Courtesy photo Paul Laubacher was a B-17 radio operator attached to the 8th Air Force during World War II.

When Paul Laubacher decided to write down memories of his military service during World War II, he decided to record only those that made him smile.

"The war was full of a lot of horrible things," said Laubacher, 83. "A lot of us have some pretty bad memories of it, so I figured why not just share the ones that would make people happy?"

The Oxnard native was drafted into the Army Air Corps on March 18, 1943, and was the third son of Edward and Ann Laubacher to be sent to war. (His two older brothers enlisted in the service when the war began. Mike served in the Navy and Edward was in the Army Air Corps.)

Shortly after receiving his draft notice, Laubacher was sent to Kearns, Utah, for basic training and then to Scott Field, Ill., for radio school.

After six months of radio school, Laubacher was sent to Yuma, Ariz., for gunnery school before receiving orders to report to Lincoln, Neb., for more training.

"We left Nebraska on a train headed to Sioux City, Iowa, and were told that we had been assigned a crew," he said. "But none of us had met yet. We just got on the train and started walking around yelling our crew assignment number. Next thing I knew I ran into my gunner."

Laubacher had been assigned duties as a B-17 radio operator with crew number 8016 attached to the 8th Air Force. He and his gunner managed to locate the rest of their crew, and after completing training in Sioux City, they boarded the USS Wakefield in Boston Harbor on Dec. 12, 1944. They were headed to Liverpool, England.

"There were 6,000 men aboard that ship," Laubacher said. "It was a fast moving ship, so we didn't need a convoy."

After seven days at sea, the USS Wakefield reached its destination, and Laubacher and his crew were sent to a training camp in Southeastern England to complete training missions to prepare for combat in Germany.

Laubacher's first mission began on Feb. 6, 1945. He and his crew were sent to eastern Germany to bomb the city of Chemnitz.

"It was a long flight," Laubacher recalled. "We were hitting hard headwinds on the way back. Two of our engines had already shut down after losing fuel from the winds, and the other two were on their way to shutting down."

The crew had 30 gallons remaining in one tank, and only 10 in the second tank. They were forced to make an emergency landing in Antwerp, Belgium.

"We refueled and then received orders to pick up another crew who lost their plane," Laubacher said. "We took the crew to Brussels and headed back to our base in England."

Laubacher and his crew completed 24 missions before the war in Europe ended in May 1945, but there is one mission that stands out in his mind.

While flying over Germany, Laubacher received orders to shove metal foil strips known as chaff through a chute in the radio operator's section of the plane.

"All of the planes flying in that mission received the same orders," Laubacher said. "The thinking was that if all of the planes dropped the chaff, it would be enough to disrupt the German's radar system."

But while opening one of the boxes, Laubacher noticed some handwriting inside. It read:

"Dear Yank, I sent you a kiss in the night. Did it reach you, my darling? Did it reach you and rest on your lips?"

The message had been written by an English woman who worked in the factory that manufactured the boxes of chaff. It was not signed, and there was no way to track where it came from.

"I only had a few seconds to take in what it said," Laubacher said. "It was the only box that I ever heard of that had a message written inside of it. Whoever she was that wrote it must have just stopped in the middle of the assembly line to write it."

Laubacher saved the box. He said that it left him with a smile in the midst of a tragic war.

"I always told myself that if I got the chance to find who wrote the note, I would take her out for a drink," Laubacher said. "Her message was the type of thing that helped us get through the war."

In late April 1945, Laubacher and his crew received orders to stand off and keep their plane grounded. The German troops had lost a significant number of infantrymen and were losing the war. On May 8, the Germans surrendered. The war in Europe was over.

"After the war ended, we were sent on food-drop missions," Laubacher said. "We were supplying food for the Dutch because they lost almost everything when the Germans flooded Holland."

As they flew in for one of the food-drop missions, Laubacher looked down from the plane and saw a sign that the Dutch made for the Army Air Corps crews. It read: "Thank you Yanks!"

"It is another nice memory from the war," Laubacher said.

When they completed the food-drop missions, Laubacher and his crew received their final orders to pick up 31 French prisoners of war.

"Some of those men had been prisoners since 1940," Laubacher said. "It was great feeling to be able to help them."

The crew left the former prisoners at an airfield in Paris and headed back to England to board a ship bound for the United States.

"We were given 30 days of leave," Laubacher said. "We all expected to get sent back to the war to help out in the Pacific."

However, the atomic bombs were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki while Laubacher was on leave in early August 1945. The war in the Pacific had ended.

Laubacher was discharged on Oct. 26, 1945, and returned to his home in Oxnard.

"You can't help but remember the bad parts of the war," Laubacher said. "But it's more important to me to pass on the happier memories like the note and the sign the Dutch created. Those are the reasons we fought the war, and it just seems to be the best way to remember it."

— Of War and Life is a twice-monthly column by Jannette Jauregui that tells the stories of Ventura County's veterans. Veterans who want to share their stories can contact her by e-mail at jmjaureg@callutheran.edu or by mail at Jannette Jauregui, c/o Ventura County Star editorial department, P.O. Box 6006, Camarillo, CA 93011.