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- Sheila Malasi Portray's her
Father's WWII Service
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- A special thank you to APAAM for
giving me the opportunity to proudly tell you of my father John R. Omar's
exploits in WWII (1943-1945). Sheila Malasi
John is the eldest son of Mohammed Omar who had immigrated to America in
1913 from a village outside of Tripoli, Lebanon. After graduating in 1943
with honors from Quincy High School in Quincy Massachusetts, John Omar, at
eighteen years old, enlisted in the Army Air Corps.
He became the Flight Engineer and top turret gunner for a B-24 Liberator
dubbed by the crew "She's Our Gal" and was assigned to the 8th Air
Force, 382nd Bomb Squadron, 491st Bomb Group that was stationed in
Pickingham Air Field in Norfolk, England.
They had a couple of close calls in the training program including a
difficult landing that broke the nose wheel. Another time the hydraulics
failed prompting a call from the pilot to Omar (the crew's nickname for him)
to manually crank down the landing gear so they could make an emergency
landing. The plane landed without the brakes and skidded to within a few
feet from the end of the runway.
During the Battle of the Bulge, a heavy snowstorm at the start of one
mission caused their plane to crash shortly after takeoff. Eleven of the
500-pound bombs aboard were jettisoned into a field below. When the plane
hit the ground, the 12th bomb came crashing through the cockpit bulkhead
with its nose a few feet from Omar's back. Moments after they crashed, Omar
heard the pilot screaming for help and was able to help the pilot free
himself from the burning wreckage so that they could both quickly escape
from the plane in case of an explosion.
In a mission to Magdeburg Germany, they encountered a heavy barrage of
anti-aircraft flak as they were approaching the target. They lost the #3
engine and the rudder cable was severed. Because the hydraulics system was
damaged, they could not open the bomb bay doors to release the bombs. At
that time, it was considered impossible for anyone to open the bomb bay
doors manually.
Omar disconnected his heated flight suit and straddled a 9" catwalk
that ran from the cockpit to the waste door to reach the cranks that opened
the bomb bay doors. In 42 below zero temperatures, clinging precariously to
the struts in the catwalk-the only things between him and the earth below,
Omar manually cranked open the doors so that the bombs could be released.
While he was performing this task, shrapnel wounded him in his right foot.
Once the bombs were released, he then turned his attention to repairing the
severed cables so that the plane could be turned around. With the #3 engine
out, the plane kept losing altitude as they were leaving Germany. A
"May Day" call was sent out and someone gave the pilot a heading.
Miraculously they made the landing on a very short runway with no gas
showing in the tanks. The plane fuselage had been hit 44 times.
The landing site was only 9 miles from a section of the Bulge and because
the area was in a state of evacuation, the crew was immediately transported
to the Displaced Persons building in Brussels-a location that would be very
significant for Omar a several weeks later.
For his courageous actions in that mission, Omar was awarded the Purple
Heart. The citation read "For meritorious achievement in accomplishing
aerial operational missions over enemy-occupied Continental Europe, Sgt.
Omar's actions reflect great credit upon himself and the armed forces of the
United States".
After the next mission-the Berlin Run-the crew was again taken to Brussels
because of plane problems and that night John awoke with severe chest pains.
When the condition worsened, he was taken by ambulance to a hospital in
Antwerp. He had double pneumonia and was in a coma for seven days.
While recuperating, he experienced what it was like to be bombed as daily
Germans were sending buzz bombs into Belgium. A portion of the ward was
actually demolished when one of the bombs exploded over the rooms.
He remained in the hospital for 41 days. When he was finally released, he
was told to return to his base, but could not get any assistance on how he
was to do that. He left the hospital in the same wardrobe he had arrived
in-his green flight suit.
With no money and no idea as to where to go from Antwerp, he approached a
soldier loading hospital supplies on to a truck and was able to hitch a ride
to the nearby train station. At the station, two MPs gave him a ticket to
Brussels. While on the train, John was very cordially greeted and spoken to
by the Belgians in their native tongue.
When he arrived in Brussels, his goal was to make it to the Displaced
Persons building that he remembered from the airfield evacuation. Unable to
speak the language, he wandered the city aimlessly hoping to spy the
building. He did this all day with no money, food or water and was nearing
exhaustion when, after climbing some hills, he spotted the top of that
building.
At the Displaced Persons building, he faced yet another obstacle-identifying
himself- because he had been gone for more than 30 days and was listed as
missing in action. The MPs finally called his squadron commander for
confirmation. When he finally made it back to his base in England, he was
told that his crew had completed their tours and had returned to the States.
He flew several more missions, a total of 29, and then the war ended. When
he returned to America, he was stationed in Seattle Washington where he was
asked to train new recruits for B-24 and B-29s, but declined as he just
wanted to return home to his family as soon as possible. Six weeks after the
War ended in the Pacific, he was sent home to Massachusetts.
There is a very pleasant postscript to this story: In 1995, 50 years after
the end of WWII, a fellow crewmember happened to be visiting in the
Massachusetts's area and decided to look up the Omar name in Quincy hoping
to get some information about him (again his crew members knew only that
Omar had been listed as missing in action in 1945).
The number he called turned out to be Omar's son who gladly drove him over
to his father's house. It was an extremely emotional reunion between these
two Veterans who had not seen each other for 50 years. As a result of this
memorable occasion, Omar was also reunited with other crewmembers and has
been attending the annual B-24 Conferences with them ever since.
Today, he and his wife Mary, reside in Quincy MA where he spends his time
reading, doing projects in his workshop, taking daily walks around his
neighborhood and keeping in touch with his 8 children and 13 grandchildren.
Sheila Malasi
Proud Daughter of John R. Omar
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