Lloyd Giles' crew flew 25 missions over Germany

Where Lloyd Giles began his military service and where he ended it are a lot different.

Giles, one of three Distinguished Veteran Award honorees named by the Veteran's Commemoration Association, originally was in the medical corps when he was drafted into the Army in 1943. Just 19 years old, it wasn't long before he wanted to go in another direction.

"I got tired of carrying stretchers," he said.

He made the leap to the Army Air Corps and after 18 months training as a gunner he shipped out to England in January 1945.

"I got there in the middle of the worst winter they'd had in 100 years," said Giles, 85, who's originally from Brownsville.

With the 491st Bomb Group, Giles, an aerial gunner in a B-24 Liberator, flew 25 missions over Germany.

"I remember the cold," Giles said. "We were very active but we didn't face some of the resistance that a lot of crews before us did."

Nonetheless, Giles' crew saw its share of the enemy. He recalls facing off against a German jet fighter.

"Our guns weren't set to go up against something that fast. We couldn't catch up with him," Giles said. "Naturally he reported our position and we took heavy flak."

He also remembers losing an engine in a raid and making it home on only three. His plane landed with just 15 minutes of fuel left.

Giles wore an electrically heated suit and remembers he wasn't able to take off his gloves for fear of his hands freezing. Temperatures sometimes reached 50-below when the B-24s reached peak altitude.

While his targets were mostly rail yards, Giles remembers one important mission to Switzerland. Officially neutral, the Swiss were supplying the Germans with ball bearings from a factory in Zurich.

"We hit them hard and they didn't make any more ball bearings for the Germans," Giles said.

He says bombing runs included about a thousand planes each time they crossed the English Channel.

"We kept at it until the end of the war," he said.

After the German surrender, Giles went home and awaited orders to go to the Pacific. Three days before he was to leave, the war ended.

He left his tour at the rank of staff sergeant, earning many honors including three Bronze Battle Stars and the Air Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters.

After returning home he moved to Albany and worked at newspapers in the mid-valley before spending 21 years at Oremet.

He lost Betty, his wife of 51 years, in 2005. He has two children and two grandchildren.