By Deborah Larsen
Richard Lambert Carboneau
Richard Lambert Carboneau was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 16, 1924, the son of Vincent and Jessie Foote Carboneau. The Carboneau family moved to Avon Township when Richard was a teenager and lived on Longview Street in the Brooklands area. Richard attended Rochester High School and graduated in the class of 1942.
In August 1942, Richard enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces. He was trained as a gunner/bombardier aboard the B-17 Flying Fortress and assigned to the 322nd Bomb Squadron, 91st Bombardment Group, based in England. On January 22, 1945, Richard was one of the crew aboard a B-17 nicknamed “Take It Easy,” tasked with bombing oil fields at Sterkrade, Germany. After hitting the assigned target and heading toward home, “Take It Easy” was jumped by German fighters and heavily damaged. The ship’s three gunners were all injured by shrapnel, and shells exploding in the aircraft severed oxygen lines, electrical connections, communications, and damaged all instruments except the magnetic compass. Richard later described the situation for an Army Times reporter:
“Take It Easy” couldn’t have taken much more. Our oxygen was running out, so we let down to a lower altitude. We had to leave the formation, but the navigator did a swell job in getting us home the shortest way, yet avoiding all the dangerous flak areas.
As the B-17 limped homeward, the crew had to make in-flight repairs in order to land safely. Once on the ground, they learned while inspecting the airplane that an unexploded shell was lodged in one of the bomber’s fuel tanks.
Richard completed a total of 33 successful combat missions aboard the B-17 in the European Theater. He was awarded the Air Medal with four oak leaf clusters.
After the war, Richard settled in California and became a newspaper reporter for the San Rafael Independent Journal.
Richard Lambert Carboneau died at age 69 on December 1, 1993.