Homan, John

John Homan was born January 5, 1924 in Parlin, New Jersey. His parents had emigrated from England in the 1920s, where John’s father had served in the Royal Navy in the Great War. Once in the U.S., they settled in Maine before moving to the Garden State. John grew up there alongside his three siblings during the tough times of the Great Depression, and he recalls that his father worked just 3 days/week and that they had to refinance the family home. When the war came, John was 17 and he took on the job of being an airplane spotter in N.J. – in case of enemy attack – and happily that never happened. He did try to volunteer for the forces when he was 18, but there was quite a wait and he ended up being accepted in the Army Air Corps just after he turned 19.  First there was a stint in the army which began at Fort Dix, but when he got that preferred assignment he was sent down south to Alabama and Georgia, where he learned to fly.  John hoped to be a fighter pilot, but he was sent for twin engine training across multiple bases in the country; along the way he was crewed up and they were assigned a brand new B-24 Liberator which they piloted across the Atlantic in the spring of 1944. They stayed in Ireland for a time, stationed with replacement crews and waiting to be called to action.  That happened after a few weeks, and they were sent to the 489th Bomb Group, 845th Squadron. The first mission came soon enough, John’s baptism by fire.  They encountered flak on that mission, and German fighters on the next – and those were just the first two of John’s 34 missions.  Here John details the life of the air crew, from flying missions to down time – and all that came in between. John and his crew completed their required missions during the winter of 1944, and the squadron was disbanded, and the men returned to the U.S. ready to train on B-29s – an “offer” that John politely declined. He instead went into training command and that was followed by a brief stint in Transport Command. John’s discharge came soon after; as he says he was asked to join the reserves – but he politely declined. John had been dating Irene before he went overseas, and on his return the two of them recommenced their relationship, and went back to work and then school on the GI Bill, and in 1946 they married.  They started a family and found their place in postwar America, and John put the war away.  Later in life he revisited it, publishing his memoir Into the Cold Blue.  John Homan was interviewed by Scott Masters at his home in State College, Pennsylvania in March 2026.