News : Relatives of Sgt. Steinford hear first-hand account of another WWII airman

Lewis Waters, with wife Ann, at the funeral for Keystone WWII MIA airman Marvin Steinford.

Lewis Waters and Carol Sansenbach at the press conference following Sgt. Steinford's funeral.

Lewis Waters, of Ohio, connects with Keystone veterans at the funeral for Marvin Steinford.

A group of Squadron 429 B-17 bombers over an airfield in WWII.

An airman discusses the B-17's tail guns.

Tail gunner Lewis Waters used a weapons system similar to this one.

Another view of a B-17 tail gunner's area.

Editor's Note: We wrote these stories about World War II Air Army Corps airman Marvin Steinford in June, when he was laid to rest. His remains had been found in Hungary a few years earlier. He was reported MIA just a few weeks before the end of World War II.

When family members of Marvin Steinford filed into the church for his funeral on June 21, Lewis Waters was among them, even though he is not a son, brother or even distant cousin to Sgt. Steinford.

The Springfield, Ohio, man was related to the Keystone airman by the phrase Shakespeare made famous in "Henry V:" They were among the "Band of Brothers.

Waters, like Steinford, was a World War II Army Air Corps airman on a B-17, serving in the 2nd Bomb Group. Like Steinford, he climbed into a B-17 in Italy, and headed for German targets throughout several countries of Europe. Like Steinford, Waters faced the daunting danger of German anti-aircraft guns and weapons fired from German fighters. And like Steinford, Waters was on a B-17 crew that was forced to make an emergency landing in Hungary.

Waters flew 13 missions as a tail gunner in the 2nd Bomb Group's 20th Squadron, while Steinford flew nine missions for the 429th.

On Sgt. Steinford's last mission on March 24, 1945, an attack on a tank factory in Berlin, his B-17 was hit by enemy fire. Unable to return to the base, the pilot tried to fly to Hungary, looking for a place in friendly territory to land safely. The plane did not quite make it far enough before the crew was forced to bail out. Two crewmen, including Sgt. Steinford, were shot while parachuting down over Hungary; the rest were captured by Germans.

Steinford, Waters said a during a press conference after the funeral, must have been extremely scared, like every other B-17 airman in the bombardier's seat.

"From where he sat, he could see all of the German planes and their bullets coming toward him, the airman said.

Waters and Sgt. Steinford, a native of Keystone, never flew any missions together. In fact, Waters was stranded in Hungaryin February of 1945 when Steinford flew his first mission; Steinford died before Waters returned to action in April of 1945. Both, however, did fly missions over Bologna, Italy, which Waters later learned had been a German headquarters.

It was Waters' fifth mission that ended in Hungary, although the outcome was quite different than Steinford's final flight.

It was Jan. 21, 1945. The target: Vienna, Austria.

Waters, now the President of the Second Bomb Group Association, shared some of his story with Vinton Today.

Waters explained how his B-17 went down that winter day.

"We lost oxygen while over Vienna, due to a leak in the system somewhere, not from flak. Because of lousy weather, the only safe direction to go was East. Without oxygen, we had no chance of getting over the Alps. We quickly dropped to an altitude of approximately 10,000 ft., but the weather continued to be very overcast, and we kept lowering altitude. All of a sudden we were flying directly over a German Fighter Airfield.

"The two waist gunners, the ball-turret gunner and myself were all around the waist windows, or near the radio room door, We could see the soldiers on the ground , running to their machine guns, and anti-aircraft guns. We were too low for them to accurately set their anti-aircraft shells, and were very lucky. I think we took three or four machine gun bullets in the B-17, but one 20 mm anti-aircraft shell hit us and exploded on its way out of the plane – to the left and above the ball turret, damaging some cables , and wounding two of us. I’m not sure of the time, but probably about an hour later we had to land on a frozen potato field, as weather was closing in to about a half-mile visibility."

Waters was hit in the face, thigh and arm with shrapnel from that exploding shell. The B-17 did make it to friendly territory in Hungary.

The crew spent a month as "friendly prisoners" of the Russians before they were able to repair the B-17 and return to Italy. It took three months before the crew and plane went back into service, but Waters flew eight more missions in that same B-17.

The first priority for the crew when they got out of the crippled B-17 in Hungarywas medical treatment for the wounded.

Waters found himself in the care of a very well-dressed Mongolian veterinarian.

"Now don’t laugh – he was really pretty good – and wore the sharpest uniform in the Russian Army," said Waters. His jacket had bright blue lapels, and red epaulets with some sort of gold insignia for his rank, whatever that was."

After he left the hospital, Waters joined the crew at a Russian Commandant’s house.

It was there, in Hungary in February of 1945, that Waters and his fellow crew members saw first-hand the beginnings of America's next major military conflict: The Cold War with the Soviet Union.

Hungary shares a tiny part of its border with the Ukraine, which was part of the USSR in 1945. The country had been compelled because of the Great Depression to trade with Germany and Italy and was forced to enter the war on the side of the Axis. But when Hitler learned of secret peace talks between the Hungarians and Allies, the German army invaded Hungary from the West. The human cost of World War II was horrendous for Hungary: 300,000 soldiers and 80,000 civilians died from battles, while 450,000 Hungarian Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps during the last year of World War II.

The result of the Allied victory in World War II was the Russian occupation of Hungary, which would remain under Iron Curtain rule until the Hungarian Revolution of 1989.

Waters said he saw some disturbing signs of the then-imminent Russian domination of Hungarian citizens.

"I would walk around the small village every day for a little exercise – always with a Russian guard – to protect us, but also so we couldn’t talk to the locals, who, of course, had never seen an American soldier or airman," he recalls.

One day, some Hungarians tried to speak to the Americans, but the Russians beat them bloody with the butts of their rifles.

"They did not want Americans talking to people whose country they planned to take over," he said.

The 30 days the crew spent with the Russians also demonstrated the technology gap that existed then between the two countries.

The Americans tried to explain to the Russians that in the USA, most people had machines in their kitchen that keep food cold. The Russians did not believe that Americans really did have refrigerators.

Waters tried to tell the Russians about his car.

"I had a 1929 Model A Ford that I drove to high school – they said I was lying (just trying to show them we were better – trying to brag too much)," he recalls.

The Americans, he said, talked to the Russians with the help of two interpreters, one who spoke Russian and Hungarian, and the other who spoke Hungarian and English. Their conversations had to be translated from English to Hungarian to Russian; much was probably lost in the double translation, Waters said.

"Our pilot’s comments to the Russians were a little too kind really, probably because he was trying to sooth any hard feelings," Waters recalls. "We were almost in trouble two weeks into our stay. Joe Koden, our Engineer, was from Chicago, and his parents were Russian immigrants. Joe could understand some Russian, but couldn’t speak very much Russian. We didn’t reveal this to the Russians. The doctor was exchanging some humor with another officer, and Joe couldn’t keep from laughing. The Rushkies didn’t take kindly to that fact, and things became rather cool for a couple days."

After a month, the crew was able to fly the plane back to its base. Waters went to a hospital in Bari, Italy, where doctors removed flak from inside his cheek and his left thigh (although Waters still has some pieces in his leg) and closed the wounds on his hand.

"I was very lucky not to have any serious damage," says Waters.

Waters and his crew returned into action on April 10, targeting a target only known as "Charlie."

The "Charlie" mission, he recalls, was the second in two days near Bologna, Italy.

"The only explanation, I have been told, was evidently trying to keep secret where the group was going," recalls Waters. "The allies didn’t know for sure, until after the war ended, that Bologna was the headquarters of the German Forces in Italy. But, then Missions #401, #402 and #403, on April 16, 17 and 18, were also to areas around Bologna. Maybe, after the first two raids, it was no longer a secret where we were going to attack the Germans. Who knows?"

Life after the war

Waters has spent much of his life metaphorically doing what he did as a tail gunner: Looking back and using technology to connect with those with whom he served. He is a long-time member and Past Commander of the Springfield, Ohio, Purple Heart Association. And when he came to Iowafor Sgt. Stienford's funeral -- the first funeral for a fellow WWII airman that he has attended as President of the 2nd Bomb Group Association -- he sought out the members of the Keystone American Legion Post 107 so he could exchange information with them about Sgt. Steinford.