Anna+and+Sarah

__Mr. Frank Lashinsky__

Mr. Frank Lashinsky had always been interested in airplanes. His fascination in them started when he was just a little kid, growing up in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania. Lashinsky would use his allowance money, which was only twenty-five cents, to buy balsa wood, paper, and rubber bands. He used these materials to make airplanes. Lashinsky probably never thought that his interest in airplanes would bring him to becoming part of the Army Air Force in World War II (Evans). Lashinsky finally got to experiment with real airplanes in 1942 when he graduated high school, and got a job at Olmsted Field in Harrisburg. He loved working with airplanes, and the next year he tried to sign up for the Army Air Corps. He passed all the tests, except for an eye examine when they found out he was colorblind. Lashinsky decided to stay at Olmsted until he was drafted in October. Then he had his first experience ever being in an airplane, during gunnery school in Miami. Next he went to Panama City, Florida for aerial gunnery school and then did flight crew training in Pueblo, Colorado. In August of 1944, he stopped in Topeka, Kansas where he and his crew were assigned to a B24. Lashinsky was then headed over seas into combat to fill in for lost men of the 15th Air Force (Evans). The 15th Air Force had only existed for 18 months, they did a lot to help the U.S. in World War II. They destroyed all gasoline production in southern Europe, and knocked out all the major aircraft factories, and destroyed 6,282 enemy aircraft in the air and on the ground (Glantzberg). After visiting Manchester, New Hampshire and Gander, Newfoundland they took off for Santa Maria in the Portuguese Azores. As the plane was landing, Lashinsky noticed a wheel from the plane collapsed and the plane went down, destroyed. Luckily everyone was okay, and waiting at the airport for another plane gave them time to explore the city (Evans). Soon after the crash, the B24 plane was delivered to Santa Maria. They took of for Gioia, Italy. The radio man on the plane made a mistake by firing the wrong color flame from the B24, and they convoys opened fire. After the radio man saw the mistake he had made, he fired the correct color and the pilot was able to turn around and escape from the convoy. They were safe from the convoy, and they weren’t hit (Evans). Lashinsky was the tail gunner on the tenth plane in the squadron known as the “Tail End Charlie.” This was the most dangerous position to be in (Evans). It was the most dangerous because it was on the end of the squadron. It was the defender of all the other airplanes, putting it in a difficult situation where it had a higher chance of getting shot down from the enemy (B-25 Gunner). The eight hour flight was terribly long. Many soldiers were becoming sick from flying for so long. Eventually, the pilot announced that they were nearing the end and were ten minutes away from the bomb run. The engines on the plane were becoming very hot. Without any notice of trouble, the supercharger on engine two had failed (Evans). Because of the engine problems, the pilot ordered all the soldiers to escape from the plane. Because Lashinsky was the youngest, he was the first to jump. When he jumped, his chute wouldn’t open at first. He started to panic. Eventually he got it to open with a big jerk (Evans). When he landed, he fell into a crater. When he climbed out, he saw women and children surrounding him on one side, and a group of armed men on the other. He shook the leaders hand. The leader offered Lashinsky a drink. He took it and he said it tasted like lava. He thought it would’ve poisoned him, but he remembered that the leader just drank out of that cup. The man spoke English so it made it easy for Lashinsky to understand him. The people took him to a barn where Craig King was at. King was from the same plane as Lashinsky. King and Lashinsky were taken to an Inn. They saw that the partisans were wearing captured German uniforms (Evans). King and Lashinsky then were moved to Sanski Most and joined other airmen including some from their crew. After a little while, a British C47 arrived and took out 20 airmen. There wasn’t enough room for Lashinsky so he had to wait (Evans). After Lashinsky got on the plane with other men, they were taken to a hospital where they were being taken care of. They got new uniforms, and a chance to bathe. They were then trucked back to their base. The men were made a Lead Bomber and led a raid where a plane almost blew apart on a mission over Vienna (Evans). March 12, 1945 was Lashinsky's last big flight. The war was heading to an end. This was Lashinsky's 25th mission. The plane they were in was being hit several times by the Germans and Russians. They were losing altitude but they recovered. When the pilot ordered everyone to escape the plane, Lashinsky was the last one to get out of the plane (Evans). After he jumped, he landed near a trench. A man was in the trench and motioned him to come his way. Lashinsky decided not to shoot at him. There was a sixteen year old boy in the trench that told Lashinsky that if he can survive two more months, he will be a free man. They reached an underground bunker. An officer was there and told Lashinsky that all his men were either killed, or wounded. Lashinsky was taken down to the town square and to a building where a Wehrmact officer told him to take off his uniform (Evans). Lashinsky was given back his uniform and was led down a street. He thought he was going to be executed. He ended up at an unfurnished house where he found five of his crewmates. They were in the house for four days, with nothing to eat besides crackers. Then they were led to a railroad car (Evans). April 29, 1945, the men thought they were being released and the war was over. Then they realized that they were going to be attacked. The men were liberated by the 14th Armored Division and the 109th Infantry Division. They raised the American flag on the pole. 27,000 men were freed that day. It was the largest single liberation of allied captives in WWII. On May 10th, the soldiers were sent on an English ship called the Victory which took them home (Evans).

__Transcript__


 * Sarah Staskiewicz: We will be interviewing Frank Lashinsky. His birthday is September 23, 1924. He was part of the Air Force in World War II. Anna Enck and Sarah Staskiewicz will be interviewing him. The interview is being conducted for the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress. **


 * Anna Enck: When and where were you born? **


 * Frank Lashinsky: I was born on September 23, 1924 in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania. **


 * Staskiewicz: How many siblings did you have and how well did you get along? **


 * Lashinsky: I had two brothers and three sisters, and we got along, I guess, pretty much normally as everyone. We had a few little minor differences, but overall, it was pretty good. **


 * Enck: What was your homelife like growing up? **


 * Lashinsky: Typical for the time, I don’t know that there’s any difference with anyone else. Everybody seemed to be poor at that time. That was during the Depression. It was a hard life. Coal miner was my dad, but we managed to get along. My mother did a very good job. I have no complaints about my life. I was poor, I didn’t really know so... **


 * Staskiewicz: What first sparked your interest in airplanes? **


 * Lashinsky: I was born in the, 1924, and Lindbergh made his Paris, his flight to Paris in 1929 and there was a lot of things about the flying which was very brand new at the time. There were also the President, early around the same era, he had made the army air corps fly the airmail for some reason, and it was in the news a lot because there were a lot of crashes of airplanes. He finally stopped it because there was too, too much casualties and the, but every boy my age, not only boys I think everybody. If you heard an airplane flying overhead, everybody would run out of the house to take a look at it. In fact, occasionally, I think once or twice, we saw one of the dirigibles probably with Lindenberg or something, but it was a big assignment. And there were other things that reminded me of flying. There was a beacon light maybe about six, or seven miles outside of the hometown, and it had a big searchlight. It rotated around the sky continuously and in the summertime on a good night, you could just see that going across the sky. You’re constantly reminded of airplanes. The big thing was the kids were, I think it was ten cents of balsa wood and paper and we would buy them and put together small airplanes to fly. It was rubberband powered so that’s how it.. **


 * Enck: What did your family think about you going to war? **


 * Lashinsky: At that time, I don’t know if anyone thought anything because, everybody knew that, that was the way it was. The whole country was involved, it wasn’t just.. The men were going into the service and there were 17 million total that went in during World War II. Even at home there were things. For example, you could only get three gallons of gasoline a week unless you had a priority job that allowed you to get more, and there were nation books for food, and it only permitted so much meat, shoes, and I think regular clothing so everyone was kinda in rot in a war. **
 * Staskiewicz: What kind of basic training did you have to go through? **


 * Lashinsky: Well it was fast, as was everyone else’s at that time. We were so far behind when we got involved in a war mainly because the Congress didn’t want to spend the money or getting things going but when we were attacked by the Japanese, the United States was I think somewhere around number nineteenth in military strength. Countries like Hungary were more armed than we were so.. **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Enck: How did the Gunnery School help you prepare yourself for war? **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lashinsky: How did what? **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Enck: Gunnery School. **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lashinsky: Well I had never fired a gun. I didn’t have a driver’s license so it was... the training was, for what we got, very good but it was very hurried. We had a, they showed flashed and photographs have come up on this, I guess it was a projector, just for a few seconds. We had to learn which airplane it was and there were a lot of things you had to remember about them too. They had some olympic skeet champions were teaching us how to use shotguns because some were moving targets and you had to lead, shoot in front of the target so it would be there when your shot got out in the distance. **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Staskiewicz: What was it like adjusting to military life? **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lashinsky: I don’t know, I didn’t have any problems with it because I guess I knew everyone else was doing it so.. **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Enck: Where were you stationed? **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lashinsky: Well, I entered service at Fort Dicks and I went down to Miami Beach, Florida for my basic training. Then I went to Tindlefield for my gunnery training, from there I went to Lincoln, Nebraska for assignment, recruit training, that took only about a week or so.. From there I went to Pueblo, Colorado and we had our crew training. Our crew came from all other places and we were all assembled in a crew. We trained there for I guess several months. All I know is, I was on my way seas within nine months after going into service. **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Staskiewicz: Describe the B-24 bomber group that you were a part of **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lashinsky: It was typical of all the bombing groups. Ours was made up of B-24’s. There were 18,200 of those being built during the World War II and the other set of heavy bombers, which we were considered heavy bombers, the B-17’s, there was about 12,000 of them built. The typical group, well ours, was made up of four squadrons. Each squadron we would put up about an armo flight would be three times the flight of 21 planes, I guess. But sometimes there were more than that with the maximum efforts. **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Enck: Can you tell us about a typical mission? **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lashinsky: I don’t know if there was such a thing. Although there were some things that we would call milk runs because the targets were not defended as heavily and there were things like bridges which we didn’t do too many of them. Most of our targets were against the oil refineries and railroad marshalling yards. They discovered that that was the most effective thing that we could be doing. They were defended very strongly because the Germans were very short of oil. In fact, that was a really heavy, one of the biggest influences on them losing the war because in a way, they lost a battle because they ran out of oil and they were trying to capture some of ours to continue going. Their airplanes, well they were making plenty of airplanes to replace for the losses but they had trouble training with the crews because they didn’t have enough gasoline to use for training purposes and also in flying combat. Typically, the one thing I know is Vienna was one of our toughest targets. It was like the equivalent of Berlin. In a small area of the city, there was over 350 big caliber anti aircraft guns. Either 88mm but more likely 825mm and in fact, they had set up defenses with flak towers. The parts in the public places in order to be able to fire the guns and they were made of such massive concrete. To the best of my knowledge, there's still an existence of it because it was so difficult to destroy. They are on the internet if you ever want to go take a look at them. **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Staskiewicz: What was it like to be a tail end gunner? **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lashinsky: Well it didn’t make too much of a difference. The only difference was you sat in your turret a long while and you were on alert, once you got over enemy territory you’re on alert for planes attacking. One of our problems was muddy fields and muddy water so that when planes would take off they were like an automobile, splashing mud all over the place and the propellers airstream would whip it around so often times you would have a lot of mud specks on your windows and the turret. You were on alert so much that you would constantly see them out of the corner of your eye and you would jerk your head over to see if an airplane was coming up. **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Enck: How many missions did you complete? **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lashinsky: Well we went up on 25 but we were shot down on the 6th and also on the 25th so I don’t know if they counted for half, but we got full ones. **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Staskiewicz: How were you taken prisoner during war? **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lashinsky: We had bombed the oil refinery in Austria and when we dropped our bombs, there was a loud screaming noise you could hear through your ears covered by the headset that were built into our helmet. The plane started vibrating a lot, turned out that even though anti aircraft fire or mechanical defect, the propeller on the right on the outboard engine ran away and it changed its pitch to a very shallow pitch. It was really over revving. That’s what made it sound like a siren. That’s why the plane was vibrating and shaking. The co pilot attempted to control it but he had no control and soon it burned out and frozen, and we were losing altitude because of the drag and we dropped out of our formation. We have been briefed before that to go up to a place in Hungry where they had been recovered by the Russians just earlier than that and we headed for there and we stripped out all our guns and ammunition. Anything we would throw over board so that the plane would stop losing altitude, which it did. There was an undercast that we were flying in which was to help protect us against any German fighters who were looking for stragglers who I would say, routinely did. When we were over the target, we started to descend and the navigator was calling out the altitude at 100ft intervals. At about 4,000 ft we could see the ground and we saw that we were not over the airfield we intended to be. Turned out we were about 30 miles away from it. I was back in the tail part although I had no ammunition or anything I saw three fighter planes coming up at us. I turned my turret to aim it hoping it might deter them some. A lot on anti aircraft fire broke out and it just so happened that I found out that 7 or 8 years ago we had stumbled upon a battle had broken out six days earlier that was called, operation ?. It was the Germans attacked the Russians to prevent them to driving up into Germany. Both sides, I guess we were the other side because no one was expecting us. Both sides were firing at us. We started to get a whole bunch of anti aircraft fire and the pilot ordered a bailout. When I went to jump out, the man before me, the rear escape hatch caught his shoe in the side of the hatch and the frame. I thought we was dangling there and there was nothing he could do so I tried to hold him with one hand while I tried to open the hatch with another but it just so happen that I didn’t have a problem because he had fallen through out of his boot and I jumped and when I opened my shoe I was quite a little distance from the plane because I delayed my jump. Because of what I learned from my first jump, I jumped into Yugoslavia where we invaded capture, and I saw someone jumping out of the plane and i saw several anti aircraft shells bursting right around the vicinity of the airplane and when i opened my shoot i could hear bullets whizzing past me and I realize that they were firing at me from the ground. I started pulling my chute lines so I could collapse through, and fall faster, and also I would begin oscillating so I would be a tougher target and when I hit the ground I could see I was coming down amongst the barbed wire and trenches and when I hit the ground a man stuck his hand up above the trench and went like this.. and so I figured since he didn’t take a shot at me I was alright to go so I took off my parachute and jumped into the trench and there were somewhere I guess 10-15 men in their German uniforms with the eagle over here.. and the man who has stuck his hand above the trench put out his hand and said, “pistol.” so I took out my 45 from my shoulder holster and gave it to him and I was now a prisoner of war. So they took me from there back to a dugout . It reminded me of the movies I saw the front lines on World War I where they had the dugouts in the trench areas and what happened was I hurt my ankle quite a bit when I hit cause I fell so hard. I had my regular shoes tied to my parachute harness so I just sat down on the ground and the guard just looked at me, surprised that I did that. Then I took off my flying boots and put on my regular shoes and my ankle began to swell and I never took my shoes off because the swelling was there for about 2-3 weeks and I had no reason to take my shoes off anyways because we slept in the ? (22:31) but anyways when I got to the dugout the officers were there and he was working on a dirt floor with a field desk doing some work and he just told me to sit down in the one corner which I did and I was there until somewhere between 12 and 2 in the afternoon I don’t remember but I was there till it started to get dark and this was March 12, incase I didn’t say it before to give you a date to let you know what the weather was like. When it started to get dark, a guard came and took me from there and we were walking down a dirt road to go to a river, which was close to where we bailed out to. Some German tanks were coming up the dirt road from the opposite direction and when they got along beside of us, one of them burst into flames and started to run off the road and the guard started to run down the road and he started shouting at me pointing and to where I was running into on the side of the road there was a sign with a skull and cross bones on it and it spelled out m-i-n-e n so it was a mine and I was in danger setting off one of the land mines there. We got to the river and it was a flat bottom bolt and I had 55 round of ammunition that I hadn’t told them about and I haven't been searched and I wanted to get rid of them before they saw them so we were going across the river using poles to get us across and the boat was like a rope going across between two trees. And each time i dropped a handful into the water it would splash the water and everyone in the boat would freeze and they’d stop using the poles and they’d wait for awhile, I guess maybe they didn’t know whether Russian Frogmen or something might be there. But i managed to get rid of all the ammunition. And then when we got to the other side we went down a road and got into a town which i learned was Donaway Highlatch or something like that. I was now in Croacha which i didn’t know at that time, but that’s where i was. And thats because on the other side of the river from where I can down, which I learned about eight years ago was a place called Ordecha. And the town was pretty typical of what they were in Yugoslavia. I guess most of the towns in that area were the same thing. They had a pretty big square, open square, in town. And as I saw in Yugoslavia our farmers would come in there with push carts and things and sell their wears and I guess that was the purpose of those open squares in towns. And this town had a thing like a square and we went to this large building I don’t know what it was originally. But we ran up to the second floor through the stairway and there was a big wide open room, and there were a lot of desks around in the area. And i prosumed from what it looked like to me, it was the German Headquarters were that section in the front, ‘cause there were men running in and out with messages and other officers working a desk. And they lead me through a one-sided room where an officer was laying down on a sofa or couch, one like we used to have at home. They had me take off all my clothing, my shoes, everything. And I was standing there without any clothing on and they started questioning me. A popbailysoe was nearby and i was wondering if they were gonna use that in some way to torture me to get me to answer any questions. Because your mind is racing wild all kinds of different things. We were told to give our name, rank, and serial number, and I did for every question. And I was asked, where did we bomb and I just told them my name, rank, and serial number. And they finally say, you’re lying cause we know theres a captian on board and I gave them my name rank and serial number again. Then they said what would you say if we told you we’re gonna excucute you so I thought it wouldn’t make a difference what I said so I told them my name, rank, and serial number. Then they were searching my clothing and they found a prayerbook I had in my one pocket that I always kept when I flew and they hit across my face with it and said “here you bomb women and children and you carry one of these.” And then I got dressed up and they took me downstairs and started heading towards a wall just like in the movies where they always throw you before they excucute you. So I figured this was the end of it. My mother, I know, at this time would have no idea where I was. And this was the second time that she was receiving a telegraph in a letter that I was missing in action. About six months or less earlier when we were shot down the first time and she got her first letter, we barely got back before she got the second one. They didn’t shoot me, its obvious I’m here. I went down a street, around a corner, down a block, and in a house there were five other of my crew members that would have been captured before me. And so we compared stories. And while we were there we could hear the altilery fire going across between where it was coming from our side and back and forth all the days we were there. And then the Germans decided to retreat so they made up a train, a troop train. We were part of a troop train in a 48 box car and they divided it in half with a barbed wire wall. A ten man American crew, thirteen Bulgarian men and one Russian officer. And then some Italian guards were in the other half. It was late in the afternoon and we were only going for a half an hour and three fighter plans come down shooting and you could see the on the front of their wings, the flashes of their guns. And fired at us and fortunately missed. From then on we never traveled at day. We got bombed three times. The third time we were in Ravensburg in Germany, and when we found out where we were we realized it was a bad place to because we bombed it ourself one time. Bombs started coming down all over the place. And some of us decided we would try to break out cause there was a window that was actually an opening with iron bars for air to go through. Some of us decided to break up, others said if you go you would get shot. But I figured it was better to die that way than being burned. So we grabbed the window and pulled it out. A man was small enough to fit through the window so we helped him down feet first and we held his hands until we got him as close as we could to the ground. He got out and the car was held shut and then the wire went though and he just unwired it and went through the hatch and then everyone including the ones who said we could get caught when to the quary. In the quary there were German soldiers and one of the men from the other crew could speak polish so he went over and talked to them. I'm not exactly sure. So we figured we would be better with these guards than the others. It was a Wednesday and then the next Sunday was April 29th and we were in prison camp from Wednesday to Sunday and we heard that there was a mass being said by a French chapel member in the prison camp so we decided to go. And at about 9 or 10 musletts appeared over head and started doing acrobats and then started firing the perimeter to tell us a fight was about to break out. The fight lasted an hour or so and then started to die down. The German guards were standing there with their hands in the air and American troops came through. That was April 29th and the next day Hitler committed suicide. Maybe he heard I was free. Anyway, we got very little to eat. When I finally got back to allied controls I was 40 pounds lighter. Sometimes we only got a few crackers to eat. There were days where we got nothing to eat. We didn't go to the bathroom that often cause we didn't have much to eliminate. So we got to Yugoslavia after bombing near Poland and we came back all by ourselves and we had all our ammunition and we knew we couldn't get back to our base so we picked a spot where we might be seen. But I went in to a sink hole and when I came up there were women and children and they had me line up and I told them I was American and they didn't shoot me. They shook my hand and told me to get out of that area because there were German troops around. The people in Yugoslavia had nothing because most had been driving out of their towns and they didn't have much to eat but they still fed us and gave us a place to sleep. They gave us milk and I think they got their own milk. Even tough I didn't think it was that great I still smiled and said thank you very much. There was a radio man that sent out messages to the Allies to tell them everything that was going on with us. We heard engines overhead and the raido man identified it as a friendly plane. The transport plane had the wounded and injured and then the rest and I was waiting for three weeks until a plane finally came and got me. So we didn't know it, but a bomb hit the plane and hit the one machine gun and hit it to a 90 degree angle but it never exploded, fortunately for us. But we brought that plane back and got a picture and an article. And that's it. Any other questions? **

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Frank Lashinsky Narrative__
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Enck: Nope. Thank you. **

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Frank Lashinsky was born on September 23, 1934 in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania. He had five siblings, two of them brothers, and three sisters. Overall, he and his siblings got along very well growing up. Mr. Lashinsky had a mediocre life growing up. Everyone seemed to be poor during the time period he grew up in, so he didn’t see anything wrong with not having a lot of money. He grew up during the Great Depression. Life wasn’t easy for his family, but they made it work. His father was a coal miner. Lashinsky said he didn’t have any complaints of his childhood life. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Throughout his childhood, Lashinsky was fascinated by airplanes. Lindenberg was a big inspiration to little boys like Lashinsky. Airplanes were very popular at the time, and everyone wanted to fly one, or be in one. Lashinsky could see the beacon light for the airplanes outside of his bedroom window. He said it was a constant reminder of airplanes. There was also little kits you could buy for ten cents. A boy could make his own airplanes that he could fly. He said he would save up all of his money and buy one. They weren’t very durable, so he was constantly saving up his money to buy a new one. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Playing with planes as a child made him become the great Tail End Gunner he was. All other men were expected to go into war and fight for their country. His family wasn’t surprised or sad when he decided to go to war because that’s what everyone had done. It wasn’t a big shock to anyone. Lashinsky said that everything was limited at home because of the war. Each family had only three gallons of gasoline a week. The war had a big impact on the American life. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At the time of the start of World War II, Congress didn’t want to spend any money because of the Depression. The United States was the nineteenth strongest nation going into the war. Other countries like, Hungary were much stronger. Lashinsky confessed that going into war, he never had shot a gun before in his life. He said gunnery school helped him out a lot considering his lack of usage of guns. It got him prepared for war. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mr. Frank Lashinsky entered service at Fort Dicks. He went to Miami Beach, Florida for basic training. For his gunnery training he went to Tindle Field. He then went to Lincoln, Nebraska for recruit training, which took only about a week. Lashinsky’s crew training was in Pueblo, Colorado and was there for a few months. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“There was no such thing as a typical mission”, states Frank. During the war, the Germans were very short of oil. The U.S. decided to bomb the oil refineries to keep them from getting the oil for their planes and what not. Lashinsky told us that being a tail end gunner wasn’t really any different from anything else. He said you had to always be on guard. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mr. Frank Lashinsky went on 25 missions. Although, there were two mission that did not end like all the rest. The 25th mission they went on, they had bombed the oil refinery in Austria. Once they dropped the bombs, there was a loud screaming that they all could hear even over their headsets. Lashinsky could feel the plane vibrating and shaking. They realized they were starting to lose altitude, and the plane was going down, so they started throwing everything that they could overboard. They could see that they were 4000 feet to the ground and noticed that they weren’t over the airfield they were supposed to be. They were actually 30 miles from it. Lashinsky and the rest of the plane members decided to evacuate the plane. As Lashinkey was on his way to the ground in the parachute, he saw that Germans on the ground were shooting at him. Lashinsky landed safely right over barbed wire and a trench. A German man motioned him to come over to him, but he did not shoot at him, so Lashinsky thought he was safe. When he walked over to the man, he handed out his hand and said “pistol.” Lashinsky took out his gun and handed it over to the German soldier. He was now a prisoner of war. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Germans took Mr. Lashinsky to Croatia, which he did not know at the time. They took him into a large building and onto the second floor. They all walked into a wide room and Mr. Lashinsky saw a bunch of desks and chairs, and made the assumption that this was the German Headquarters. Then they led him to another room where a German officer was laying down on a couch. The Germans made him take off all his clothes and then they started questioning him. Mr. Lashinsky was told to always give his name, rank, and serial number. When they asked him where did he bomb, he replied with his name, rank, and serial number. Lashinsky did that to every question they asked him. The Germans were getting frustrated and decided to dig through his clothes. They found a prayer book he always kept with him and slapped him across the face with it. Lashinsky got dressed and they took him downstairs and went down a street, around a corner, and down a block to another building where he met up with other members of this crew. Some of them thought it would be a good idea to try to break out cause there was a window that was actually an opening with iron bars for air to go through. Some thought it would be best to break up, others said if you do you would get shot. They decided to try to escape. They grabbed the window and pulled it out. One member in his crew was small enough to fit through the window so they helped him down, feet first and held his hands until they got him as close as they could to the ground. He managed to escape and then freed the others. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lashinsky and the others stayed in town and were helped by the friendly people who lived there. People were already poor and barely feeding themselves, but they still were able to offer them some food and a place to sleep. Their visit did not last long before they heard over the radio that a transport plane was coming to take them back home. The plane first took the injured or sick, and then came back for the rest. Lashinsky had to wait three weeks before he was able to board the plane. When he arrived home he was greeted with a picture and article in the paper of his survival.