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Excerpted from Family Explorations
Into The Ice Blue Sky
by Victoria Moreland-Ochoa
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 Imagine flying at 25,000 feet in an airplane that is forty degrees below zero inside. It is so cold you have to wear a heated suit that plugs in like an electric blanket. To protect your hands from frostbite, you wear three pairs of gloves that are also heated—silk inside of wool inside of leather. You will have nothing to eat or drink during the ten-hour flight. To top it all off, your plane is being shot at because you are on a dangerous mission during wartime. You have a death-defying job to do as a crew member in a B-17G, a plane so large and powerful that it is called a "Flying Fortress."
My father had this experience in 1945 toward the end of World War II in Europe. He was Sgt. Herbert S. Moreland, a tailgunner in a B-17G bomber. He was eighteen years old, fresh out of high school, and the youngest member of his ten-man flight crew. In the last months of the war, he flew thirty-three bombing missions over Germany and France.
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I grew up hearing my dad’s stories about World War II. Sometimes I did not really listen, though, and I regretted what I missed. He is in his seventies now. One day I read a newspaper article about the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. The article said that even the youngest veterans of the war are now over seventy years old, and every month around 30,000 of them pass away. To honor my father, I joined the World War II Memorial Society. His name has now been entered into a book of remembrances at the memorial so future generations can honor him also.
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The Web site of the Memorial society describes World War II as "the defining event of the twentieth century in American history." I decided to learn more about my father’s role in this important historical event. I already knew some facts about the terrible war fought in Europe between 1939 and 1945. I knew the United States joined the war against Hitler in December 1941. I knew my father was in the U.S. Eighth Air Force, 306th bombardment group, stationed in England. I also knew most of the men my father served with were barely out of their teens.
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