"Even with the electric suit, you still had to wear longjohns or you'd get frostbite," he said Tuesday.

He remembers firing the pair of Browning .50 caliber machine guns which extended through the turret while the B-24, with its powerful Pratt & Whitney engines, soared through the clouds.

He remembers the "Coffee Tower," the name his fellow airmen gave to the control tower sprouting from olive and grape orchards at a makeshift air base near Cerignola, Italy. He remembers returning to the base after one mission in a hobbled B-24 that took heavy fire from Nazi forces.

"There were over 300 holes in the old girl," he said. "The nose wheel blew out and the pilot had to make a nose landing. It was a miracle."

And he remembers D-Day on June 6, 1944 -- 68 years ago today -- when 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of French coastline to fight Nazi troops on the beaches of Normandy. More than 5,000 ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the mission.

"We flew two missions that day, but they didn't tell us about the invasion," he recalled.

Last month, in a show of gratitude to Andrecheck and 38 fellow veterans of World War II, France's ambassador to the United States, Francois Delattre, presented them with the insignia of the French Legion of Honor in a ceremony at West Point.

"We softened up the Germans," Andrecheck said. "There weren't as many Germans after our missions."

He said he is proud of that medal and the many others he received for his combat service in the Mediterranean theater of World War II.

It bothers him, he said, when he runs into young people who know very little about that war, and know nothing of significant dates such as D-Day or the attack by Japanese forces on the U.S. Navy installation at Pearl Harbor.

"The kids pay attention when you tell them what happened in the war, but the schools are not teaching about it," he said. "It's a shame."

Born in Canada and raised near Jordanville in Herkimer County, Andrecheck said he enlisted in the Army in 1939, when he was 18 years old.

Four of his brothers also became World War II veterans -- Tom, Joe, Bob and Frank. Each is now deceased. James Andrecheck completed his service in the Army in 1945 and came home to become a construction worker and marry his wife, Mary. James Andrecheck has been retired since he was 65 years old.

The couple lives off a quiet road just north of the village of Richfield Springs, where it is not uncommon to see a horse-drawn Amish buggy.

It's a peaceful location, offering bucolic vistas of rolling farmland, a long way from the field in Italy where he pitched a pup tent and dug a foxhole. Andrecheck said he is proud to have made his contribution in the war effort.

"There was no such thing as fear factor," he recalled. "I had no fear. I was young."

He recalled three particularly dangerous missions targeting petroleum refineries in Ploesti, Romania. "The Germans got most of their gas from there," he said. "We wanted to blow it up."

Jack Henson, Otsego County's veterans affairs director, said his predecessor, Tex Seamon, assisted in getting the French government to recognize Andrecheck's service.

"We need to remember the great things these veterans accomplished now because it will be too late to remember them before we know it," Henson said. "The World War II veterans really were the backbone of this country. They truly are the ones who made this country what it is today."