Roger Krakow was born October 3, 1923, in Davenport, IA, and grew up there. He joined Army ROTC while enrolled at Iowa State because it offered a three-year deferment from active duty while he completed his studies. During his studies, the deferment rules changed, and active duty started early. He was assigned to the Army Air Force and became a navigator, and was also trained as a bombardier. Flight crews were shipped to different army posts for specific aspects of their training, and Roger was shipped to Santa Ana, CA, then Kingman, AZ, then Hondo, TX, back to Lincoln, NE and finally to B-17 school in Ardmore, OK. By then, it was fairly late in the war. He and thousands of other men were shoehorned into the Queen Mary and sent to Britain, where they disembarked in Scotland, and were then sent to a permanent post near London.
His first mission was December 15, 1944. He flew a total of 45 bombing missions before the war ended, and the schedule was grueling. Pilots and crew were up at 5:30, then breakfast followed by a briefing for officers, then into the planes which took off 30 seconds apart. The planes then assembled their formation and headed for targets. The most memorable was the massive bombing attack on February 3, 1945, targeting Berlin. The attack involved hundreds of bombers, and was designed to break the remaining will of the German population.
After the war ended, he and his comrades sailed home on the Queen Elizabeth. He briefly flew a twin-engine Mosquito on government mapping assignments, then went to civilian work. Roger thought he might be called back for Korean War duty, but it didn’t happen. Roger commented that the most lasting benefit he received from his military service was the training in personal health and fitness, which he keeps to this day.
