Soldier provided fire power to the front lines
By Linda Hicks 10 Nov, 2000
John Kline's War
Diary Return to White
County Veterans Affairs
Picture #1 When the call came, Judsonia responded #1 #2
Adrain Hunt, a young soldier from Providence in 1943, was
responsible for sending fire power to the front lines during the Battle of the Bulge.
"We were working hard and the hours were long," Hunt recalls.
"I probably wouldn't have thought much about the front lines if I hadn't had a
personal interest there. My brother, Don, was in the infantry fighting and completely
surrounded by Germans."
Hunt was a member of the 361st Fighter Squadron stationed at
Martlesham, Air base in England. He arrived at the air base October 5, 1943. The trip over,
aboard the Queen Elizabeth, took about four and a half days, he said.
"There were 20,000 troops along with all their gear on that
ship," Hunt said. "We spent 24 hours in our bunks and 24 hours on the
deck."
Hunt would remain at Martlesham for the next two years and three
months. His duties included transporting, loading, inspection and disposal of bombs and
ammunition.
"My main duty was inspection and preparation of bombs and 50
caliber ammunition," he said. " We were responsible for getting it to 30 planes
(P51s) for missions.
Self-described as feeling "young and invincible," he said, he
didn't think about the dangers of working with explosives. He had received some training
prior to being shipped over and additional training while he was there.
"It (picking up a bomb) was just like picking up a rock," he
said. "We just didn't fear anything."
Yet pulling two or three trailers loaded with bombs in the darkness of
the night did get a little "hairy," at times. Each trailer was loaded with two
and a half tons of bombs, he said. In addition to carrying a load, there was also rain and
fog to contend with.
"If you had to drive at night, you blacked your head lights out
except for about one-half inch by two inches," he said. "That's not much light
when you are driving a big load of bombs.
His closest call, may have been when he left a bomb shelter during the
middle of an air raid.
"The field in front of me was lit up enough that you could read a
newspaper," he explained. The German bomber endangering Hunt's life, however, was
shot down before it could make another pass.
Another busy time for the soldiers was the day before D-Day.
"We worked from early morning until after midnight. We had to have
every bomb from mustard gas to general purpose bombs out by the planes." "Then
we were told to go eat and to get some sleep but not to take our clothes off because we
would have to get up and be ready to go by 3 a.m."
The majority of Hunt's complaints concerning his tour of duty,
however,
had to do with the caliber of food.
"I went two years without seeing an egg in a shell," Hunt
said. "I was on KP the first morning when we got eggs. I ate 12 fried eggs that
morning for breakfast. We would be served chicken and dumplings that you had to pick
feathers out of to eat."
Care packages from home were a welcome sight and they were shared by
all. He remembers that his mother sent him a jar of canned pork sausage at his request.
"I didn't like pork sausage before I left but I had my mother send
me a quart jar. It sounded good." I cooked it up on a potbellied stove and I still
didn't like pork sausage."
Hunt would be aboard ship 17 days while returning to the United States.
Prior to docking, Hunt said, he had another close call.
"I like to have been tossed overboard watching for the Statue of
Liberty."
Medals awarded to Hunt for his service, according to his military
records, include the Presidential Unit Citation with cluster, Victory Medal World War II,
Good Conduct Medal, American Theatre Ribbon, Europe and Africa and Eastern Theatre Ribbon
with six Bronze Stars representing the following battles: Air Offensive of Europe,
Normandy, Northern France, Ardennes, Rhineland, and Central Europe.
