D. Clarke Evans Photographer

LeRoy Woerner

Second Lieutenant, Army Air Corps
1942-1946

2ndLt. LeRoy Woerner
Lubbock, TX , 1944

Nobody ever volunteered to be the tail gunner. They put me in that category. I said, ‘Boys, if I’ve got to fly in the end of an airplane, I want to fly in the front end, not the back end.’ So, I became an Army pilot.

I was born in Fredericksburg, Texas in 1921 and have lived here all my life. My ancestors were original settlers who came in with Baron Meusebach from Europe on a Dutch sailing ship. They founded Fredericksburg in 1846.

I graduated high school in 1936 and got two years of college at Schreiner University in Kerrville. Then the war came along and I was swept up into that, and my formal education came to an end. I was drafted in 1942. On December 8, 1941 I had a date with the girl I later married. We’ve been married 74 years, incidentally. My friend also had a date with a girl whom he married. We were at his girlfriend’s house and they had a radio going. We heard President Roosevelt give his “This date shall live in infamy” speech.  There was a lot of whooping and hollering. My friend turned to me and said, “Leroy, I wonder where we’ll be six months from now.”

I became an Army pilot and flew all kinds of planes. I was also qualified to be a radio operator and mechanic. They sent me to Harlingen, Texas and I became an aerial gunner. In every class of aerial gunners, 10% of the smallest people in the class were volunteered to be tail gunners in a bomber. The Germans and the Japanese learned real early in the war that if they shot out the tail gunner, then they had the back end of the bomber open and that was a lost bomber. Nobody ever volunteered to be the tail gunner. They put me in that category. I said to two other guys, “Boys, if I’ve got to fly in the end of an airplane, I want to fly in the front end, not the back end.”

They decided they would do that too. One of them got killed in training and the other one just couldn’t make the grade. I was in pilot training at Sherman Army Airfield and that’s where I married Louise on October 30, 1943. They didn’t give me time off to get married. I got on my uniform and ran all the way from my barracks to the chapel. Then they sent me to Lubbock Army Airfield and that’s where I got my wings in February, 1944. I graduated as a pilot and second lieutenant.

They put me into the Army Air Corps Training Command and assigned me to San Angelo, Texas. I was there for the entire war and trained bombardiers. Now, bombing is an electronic marvel. In those days it was a mechanical process and you had to learn how to operate the Norden bombsight. We taught them how to use the bombsight. I have two wings—one for being a gunner and a radio operator and another wing for being a pilot.

There was a guy named Victor from Fredericksburg that graduated with me. Victor made the entire war and then they signed the peace treaty. They told him there was one more flight he had to make. It’s a milk run. A kamikaze took Victor and his entire crew down even though the war was over. He had no reason to suspect the man was a kamikaze.

I got out of the service in 1946. My papa had ranch land and we did ranching together. We finally wound up with land on the Willow City Loop, which was considered junk land. Now, if you’ve got land there, they consider you as having real high-class real estate.  In 1994, Louise and I split the ranch into thirds for our kids.  {11-02-2017 • Fredericksburg, TX}