Albert L. Haggerty papers

Albert “Al” L. Haggerty was born in Eagle Creek, Alabama on October 6, 1920. Soon after the start of the war,  he tried to enlist as a pilot in the U.S. Naval Air Corps, but was rejected because he wore glasses. So he decided to wait until he was drafted in order to serve which occurred on September 10, 1942, and assigned to the U.S. Army Air Corps. Haggerty then attended basic training and instructed in airplane mechanics. He moved through several training camps and military bases in the process, including: Columbia SC, St. Petersburg and Clearwater FL, Gulfport MS, Patterson, NJ, Salt Lake City UT, Dyersburg TN, Wendover UT, Fairmont and Lincoln NE, Memphis TN and finally Morrison Field in West Palm Beach FL. at Dyersburg, Haggerty became acquainted with the mechanics of the B-17’s and later the B-24’s.  Later at Fairmont,  he finally would be assigned as crew chief to the B-24 numbered 636, on the 726th Squadron of the 451st Bomb Group.

One notable incident Haggerty recounts is that, at one point in Fairmont, while the air crew was practicing maneuvers. The 636 was flown twice by a different team who reported excessive oil pressure on the aircraft’s four engines, which forced Haggerty to lower it; despite good reports from Sidney Winski, the 636’s usual pilot. After the decrease in oil pressure the aircraft experienced failures in a series of flights in which one or more propellers failed. The most severe of these occurred during a flight between West Palm Beach and Trinidad, in which Haggerty was on board. There, the sudden stop of three of the four propellers in midair forced them to make an emergency landing in the isle of Saint Lucia. Haggerty would later blame the failure of the engines on the low oil pressure which he finally fixed once the crew got to Brazil. Because of this incident, the crew renamed their plane "Three Feathers."

Haggerty continued flying aboard "Three Feathers" as it took the Southern route on the way to Europe, making stops at Saint Lucia (forcefully), Trinidad, Belem and Natal in Brazil, Dakar in Senegal, Marrakech in Morocco and Telergma in Algeria until finally reaching Italy by the end of 1943. They remained stationed there until June 1945, first in the air base at Gioia de Colle and later in the one at Castelluccio dei Sauri both in the region of Apulia. Eventually, a new flying crew was assigned to Haggerty and the "Three Feathers," but after a short time, the plane was taken from them, deemed “war weary” and later scrapped. He remained at the base performing maintenance on different planes until the surrender of Germany.

By the time of the surrender of Japan, Haggerty was still in the service, back in the United States. He was discharged on September 12, 1945 having reached the rank of Master Sergeant and having been awarded a Bronze Star. Albert passed away in his home on July 29, 2010 in Tallahassee, Florida. Note written by Alberto Miguel Pérez-Rueda