Donald Harry "Mickey" Schneider
Kentucky Post, Friday, 31 December 1934, page 1
Decorated for his 25 missions and the shooting down of two Foche-Wulf 190s in combat over occupied Europe, Staff Sergt. Donald H "Mickey" Schneider, 24 yar old son of Mr. and Mrs. Al Schneider, 38 Forest avenue, Ft Thomas, likened his flight to "the first inning of a baseball game. On the first few flights, I apparently was all excited and everything appeared to be fantastic as we flew over enemy occupied territory and had anti-aircraft shells exploding all around you and the enemy fighters darting everywhere."
"Of course, my first flights apparently were for hardening up for the tougher jobs to follow, as our first missions were over occupied France," the young Ft Thomas sergeant, a ball turret gunner aboard one of the nation's flying fortresses. Sergt. Schneider, a member of the crew of "Romance the Second" which flew on more than two score bombing flights, received his tougher job within a short time, participating in the mass bombing flights over Schweinfort in German's heavily fortified Ruhr Valley during which the flights lost 60 bombers on one mission and 59 on another.
"The flak burst right under our wing," Sergt. Schneider recounted, "It tossed the plane around like a toy balloon in a strong wind. We were leading the formation and just going into the target when we were hit. The pilot was struck in the abdomen and his co-pilot was struck in the face and blinded with blood. It all happened within a few minutes and then the plane was righted by the navigator who took over the pilot's seat. The navigator flew the plane over the target and then we made the run for home. The plane, its one motor feathered and disabled and several hundred holes in it, finally was landed by the co-pilot,."
For his 25 missions, Sergt. Schneider has been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, three Oak Leaf clusters, the Silver Star for blitz air-warfare and service ribbons. Sergt. Schneider is somewhat timid about his decorations, carrying them in his pocket at all time and being reluctant to tell how he "did his bit" as a member of the bomber crew.
**********
Ft Thomas Living
A veteran of some of the Eighth Air Force's most grueling sorties, Staff Sgt. Donald H "Mickey" Schneider, 23, son of Mr. and Mrs. Albert J Schneider, has been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, according to a dispatch from the Bomber Command Station in England. A ball turret gunner in a Flying fortress Sgt. Schneider participated in both Schweinfurt raids, three against Hamburg and one each over Kiel and Kassel. During the latter on July 28, Sgt. Schneider shot down a Nazi Focke-Wulf 190 fighter plane.
He calls the first Schweinfurt mission of August 17 his toughest. Like every gunner in his group that day, he kept his guns blazing for nearly three hours as his formation beat off a horde of more than 350 attacking German fighters. Sgt. Schneider enlisted in the Army Air Forces at Fort Thomas Ky. May 1942. Son of Mr. and Mrs. Albert J Schneider, he is best known in Bellevue, where he attended the Bellevue High School and was employed as a clerk for Petri Florists before entering the army. He was 1942 President of the Baptist Training Union of the Bellevue Baptist Church.