Charles Paglieri – World War II Experiences
- wpaglieri1621
- Mar 15, 2025
- 9 min read
As recalled by his son Wayne
March 2025
Charles Paglieri was born on January 15, 1921. His early life was shaped by the Great Depression of the 30’s along with World War II in which he served in the “Air Force”. At the time, the United States Air Force was yet to be established as a separate branch of the military, and he technically served in the United States Army Air Force (USAAF).
Although Japan was seriously at war with China in 1937, if not before, the start of World War II is generally viewed to coincide with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. After successfully invading Poland, Germany invaded France and the low counties of Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg in May 1940. Following this equally successful military campaign by Germany, culminated by the evacuation of British troops at Dunkirk, Great Britain was viewed as the next country to be invaded and to fall to Germany. But Great Britain won the air battle to defend itself, called the Battle of Britain in the Fall of 1940 and spared itself an invasion. In 1941, Germany turned its war efforts against Russia. Although those efforts ultimately proved disastrous, over the period 1940 – 1944 Germany would control various countries, including most of Europe, from Northern Africa in the South to Norway in the North and to France in the West to Russia in the East.
The US was largely immune from the effects of the war in the early years of World War II. The only presence the US had in the conflict was via the Lend Lease program in which the US supported Britain with military and other goods via naval transport across the Atlantic. Ships were in danger and indeed sunk during this period by Germany, even though the US was not officially in the war. Although President Roosevelt wanted to actively engage against Germany, to this point Americans were generally in favor of staying out of the war.
But the situation dramatically changed on December 7, 1941. Although war had not been declared with the US, Japan attacked the US fleet that was stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in a surprise attack. The US suffered significant damage to its fleet with many ships sunk and 2,403 lives lost in the attack. The most famous of the ships sunk was the battleship USS Arizona which suffered a direct hit to its ammunition supply, causing a massive explosion that caused the ship to sink almost immediately with the loss of 1,177 lives on the ship itself.
In the words of the Japanese Admiral who planned the attack, he feared that Japan had “awakened the sleeping giant”. Indeed, American sentiment was immediately galvanized to fight back, and war was declared against Japan in the days following the attack. In an interesting historical moment following the Japanese attack, Germany declared war against the US. This declaration was followed by a similar declaration by the US against Germany and now the US faced a war on two fronts – the Atlantic against Nazi Germany and the Pacific against imperialist Japan. Absent a declaration by Germany, would the US have entered the European theater of conflict?
Fearing possible involvement in the war, the US had reinstituted the military draft in 1940. Nonetheless, Pearl Harbor caused a massive voluntary enlistment in the armed forces. It also caused a massive industrial mobilization and retooling towards a war footing initially started under the Lend Lease program.
My dad was one of those who chose to enlist. He was 21 at the time. While I suspect there was a high degree of patriotism involved, by enlisting he could choose his branch of service. Fearing a repeat of the horrors of trench warfare experienced during World War I, he wanted to avoid the Army and chose to enlist in the USAAF in hopes of becoming a pilot. At the time he enlisted, he held a high school degree from Montclair High School in New Jersey, and to the best of my knowledge was working for the Otis Elevator Company in some capacity.
For a reason unknown to me, he didn’t enter flight school until 1943. (Perhaps, it took the US that long to gear up its war efforts?) However, his training was unsuccessful as he struggled with landing the plane, an open cockpit biplane, particularly in a crosswind. It was probably the only time my father ever flunked out.
But like others in his situation, he was offered alternative paths to serve in the USAAF and studied to become a navigator. It’s not clear to me how much this was a choice by him or a mandate by the USAAF and if his aptitude for math had anything to do with this choice or mandate. I suspect it did. I also learned from a newspaper article on his service, that he did go to aeronautical school for two years while in Californai which probably helped and was previously unknown to me.
He successfully completed navigators training in August 1943. As the name implies, a navigator was responsible for providing directions to get the plane from Point A to Point B. Unlike today where navigation is done by onboard computers connected to satellite links, navigation involved a lot of geometric calculations based on triangulation of a variety of items including radio beacons, stars and/or points of land, all as adjusted for wind direction and wind speed. Immediately after navigation school, he was assigned as the navigator in a crew of a B-24. The B-24 “Liberator” was one of two “heavy” bombers at the time with the B-17 “Flying Fortress” being the more famous plane. Training in the US extended from September through December until the crew was finally deployed to the European theater of conflict against Germany on December 24, 1943. The air base was in Foggia, Italy, but to get there involved an extensive journey with the B-24 from the US through South America to Africa to Italy as transoceanic flights were generally less viable at this time. He arrived in Europe on January 7, 1944.
In Italy, he was part of the 15th Air Force of the USAAF. Perhaps its more famous brother was the 8th Air Force flying from England of which many movies and shows have been produced over the years including Twelve O’clock High, Memphis Belle and most recently Masters of the Air. (For a very realistic though jingoistic view of the life of a bomber crew in Europe, watch the documentary Target for Today produced in 1944 by the USAAF as a training film.) In total, he flew 10 combat missions from Italy the first being on February 8, 1944 and the last being on April 24, 1944.
Conditions during flight were very rugged. Bombers flew at altitudes typically in excess of 20,000 feet. Although there was mostly an enclosed fuselage in the B-24, there was neither a pressurized cabin, nor heat. With exterior temperatures of roughly minus 20+/- degrees F at 20,000 feet, staying warm was a formidable challenge. Many clothing layers were needed including an electric flight suit that was plugged in during flight to provide heat. Also, without a pressurized cabin, to survive at altitudes in excess of 10,000 feet, oxygen was needed which was provided via individual oxygen masks stationed around the plane.
I know nothing of my father’s first 9 missions. I suspect most were harrowing. The casualty rate for bomber crews was very high during the war. In 1944 it was roughly 50%; i.e., only about 50% would make it to the 25 missions which was the point crews were relieved of combat status and rotated back to the US.
But my dad did talk about his most memorable 10th mission. It was not a mission his plane was scheduled to fly for some reason. However, as fate would have it, a navigator on a B-17 was ill and unable to fly and my dad was called in to replace him.
This 10th mission was to bomb the oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania. These refineries were critical to the German war effort and as such, were heavily defended and were attacked multiple times by the Allies. The most famous or perhaps infamous raid occurred in August 1943 in which a low-level mission was flown, and 57 bombers were shot down out of 177 bombers that flew the mission. I do not know how his overall mission fared that day, but for my father and the crew, the April 1944 mission was catastrophic. Somewhere near the target, the plane was hit by German anti-aircraft fire at probably something like 20,000 feet. Quite quickly, fire spread throughout the plane and within seconds, the pilot signaled the crew to bail out. Bailing out meant finding the nearest point of escape from the plane and parachuting to enemy territory in Romania. It also meant that seconds could spell the difference between life and death. My father had his parachute on at the time the plane was hit - not all crew members did. Upon jumping out of the plane that was already engulfed in flames, as my father pulled the ripcord of his parachute, the plane exploded overhead. Several crew members died in the explosion. During his 10 combat missions, my father earned a Purple Heart and I believe it was during this 10th mission.
Quite quickly upon landing, he was captured by Romanian civilians. While it certainly wasn’t easy, my father was generally treated OK as a POW in Romania. Rather than reciting his POW experiences now, those experiences can be found here as part of a 1949 paper he wrote during college.
On the home front, although the plane was shot down on April 24th, my father’s fate was unknown at that time. He was reported as missing in action (MIA) initially. That word reached his parents via telegram (above) on May 11th. His fate remained uncertain until June 3rd when his parents were notified again via telegram (below) that he was a prisoner of war (POW). It’s hard for me to imagine not knowing the fate of your son for many weeks.
But I will describe his “escape” from the Romanian POW camp which led to an interesting post-war encounter. Romania was allied with Nazi Germany during most of the war. However, in August 1944 Romania capitulated which left my dad and his fellow prisoners “free”, yet a long way from safety. Escape meant getting from Romania back to Allied occupied territory prior to German troops arriving to take control of the POW camp. Allied occupied territory was roughly 700 miles away from Romania, so somewhat of a miracle was needed to free the POW’s.
Enter the Romanian Royal family led by Princess Catherine Caradja. (More about her involvement can be found here.) She was able to secure a German plane that was then hastily painted with US markings. It was piloted by an Italian to take the senior American officer, Lt. Colonel James A. Gunn, to safety in Italy and to alert the Allied forces of the plight of the remaining POW’s who were “free” but stranded in Romania. Despite flying a German aircraft, the plane successfully landed in Italy and a rescue mission of the POW’s ensued. Over the course of the next few days, over 1,100 American and British POW’s were rescued from Romania via B-17 airlift, my dad among them.
As a former POW, my father was then eligible to return to the US rather than again seeing combat. Although he remained in the USAAF until August 1945, his days of combat were thankfully over.
My father didn’t talk about his WWII experience all that often, but it did come up from time to time. I never saw him experience any adverse effects from the war, nor did I hear anyone mention any issues that he may have had following his return to the US. But that generation tended to be silent about any personal issues, so there could have been issues that I was simply unaware of.
As an interesting postscript, his POW experience did come up in 1965 or so. Princess Catherine Caradja had been exiled from Romania by the Soviet Union (more or less today’s Russia) in 1949. She initially lived in exile in France but ultimately came to the US where she lived most of her remaining life. In the US, she spent her time advocating for the US and the virtues of democracy. During this time, she also regularly kept in touch with many POW’s via letters, reunions and personal visits. One such visit occurred with my father and was featured in this Paterson News story of which my sister Gayle and I were in attendance. So I can say that I have been in the presence of royalty.
As I continue to reflect upon my father and his war experience, I have a friend who recently referred to my father as a hero. Perhaps he was, but I don’t think my father felt that way. What remains vivid and poignant for me, is how typical my dad was for this “Greatest Generation”. (This moniker was coined in the 1998 publication of the best-selling book The Greatest Generation, by NBC News journalist Tom Brokaw.). So many were called to serve for the collective good of the US and the world, and made sacrifices willingly and unselfishly. It seems a far cry from the individualistic and divided society we have become today. I don’t know how the subsequent generations let it happen, but I know my dad would be deeply disappointed in the US that exists today given all the sacrifices he and his generation made during WWII in the name of freedom and democracy.
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