No one at the Replacement Training Unit asked whether they would get along. The job was to teach them to work, not to like each other — though most crews managed both before it was over.
The crew of 44-6838, Spirit of Martinez, on the hardstand at Horham, 1945. The name is already on the nose — this is the ship after the Army caught up to what the men had decided to call her.Family collectionSeven of the nine. The collection does not label the plate, or say whether this is Florida or Suffolk. Two men are in harness. The under-nose portrait at Horham has all nine.Family collectionGrenier Field, Manchester, New Hampshire, 13 December 1944. Issued out of Hunter Field. Crew FQ-555-CA-93 signing for ten B-11 flying jackets and ten pair of A-10 trousers. Airplane 44-6830 — not the Spirit. Eight serials away, same shed, same month; the ferry ship they gave up on the far side of the Atlantic. A tenth signature, Eugene P. Allamano, RAD, is a passenger, not crew.Family collection
01 · Pilot
Frank J. Calicura
Martinez, California
Born 1921, son of Saverio and Angelina, one of seventeen. Learned to fly on the waterfront strip his eldest brother built. Commissioned 15 April 1944 at Turner Field. First lieutenant, serial O-828662, 335th Bomb Squadron, 95th Bomb Group. Twenty-eight combat missions, three humanitarian drops, 208 combat hours.
Came home a first lieutenant with a commercial ticket and an instructor’s endorsement. Cut meat with his brother Bill on Main Street. Died in 1962.
02 · Copilot
Victor G. Probst
Yoakum, Texas
Right-hand seat for the tour, except the first morning — traded into The Red Fox so a veteran copilot could take a new crew over Germany. Later studied architecture.
Returned to England to study architecture at the University of London, then co-founded a Texas firm that designed hospitals, including Houston’s St. Luke’s and Texas Children’s.
03 · Navigator
John R. Barnes
Emporium, Pennsylvania
John R. Barnes in the nose, a chart in his hands. He is the ninth name — the one missing from the Tampa order, added at Avon Park on 6 November 1944.Family collection
Born Philadelphia, January 1922, son of Leonard and Gertrude Barnes. Added to the crew at Avon Park on 6 November 1944; he is the ninth name, the one missing from the Tampa order.
Earned a doctorate at Penn State. Spent much of his career as Director of Pathology at DuPont’s Haskell Laboratory, retiring in 1982.
04 · Togglier
Marvin L. Markus
Kingfisher, Oklahoma
Robert E. Collins, ball turret, at left; Marvin L. Markus, togglier, at right. A 95th Bomb Group photograph. A later overlay on the print spelled Markus as Marcus. The book keeps the spelling the Army used.Family collection
The town already named on the wallet that would later be stamped for the crew. Flew the nose of the Spirit of Martinez.
Married Dorothy Ellen O’Niel in July 1945 — sixty-nine years. Built an automotive-electric business across several towns and retired in 2003. His family remembered his war in a single number: twenty-eight full bombing runs.
05 · Flight engineer / top turret
Earle F. Bogacki
Cleveland, Ohio
Earle F. Bogacki, flight engineer, at a window of the Spirit of Martinez. The second man is not labeled on the print. The name in the corner was added later.Family collection
Born 1920 to Frank and Stella Bojack, a surname later changed to Bogacki — which is very likely why a contemporary wallet clipping printed “Nogacki” and still got the city right.
Stayed in uniform thirty-one years, rising to Chief Master Sergeant through Korea and Vietnam. Married Emily “Lu” McGrath in 1952. Died in 2011 at ninety, buried with full military honors.
06 · Radio operator
Robert J. Brown
Corning, New York
Robert J. Brown at the radio, Spirit of Martinez. Oxygen on, headset on, the set in front of him. The name on the print was added later.Family collection
Born 1 May 1924 to a Polish immigrant father. Radio on the Spirit from the first morning at Chemnitz.
Married in Manhattan in December 1947. The license is the last documented trace of him found.
07 · Ball turret
Robert E. Collins
Hutchinson, Kansas
Born 5 October 1923. Draft card lists the Coca-Cola Bottling Company and a boss named Lewis Scruggs. Not yet twenty when he registered. The ball turret of a B-17 became his job instead.
Signed the Hunter Field shipping ticket of 13 December 1944 in a hand consistent with the draft card. Later life is otherwise thin in the record.
08 · Waist gunner
Dale S. Ernest
West Virginia
Present with the crew at Avon Park in the autumn of 1944 — the same window a later VA statement describes as the onset of Frank’s back injury.
West Virginia University, then the Naval Ordnance Laboratory. By January 1959 he held a patent for an automatic depth-correcting device for moored mines. Visited Martinez that same year — “Dale Ernest + Dau, ’59,” in Jimmy Calicura’s slide index. Died in 2007.
09 · Tail gunner
James A. Titus
Lincoln, Nebraska
James A. Titus, tail gunner. Full face gear at altitude. A Lincoln paper stated plainly that he served in England as tail gunner on a B-17.Family collection
Gunnery school at Las Vegas, June 1944. Contemporary clippings from a Lincoln paper state plainly that he served in England as tail gunner on a B-17.
Discharged as a sergeant from Lincoln Army Air Field. Parents: Mr. and Mrs. Joe B. Titus of 3343 LaSalle Street. Later record remains thin.
