Claudette Olivier / The Church Point News
Harold Gournay, who was one of the most celebrated veterans in Eunice, died Thursday. He was 100 years old.
Gournay was a World War II veteran. He was in a B-17 bomber shot down over Yugoslavia in September 1944. Gournay bailed out, was captured and was a prisoner of war until the war ended.
Gournay is remembered in today’s edition by the reprint of a story published in 2014 and in special section saluting Eunice area veterans.
In October, Gournay’s 100th birthday was observed with a party by family and friends. Photos from that party in a special section published today.
VFW National Commander-in-chief William “Doc” Schmitz recognized Gournay in October with a certificate presented at the Eunice VFW Post 8971 Hall.
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By Claudette Olivier
claudette.olivier@eunicetoday.com
A plane on fire and riddled with holes from antiaircraft weapons. Only one bomb left, and the mechanisms to drop it damaged, and releasing the device manually would cost precious time.
That’s how Harold Gournay, a life-long Eunice resident, knew it was time to eject out of his B-17 over Yugoslavia while serving as a “toggler” in World War II.
“It was time to go,” Gournay, 94, said. “The plane had been hit by three or four shots. It was on fire, and we only had one bomb left. There was a big screwdriver to use to open and drop it, but there was no time to do it.”
To Gournay’s knowledge, he was the only survivor of the mission, and the only other crew member he can recall by name was Joe Dyer, a waist gunner from New York. The toggler manned the switch that released the aircraft’s fiery fury.
“They usually sent two older airman and a new crew on each mission,” Gournay said. “The nose of the plane would be torn off, the plane would be full of holes and we’d have missing engines and still make it back.”
Gournay, one of Louisiana’s last surviving World War II B-17 Flying Fortress aviators, will participate in the National WW II Museum’s WW II Airpower Expo Thursday through Sunday at the New Orleans Lakefront Airport. Gournay will be at the event Oct. 24, just two days after his 95th birthday. Fellow Louisiana B-17 veterans Jack Lengsfield and Herbert LeBlanc will also be at the event.
“They’re going to have a B-17 like I flew,” he said, “They want me to talk to people and explain things about what it was like flying the plane and how it flew.”
The event, which is expected to draw between 5,000-10,000 people, will also feature a B-29 Superfortress, B-24 Liberator, P-51 Mustang, SB2C Hell Driver, T-6 Texan, C-45 Expeditor and a Boeing Stearman as well as other various WW II military vehicles. There will be a total of 13 WW II veteran pilots at the event, and each flew at least one of the aircraft during the war.
Born in 1919 to Corbet and Blanche Gournay of Eunice, Gournay, a crop-duster and private plane pilot, traveled to Barksdale Airforce Base in Shreveport and enlisted in the service a month before Pearl Harbor, on Nov. 7, 1941.
“I went there and joined by myself,” Gournay said. “I was sent to Camp Shelby in Mississippi next. They put me in the field artillery division, and I pushed cannons up and down hills in Mississippi.”
From there, Gournay traveled to the Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, Mo., where he was stationed when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and then on to Denver, Colo. Gournay then completed air cadet training and attended armament school, where he learned to load bombs and guns aboard aircraft.
“I told ‘em i didn’t want to load ‘em, I wanted to shoot ‘em,” Gournay said. “After I completed aerial gunnery school, I was assigned to a B-17 crew.”
Gournay was sent overseas to Foggia, Italy, and from there, he began flying missions, dropping bombs over Austria, Germany, Romania, North Italy, Southern France and Czechoslovakia.
“I flew 17 or 18 missions,” Gournay said. “After the last one, the service started running out of bombardiers -- many of them had been killed in action -- and they made me a toggler,” he said. “I just had to drop the bombs.”
“I flew six missions as a toggler before we were shot down over Yugoslavia in September of 1944.”
Cut from shrapnel and caught by his parachute in a tree, Gournay was cut down by German soldiers and transported to Austria and then Nuremberg, Germany where he was interrogated.
“Before I could answer them, they would slap me,” Gournay recalled. “They slapped me so hard, I almost couldn’t even drink water.”
“They wanted to know what ship I had come across on, where I was going, what base I was stationed at, how many planes we had and how many men we had. They already knew everything. They told me before I would answer them. They just wanted yes or no answers. They even knew who my airplane mechanic was. They asked me how many missions In had flown on, and I lied and told them it was my first one. It wasn’t true, but it was good enough.”
Gournay was eventually sent to a camp for American airmen in Saigon.
“We stayed there until January of 1945,” he said. “For three or four days before we left, they woke us up early and said we had to leave, that the Russians were coming.”
“We traveled for days, weeks, by walking, trains and trucks. We rode in 40 men and eight horses box cars and traveled 484 miles to Moosburg, Germany before (General George) Patton came in and liberated us.”
From there, Gournay and other liberated servicemen were sent to Camp Lucky Strike in La Havre, France for several weeks before boarding a ship to American at Southhampton, England.
“We got to New York and then went on to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey,” Gournay said.
“I only weighed 65 pounds when I got back, so they sent me to Miami for a month for rehab and then I was discharged.”
In addition to his memories from the war, Gournay also has many photos, medals and documents, including his German POW file.
“We bribed the German soldiers with cigarettes,” he said. ‘My son-in-law Fred Byars reads German, and he was able to read my file. He said, ‘It says you have a tattoo on your right arm.’”
His stash of photos includes many pictures from the POW camp at Nuremberg as well as photos from bombing missions. Among his medals are a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, a decoration he is most proud of.
“I’m not ashamed of fighting in the war,” Gournay said. “I had many friends who didn’t want to talk about it when they returned, but it never bothered me to talk about it.”
When he returned home, Gournay worked at several odd jobs, including farming, which was listed as his occupation in his German POW file, before joining and later retiring from a career in the oil field. He also married his high school sweetheart, the late Bessie Quirk of Eunice, when he returned stateside, and they went on to have two daughters, Gloria Jean Byars and Paula Gournay.
“I waited ‘til after the war to marry her,” Gournay said. “I didn’t want to leave her a widow. I knew there was a good chance I’d get shot down.”
“I’ve had a good life. Fishing is my only bad habit these days.”