Seventy years ago this week – March 24, 1945 – lifelong Durango resident Anthony “Tony” Ferdinando flew “right down the middle” of Wesel, Germany, while serving as tail gunner in the 392nd Bomb Group’s B-24. He called this mission – his crew’s 32nd in support of the Allied crossing of the Rhine – their worst.

“We flew in at zero altitude” (below radar) and dropped supplies as part of Operation Varsity, run by crews of the 2nd Air Division of the U.S. Army Air Forces (what is now the Air Force), he said.

“One shell went right through the wing and kept going. It didn’t explode,” Ferdinando said.

They smelled gas, but they made it back safely. Many others died during the mission.

While D-Day, June 6, 1944, marked a turning point in World War II’s European theater, intense fighting continued for several months afterward.

None of Ferdinando’s crew, the DePalma crew – named for their pilot like all other crews – was ever wounded. After this mission – which was one of Ferdinando’s last before his honorable discharge – a fellow crew member kissed the ground and said, “I’ll never have to fly in one of those coffins again.”

In an accompanying story, Ferdinando, now 93, describes this mission – his most important and most memorable – in his own words.

When asked about his involvement in the war, he said, “We had a job to do. We did it. Sometimes it seemed unreal.”

Flying time for the crew’s first mission on Oct. 7, 1944, from Wendling air base in Norwich, England, to Kassel, Germany, was 6½ hours – an average time for the crew’s missions. But the mission was not average in every respect.

Ferdinando still has a memento from this first mission: a projectile – or piece of flak – that flew a few inches above his head and stuck in the turret. The crew counted 85 holes in their B-24 after they returned.

“What a way to get introduced,” he said. The story makes it easy to understand why Ferdinando said “there weren’t many tail gunners that survived.”

When the crew was not on a mission, Ferdinando served as armorer-gunner. If anything went wrong with their gunners or guns, it was his responsibility to see that it was fixed.

On one mission, Ferdinando was notified that their bombs were hung up in their bays, causing the plane to lose altitude and speed. From the tail, he walked the catwalk – 9 inches wide – between the open bomb bays to fix the problem.

These particular bombs were “big mothers,” Ferdinando said, weighing 500 pounds each, much more than normal. When he freed the first bomb, to his surprise, the plane suddenly rose about 15 feet. He got down on his knees and held tight when the second bomb dropped. A version of this story, titled “A Hung-Up Bomb,” told by Ferdinando to Annette Tison, appears in Volume 27 of the 392nd Bomb Group Memorial Association News, published in December 2012.

Between Oct. 7, 1944, and March 31, 1945, Ferdinando flew 35 missions over Germany and France, logging 229 flying hours. Before being honorably discharged at the rank of staff sergeant, he was awarded the Air Medal six times and the Bronze Star three times.

Ferdinando earned his pilot’s license after the war and bought a plane, which he would fly off of College Mesa, where the old Durango airport was located. He rebuilt and performed all the maintenance on his plane, a Funk, himself. Because of an emergency-landing situation, he accidentally became the first to land at the current Durango-La Plata County Airport.

Early in his career, Ferdinando worked as shop foreman for the Chevrolet dealership in Durango before partnering on an auto-repair shop for a while. Then in the 1960s, he was hired at Fort Lewis College, where he became automotive-shop foreman. He supervised equipment maintenance at Fort Lewis College from 1966 until he retired in 1986; he was awarded the Fort Lewis College Achievement Award in 1977.

In his spare time, he worked as wildlife adviser for Colorado Game & Fish (now Bureau of Land Management) where he helped secure donations of land that created Perins Peak Wildlife Area as well as arranging purchase of the property around Lake Nighthorse. In addition, he served as a deputy sheriff for five different sheriffs; trained sheriffs, police officers, and rangers in shooting and self-protection back before an academy existed; and taught shooting at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Junior Rifle Club for 22 years.

When the La Plata Country Courthouse was expanded in the late 1980s, the Clock and Bell Tower Committee was surprised to find a master clocksmith in Durango to repair the 1891 original La Plata County Courthouse clock – Tony Ferdinando. At no charge to the county, Ferdinando restored the bell and the Seth Thomas clock and installed them in the new tower.

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A soldier’s own words: Operation Varsity in a B-24

Operation Varsity was one of the most important operations of the war in Europe. A total of 9,053 aircraft – transport planes, gliders, various types of bombers, and escort fighters operating from England and forward bases on the continent – combined forces to hit the Germans’ Rhine defenses in the largest airborne operation in history.
The low-level resupply mission to Wesel, Germany, was my crew’s 32nd mission. At this point, we had a mindset where preflight operations were routine, although performed with that feeling of dread in the back of the mind. This day, the feeling of routine was gone and was replaced by something I hadn’t felt for a while: the fascination of the moth with the flames. The feeling of dread was still there, but there was excitement, too, that the invasion of Germany was about to start, and the war could end soon after.
Low-level missions flown into enemy-defended areas were not what heavy bombers were designed for. As we came up to the initial point, with 10 miles to the Rhine, and then 5 more to the drop zone, the pilot was getting us down on the deck, and I wondered again as we flew forward whether the drop zone would be in our hands or the enemy’s.
The Rhine flashed by, and we came into the fantastic panorama of a big battle in progress, with first-row seats, suspended a hundred feet above the battleground, heading for the main action. Gliders were everywhere on the ground, some intact, some broken. There were tow planes splattered here and there, still burning. We passed flaming farm buildings on our left, their roofs blown off and columns of bluish smoke rising from them into the haze. There were troops all over the place, some crouching down, some scurrying around.
The smell here was sickening. I didn’t know if it was because of so much smoke or if it was the smell of death.
We had several miles to go to the English drop zone, which was still in German occupation. After a few miles, we heard that we were to drop the supplies. The load was dropped without any problems, then I heard someone say, “Let’s get the (expletive) out of here.”
After making our turn, we flew back down to ground zero. We came to this deserted little town of Wesel. Walking down the center of the road was a lone German soldier in full gear. When we flew over him, I saw he was down on one knee – so he could have a steady rest from which to shoot.
By this time, I had both of my 50-caliber guns aimed at his chest. I said, “Dear Lord, don’t let him shoot, for I don’t want to kill him.” I imagined he had a family at home just like I did. I didn’t know if he realized I was behind a bullet-proof glass.
Then the German stood up, at ease with his rifle by his side.
I have wondered many times if he had a similar secret: that there had been three of us at that meeting. The Good Lord made the settlement by sending each of us in our own way. I have never regretted that decision.