The calendar reads April 19, 1944. The outside temperature is 20 degrees below zero. The B 17 "Hoosier Hot Shot" of the 8th Air Force, 91st Bomb Group, has taken multiple hits from German fighter attacks and three engines are on fire. This is the 28th mission for the 23 yr. old radio operator, Tech. Sgt. Ted Bacho. It will be his last. The plane is quickly losing altitude and the pilot, Lt. Stanley Swenumson, has ordered the crew to bail out. Some of the crew are wounded and some, because this is their first mission, are afraid to jump out. As Bacho works his way through the dying plane, he helps a couple of the wounded get to the side door, he opens it and helps them bail out. As he stands in the door encouraging the fearful to follow him, he is hit in the right arm by a twenty millimeter shell, knocking him back in. Crew members help him back to the door and bail out. Free falling from 30 thousand feet, he realizes he has no control over his right arm and can't pull the rip cord of his parachute. Through the endless free fall and bitter cold he struggles to pull the ripcord with his left hand; finally the chute pops open.
He ends up in a German prison hospital, where they amputate his right arm above the elbow. The doctors tell him he is probably alive because the bitter cold slowed the blood loss of a very serious wound. In December of 1944 he is repatriated back to the U.S. For his missions, wounds, and assistance to the crew, he is awarded the Air Medal, the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Ted Bacho Sr. was born on July 25, 1920. He died on February 3rd, 1971 of cancer. The years between the war and death will be difficult. A failed business, alcoholism, and divorce will create a slow free fall, that to many, might suggest a failed life. However, through it all, he remained optimistic and never lost his sense of humor, love of family and the value of human relationship. While he didn't talk much about the war years, he suggested the challenges of the Great Depression and that frigid free fall of 1944 were greater than the disappointments of life. Right-handed before the war, he loved oil-painting as a hobby. He relearned to paint, drive a stick shift, tie a tie, and light a cigarette with a book of matches with only his left hand.
Within the last year of his life he saw his son graduate from college and the birth of his grandson. His sense of humor can be suggested by a family story. He is leaving the house on a warm summer day wearing a short-sleeved shirt. His left hand is reaching for his car keys, the right shirt sleeve shows only the stump of an arm. One of the neighborhood boys is on the sidewalk sucking his thumb. As Ted walks by he wiggles the stump at the boy and says, "Ya know I used to suck my thumb, and look what happened to me." The jaw dropped open and the thumb came out.
Ted Sr. didn't live long enough to receive his lifetime achievement award. During my years at TV13, I was constantly running into people who would say, "I knew your dad, God what a great guy he was", or "what a funny guy he was", or "he had the greatest stories". Last year I got a phone call from a guy living in Virginia who knew my father. He found my name on the Internet and called to find out what happened to him and to tell me how much he liked him, 37 years after his death. If he were still alive, I would have called to tell him about each of these conversations. I would have reminded him about the effort he put into pulling on that ripcord, and these are the real rewards of his last mission.
See You Next Time
