Brendan T. Byrne

Brendan Thomas Byrne was born in West Orange, New Jersey, in 1924. He is known both as a former governor of the state and for his sense of humor, perhaps best expressed in his comment that when he died, he would like to be buried in Hudson County “so he could continue to be active in politics.” This was, of course, a reference to the county’s reputation for political manipulation.

When WWII broke out with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Byrne was a student at West Orange High School. He recalled that it was a Sunday, and he was listening to a WOR radio music show and shining his shoes, which he did every Sunday, when the news came. Byrne realized immediately that he would probably have to serve in the military soon.

The Byrne family did not have a strong military tradition, although his uncle had served in the Spanish American War. His father was the Public Safety Director for West Orange, which meant that in wartime he oversaw homeland defense for the town, organizing air raid drills and other emergency procedures.

Byrne was a student at Seton Hall University in 1943 when he decided to join the military. He wanted to be an officer and thought his best chance at that would be in the Army Air Corps. Byrne took a physical test and passed it in all save for his blood pressure, which was too high. Given another chance, he passed the blood pressure test and was enrolled in the Air Corps.

Byrne was sent from New Jersey to Fort Knox in Kentucky, and then to Ellington Field in Texas for preflight and flight training, which included flying in a Piper Cub airplane. At the end of the training, he took and passed a test to become a navigator. Byrne was then sent to Tampa, Florida, for more training, and there met his crew. The crew was assigned to a B-17 bomber and, in August 1944, flew on that aircraft to Fort Dix in New Jersey, and then to Maine, the Azores, Marrakech, Morocco and then Foggia, Italy, where they were based for air raids into the Balkans. When he arrived in Italy, Byrne was approached by an enlisted man who said, “I hope you have better luck than the guys you replaced.” Byrne responded, “so do I.”

Byrne recalled that he was “scared to death” on his first combat mission, not so much of the enemy, but of the possibility that he would screw up. He said, however, that he became ‘a rather good navigator” as time went on. Byrne eventually became the lead navigator, in the first of 36 planes in the formation.

A typical mission would involve getting up early and going for a briefing, then boarding a B-17 to fly to a target and drop bombs. A mission would last for six to seven hours in the air, usually flying at 20,000 feet and occasionally at 30,000 feet. The bomb run at the climax of the mission took about six minutes. There was no threat from German fighter aircraft, but large numbers of anti-aircraft guns were deployed to protect targets, which include oil refineries, railroad yards and factories. Byrne recalled that his crew listened to “Axis Sally” on the radio. They ignored her propaganda, but she played good music.

On one mission to Athens, Greece, Byrne’s plane was separated from the remaining aircraft on the mission and began to run out of fuel. They barely made it back; he remarked that he had his “hand on the door” ready to bail out. Byrne recalled that as his “closest call” during his service.

Having completed his required missions, Byrne rotated back to the United States in December 1944.  After a brief leave at home, he was sent to a base in Texas, where he and other navigators were retrained as bombardiers. Byrne was discharged in September 1945.