World War II veteran shares tales of time as POW

Photo by David HopperBy KIM MORGAN
Chronicle Correspondent

For years, James “Pete” Mullinax was reluctant to share his experiences as a World War II pilot and prisoner of war.

But after the urging of his daughter, Julee MacDonald, the Panorama Village resident wrote his story.

Mullinax' autobiography, "Foes by Fate … Friends by Choice" not only describes his wartime experiences, but his cathartic returns to Germany and the friends he made in the same country where he was once held captive.

“I wanted people to understand the seriousness of the situation we were in (as prisoners of the Germans),” said Mullinax, 93. “We were at their mercy. “I also wanted to get across to the American reader that the Germans were humane.”

Mullinax makes it clear in his writing that flying airplanes had been a long-time dream of his while growing up in the small community of Gaffney, S.C. He studied engineering at the Colorado School of Mines off and on and also enrolled in the Colorado National Guard.

Mullinax was called to active duty with the U.S. Army's 168th Field Artillery unit in February, 1941. In 1942 Mullinax, a 1st Lieutenant at the time, successfully petitioned for a transfer to the Army Air Corps for pilot training.

After earning his pilot's wings, Mullinax was assigned to a crew and began training to fly Boeing B-17 bombers in combat missions. His unit was sent overseas in August 1943.

Mullinax and his crew flew eight missions over Europe before being ordered to join a raid on a ball bearing plant in Schweinfurt, Germany. An earlier raid with 600 U.S. planes had gone very wrong, and 60 B-17s were lost.

The day Mullinax and his crew flew, Oct. 14, 1943, would later be known as Black Thursday.

Three hundred bombers left from England that morning, and 60 were shot down.

Mullinax and his crew were approaching their target when their B-17 was hit by shrapnel. German fighter pilots plastered the plane with bullets, which struck the cockpit and injured Mullinax's left arm, side and leg.

The plane's left side and wing were hit, and an engine caught on fire.

Mullinax was found by a small group of civilians and, soon after, a German Nazi official. The official ordered one of the men to pick Mullinax up and drive him to a doctor's office.

Mullinax spent the night in a forced worker barracks. While he was there, a local girl convinced the guards to let her see him. She gave Mullinax a glass of goat's milk and a slice of bread.

“It was like a feast to me,” Mullinax said. “I never got her name, but I inquired about her when I went back to the town I was shot down in. A number of people knew who she was. She had died several years earlier.”

Mullinax spent two weeks in a hospital and then was sent to Stalag Luft 1, a POW camp in northern Germany.

Mullinax remained in prison until the war ended, and was discharged shortly after returning to the United States.

He completed his degree in geological engineering at Colorado School of Mines and spent his career working for Schlumberger in Wyoming and Houston before retiring in 1970.

He and his wife, Louise, were married 62 years, until her death in 2002. Louise was among the family members who encouraged Mullinax to put his memories in print.

Mullinax started his book in 2003 and published it in 2005. Locally, it is available at Hastings Books in Conroe.

The book devotes a great deal of space to Mullinax' return trips to Germany, beginning in 1998. During one visit he returned to the town he parachuted into, Osterburken, and met the mayor at the time and the nurse who cared for him in the hospital.

“It was amazing to me,” Mullinax said. “The tears were flowing.”

Today, there is a memorial to Mullinax in Osterburken and a tree planted by him and the former mayor.

“It was very heartwarming to be received the way we were by the Germans after the war,” he said.

Mullinax has a way of inspiring warmth among those he meets, friend Bruce Henry said.

“People have come up to him that never met him before and end up in deep conversation because he makes it easy to get to know him,” said Henry, who also lives in Panorama Village.

“My family and I are just in awe of him.”

For more information about obtaining a copy of Mullinax' book, email juleemac@suddenlink.net [1].