Greenville - On Tuesday, May 5, beginning at noon at the Audie Murphy/American Cotton Museum, Harold Payne and D.A. Steele will present “Pistol Packin’ Mama: The Missions of a B-17,” a truly enthralling war documentary with a soul. It chronicles the crew of the B-17 Betty Boop/Pistol Packin’ Mama by using contemporary interviews with surviving crewmen and superb live-action footage.
The year is 1943, and the bombers have not yet received the kind of fighter escort that would improve their odds later in the war. Their precision bombing daylight raids were fraught with danger as enemy fighter planes and anti-aircraft weapons did all they could to ensure that the raids failed. A crew had to fly 25 missions before they could go home; however, the odds of surviving to the 25th mission were only one in three.
Through intense battle scenes in the air that are interspersed with reflections from the crewmen who survived them, the audience is caught up in the drama and the horror of WWII.
The bulk of the crew of the 390th Bomb Group, 570th Squadron, like so many of America’s young men who enlisted, were “ordinary young men doing extraordinary things.” After watching this film, one has a renewed admiration for these men who, like so many others, faced death, and conquered it; and for their fallen comrades who died for the right of all to live in dignity and peace.
Much of Hunt County knows Harold Payne. A native of Caddo Mills, Harold enlisted in the Army Air Corps late in 1942, and “had already had [his] mind made up for the B-17.” Harold and “Payne’s Punch Packers,” as his crew was known, were part of the 8th Air Force, 390th Bomb Group, 570th Squadron ,and they carried out missions over Czechoslavakia and France from 1944-1945.
After the war, Payne started Payne’s Famous Furniture Village in Caddo Mills in addition to becoming a land developer. He and his wife Wanda were married nearly 65 years when she died of cancer. In addition to serving on several boards (including the AMAC Museum), Payne is a founding member of the 390th Bomb Group Memorial Museum in Tucson; the 390th is one of the few groups that has its own museum.
D.A. Steele, a native of Greenville, is also no stranger to Hunt County citizens. After a couple of years of college at ETSU where he earned his private pilot’s license, he entered the Army Air Corps in November of 1941. He was a B-17 pilot with the 306th Bomb Group (Heavy), 423rd Squadron, and although he had flown other planes, Steele “liked the way [the B-17] flew.” After flying the required 25 missions, Steele was able to come home in 1942 after which time he married his pre-war sweetheart and started raising a family.
A lifelong lover of wood-working, D.A. owns Cabinet Works located behind the Farmer’s Market on Washington Street. He still goes down to the office, and it is filled with mementos from his days in the service such as a signed lithograph of a B-17, a map showing the locations of all his missions and a letter from Sam Rayburn to D.A.’s father congratulating him on his son receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Other keepsakes from the past include antique wood-working tools and a collection of wood sculptures gracing the walls. He even has his high school diploma on which he hand-lettered his name in calligraphy, a skill for which he was hired to letter all the diplomas at 25 cents a name. Harold and D.A., who have been friends since they were in college prior to the war, are the only known B-17 pilots in Hunt County.
For additional information or if you wish to order a sandwich, please be sure to call the Museum at (903) 450-4502 by Tuesday, May 5 at 10:00. Admission is free to members, otherwise there is a regular admission charge of $5 for adults, $3 for seniors and $1 for students. Sponsors for this month are John Reynolds and Ron Wensel.