Honoring the Legacy of Rural Iowa's Greatest Generation

Gerald Dial, Iowa farmer

As the world remembered Dec. 7, 1941, people in my neighborhood around Lake City were mourning the loss of a local farmer and honored veteran whose life changed forever after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

As I heard of Gerald Dial's passing on Dec. 6, I recalled how this salt-of-the-Earth Iowa farmer worked hard all his life, raising crops, livestock and a remarkable family. As I got to know Gerald through my career as an ag journalist, I'll never forget the day in May of 2006 when Gerald was preparing to plant his 60th crop.

As I prepared to write an article of Farm News in time for Memorial Day, I interviewed Gerald, who enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force at age 17. Here's the story of Gerald, a B-17 tail gunner and member of the Greatest Generation whose inspiring legacy lives on:

Aiming for Victory:

Lake City Veteran Recalls World War II B-17 Bombing Missions

By Darcy Dougherty Maulsby

 

            When the graduation speaker admonished Lohrville High School’s class of 1942 that their lives had changed after Dec. 7, 1941, Gerald Dial was up for the challenge.

Gerald Dial, Army Air Corps

            “I wanted to go into the military because all my school mates had gone,” said Dial, 80, a farm kid who enlisted in the Army Air Force at 17. The train ride from Des Moines to Wichita Falls, Texas, for basic training at Sheppard Field marked the first of many journeys that would ultimately land Dial, who volunteered for gunnery school, in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. As a tail gunner and ball turret gunner, his 35 combat missions in a B-17 “Flying Fortress” over Germany, Austria, Romania and other eastern European nations to destroy railroads, bridges and oil refineries would earn him recognition for valor from the Lieutenant General of the U.S. Army.

            “In air battles of great intensity, Gerald Dial has gallantly and repeatedly carried the offensive against heavy opposition to the heart of the enemy and has, by his unfaltering courage, earned the gratitude and praise of his fellow countrymen, as well as his commander.”

Gerald's WW II scrapbook

Preparing for war

            Dial, who had two brothers who also served in World War II, recalled how the training his crew received in Sioux City before shipping out prepared them for combat in Europe. After completing his training at Sheppard Field and Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Dial was sent to Lincoln, Neb., where the military put together flight crews. When the 10 members of Dial’s crew were assembled, they were sent to Sioux City for additional training in the spring and early summer of 1943.

“We flew almost every day over the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas,” recalled Dial, who farms near Lake City and planted his 60^th crop this spring. “Because the pilots were green and had to learn how to fly in tight formations, we lost more planes at Sioux City than overseas.”

Being stationed in Sioux City came with one big perk—Dial could catch a train to Manson and hitchhike home to see his high school girlfriend, Alice Ann, and his family. “Those were the days when it cost 15 cents to take your date to the show in Lohrville,” Dial recalled.

Movie dates quickly became a thing of the past when Dial and the crew were sent to Italy in the latter part of 1943. The crew’s operational assignment put them with the 99^th Bomb Group at Tortorella, a few miles south of Foggia on Italy’s eastern side. The crew lived in six-man tents heated by an improvised stove (made from a 50-gallon oil barrel) that ran on 100-octane gas. “We lived in those tents all through the winter, but we were far luckier than the infantrymen who slept in the mud,” Dial recalled.

When Dial’s pilot, Pat O’Neil, and the crew flew their first mission 10 days after joining the 99^th, they targeted a troop concentration near Bologna which was bombed from 20,000 feet. “We thought there was quite a bit of flak, although this was really a fairly mild run in comparison to what we found the next day over Blechammer on the German-Polish border,” said Dial, who always took Alice Ann’s ring with him on each mission he flew. “A terrific barrage put several holes in our plane.”



Gerald enjoyed lunch in the field with his wife,
Alice Ann, and son, Dwight
 

            Before that first flight over Europe, Dial was promoted from a corporal to a staff sergeant. Air Force rules at the time specified that servicemen had to be at least a staff sergeant to fly in combat. “It had something to do with the fact that if we were shot down and captured, this higher rank would help us receive better treatment,” said Dial, a 59-year member of the Lake City American Legion.

It also reminded the men’s loved ones all too clearly about the danger the crew faced. At 18, Dial was the youngest member of his crew, which included three men whose wives had babies on the way. For Dial’s girlfriend Alice Ann (who married Dial in 1945), it wasn’t always easy to keep her mind on her home economics studies at Iowa State. “In my Delta Zeta sorority, four of us had boyfriends, husbands or brothers who were tail gunners. It was hard to see young guys on campus who’d come back from the war with legs gone and other injuries.”

Remembering a cold Christmas

For Dial, bombing missions (which typically started at 4 a.m. and wrapped up by 4 p.m.) were determined by the weather. The downtime created a little free time to write letters to loved ones and jot a few quick notes in the “My Service Diary” that Alice Ann’s father had given him before he left for Europe. In an entry dated Oct. 1, 1944, Dial wrote, “Sat around in tent and read. Played blackjack all day. Rained to beat heck the whole day. Tonight went into the Red Cross, wrote letters and had ice cream and cake.”

Dial would have plenty to write about after a bombing mission on Christmas Day 1944. The crew, who had to wear oxygen masks in the unpressurized bomber starting at 10,000 feet, also wore electrically-heated flight suits to protect against temperatures that dropped to 50 degrees below zero. As the mercury plunged, Dial’s suit failed to heat up. “Going to the target wasn’t so bad because the sun was shining into my position, but coming home I was in the shade as the plane’s radio picked up Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas,’” recalled Dial, “I vowed I’d never be that cold again.”

Coming home



Gerald farmed near Lake City and Yetter for
more than 60 years.

            After returning to the United States on a troop transport ship in May 1945, Dial became a gunnery instructor at Laredo Army Air Base in Texas. Because Japan wasn’t out of the war yet, Dial and his new bride knew there was a chance he could be sent overseas again. Both were relieved when the war ended in August.

            “I got off the train in Jefferson, my folks picked me up, and within a week I was running the two-row corn picker,” said Dial, who picked corn through December and helped with hay baling, threshing and other jobs until he and Alice Ann had the chance to rent a farm west of Lake City in December 1946.



A long time member of Lake City's American Legion,
Gerald served oyster stew each winter.

A few years ago this farm where the Dials raised their seven children and still live today provided a unique setting for a reunion of the five surviving members of Dial’s World War II crew. As old scrapbooks, photos and letters were pulled out once again, the words that Officer James Sutton wrote to Dial on Oct. 30, 1945, from the Laredo Army Air Field rang as true as they did decades ago. “Your contributions toward the victory for which we fought, and which, after almost four long and trying years, we so recently won, have earned the undying gratitude of our country.”

My Top Social Media Tips for Farmers: REVEALED!

There's nothing better than talking food and farming. That's why I was honored when the editors at the Iowa Soybean Association recently asked me to answer five "ask the expert" questions for the Summer 2013 Iowa Soybean Review.

 
5 Questions with Darcy Maulsby

  1.  What does agriculture mean to you?
#Faith, #family and #food.
 
2.  In what ways do you serve as a spokesperson for agriculture?
I try to post updates daily on Twitter and Facebook, which is almost like a mini-blog for me. I’m also a member of the Iowa Farm Bureau Speaker Corps, which has given me the opportunity to do media interviews with Bloomberg, USA Today, the Des Moines Register and 1040 WHO Radio. In addition, I’ve delivered keynote speeches at the regional meetings of various ag commodity groups encourage others to help share agriculture’s story.


  3.  Why do you feel it is important for farmers be involved in social media?
If you’re not at the table, you’re probably on the menu. People are talking about food, farmers and agriculture every day in social media. While there’s a lot of misinformation, I’m glad these conversations are taking place, because it means ag is relevant. As the author Oscar Wilde noted, “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”


We have powerful opportunities every day to influence these conversations. Even better, we can make it happen in a matter of seconds from our smartphones or computers. If we don’t take the initiative to share our positive stories, we run the risk of always appearing defensive and contrarian. I never want to miss an opportunity to share what farmers are doing right and show how we are always looking for ways to improve.

 

4.  What tips do you have for farmers who want to have an online presence?


• Start by listening. Get a feel for how people interact on social media platforms, and make comments on posts that resonate with you.


• Be authentic. You don’t have to be a professional public relations specialist to join the conversation. Explain what you do on your farm, and use lots of pictures to help tell the story.


• Find common ground.  Both farmers and our non-farm friends support clean water, healthy food, animal well-being and conservation. Show how your farming practices contribute to these goals.


• Build bridges, not walls. While it’s easy to say we must educate our non-farm friends, people can be offended by the implication that they aren’t educated. I prefer to call it connecting the dots. Plant the seeds of change by sharing agriculture’s story from the farmer’s perspective. This can also be a good way refute common myths—or at least get people thinking there might be another side to the story.


• Don’t be boring. Mix things up, and throw in a curve ball now and then. I sometimes talk about cooking, crazy things that happen during the day, my pets and other topics that relate to my life on an Iowa farm but appeal to a wide range of people.


  5.  As you evolve your agricultural voice, what message do you want your followers to hear?
I’m proud of my family’s farming heritage and love sharing an inside look at the modern miracle that is Iowa agriculture.
 

Editor’s note: Darcy (Dougherty) Maulsby grew up on a Century Farm between Lake City and Yetter. Darcy earned her undergraduate degrees in journalism/mass communication and history from Iowa State University (ISU) in 1996. She completed her master’s degree in business administration and marketing at ISU in 2004. In addition to running her own ag marketing/communications company (www.darcymaulsby.com) since 2002, Darcy enjoys helping out on her family’s corn and soybean operation. She also serves as vice president of the Calhoun County Farm Bureau and is a member of the Iowa Soybean Association’s Ag-Urban Initiative class of 2013.

You can follow Darcy on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/darcy.maulsby on Twitter at http://twitter.com/darcymaulsby