Donald D. Whitefield USAAF RIP

Kyt · Jul 29, 2008

Whitefield, 86, B-24 bomber navigator in WWII | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Donald D. Whitefield, who survived 30 perilous missions over Germany as a B-24 bomber navigator in World War II, including the most disastrous of the war, died Friday. He was 86.

Surviving so many missions placed Whitefield among a lucky few because bomber crew casualties were grimly high. His luck also held during a bombing mission that went off course and resulted in the near annihilation of his bomber group, one of the worst losses suffered by an Eighth Air Force bomber group.

Whitefield, who was seldom seen without his trademark cigar jutting from his mouth, earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses and an Air Medal with four Oak Leaf clusters during his tour of duty.

After the war, he used self-taught chemistry to turn experiments in a home laboratory into a successful polyurathane business.

Whitefield was born Dec. 11, 1921, in Bellaire, Ohio, and attended high school in St. Louis, Mich.. He dropped out of college when he got his draft notice and went to work in the payroll department of a factory in Detroit that was manufacturing B-24 Liberator bombers that he would soon be flying.

After being drafted, he attended navigation school at Ellington Field in Houston. A hostess at the Houston USO caught his eye, but hostesses were forbidden to date servicemen, recalled the hostess who became his wife, Billie Whitefield, 86.

"Rules were made to be broken," she said. They were married Nov. 13, 1943, just before he graduated from navigation school and was assigned to a B-24 bomber crew in El Paso, she recalled.

Whitefield's B-24 was assigned to the 492nd Bomber Group, and he barely survived the first mission. The bomber ran low on fuel and lost an engine while returning, so the crew began tossing out "everything that wasn't tied down," according to 32 Copilots, a book by Charles Bastien.

Fuel ran out as they approached Great Britain, and the aircraft crash-landed 300 feet inland, totaling the bomber. The entire crew survived.

His most harrowing mission was on Sept. 27, 1944, when his B-24 was one of 35 bombers assigned to bomb the city of Kassel. The bombers went astray, losing their fighter escort, and were attacked by a swarm of German fighters.

Twenty-five bombers were shot down within three minutes, and others were so battered that they were forced down. Whitefield's bomber was one of only four that returned to the airbase at Tibenham, England.

He was recalled to active duty during the Korean War but remained in the United States as a navigation teacher.

Whitefield nearly returned to college after leaving the service but balked at Michigan State University rules that would have forced him to give up cigars during class, Billie Whitefield said. "He said, 'After what I've been through, I'm not going to have some smart somebody tell me what I can and cannot do,' " she said.

Instead, he went to work with his father in Ohio after the war, using a process to force the remaining oil out of depleted oil wells, his wife said.

They returned to Houston after his father died. Whitefield taught himself chemistry and began experimenting with polyurathane in a laboratory he built in the back of the house, recalled his son, Bill Whitefield, 53, of Houston.

He developed ways to cast polyurathane so that it could be used to replace rubber in oil field equipment, founding Whitefield Plastics, now run by his son.

In 1974, the conservative Whitefield won the Republican nomination and unsuccessfully challenged then-incumbent District 8 U.S. Rep. Robert "Bob" Eckhardt, D-Houston.

"Bobby Eckhardt was running unopposed, and my dad couldn't stand it because of his politics," said his daughter, Patrice Schwertner, 54, of Kansas City.

Whitefield is survived by his wife, Billie; his son, Bill Whitefield; and his daughter, Patrice Schwertner.
Click to expand...

Pathfinder · Aug 3, 2008

He was lucky to have survived all of that.

RIP Donald.

Log in or Sign up

Donald D. Whitefield USAAF RIP

Kyt Άρης

Pathfinder Guest

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

Donald D. Whitefield USAAF RIP

Thread Tools

Kyt Άρης

Pathfinder Guest

Share This Page

Useful Searches