“Dad, all my buddies are going to war, and I don’t want them to fight it for me.” -Jesse D. Franks Jr. Influenced by Pearl Harbor, Jesse decided to leave the seminary and join the United States Army Air Corps on January 13, 1942. He was exempt from the draft because he was a theology student, but he felt as though he owed it to his country to go. According to Dr. Franks, Jesse had told him, “Dad, all my buddies are going to war, and I don’t want them to fight it for me.” He wanted to be a pilot but he “washed out” of pilot training because of his bad eyesight so he trained to fly as a bombardier instead.
After going through small training bases like the one in Tuscan, Arizona; Jesse D. Franks Jr., 24 at the time, was shipped off to Hardwick, England and assigned to Euroclydon the Storm. His father, Dr. Franks, was the one that suggested naming the plane Euroclydon after biblical tempest that swept thought the Mediterranean as Paul was being transported as a prisoner. Jesse’s first mission was May 29, 1943. He was placed with a random B-24 crew that needed a bombardier. Their bombing target was the submarine pens at La Pallice on France’s Atlantic Coast. Jesse was almost forced to bail out of his first mission as the planes four engines failed a few miles away from the pens. Luckily the engines suddenly came back on and the crew was able to force the plane to complete the mission. In late June the crew of the 93rd were assigned to North Africa. They then went on to fly to the base at Terria, Libya in early July. On July 4, 1943, Jesse wrote to his friend about Libya, “Hot, dusty and dry, live in tents and are getting a taste of combat in the raw. Quite a contrast to England. Things weren’t so bad there. Well, it makes me want to end this all the quicker.” In July 1943 the 93rd was reassigned to the Ninth Air Force outside Benghazi. For his second raid, Jesse helped drop 12 bombs that weighed a combined 500lbs onto San Pancrazio, Italy on July 2, 1943. When releasing the bomb, he kept the pulled cotter pin and sent it back to his family with a mission tag on it. Euroclydon was then assigned to destroy the bridges and roads that German soldiers were using to retreat through Sicily. This included a mission to Messina and an attack over Reggio Calabaria. In an attempt to open the road to Rome, Jesse and crew bombed the Benedictine Monastery atop Monte Cassino, north of Naples in July 1943. This mission backfired as the Germans utilized the rubble by using it to better defend their positions. The 93rd also bombed the railroad-marshaling yards on the outskirts of Rome as their ninth mission and first mass raid. Before this raid, Rome had never been bombed by Americans. By their last raid, the crew of the Euroclydon had flown ten combat missions. To be released from service one must have 25 combat missions. “Hot, dusty and dry, live in tents and are getting a taste of combat in the raw. Quite a contrast to England. Things weren’t so bad there. Well, it makes me want to end this all the quicker.” -Jesse D. Franks Jr. |