102-Year-Old R.D. Lawrence - Ball Turret Gunner on B-17 Flying Fortress

At just 19 years old, R.D. Lawrence left his home in Oklahoma the day after Christmas in 1942 and boarded a troop train bound for basic training. Drafted into the U.S. Army Air Force, he became a ball turret gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress in the 463rd Bomb Group, 15th Air Force. Now 102 years old, Lawrence’s story spans more than a century of history.

He trained across the country—Nevada for gunnery, Texas for mechanics, then Florida to join his air crew. Eventually, they were assigned a brand-new B-17. They named it ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’.

Based in Italy, Lawrence flew bombing runs against targets across Europe, including the infamous Ploiești oil fields in Romania. “The smoke was 20,000 feet high and it just looked like night,” he recalls. “I didn’t think we could possibly fly through without getting hit by flak, but we flew through and never got a scratch.”

As a ball turret gunner, R.D. spent his missions suspended beneath the plane, scanning the skies and ground for danger. “Everybody said it was the most dangerous place on the plane… but after a mission or two, there wasn’t no safe place on that plane,” he explained.

On his 37th mission, flying over Budapest in June 1944, his luck ran out. A burst of flak struck the left wing near the fuselage and set the aircraft on fire. The crew tried to fight the blaze, but the flames only grew stronger. Realizing the plane was lost, R.D. and his crew parachuted over Hungary and were immediately captured. After a short stay in a Budapest jail, they were packed into boxcars and transported to Stalag Luft IV in Poland, a German POW camp where Lawrence spent nearly eight months.

In February 1945, with the Russians advancing, the Germans forced thousands of POWs to march westward in what would become known as “The Long March.” R.D. walked 500 miles through snow and freezing temperatures.

Liberation came a few months later on May 2. After bouncing between bases in Holland, France, and England, R.D. finally boarded a Liberty ship bound for Boston. He arrived home in Oklahoma just in time for wheat harvest—and married his fiancée on June 26, 1945, just over one year after being shot down.