My Grandpa Flew a B-29 Super Fortress
I got my name from my grandpa Savage. When he was a kid and well into his military service, he went by Joey. That’s what I used to go by too, and I’m still called Joey by family members and old friends and acquaintances. I shortened my name to Joe at 17 when I got my first real job. I was hired on as the night porter at Bruckner’s Truck Sales off 820 in Bluemound, TX. They had uniforms and I’d have my name embroidered on the pocket of my purple coveralls. I didn’t want the whole shop calling me Joey and baby talking me, so in a split second decisions while filling out the paper work that day, I wrote Joe. It stuck. My grandpa’s real name was George Joseph Savage. I didn’t really know him, but he was a great grandpa. Being veteran’s day, it’s hard not to think about my grandpas. My mother’s dad, Slater “Doc” King was also in the military, although the military was less of a family identity on my mom’s side.
People have written some small stuff about my grandpa, but for all the hero worship done at his feet during my youth, he was just one of hundreds of people like him. He was a man for his time, and he was also a damn good man. His biggest accomplishments were keeping his crew safe. He was the captain and pilot of the biggest damned air boat known to man. I often wonder how a stone cold killer who was involved in bombing raids killing more people than that of either atomic blasts and decimating over 16 square miles of Tokyo in total, could be so kind and jolly. For some perspective, both atomic blast combined for a total square miles of destruction were under 7. When George died in 2012, I was helping clean up his property and I found a wooden, hand carved peace sign hung up in the green house where he grew his Alvera and other plants. I brought it out to my dad asking in amazement, “So, was grandpa a hippie?”
During this mission of true mass destruction, my grandfather and his plane crash landed on Iwo Jima. My grandfather’s plane is in the April 9th 1945 edition of Life Magazine taking up a two page spread. George was one of 300 B-29s pilots flying individually on March 9th 1945. Because they were lacking feul, due to heavy flak and enemy fire rupturing a tank, my grandad was able to land the plane without suffering any casualties to his crew. This was mission #3 for him and he’d go on to fly 27 more missions during WWII. I can’t imagine the amount of death out there and, in a way, all so I could be born. If he’d died in that crash, my mother would have never met my father. It’s fascinating to think about. What if I was to be born a Japanese, but my grandfather killed that man? Or so many other thoughts about war and what it means to be an American. Growing up it was simple, you respected, revered and loved your granddad and all your family because they were your family. Getting older, I started to notice some things, like blind support for the arm forces in general, which my grandfather, who stayed at Lt. Colonel for many years at the end of his career due to his ‘not keeping his mouth shut, would definitely not agree with.
Hanging out with him toward the end of his life he would consistently go off party platform with some stuff, although to my knowledge he was a straight ticket voter and loyal party member. When the news was raving about Social Security going away, my grandpa would pull out his little papers and go over the amount of interest accumulated each year, “They’re going to steal it, ya see?” and you could barely hear the faint traces of his Chicago upbringing in his voice. He’d lived in Aledo since the 70’s and was a world traveler since his early teenage days, but I like to imagine what it was like to be a 16 year old with your own plane.
Here’s a little something I found he’d written on this website detailing all those WWII missions:
Epilogue
”You Think You Got Troubles” by George Savage
“As some of you may know, I have a rather large garden and to keep it green in these hot, dry Texas summers, I have a windmill. I was getting it ready for the coming summer and was working alone on top of the 40' tower. When I finished, I discovered that, over the course of several trips up the tower, I had brought up about 300# of tools, spare parts and hardware that now had to be returned to the ground.
Rather than carry the now unneeded items down by hand, I decided to lower the items down in a small barrel by using a pulley which, fortunately, was attached to a gin pole at the top of the tower. Securing the rope at ground level, I went to the top of the tower and loaded all items into the barrel. Then I went back to the ground and untied the rope, holding it tightly to insure a slow descent of the 300# of stuff.
Due to my wife's expertise at cooking, I weigh in the neighborhood of 160#, somewhat less than the 300# of stuff. Due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rapid rate of speed up the side of the tower. In the vicinity of the 20' level I met the barrel coming down. This explains the rather large gash on my head and broken collar bone. Slowing only slightly, I continued my ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were three knuckles deep into the pulley. Fortunately, by this time, I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold on to the rope in spite of my pain. At about the same time however, the barrel of stuff hit the ground with such speed that the bottom fell out of the barrel. It was now devoid of stuff.
You will recall my weight, being much more than an empty barrel, as you might imagine, I began a rapid descent down the side of the tower. In the vicinity of the 20' level, I met the barrel coming up. I went thrnugh the bottomless barrel accounting for lacerations of my legs and lower body and loss of a considerable amount of skin. The encounter with the barrel slowed me enough to lessen my injuries when I landed on the pile of tools and stuff. Only three vertebrae were cracked. I regret to report, however, that as I lay there on top of the pile of stuff, momentarily dazed, in great pain, unable to stand up or move and, watching the empty barrel 40' above me, I again lost my presence of mind.
I let go of the rope.
If everything is going your way you're probably going in the wrong direction”