Two World War II veterans from Benicia shared their experiences in Liberty High School’s gym on Thursday morning.

All of Liberty’s students came out to hear Bob Hitchcock and Harold Bray speak, as did Mayor Elizabeth Patterson, Councilmember Mark Hughes, Benicia Unified School District Superintendent Charles Young, BUSD Trustee Diane Ferrucci and Assistant Superintendent Dr. Leslie Beatson. Both men were introduced by Principal JoAnn Severson— whose father had served in World War II— and English teacher Cliff Nelson.

“As an English teacher I was trained to encourage students to find primary sources, and I can’t imagine two more important primary sources for World War II than these two gentlemen who have so graciously offered to bless us with their presence here today,” Nelson said.

Hitchcock, now 93, recalled how he was brought into the war through his local draft board and took part in a physical.

“The next thing I know, I was on a train in Martinez heading for Monterey,” he said. “When I got there, they did all the nasty stuff, they pumped your arms full of shots and cut all your hair off.”

“My life changed totally,” he added.

Hitchcock served as a staff sergeant in the 8th Air Force and as a radio operator in B-17 airplanes with 10 other men.

“We all had to learn each other’s jobs in case one of us was hit,” he said.

Hitchcock and his fellow men flew several missions over Germany as the country was under the Nazi regime, which Hitchcock said made missions very intimidating.

“(Hitler) trained boys from the time they were quite small until they were in their teen years, so they were way ahead of us in the knowledge of war and what to do,” he said. “My experience in facing the enemy the first time, I was pretty nervous.”

Nonetheless, Hitchcock worked to send messages back to the base.

“I could monitor what was happening, but I couldn’t send any messages because the air would get full of messages and it would be a mess,” he said.

Hitchcock said he had plenty of close encounters, including being nearly hit by exploding shrapnel. He also discussed an experience where the plane’s bomb bay doors had opened and the bombs had been released.

“It was my job to get out of my position and open the door into the bomb bay, make sure all the bombs did go,” he said.

However, one of the bombs was not released due to extremely cold weather keeping one of the doors from opening.

“I called the bombardier and said ‘Don’t close the doors! We’ve got a bomb on board!,’” he said.

Hitchcock went onto the bomb bay’s narrow catwalk and used a tool to open the shackle, but the bomb was against the shelf, which meant he had to lean out over 26,000 feet to open the shackle and get rid of the bomb. However, the bomb’s army wire had gone up his sleeve.

“Because I couldn’t feel the cold, it took my Air Corps watch with me,” he said. “I often wondered where that watch ended up.”

Hitchcock also described another experience where his plane got hit, and the pilot said the plane was rapidly losing altitude and would not make it home.

“I decided not to bail out and just go down with the plane,” he said. “The rest of the crew all decided the same thing.”

The plane was plummeting over the Rhine River on the Belgium/Germany border. At the same time, a P-47 pilot guarding the ridge was coming back to a field to get gas.

“The two planes were gonna hit the ground about the same time, and I guess the pilot of that P-47 thought that he could get down and hit the runway, but he overshot it,” Hitchcock said. “He plummeted into a dirt embankment and his plane tipped up, and he popped a canopy and got out and ran and the plane caught on fire.”

When the B-17 hit the ground, the left tire had been shot out, which caused the left wing to hit the ground, rotate 180 degrees and keep the two planes from colliding.

“That flat tire really saved us,” Hitchcock said.

Hitchcock flew 32 missions until the end of the war. He was offered an increase but instead chose to stay as a civilian.

During his presentation, Hitchcock showed the top of his old uniform, a photograph of his crew and a model of the B-17 plane he flew on.

The next to speak was Bray, who was introduced by his granddaughter Justyna. Bray enlisted in 1944 as a senior in high school and went to boot camp in Great Lakes, Ill. in January of 1945 and got out on April 12— the day that President Franklin Roosevelt died. He joined the Navy and was assigned to the USS Indianapolis, which was being repaired at Mare Island. The ship of 1,197 people was assigned to carry a briefcase of secret objects to Tinian Island. However, on its return it was shot by two torpedoes from a Japanese submarine.

“The first torpedo hit right under me outside the ship and rolling off this ledge and it dropped down about 10 feet to the deck below,” Bray said. “I looked up and got showered with hot steel on my arm and my chest.”

Eventually, the ship went down and Bray was one of several other men to swim away. For five days, the men were stranded at sea with sharks circling and some crew having to resort to drinking salt water to stay hydrated. They tried to signal for help, but they were never noticed.

“We’d seen airplanes every day,” Bray said. “They flew over us every day, but these Army guys didn’t even look down in the water. We did have a flare gun and shot flares, but they didn’t pay attention to us.”

Finally, a Navy pilot on a bombing mission saw the oil slick and dropped down, opened the bomb bay doors and radioed for help which they received. More than 300 were saved.

As for the package? It was successfully delivered to Tinian Island before the sinking and contained parts of what would be used for the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

After the war, Bray was reassigned to a base in Detroit and honorably discharged in 1946. He initially moved to Washington State, but finding the climate too wet, he moved to Benicia with his sister on Jan. 1, 1948.

“My sister came up there for Christmas, and I said ‘I’m going home with you,’” he said. “’I hear there’s sunshine down there.'”

Bray worked as an officer with the Benicia Police Department for 23 years before retiring. He still meets with his fellow USS Indianapolis crewmembers every year, although he says only about 20 of them are still alive.

“I’m the youngest, so you know what the rest look like,” he joked.

At the end, the two men received applause for their service.