| My Story Etta May (Roberts) Harper When Etta and Chess'L were married in June of 1942, it was war-time. Chess worked as a driver for military vehicles at Stockton Depot. Then he was a welder at the Richmond shipyards for a few months, during 1943. Etta worked in a little supply store inside the shipyard, until she suffered a miscarriage in May of 1943. The loss of that first child was devastating to both. Etta's Mother payed a visit to the couple in Richmond, to comfort and support. Etta and Chess went to Los Angeles that summer, where he obtained employment with Garibaldi Trucking, hauling cattle. Etta often went along in the truck to accompany him, as they were still newlyweds and missed being together. He worked many long hours, and seldom had a day off. Finally quit the job to get some rest! They were living in a cabin in Burbank at the time. Etta sometimes rode the streetcars for hours, all over Los angeles and vicinity, to see the sights and to kill time. After Pearl Harbor was attacked, in December of 1942, Chess'L tried to enlist, but didn't pass the physical, due to a perforated eardrum. Later, during the summer of '43, he was drafted, and was inducted into the Army Air Corp. He was sent to Denver, Colorado for Basic Training. Etta stayed with her Mother for awhile, then took a bus to Denver to be near her husband. She stayed in a hotel room, and went to work at an egg dehydration plant. (Purchased a little poodle puppy for $10 in a pet shop, so had a companion....) The puppy was named "Flossie". Etta soon found it wasn't easy to rent a room, having a pet, and shipping from one location to another was a real problem! Shots were needed, and the puppy had to be put in a crate and shipped in the luggage compartment. That was a traumatic experience for Flossie! It was wintertime in Denver, and Flossie wore a pretty sweater as the two walked in the park. At times, as the freezing snow fell, Flossie's hair and whiskers became icecycles! After the Denver training, Chess was sent to Carson City, Nevada, still in Basic Training. Etta and Flossie went back to Sacramento, and Etta found work at McClellan Air Depot, as an apprentice mechanic. Her Mother was employed there, also, as an aircraft mechanic (working there five years). Chess was then sent to Biloxi, Mississippi to complete the training. A telegram arrived, from the lonely serviceman, requesting that Etta come down south to join him! Of course she wanted to, very much, but didn't have the funds. Her brother, Roy, then being 19, volunteered to accompany her, hitch-hiking to Mississippi! What an adventure! It took about ten days, sleeping in fields and on a huge rock at the edge of the Great Salt Lake desert. Some days no rides were offered. Sometimes rode in the back of pickups, getting sunburned and windburned! They got as far as Purcell, Oklahoma, where Brother Ed and his wife were living (Ed was in the Navy, teaching aircraft recognition). From there Etta went by bus to Biloxi. Roy went back home after a few days. Etta found a room to rent in a home, and a job serving drinks in a tavern! She was 18 at the time, so not legally allowed to work in a tavern, and really didn't want to, but they put her age down as 21! Chess didn't approve of that job, so she didn't work there long. Visited with him at the airbase a couple times a week, and occasionally he would get a pass to leave the base for a day. Not long after her arrival, Chess was sent to Jackson, Tennessee, and she followed.... It was a hot, humid summer there in that unfamiliar part of the country! He was still confined to the Base, as he was in training, so they had few visits. Chess had a short leave before he was to be sent overseas, and the couple went to visit brother Ed and Marie for a few days. Then, off to Lincoln, Nebraska, as a last stop-over before being shipped across the ocean... It was September, and the corn was in full harvest. A corn festival was filling the streets and the countryside with their floats and bands and colorful costumes! Chess was 23 that month. It was so very hard to say "Goodbye", not knowing if they would ever see one another again.... (Etta was pregnant, but unaware...) She returned to Sacramento, to her Mother's home, and went back to work for a few months. He was sent to Italy where his squadron was stationed for the duration. .... to be continued.... Chess'L was a gunner on a B-17, and participated in 32 bombing missions over Germany. When Germany surrendered, the men were returned home. The plane first used in the missions was shot down over Germany, killing all the crew, with the exception of the radio man and the waist gunner, Chess'L Harper. Being in such close quarters on the plane, in his assigned position, he was unable to wear his parachute during the action. As the plane was blown apart, Chess'L grabbed his 'chute and put it on as he was in the air! The extensive practice and training he'd had made this emergency action possible. The radio man bailed out also, and the two men landed near a stream in enemy territory. As they were instructed during training, they salvaged a part of their parachutes for bandages, if needed, and rolled up the rest, weighing them down, and sank them in the stream, to keep from being spotted from the air. After 15 days in enemy territory, with some hand-to-hand skirmishes,while trying to obtain food, the two men managed to arrive back at their station. The entire crew of the B-17 had gone through their entire training and battles together, so were very close. This was a terrible loss and tragedy to those remaining,as well as the families of the men who lost their lives in the mission. The war had to go on, so another plane was assigned......... |
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