A prayer over Cologne

On Feb. 24, 1941, about 9 1/2 months before Pearl Harbor, Robert S. Patten joined the Army via the 103rd Infantry Regiment, Maine National Guard. Now a Bangor resident, Patten soon volunteered for foreign service. The Army sent him to Great Britain, where he met and married his wife, Phyllis. They recently celebrated their 51st anniversary.

Patten still displays two letters from Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, “who personally transferred me to the 8th Air Force, where I served as an aerial gunner on a B-24 (a four-engine, twin-tailed bomber known as the Liberator).”

On Oct. 15, 1944, Patten participated in a bombing mission against Cologne, Germany. “We were under heavy antiaircraft fire, and our plane was hit several times,” he recalled. “My prayer was to return to my wife, Phyllis, in England and to once again be with my family back home in Maine.

“God answered my prayer, and after crash-landing our plane at our air base, all in our crew were saved,” Patten said.

His outfit was transferred to the United States to convert to the B-29 Superfortresses. “Thank God the war ended, and I left the Air Force and returned to Maine in September 1945,” Patten recalled.

— Brian Swartz