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Submitted photo

Albert Henke in front of one of the B-17 Flying Fortress.

Photo by Caroline Boyer

Albert Henke with his special bag that was issued to airman during the war.

Shawnee — Albert Henke carefully pulled out the bent, .50-caliber bullet that may have saved his life.

Part of a chain strapped around his leg, it blocked a half-inch square piece of metal - flak from a German bomb - that penetrated the tail-gunner's window over Yugoslavia.

"This is the one that almost took me out, had it not been for that bullet," he said, holding up the piece of flak and bullet.

Henke's diary log for the mission, his 25th, noted the intense flak, heavy and very accurate.

"I thought they had me when the piece hit under my knee," he wrote. "Gives you sort of a jolt to have your knee knocked off the track and then see a hole in the plane."

It was one of the many times the Shawnee resident was inches away from death during his 50 missions aboard a B-17 Flying Fortress in World War II. Twice flak barely missed his head; once his electric heat suit, meant to protect him from the 65-below temperatures, shorted out and caught fire. One of 153 in his 800-member gunnery class to survive the war, Henke also watched 55 planes explode in mid-air during missions, along with others who were hit and ultimately crashed.

Using a secret diary he kept, recording each mission by candlelight, Henke wrote a book about his experiences, "Adventures Under Fire!" which was released last month. It's a book that he says has been in the works for several years, appropriately just before the 66th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the day that set his wartime experiences in motion - a day that, in the opening sentences of his first chapter, he says every American living at the time will always remember.

"This day changed the lives of all Americans, and my family was no exception," Henke writes.

Henke was born July 1, 1920, in Brunswick, Mo., and spent much of his childhood in Texas. The family moved to Kansas City, Mo., when the stock market crashed in 1929, and after graduating from high school, Henke and his older brother got jobs with Western Auto.

Henke said he heard the news of Pearl Harbor over the radio while in the car. His brother, who had dreamed of attending West Point even before the war, enlisted in the Signal Corps before he could be drafted.

Henke waited until he felt his family's financial situation was stable, as his father had died in 1936 and he didn't want to leave his mother and sister alone. In October 1942, he enlisted in the Air Force and attended armament school and then aerial gunnery school.

In June of 1943, he was shipped to Casablanca in North Africa and took a train to Tunis, Tunisia, where he would fly in his first of his bombing missions with the 99th Bomb Group.

His first mission was on a plane named the "Widow-Maker" in the tail gunner position, which he would fly in 33 of his 50 missions, the others as ball turret. His plane was the last of 166 over the target.

"This was the most dangerous positions to be in because, as a rule, the enemy fighters would make a pass at the lead planes and would then work on the last planes in the group that were the most vulnerable to attack," he explains in the book.

He decided after his first mission that he would keep a diary, though he was constantly warned not to do such a thing - everything was top secret.

"I didn't think I was going to live anyway," Henke said.

He hid the diary in the hollowed-out bottom of his shaving kit. He recorded the date, target, location, plane name and number, pilot, number of hours and position of each mission, which are all included in his diary.

One of his most memorable missions was from Foggia, Italy, to London, England, for rest and relaxation. The flights counted as missions as they flew over enemy territory, and on the way to England, Henke met General George S. Patton, though he wasn't too fond of him.

"He was the most obnoxious half-wit I ever met in my life," Henke said.

He also flew in a combined raid with the 8th Air Force over Regensburg and Augsburg, Germany, in 1944. Henke's plane was the only one to return in his squadron, and it was "shot up so bad it went to the bone yard." Henke received recognition for shooting down an ME-210. One general called this raid the turning point of the air war in Europe.

Henke flew his 50th mission April 7, 1944, and was honorably discharged Sept. 12, 1945.

Henke first considered writing a book several years ago when Sister Phyllis Dye, his daughter's teacher at St. Joseph School, encouraged him to do so after seeing his diary. But it was only a few years ago, at his family's urging, that he finally started to pull things together.

"It's been a long haul," his daughter, Marsha Cahill, said. "It's been sort of a family project."

Henke said he hopes the book can serve as a tribute to all of the airmen with whom he served.

"I hope, in some way, this will attest to the bravery of the crews and the danger they faced," Henke wrote.

The book can be purchased at www.rainydaybooks.com or by e-mailing the Henke family at ACHenkeWWII@aol.com.

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