Therman D. Brown

Therman D. Brown and crew were with HALPRO.

Therman wrote an unpublished manuscript of is time with HALPRO.  It is titled War Stories.  Below are some excerpts from that work.  We have placed the various descriptions in chronological order.  For the missions, click on the date.

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the night of June 21-22, 1942.

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By the end of June, 1942, Rommel had pushed the British to the Egyptian border.  It appeared that it was only a matter of time before he would have all of Egypt.  The fighters now need the Egyptian bases and we had to look for a base farther away from the front.  It was to be Lydda, the airport for Tel-Aviv.

We had to install our bomb bay fuel tank and baggage racks for the move.  While the flight was less then 200 miles, we had to take everything including eighteen men and their baggage.  It was just too much weight for the surface of the revetment.  Ken DeLong said it best.  The wheels were stuck and so were we.  We had to stay another night.  We had been at Fayid for about twenty days.

The next morning, July 1, 1942, we were able to get the plane out of the revetment and on the way to Tel-Aviv.  Lydda is just a little inland from the Mediterranean Sea.  It was a bright, clear day.  From six thousand feet, I could not see the airfield.  There was a reason.  All the buildings and the runway had been camouflage with paint so you could see no straight lines.  It was quite effective.  Once we had figured it out.  We had no trouble but I took an extra pass over the air strip to be sure of what I was doing.  As we became familiar with the field, we were not conscious of the camouflage.  We landed without any problem but we were a day late.  Most of the other planes were already there.

Lydda Airport had a large, modern administration building.  The Halverson detachment set up its headquarters there and there was room for the officers to live.  There was no furniture.  Initially, we slept on the floor in our bed rolls but we quickly bought canvas cots from a local shop.  We were comfortable.

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July 7, 1942 (Editor's note - Therman records it as July 7.  It was probably July 8.

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On the 3rd and the 7th of September, 1942, we attacked convoys of ships.

On the 3rd, ....

On the 7th, ....

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My seventeenth mission ... September 14, 1942.

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Occasionally, but not often, the enemy would predict our return routes and try to jump us on our way home. ...

October 6, 1942, ...

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November 11, 1942

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November 15, 1942

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November 22, 1942

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November 29, 1942

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December 4, 1942

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December 12, 1942

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December 19, 1942

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December 28, 1942

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February 4, 1943

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February 24, 1943

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March 1, 1943