Early Life
Herman Eugene Molen was born in Merit, Texas, on August 14, 1923. He graduated from Merit High School in 1941 and went on to attend Decatur Baptist College. He was studying to be a minister and had already been ordained when, in 1942, he left school to join the war effort.
That May, Molen enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He completed basic training in Mineral Wells, Texas, and later received his diploma from the Harlingen Army Gunnery School. Molen continued his training in Sebring, Florida, at a B-17 pilot school. Next, Molen went to Spokane, Washington, for crew training before finally heading out to Europe.
WWII Military Service
At just under twenty years old, Molen was sent overseas in April of 1943. He was assigned to the 305th Bombardment Group under the command of Curtis LeMay. Molen initially spent time in England with this unit, on average flying a couple of missions a month.
On July 4, 1943, Molen and three others in his crew were hit by enemy fire. During the melee, Molen, a ball turret gunner, was able to shoot down at least two German aircraft. Although he sustained injuries, he only spent ten days in a hospital recovering before resuming his duties.
Schweinfurt
During World War II, the city of Schweinfurt in Eastern Bavaria was a major industrial player in the production of ball bearings—key parts found in equipment such as tanks, aircraft, vehicles, etc. It is estimated that the five factories in Schweinfurt were responsible for two-thirds of all ball bearings manufactured in Germany. As a result, the Allied Forces were determined to neutralize Schweinfurt’s production output and deal the Nazis a significant blow. By 1943, it was decided that aerial attacks over Schweinfurt would go ahead in an attempt to destroy ball bearing factories and strike at the German war machine.
Early in the morning of October 14, 1943, Herman Molen was pulled from his barracks and told he was being sent on a mission. Once Molen was on the aircraft, he was told the crew would be flying over Schweinfurt. Earlier in the year, Molen was part of another team that had aborted a mission over France due to engine trouble on the way to the German city. This time, however, the second Schweinfurt Raid went ahead with Molen. Black Thursday, as the day came to be known, saw 291 B-17 Flying Fortresses launched into Germany.
The results for both Molen and the other Americans involved in Black Thursday were disastrous. The Army Air Force experienced their greatest loss to date. About 600 crewmen were either killed or taken as prisoners of war, and just under eighty aircraft were lost or damaged.
During the air raid, Molen’s aircraft was hit twice. The pilot bailed out, leaving the rest of the crew in the hands of his copilot. Eventually, Molen and his crew followed suit and jumped out of the plane. Of the ten crewmembers, nine survived and made it safely to land. The navigator injured his leg and was unable to walk, so Molen carried him.
POW Camp
Once on German soil, Molen and his men were surrounded by locals and taken to a German airbase as prisoners of war. The next day, they were transported to Frankfurt for questioning and later to Stalag 17, a POW camp in Austria where Molen spent nineteen months.
Molen attempted to escape three times. The first attempt was on Easter Sunday of 1944. Molen, along with a group of others, cut through barbed wire and made it out of one area of the camp, but were found a week later. A second attempt at freedom saw Molen and his cohorts volunteer as stretcher bearers for the hospital at the POW camp. They tried talking their way out of Stalag 17 but were soon found out.
Molen succeeded in getting out of the POW camp on his third escape attempt. He and others bribed guards so they would be sent out on work detail. The ploy was successful, and Molen’s crew was put on sewer duty in a nearby town. The group was able to escape with the help of a civilian underground network. Molen and his friends traveled to a new house each night, where different people sympathetic to the Allied cause agreed to hide them. Although they made it as far as Yugoslavia, Molen’s group encountered an undercover German officer and were recaptured.
After this episode, Molen was put into solitary confinement for ten days. Stalag 17 was then closed, and the Germans forced the POWs to go on a 123-mile march through Austria. Eventually, American troops came through and liberated the prisoners of Stalag 17, setting Molen and his fellow POWs free.
Life After World War II
Herman Molen’s military career did not end in 1945. In fact, Molen would go on to serve his country twice more before resuming civilian life. After spending some months in a hospital in Houston, Molen decided he wanted to go back into the Air Force. Molen fought in the Korean War and later served in Vietnam, making for a total of thirty-two years in the military.
References
“’Black Thursday’: The Bleakest day for U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II.” Air University, October 10, 2018, www.airuniversity.af.edu/News/Display/Article/1658594/black-thursday-the-bleakest-day-for-us-army-air-forces-in-world-war-ii/.
Correll, John T. “The Cost of Schweinfurt.” Air & Space Forces Magazine, February 1, 2010, www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0210schweinfurt/.
