Home movies from a WWII bomber base in England

My Uncle Mike had been using movie cameras since the 1930s, so it was no surprise he took one to England during World War II.

A propeller mechanic working on B-24 Liberators, he shot film of the four-engine bombers on the ground and in the air, of his Army Air Corps buddies on the job and at play, of sightseeing London, the coast and the countryside. Sometimes he handed his camera to others.

On this blog, I’m showing scenes he brought home. They total 44 minutes, edited down a little to cut out images that aren’t clear. Of the many people you’ll see, Mike is the only one smoking a cigar. At the beginning of the video, he’s pointing to a sign that says “Swing Club.”

A son of Italian immigrants, Michael Joseph Mento was born in 1912 in Downingtown, about 40 miles west of Philadelphia. He and his eight siblings grew up in the Johnsontown neighborhood, a town within a town and home for most of the borough’s residents of Italian descent.

In high school, Mike starred in sports. As an end on the football team, though just 5 foot 5, he was named to an all-county squad. In basketball, he was a high scorer known as “Midget Mike.” In baseball, he was so good at stealing bases, the local paper called him “nimble-footed.” He graduated from Downingtown High in 1932 and won the award for top athlete in his class of 64.

Mike bowled, swam, fished and hunted. He worked at Greenleaf’s Drug Store, pitched for an American Legion baseball team, took photos for newspapers, fixed up old cars. One was a Ford he called Riptide. “Where does Mike Mento get all these jalopies?” a Brandywine Archive newshound wrote in 1939. “Further, how does he keep them in repair?”

The Archive described him as “the little fellow who smokes the big cigars.”

Three months after Pearl Harbor, Mike was drafted into the Army. He left his job as a liquor store clerk for four weeks of basic training at Keesler Field in Mississippi. That was followed by technical courses at Keesler’s school for B-24 mechanics. He moved on to Kearney Army Air Field in Nebraska, where the private first class was an instructor and got in some bowling and fishing.

Mike wasn’t the only Mento sportsman in the Army. His brother Andrew, known as “Sid,” was a staff sergeant stationed in North Africa. While Mike was at Kearney, Sid wrote home that he was playing in a baseball league organized by former Big League first baseman Zeke Bonura. In one wild game, Sid hit a home run. He said playing ball keeps the boys’ morale up.

At the end of 1943, Mike shipped out to England and joined the 732^nd Bomb Squadron, 453^rd Bomb Group at Old Buckenham Airfield in Norfolk. He was 31. His job was to remove, inspect and overhaul propellers on the squadron’s 18 planes, which were hitting targets in Nazi Germany. He also put his movie camera to work.

Mike’s foreign service ended in May 1945, two weeks after Germany surrendered. He had racked up 17 months overseas without incident, perhaps thanks to prayers said for him every day at St. Joseph’s Church, where he was a member. On September 2, he was honorably discharged at Fort Dix, New Jersey, as a sergeant with the 590^th Army Air Force Base Unit.

Back in Downingtown, he led softball and bowling teams, chaired the fish restocking committee of the Sportsmen’s Club, helped to run the Young Men’s Association and became president of St. Anthony’s Lodge, of which he was voted most valuable member for 1947. At the 1951 banquet of the Amphibious Order of Frogs, where hundreds of members drank beer and dined on fried frog legs, Mike won the grand prize — a snazzy leather traveling bag.

He married my mom’s sister, Hilda Hannum, in 1947. Aunt Hilda was a Downingtown High grad and registered nurse. She and Mike moved in with her parents, farmers Bill and Clara Hannum. Mike carried mail in the morning and clerked at the state liquor store in the evening. In between, he helped Bill on the farm. He spent years building a house on Cemetery Hill on land my grandparents provided.

Mike and Hilda had five daughters – my cousins Andrea, Michelle, Patricia, Diane and Jacqueline. A son, Joseph, lived only eight months.

In 1968, Uncle Mike died of cancer. He was just 56. My clearest memory of him is that he was my Confirmation sponsor when I was a kid at St. Joseph’s School. During the Catholic ritual, I glanced at him as he stood beside me, his head bowed in prayer, and felt I hardly knew him.

I know him now.