Robert Serrette

Sat., Aug. 12, 1995

By Ward Sanderson wards@spokesman.com

Even before joining the military in 1942, Robert Serrette dreamed of flying. After graduating from Otis Orchards High School, he took private flying lessons. When it looked as if he would be drafted to serve in the military, he joined the Army Air Forces

Serrette’s sister, Letha Greeley, remembers her father bidding the young airman good-bye.

Azel Serrette, a World War I veteran, knew what war was like.

“I remember when Father shook his hand when he left. He cried and said, ‘It’s rough over there, son”’ Greeley says.

After enlisting, Serrette was sent to a training airfield in Mississippi, then California.

Before he was sent to Europe, Serrette’s wife, Martha, went to California to visit him.

Just a few weeks before the visit, Martha had given birth to their only child, a daughter. The baby was named Rebecca so she would have the same initials as her father.

Martha and Rebecca stayed with relatives who lived near where Serrette was stationed. Each night that he could get away, Serrette joined them.

Serette, who served with the 567th Bombardment Squadron, was sent to the British Isles. In a letter sent from Ireland dated July 18, 1944, Serrette wrote to his father, “Maybe this thing won’t last too long. Hope not, as it gets tiresome and it will be good to get home.”

He never got the chance.

On Sept. 9, 1944, Serrette was aboard a B-24 flying a bombing run over Mainz, Germany. It was his 26th mission. He was a gunner on the Liberator. The aircraft hadn’t yet dropped any of its 8,800 pounds of explosives when flak hit its tail.

The bomber crashed. The pilot and co-pilot were said to have parachuted from the cockpit, but the rest of the plane’s crew stayed aboard. Rumors of Nazi treatment of prisoners was so bad that “the boys made a pact that they wouldn’t parachute over Germany,” Greeley says.

Robert Serrette was awarded the Purple Heart and the Air Medal with Oak Leaf Clusters.

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MEMO: See 3 related stories under the following headlines: 1. War-torn memories 2. Keith Gibler 3. Andrew Simpson

See 3 related stories under the following headlines: 1. War-torn memories 2. Keith Gibler 3. Andrew Simpson

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