WWII pilot receives Silver Star 63 years later

Monday, May 26, 2008

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Paul Swofford received the Silver Star on Sunday.

ST. PETERSBURG (Bay News 9) -- Today veteran pilot Paul Swofford remembered the men that died during an allied bombing mission known as "The Kassel Mission" on Sept. 27, 1944.

In 1944, Swofford was the fresh-faced pilot of a B24 bomber nicknamed the "Sweetest Rose of Texas."

His crew was on a mission with hundreds of other allied planes to bomb Kassel, Germany. But his group of 35 bombers got separated from the main group. And 150 German fighters took to the skies in attack; 25 planes were shot down.

Swofford's B24 lost an engine and bullets shattered the plane's windshields.

"My co-pilot and myself, we suffered severe injures to our foreheads and face," Swofford said. "We bled profusely. We could have stood that. But we couldn't see."

The "Sweetest Rose of Texas" had lost its hydraulics in crowded air space.

"In the midst of all these bombers I can't see," Swofford said. "That's a very dangerous situation."

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Swofford got away from the German fighters and made a valiant effort to get back to Great Britain.

"And in order to save the crew, I have to save the airplane; I have to keep the airplane flying," he said.

Swofford did keep the wounded plane flying, but the plane was waived off just before landing. He figured he wouldn't get another chance.

"Well, with the gear down and on three engines -- I figured it was an impossibility," Swofford said.

But he landed the plane safely on the second pass.

Swofford and two crewmembers received the Purple Heart.

Swofford piloted a B24 named "The Sweetest Rose of Texas."

Sixty-three years later, pictures of his planes and other commendations decorate his home. But there was one thing Swofford wished he and his crew had gotten: a Silver Star for valor in the face of the enemy.

All these years later Swofford was able to document what happened, and he did finally receive the Silver Star on Sunday in a special presentation at the Scott Lake Baptist Church in Lakeland.

"My other eight crew members, of whom only two others are surviving today, but to other crew members and their families -- I feel this is on their behalf," Swofford said.