Jack Rude

In 1942, Mr. Rude joined the U.S. Army Air Force and trained in the four-engine Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber (and experienced a crash landing in the Central Oregon Gunnery Range), converted at the cusp of battle to the four-engine Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber, and flew 32 combat bombing missions over Germany (including a shoot-down and crash landing in Belgium).

As an 8th Army Air Force Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress tail gunner, Jack Rude--from December 24, 1944 through April 19, 1945--flew 32 combat bombing missions over Germany. Flying most of his missions in a Coming Home B-17 named Miss Green Bay--Mr. Rude with 8 other crew members flew from England in one hundred-mile long, 1,000- to 2,000-aircraft bomber streams against thousands of enemy fighters and acrid man- and plane-destroying flak in an effort to destroy Hitler’s ability to make war.

Following World War II, Mr. Rude remained in the U.S. Air Force serving in Germany with the U.S. Army of Occupation, in Greece under the American Mission for Aid to Greece (AMAG) program, at Rhein-Main AFB, Germany during the Berlin Airlift and in the U.S., Libya and England during the Cold War and Korean War (Police Action).