Edgar S. Huddleston, Jr.
Edgar Huddleston compiled a remarkable record of his service with the 376th Liberandos, where the Louisiana native was the tail gunner of the B24 airplane the Wild Wolf, stationed in Libya and Tunis. Huddleston created a logbook providing detailed information about each of his 51 missions flying from North Africa over targets in Europe. in addition, he compiled a scrapbook in which he supplemented photographs, newspaper clippings, and momentos with his own typewritten commentary. Huddleston provides a chronological narrative of his 1943-1944 tour of duty, a story told in his own unique voice. As a storyteller, Huddleston is by turns droll, irreverent, and chillingly matter-of-fact. He has glorious fun stealing jeeps (an accepted form of wartime transportation), and he almost dies over Bari, Italy. He describes a rip-roaring trip a Alexandria, as well as the death of a 14-year-old gunner. While recuperating from his wounds, a crewmember named Perry carried him from his hospital bed so he could participated in Operation Overload, a low-level bombing raid over a Romanian oil field in Ploesti. Miraculously, he writes that "my plane got back from Romania with about 25 holes in it, but not a crew member was scratched."
Huddleston's was both a gifted gunner and a master storyteller. His meticulous records tell a story of World War II from his perspective in at the tailgunner's turret that is profane, tender, and heartbreaking,