AIR FORCE - Bill J. Bergan

Bill J. Bergan

Bill J. Bergan was born in Chappell, Nebraska on June 18, 1922. He graduated from Deuel County high school May 1940, ten days later, on July 6, three buddies and Bill joined the Army Air Corps at Fort Francis Warren, Cheyenne, Wyoming.  A short time later, they were shipped to California by train.  Five days later they arrived as recruits at March Field and were assigned to the 19th Bomb Group, which was “Hap Arnold’s” old B-17 group.

After training at other locations, Bill was returned to Kirkland Air Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was promoted to Staff Sergeant.  In the meantime, the Air Corps had started the Flight Sergeant flying school. Until then one had to be 21 years of age and have two years of college to take flying training.  Bill was 19 years old with no college but he and a buddy took the opportunity to learn to fly. They were sent to Santa Ana, California for pre flight school which took three months. Basic flight training was at Lemoore Air Base in Fresno, California, with advanced flight training at Roswell Army Flying School, Roswell, New Mexico.  It was here on January 4, 1943 he received his wings as a pilot and was promoted to Flight Officer.  An assignment to a B-24 crew and combat training came next.  On March 20, 1943 Bill flew to Morrison Field, Florida (now Palm Beach International Airport) to pick up a new B-24 Liberator.  On March 26th he headed to Benghazi, Libya. His final destination was the 98th Bomb Group, 415th Bomb Squadron in Benia Main Air Field, Benghazi, Libya.

Six days later he flew his first combat mission on April 26, 1943. He was a 20 year old second Lieutenant.  Flying over Europe there was no fighter escort, everything was cold turkey. The missions were 6, 8, 10, 12 hour flights.  Bill said his three most prominent missions were the two raids on the city of Rome and the Ploesti raid.  On  August 1, 1943 Bill was the co pilot of “Lil Joe” and flew on the famous raid to the oil refineries located in Ploesti, Romania.  It was a low level raid designed to knock out several of the 9 refineries and halt the oil supply to the German war effort. To quote Bill; “I was one shot up plane out of 24 planes in my squadron… only 7 planes returned”.  Bill said it was so hot he thought the plane was going to explode before the plane would pass over the refineries.

Bill flew 300 combat hours by September 1943 and became qualified to return stateside. He returned to the states performing various assignments and by May 1945 he had enough points to against become a private citizen. He went to work with TWA before the war ended in August 1945. Bill spent twenty years in the Air Force Reserve, retiring as a Major.

PLOESTI RAID
The raid on Ploesti was a strategic bombing mission by the Army Air Force during World War II to put 9 Romanian oil refineries out of action for six months, thus turning off the oil supply for the German war machine.

The mission ,which was called “Tidal Wave”, occurred on 1 August, 1943. The raid produced five Medals of Honor that were awarded to Tidal Wave crew members.  It was also called “Black Sunday” due to the loss of 53 aircraft and 660 crew. The mission was one of the costliest by the Army Air Forces in the European theater during World War II. Only 88 B-24s returned to Libya and only 33 were fit for service the following day. The raid was to consist of 178 aircraft with a total of 1,764 personnel. The mission was one of the largest commitments of American heavy bombers and crew up to that time.