Bazil "Bud" Murray's experience aboard bomber aircraft in World War II got off to a bumpy start.
First, his five-man Army Air Forces crew had to wait a week for their airplane while the other 25 crews headed overseas.
Then, when his crew finally arrived in China and their airplane was on the ground, the Japanese bombed it to pieces.
"All we had was just spare parts," Murray said. "It never flew a mission."
But Murray would fly plenty of missions after that - 54 in all, in the span of less than a year.
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The Sisseton, S.D., resident entertained about 50 people Saturday with his war stories as the first speaker in the Fargo Air Museum's new "Saturday in the Sky" lecture series.
Museum Executive Director Fran Brummund said there's a lot of interest in the local heritage of military service.
"It's a wonderful thing to do during the wintertime, to showcase different military veterans with stories to share," she said.
Murray told his tales like they happened yesterday, drawing upon the rich memories engrained in his 91-year-old mind.
The Peever, S.D., native served as a radio operator - and, during combat, as a gunner - as part of a B-25 crew that also had a pilot, navigator/bombardier, engineer and tail gunner.
They flew their first mission in China in March 1944, tasked with taking out a Japanese cargo ship. Rather than bomb the boat from high above, the pilot decided to attack from low altitude and "skip bomb" the ship, Murray said.
"There were pieces of that boat flying higher than we were," he said.
Flying with the famous Flying Tigers, Murray's 11th Bomb Squadron crew often had to rely on Chinese military intelligence, which wasn't always reliable, he said. Once, they were given the approximate location of a single tank to destroy.
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"We found our tank, but the trouble is there were 12 tanks there," he said.
The B-25 was set afire in the battle. Murray went to retrieve the fire extinguisher from the airplane's radio room and found his tail gunner on the floor, his leg shot apart just below the knee. Murray put the fire out before tying a tourniquet around the man's leg, he said.
Later, the Chinese sent the crew to the Yangtze River to destroy a troop carrier - which turned out to be a gunboat. The crew received credit for sinking the ship but lost an engine in the process and barely cleared a mountain range on the way out, he said.
When flying back to base after one mission, the tower radioed and told them not to land because the base was being bombed. Murray's crew flew around until the B-25 ran out of gas and they had to parachute out. They made it back to base after two weeks on the ground, aided by the Chinese people.
"They fed us food they probably should have eaten themselves," he said.
Murray saved part of his parachute and had it made into a scarf embroidered with a blue dragon and the Chinese and American flags, a souvenir he proudly displayed Saturday.
Murray flew his last mission in December 1944. All five members of his crew made it home safely and reunited 40 years later.
"Us guys, we knew what we were fighting for in those days," he said.
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The lecture series will continue in March, Brummund said.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Mike Nowatzki at (701) 241-5528
