INDIANAPOLIS -- In his 101 years, Indianapolis native Bob Pedigo has met Princess Elizabeth of Great Britain and Henry Ford of Detroit, delivered newspapers to a WWI flying ace and Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Eddie Rickenbacker, is a distant relative of John Adams, the second ever President of the United States and was briefed on his mission over France on June 5, 1944, by Hollywood film star turned U.S. Army Air Corps Colonel Jimmy Stewart.
On D-Day, Pedigo was the first nose gunner in the first B-24 Liberator Bomber that flew over the beaches of Normandy to pummel the German troops that were waiting to repel the Allied invasion that would later wrest Europe from control of the Nazis.
”When we got to the English Channel, it was so full of shipping, it looked like you could walk across the channel using the ships as stepping stones,” said Pedigo, remembering the sight in the pre-dawn darkness on June 6, 1944, as he flew over the beaches of Normandy. “In between, there was a big German encampment and we went in the German encampment and bombed that big German encampment and made a U-turn and came out.”
“What did it look like?” I asked.
“Chaos,” said Pedigo. “It annihilated the German encampment.
“It was my easiest mission of 30 missions. But, we lost 12,000 men,” he said. ”It would’ve been a lot worse if we hadn’t bombed ahead of the landing.”
This Friday, Pedigo will board a plane for Dallas before taking a flight to France to be present at ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day on the spot where American troops and their allies landed to liberate a continent.
Though he flew over and occasionally bombed France more than two dozen times during the war, Pedigo has ironically never stepped foot on French soil.
”On D-Day itself, we will be at the American Cemetery. 8000 of the 12 were Americans,” he said. ”I’ll be real close to where my bomb strike was and I’m sure the civilians will tell me exactly where it was at.”
Pedigo is looking forward to reuniting with the dwindling number of D-Day veterans still able to make the trip.
”The rendezvous of 60 other veterans from all over the United States, they had to scrape up from all over the United States to come up with 60 veterans, D-Day veterans still living,” he said. ”And especially to honor our losses and the comrades who didn’t make it.”
Pedigo and the D-Day veterans will be the guests of American Airlines, TriWest Healthcare Alliance, Gary Sinise Foundation, Robert Irvine Foundation and the Old Glory Honor Flight.
”I’m looking forward to meeting a lot of the French people and maybe the president,” said the veteran. “You know how dearly French people love Americans. Gave them their country back in World War One and World War Two. Not once but twice.”
Pedigo may very well be the last technician alive who worked on the revolutionary Norden bomb sight which greatly increased the accuracy of American WWII bombing, a job he earned after being recruited from Arsenal Technical High School.
He graduated to the front window of a bomber where he would use that bomb sight to press the button to unleash the might of the American Air Corps on the capitol of the Axis powers.
”Berlin was the most heavily defended city target against air attack in World War Two,” he recalled. “We always lost a lot of bombers on a mission to Berlin.
”I’d say at least six times we would limp in. The 8th Air Force in England had the highest percentage of loss of any military unit in World War Two, the unit I was in, that’s how bad it was. We had the highest percentage of loss. It was very rare for a crew to finish a tour of duty and when a crew come back on their last mission it was always a big assembly there and celebration. I’ll never forget that.”
Crews were supposed to rotate out after 25 missions.
Pedigo and his comrades logged an additional five flights over enemy territory before they were ordered to stand down, only to see their replacement crew crack up the “Silent Yokum” and lose eight fliers before lifting off the ground on their first mission.
”Its very emotional. I could’ve been one of them just as easily,” said Pedigo, looking back at the extraordinary luck and skill that let him survive the war. “By the grace of God I’m here instead of there.”
FOX59/CBS4 will follow Bob Pedigo’s return to Normandy on air and online in the week to come.