SPRINGVALE — For those who served in World War II, accounts of valor and bravery in combat are often told, but equally as important are the stories of the men and women who worked valiantly behind the front lines to ensure victory.

Guy Dudley of Springvale was one of those individuals and now at age 95, his recall of his wartime experiences may be fading, but his sentiments about the war remain as clear as when he was first drafted some 76 years ago.

“I did my duty,” Dudley said. “They called me and I went off to war.”

Growing up in Germantown, Pennsylvania outside Philadelphia, Dudley was working for the Atwater-Kent Manufacturing Company when he was called upon to serve late in 1942.

Following basic training in Florida, he was assigned as a munitions loader for B-24 Liberator aircraft with the 15th Army Air Force at Amendola Airfield near Foggia, Italy, in December 1943.

Along with the B-17 Flying Fortress, the B-24 aircraft was the mainstay of the U.S. strategic bombing campaign in the Western European theater during the war.

It carried thousands of pounds of precision-guided munition ordnance and before each mission, soldiers and airmen like Dudley were tasked with placing the munitions aboard the B-24s. 

Bombs included short-range ones weighing 8,000 pounds, long range weighing 5,000 pounds and very long range ones tipping the scales at 2,700 pounds.   

Once they settled into a number of air bases around Foggia, the 15th AAF then launched a series of raids attacking enemy targets in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Bulgaria. 

According to Dudley, the flight crews for those missions bonded with ground crews and became close friends.

“It was dangerous work,” Dudley said. “Many times those crews never came back from their missions.”

In fact, one of Dudley’s saddest memories of the war involved a B-24 flight crew.

“I knew them all well, they were my close friends,” he said. “They were taking off and had just cleared the runway when something went wrong and the plane suddenly exploded, killing everyone on board. It was heartbreaking to watch it all unfold right in front of my own eyes.”

As the war intensified in 1944, Dudley was an eyewitness to history as the 15th AAF engaged in the bombardment of communications, industries, and other strategic objectives in Italy, France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, Rumania, Yugoslavia, and Greece. 

His bomb group also supported counter-air operations by destroying enemy aircraft centers, and was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for a mission in April 1944, when the group battled its way through enemy defenses to attack an aircraft components plant in Budapest, Hungary.   

Dudley had his citation framed and he proudly displays it to this very day, along with his nine ribbons for battle participation. 

He was eventually promoted to the rank of sergeant by early 1945, as the end of the war was within sight.

A bombardment by more than 1,200 heavy bombers of the 15th AAF in April 1945 is credited with saturating the German defenses by dropping nearly 25,000 bombs within five miles of advancing Allied forces and shortening the duration of the war.

On May 7, 1945, the Germans surrendered, ending combat operations in Europe and by that summer, Dudley was discharged and returned home to Pennsylvania.

“I got my old job back at Atwater-Kent,” Dudley said. “I became a tool maker and then a machinist for Leeds and Northrup Company.”

He met his wife Cathy in 1955 when they were members of the same community chorus. In 1971, they moved with their family to Sanford, where Dudley worked another 20 years as a machinist for Sprague Electric before retiring in 1992.

The couple lived together at The Lodges in Springvale before Cathy Dudley passed away this past New Year’s Eve.

Last month, Guy Dudley was hospitalized with pneumonia at Southern Maine Health Care in Biddeford. He’s now regaining his strength at the Maine Veterans Home in Scarborough, but plans on returning to The Lodges soon so he can resume his hobby of playing guitar with a band there.

But his mind frequently drifts back to his days of military service and those uncertain and perilous times.

“Somehow I survived,” he said. “I thank God for bringing me home safely because not everyone can say that.” 

— Executive Editor Ed Pierce can be reached at 282-1535 ext. 326 or by email at editor@journaltribune.com.