Biographical
Sketch
Raymond M
Womack 1921-2008
Submitted by his son Bruce Womack
My father, Raymond Mansel Womack was born in Wheeler Co Texas on 5 Dec. 1921 to
Gussie Arlena and John Marvin Womack. His early years were spent on a hard
scrabble farm near Wheeler. Things would only get harder. The Dust Bowl, the
Dirty Thirties had arrived in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles. One
day in 1933, my grandmother informed my grandfather that she had sold the mules
and they would be leaving Texas
for good. The next day, the family, my father Raymond, his sister Edna, Gussie
and Marvin packed their meager belongings into a 1920 Chevy and headed for California. My father
stated that they left Texas
with rags over their mouths and the car tied in high gear. Luckier than most,
they already had family in northern California
and my grandfather was able to find work in the woods as a logger. In essence,
this family like so many others was the real life players in John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. Even though relatively poor, my
grandparents insured that both my father and his sister would continue to
attend school. My father completed high school and junior college in Susanville CA
before enlisting in the US Army in March of 1942. He was sent to Sheppard Field Texas for
19 weeks and then to aerial gunnery training in Las Vegas Nevada.
Aboard B-17 # 223, Ther-N-Bak, he arrived in the African/Middle Eastern Theater,
Algeria on 26 January, 1943. B-17 Ther-N-Bak was assigned to the 12th
Air Force, 97th Bomb Group (Heavy) 414th Squadron. While
with the 414th, Tech Sergeant Womack, Flight Engineer and Top Turret
Gunner, flew missions over Tunisia,
Sicily
and Italy.
He was grounded with fifty missions on July 16th after earning the
Air Metal with 9 oak leaf clusters and a recommendation for the Distinguished
Flying Cross (DFC). He returned to the US on July 28th 1943 and
remained in the Army Air Corps as a gunnery instructor in B-24s until being
honorably discharged in July 1945. My father then went to work at Sierra Army
Ordnance Depot in Herlong CA where he met and married my mother, Irene
(deceased). He left the depot to take a job as a fireman for Southern Pacific
Railroad in Sparks Nevada and was promoted to Locomotive
Engineer in 1956. As a Hog Head (Senior, Locomotive Engineer), Ray Womack was
known by his peers as a hard working, no nonsense, by the book, Engineer. He
cut no slack to any crew who he perceived to be violating the Rules Of The
Road. Not a good idea on a 100 car freight train at 70 mph. I rather imagine
this had a lot to do with his Depression Era, Dust Bowl background, coupled
with his time as the senior enlisted man on a B-17. He retired from the
Southern Pacific Railroad in 1986 with over 30 years of service. The high point in his
railroad career was as the Locomotive Engineer on the California Zephyr. Ray
Womack was an avid reader with special access to the Washoe Co Library. He was
a self taught expert in world history and politics, yet my dad’s idea of a
vacation was to go to Kansas.
I asked him once, why he didn’t go out and see the world, and he indicated that
he had already done that and didn’t much enjoy what he had seen. He was a
golfer, pilot, a league bowler and a certified electronics technician. He was
my moral and political compass. He died of complications from a knee surgery in
January 2008.
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