Documentary 2016, Willard Richard Irwin was 19 years of age when he enrolled in the Army Air Corps, 29 days after the Japanese assaulted Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Irwin prepared in airplane support on the P-40 Warhawk with the 57th Fighter Group. It was the principal American warrior gathering to be utilized as a part of full-scale fight in the European theater.
On July 16, 1942, Irwin cruised on the French boat, Louis Pasteur, from New York City Harbor headed for Egypt.
Documentary 2016, "We cleared out at 8 in the morning and viewed the Statue of Liberty until she blurred away in the fog," said the eighty-eight year old Irwin.
They crossed the Atlantic to their first stop at Freetown, Sierra Leone, Africa, yet not before their boat experienced a German submarine. The destroyer escort sunk the sub. From Sierra Leone, they cruised around the tip of South Africa and up past the island of Madagascar and through the Red Sea. When they achieved the Suez Canal, they rode by rail auto to Tel Aviv in Palestine.
Documentary 2016, The 57th was disconnected to the administration of the British eighth Army in Egypt, under the order of Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery. Their principle goal was to thrashing Germany's Field Marshal Erwin Rommel who was pushing eastbound to catch Egypt. The employment of the 57th was to give 50-gauge weapon ground shoot for antiaircraft and keep supplies and weapons from achieving Rommel's armed force.
From Tel Aviv, the 57th started their quest for Rommel westbound along the Mediterranean Sea.
Irwin joined in the second Battle of El Alamein when the 57th recovered it in October 1942. From that point they trekked crosswise over desert sands to catch El Daba in Egypt.
"The shelling by Rommel's planes on our base was just about an every day occasion," said Irwin. "Yet, the British were knowledgeable about desert war strategies and taught us well empowering our survival.
"The British Spitfire planes had a restricted extent which implied that the base must be moved every now and again to stay inside 10 miles of the battling front. We needed to tear the base down and move the hardware to the following place and set up again before the planes arrived. We occasional had an opportunity to change garments a great deal less wash them." The bases were moved more than 30 times while propelling westbound crosswise over north Africa.
"Our own particular supplies were constrained and our gear was primitive. On occasion we needed to utilize parts from deserted German, Italian and British trucks along the war zone. We regularly needed to truck water in from 90 miles away. The nourishment was lamb, spook hamburger (corned meat) and sweet tea," said Irwin.
In November, 1942, the 57th moved into Libya and took Tobruk, then Benghazi. At that point came the clash of El Agheila, then the taking of Tripoli in January, 1943. A couple days after the fact, Winston Churchill visited the gathering.
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