The Rugged Buggy: Reflections of a Bomber Pilot and POW in World War II

These are the previously unpublished memoirs of Col. James E. O'Brien (1919 - 2001).

James O’Brien began training for the U. S. Army Air Corps six months before Pearl Harbor and the start of the Second World War, and received his commission as a second lieutenant shortly after the United States entered the war. He was one of the first thirty pilots to be trained to fly the B-24 bomber, and was assigned to the 44th Bomb Group, which headed to England to take part in the early American bombing raids on Europe in 1942. There, O’Brien became commander of the 68th squadron. He discusses in this book his experiences with bombing doctrines and tactics, the use of the Norden bombsight and so-called “precision bombing”, and the tragic mission of April 5, 1943, which led to the deaths of over 900 Belgian civilians in Mortsel, Belgium, many of them children.

O’Brien was shot down over Kiel, Germany on May 14, 1943. He then spent much of the remainder of the war as a POW in Stalag Luft III near Żagań, Poland. This POW camp is best known as the site of “The Great Escape”, popularized by a 1963 film by the same name, in which 76 men escaped through an elaborate tunnel system. O’Brien briefed the future escapees on how to hijack German planes and, as “block head” of 104, protected the tunnel named “Harry” from discovery. Near the end of the war, he and his fellow POWs were forced on a 62-mile march through a blizzard, and then crammed into boxcars for a fetid railway journey to Moosberg, Germany. They were held at Stalag VII-A in Moosberg, with little food or sanitation, for three months, being freed by Gen. Patton on April 29, 1945. Col. O’Brien discusses both the Great Escape and the long march in this book, as well as many aspects of POW life, including the use of secret communications, spiritual life in the barracks, and the prisoners’ responses to racism.

O’Brien went on to pursue a Master’s in Social Work from the University of Pittsburgh after the war. He had a long career as a social worker in Youngstown, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He also worked to advance Civil Rights, end segregation, and promote integrated public housing. He retired as director of the non-profit Brashear Association, in South-Side Pittsburgh, in 1981.

Although some of O’Brien’s experiences have been published previously, including in Martin Bowman’s Home by Christmas (1987), and a few publications by other former POWs, most of them have not been recorded elsewhere. It is hoped that this book provides source material for those interested in history and the experiences of those in the “Good War”.