The 489th Bombardment Squadron in Corsica

1. 489th BS Insignia from B-25 at MAAM, 2. 340th BG Insignia from Q. Kaiser's A2 flight jacket (1944), 3. NASA space shuttle photo of Corsica, 4. 12th Air Force patch, 5. U.S. Army Air Corps Patch .


The Airfield and Base at Alesani, Page 2

NOTE: Whenever you see the blue colored font on this page (aside from links), that indicates a direct quote from radio-gunner Quentin C. Kaiser of the 489th bombardment squadron.

The 489th tent area for the enlisted men at Alesani, Corsica. Photograph by Quentin Kaiser
These are the kinds of tent camps the guys in the 489th bombardment squadron lived in when they weren't dropping bombs and getting shot at. "What you see is the prime 489th area with the mess area at the bottom of the hill and the administrative area off to the right. Most of the enlisted men bunked here. The officers' area was out of the picture to the right". That's the Tyrrhenian Sea in the background. My dad said that if they could see the island of Elba (It may actually have been the island of Monte Cristo) when they woke up in the morning they knew they were going to fly missions that day. ("Able was I ere I saw Elba." Try spelling that backwards. Napolean was born on Corsica by-the-way).



The 489th tent area with the house labeled.
Remarkably, Dominique Taddei sent me this picture taken from a similar vantage point as my father's picture above. The house was the old railway station and was not used since the Germans had destroyed the railroad bridges. A woman named Rose lived there with her sons Ange and Guy. "My tent was the large white one in the left foreground."



Quentin Kaiser's tent mates at Alesani, Corsica.
These are some of my dad's tent mates at Alesan Air Field on Corsica. From left to right, that's radio-gunner Quentin Kaiser, tail-gunner George Carter, top turret-gunner/engineer Bill Devine and a guy named Naughton who was a tail-gunner from another crew.



The dog named 'CANADAK'. Quentin Kaiser - Christmas 1944. Quentin Kaiser's main crew on B-25J 'Stella' 9F.
On the left is a dog that frequented the base at Alesan Air Field, Corsica. He moved in with my dad and his tent mates for a while and so my dad named him CANADAK. You can see he's wearing a collar my dad made for him with his name on it which was derived from the names of his tent mates: CArter, NAughton, Devine A nd Kaiser. "The real significance of this picture is that behind the dog is the one-tube radio receiver I made so we could listen to the BBC in the evening. We used to listen to Axis Sally, too, but I am not sure if that was with this receiver."

Middle picture: "This picture was taken on December 25, 1944 when I came back from Christmas dinner. Holiday dinners were very good in the Army and you had to develop the dexterity needed to balance a fully loaded mess kit."

The picture on the right shows the crew of my dad's main plane called Stella (9F). This is the original crew that flew across the Atlantic via Ascension Island which was "the long way" over. "I don't remember where it was taken but it may have been in north Africa on the way over since we are all dressed up. I guess it was taken by George Carter our tail-gunner. I'm not sure about Voss and I don't remember his first name. We had several copilots. Voss was a real hot pilot and on a training mission on Corsica he flew his B-25 under some high-tension lines up in the mountains but he did not get low enough and he caused a blackout. I don't remember what they did to him. George Fitch was killed in a training mission after he returned to the states. He used to invite me over to his tent to play chess and one day he had a visitor who chastised him for fraternizing with an enlisted man after I left. The Air Force was different I guess. Norman Moerbe was our bombardier/ navigator. He was very fond of saying, "This is it!" whenever we saw any evidence of the war as we flew over to Europe. We all knew what he meant when we got out after landing at Alesan just three days after the big raid. That was the ultimate "This is it!" with all the wreckage spread out before us. He was the old man of the crew."


Go on to The Airfield and Base at Alesani, Page 3.