'Big Russ and Me'

Hoping to become a pilot, he volunteered for the Army Air Force, where he was disappointed to learn that his eyesight wasn’t good enough for him to fly. It must be a family trait. When I was three, I had to wear an eye patch as a way of strengthening my weak eye. The first time Dad saw me with it, he shook his head and said, “I guess you’ve got my eyes—and not just the color.”

After basic training, Dad spent several weeks at Chanute Field in Illinois, where he took a course in parachute rigging—packing and inspecting parachutes that the air crews wore on every mission while hoping never to need them. Parachutes in those days were made of silk, which is both light and strong, and men who used them to escape from a damaged plane became members of an unofficial society known as the Caterpillar Club, not only because silk is made from the cocoons of caterpillars, but also because the transformed creature emerges from the cocoon with the ability to fly. It used to be that apprentice parachute riggers were not certified until they actually “jumped their chutes”—that is, jumped out of a plane with a parachute that they themselves had inspected, repaired, and packed, but that requirement was dropped in 1941 to save time. There was a war to fight, and the Americans were needed overseas as soon as possible.

Dad passed through bases in Utah and Arizona before being sent to Lowry Field in Colorado, where the 446th Bombardment Group was activated on April 1, 1943. At Lowry, Dad and some of his pals met up with Red, a big red chow with a black tongue. Red was not a friendly dog, but the men were fond of him and were determined to bring him overseas. They had little hope, however, of smuggling a large dog on the long train ride to New York, and even less of sneaking him onto the ship that would transport them to England.

Somehow, they persuaded a bombardier on one of the flight crews to take Red over on a B-24. It wasn’t easy: at first, when the pilot tried to get to his seat, Red wouldn’t let him into the cockpit. When Red finally relented and the pilot settled in, Red settled in right behind him. On one of their many stops en route, Red noticed a long line of bags in front of a building; perhaps inspired by the challenge, he proceeded to pee on every single one. Despite his outrageous behavior, or maybe because of it, the crew continued to bring him along. When they landed in Dakar and a Senegalese soldier tried to stab Red with a bayonet, the crew intervened to spare his life. During a stopover in Marrakesh, Morocco, they took Red with them to the movies, where he curled up in a plush chair that they later learned was reserved for the mayor; when the movie ended, Red left his calling card in the mayor’s seat. When the flight crew arrived at their home base in England, Red was reunited with the parachute group. But Red wasn’t the only dog that made the trip from Lowry Field; a female named Whitey on one of the other bombers delivered a litter of pups en route. It was widely believed that Red had something to do with this development, but Red wasn’t talking.

Dad and his fellow soldiers in the ground unit took a slower route to England. In October 1943, they traveled by train from Denver to Camp Shanks, New York, their last stop before going overseas. It was a long, tedious trip, as their train was often sidetracked to allow much-needed military equipment to make its way to port cities on both coasts. They were moving through western New York when Dad looked out the window and realized that the train was passing through his own neighborhood in South Buffalo. He yelled out to some waving onlookers, “Tell Frank Russert that his son Tim is on this train, and we’re going overseas!” The message got delivered to his parents.

Camp Shanks was on the Hudson River, just north of Manhattan, where they would soon board a ship for England. From this point on the men were not allowed to make phone calls or send letters. The precise arrival and departure dates of troop ships was a closely guarded secret, giving rise to the famous expression from that era, “Loose lips sink ships.”

From Camp Shanks they were taken by truck to excursion boats that ferried them south to Pier 90, where they boarded the famous Queen Mary. It was Winston Churchill who had proposed using the enormous luxury liner to transport troops across the ocean. Gen. George C. Marshall, the American chief of staff, hadn’t wanted to risk putting thousands of men on a single ship with too few lifeboats, but Churchill prevailed. As Dad and his unit prepared to board, they watched as huge supplies of food—good food, the kind they hadn’t seen in quite a while—were loaded onto the ship. At least we’ll eat well, Dad thought. “But once we sailed,” he told me, “the rations they gave us were so meager we couldn’t believe it.” Shortly before they reached their destination, Dad spotted a group of English crew members having dinner. “They were eating like kings,” he said. Knowing how Big Russ feels about food, I’m surprised that he didn’t organize a mutiny.

As the men of the 446th Bombardment Group boarded the ship, a band played and Red Cross volunteers passed out coffee and doughnuts. Soon they were moving past the Statue of Liberty and into the ocean.

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The ship, repainted camouflage grey, and known as the Grey Ghost, was able because of her great speed to evade German submarines and torpedoes. As long as she was moving fast, the troops on board were relatively safe, and for that reason she was under strict orders not to stop for any reason. On one crossing, the Queen Mary sailed past a group of lifeboats with men aboard, but kept moving at top speed. The Americans were under strict orders to make sure that no light could be seen emanating from the ship. One night, someone in Dad’s group brushed up against a curtain, accidentally exposing a flicker of light. “The whole group of us spent the night in the slammer,” Dad said.

During normal times, the Queen Mary carried eleven hundred passengers, plus a sizable crew. When Dad’s group made the crossing there were more than fourteen thousand men on board, which was not unusual during the war. Berths were everywhere—stacked six high in lounges, function rooms, and even in empty swimming pools. The men slept in shifts. They were fed twice a day, also in shifts, and were given only a few minutes to eat. To ease congestion, all pedestrian traffic on board was one way: to move forward you walked on the starboard side; to move back you used the port side. All passengers had to wear life jackets in case they were attacked. There was no smoking, and even chewing gum was forbidden because it was hard to remove from the decks. The weather was rotten and many of the men were seasick. When I think about the crossing, I can’t imagine how men of my own generation would have fared on board.

As the ship approached its destination, but long before it reached land, British ships and planes came out to protect the men from possible attack by German U-boats and planes. (Hitler had offered a huge cash reward and an Iron Cross to the captain or pilot who could sink the Queen Mary, but the ship made eighty-six crossings without once being attacked.) On November 3 they docked at Greenock, in the Firth of Clyde, not far from Glasgow, Scotland. Trucks carried the men to trains, and trains took them to Flixton, their new home, in England. Station 125, as it was known, was one of many air bases on the eastern coast, not far from the English Channel and two miles from the sleepy village of Bungay.

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