Merry Christmas in July: An oral history interview with B-26 tail gunner John Sweren

"I had two kills and one probable. ... The second one, we always flew in different boxes. You'd have a high box, a middle box and a lower box. The lower box was kind of a Purple Heart box. The second one, we were in the low box, and the [fighter] kind of circled. I lost track of it, and it came up from underneath and made a 90-degree turn and started firing. Of course my rapid fire I think got him, but he just, just a flash of light, that's all, I couldn't tell, I blew it up. But ... after that happened, I said a little prayer, God bless the guy, he was in the war just like I was, fighting for his country, and I felt sorry for what happened. It was either him or me. Or us." John Sweren, tail gunner, flew 58 missions in a B-26 before his plane was shot down. The tail section broke apart from the rest of the plane, with him in it. Three of the six crew members were killed. John became a prisoner of war and endured the harsh conditions at Stalag Luft IV, and the even harsher conditions of the long march west across Germany near the end of the war. Oral historian Aaron Elson interviewed John over the course of two days in 2010, after the French historian Christian Levaufre brought artifacts from the remains of John's plane to the United States to present to family members of its crew. During the Great Depression, John grew up on a farm with 3,000 chickens. He felt so guilty about taking a hearty meal to school that he would go off in a corner to eat while many of the other children ate hardtack. One day he gave half of his sandwich to a friend, and the friend asked if it would be all right for him to take it home to share with his family. John's story will at times bring a tear to your eye, and at other times a smile to your face. Sometimes it will do both simultaneously. John Sweren passed away on Oct. 28, 2011. He was 89 years old. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.