WWII veteran recalls time in the Army Air Corps, now refurbishes old military vehicles

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WWII veteran

James Gribble leans against a restored U.S. Army Jeep from the Korean War. He holds up a brown leather "flyboy" jacket and points to the 21 patches stitched into the back - these are my missions, he said.

The parachute patch, he waves off. "They got carried away when they heard I got a Purple Heart. I never parachuted out of a plane."

Gribble, 96, didn't serve in Korea, though he's refurbished the Jeep - he's a veteran of World War II. He served as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1942-1945.

"I'm no hero, I just did a job," the humble veteran said.

About a year after he graduated high school in Nashville, Gribble was drafted into the war. Because of his short stature, he was selected to be a gunner and trained at the Tyndall Field Gunnery School (now Tyndall Air Force Base) in Panama City, Florida.

At the time, aviation and Air Corps were part of the U.S. Army. The Air Force did not become it's own branch until September 1947, after World War II.

He volunteered for the Army Air Corps while working in cryptography in Alaska, coding and decoding messages to protect military intelligence, but he grew bored of the work.

"It was time to get some action, " he said of volunteering for the Air Corps. He was excited to go to gunnery school and enjoyed his experience in the classroom and learning to handle and operate different types of guns.

Gribble was assigned to a nine-member crew of a B24 Liberator. As a bottom ball turret gunner, he was one of two soldiers in the bottom rear of the plane who operated machine guns.

The crew traveled from the United States, through Labrador, Greenland, Iceland, England and Portugal, and other areas, before arriving in Libya, and then southern Italy, where they would spend their time between missions.

North Africa was hot, Gribble said. And the fellows had to keep an eye out for scorpions.

"We were excited to get to combat," he said. "We didn't think we'd get hurt."

He and his crew flew 21 combat missions and 10 supply missions, delivering much-needed supplies like soap and food to American prisoners of wars trapped in camps in Austria and Bulgaria.

Once, when he was still a "greenhorn" (or a soldier who hadn't seen combat), Gribble's crew touched down at a base in Sicily. There the U.S. and it's allies had German solider POWs in a camp.

Gribble took two candy bars and tried to slip a Baby Ruth through to a German POW.

"I felt sorry for them," he said, remembering the barren ground and dirty soldiers behind the barbed wire. A military policeman yelled at Gribble: "They were just out there shooting at us and you'll encounter them again out there. Don't give him a damn thing."

But Gribble said he wasn't going to let him bully him - he tossed the POW the candy bars.

"That's just how he is, just something he would do," his daughter, Sandy Gribble said.

Today, Sandy Gribble and her father ride together in the jeep that James Gribble refurbished since he retired in 1999. A long-time local business man, the Gribbles moved to Chattanooga around 1950 when James Gribble still worked for General Electric.

In his retirement, he founded the Tri-State Military Vehicle Club, which shows off their vehicles in parades and at local schools and nursing homes. Gribble also collects old military weapons, a collection that started with a German Luger, or an old pistol, that he snuck through customs when he returned to the U.S. from Europe in 1945.

Contact staff writer Meghan Mangrum at mmangrum@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6592. Follow her on Twitter @memangrum.