Combat Crew (33 page)

Sometime later: “This is the Navigator. We're getting close to where they told us to go — can't see anything in this soup.”

“This is one big mess, Navigator. I'll try to contact the Wing.”

After another five minutes: “Pilot to Navigator — OK, they say go to twelve thousand feet over splasher four.”

At twelve thousand feet it was the same — fog — fog — fog!

“Pilot to Navigator — this is no good either! Can't see anything. Let's try thirteen thousand.”

But another thousand feet did not help, and we lost radio contact with the Group leader.

“Radio to Pilot — Radio to Pilot.”

“This is the Pilot.”

“Blasingborn says the 381st will pass over splasher four at fifteen thousand feet at nine hundred hours.”

At the scheduled time we were over the radio beacon at the correct height and it was the same story — just blinding fog!

“Pilot to crew — we're goin' on up until we break out of this soup. Ships this high have lost contact — no telling how many lost planes are up here. Watch out for other aircraft.”

The overcast broke at nineteen thousand feet. There were many aircraft milling around in confusion looking for a formation to join. The long climb up to this altitude had undoubtedly used up a lot of fuel.

“Turret to Copilot, do we have enough gas to join a formation without knowing for sure how long the mission will be?”

“Copilot to Pilot.”

“Go ahead.”

“We've burned up a lot more fuel than we expected. We got enough for a short mission, but not for a long one.”

“I don't see any formation to join anyway. If we should find one later we would run a risk on gas! Navigator — Navigator.”

“Go ahead, Paul.”

“Give me a heading for Ridgewell.”

Shutting knew that the wind might have shifted in the several hours since the weather briefing, but without visibility he had no means to check for drift. “Start letting down in wide circles, Paul, and I'll keep calling out the headings.”

A long time later the aircraft broke under the clouds. We were over land near the North Sea.

“Navigator to Pilot, we were lucky. We could've come down far out over the sea the way these high wind currents can shift direction.”

On this same goofed-up mission attempt George Reese was assigned to Lieutenant Deering's crew as copilot on their first mission. Operations thought that with Reese in the cockpit Deering could stay out of trouble. The rookie navigator must not have paid much attention to the briefing because he evidently did not catch the hundred and forty mile per hour wind. It was odd that he could miss such navigational data, probably due to the fear and trauma of a first combat mission. When it was decided that it was impossible to proceed with the mission, the Navigator had to rely on dead reckoning to get back to the base. The strange story came from George Reese:

We were at twenty-one thousand feet when I told the pilot that the mission was scrubbed. I didn't pay too much attention for the next hour as the ship eased down through fog; I was worried mainly about a collision in the soup. I remembered that a high wind was blowing but I could not recall the exact direction from the briefing. Once or twice I called the Navigator to ask if he was allowing for the drift from that high wind, but could not get anything out of him. I was a little uneasy that he might be confused, but at that time there did not seem to be any good reason to ask the radio operator to get us a Q.D.M. I expected that we would need one when we broke clear of the fog. There were no holes in the ceiling and we came down blind. At six thousand feet the Ball called,
‘Ball to crew — land below us.'

‘Pilot to Copilot, do you recognize the area? See anything familiar?'

‘Don't recognize it — Navigator.'

‘This is the Navigator.'

‘Watch for some landmark you can recognize from your charts.'

Deering dropped down to a lower altitude. Sanford, a waist gunner, had quite a few missions, but neither of us could pick out anything familiar. Suddenly a tower appeared to the right. I recognized immediately that it was a German flak tower, but before I could say anything, a furious burst of shells exploded around us.

‘Get the hell out of here — we're over the Continent.'

But where over the Continent? It could have been East or West France, Holland, Belgium, North Germany, or possibly Denmark. Stanford and the tail gunner did have the pleasure of strafing the German tower — one of the few times I know of that Fortress gunners could shoot back at the enemy manning those flak guns.

We flew north for ten minutes until we sighted what I thought was the North Sea. Suddenly twelve bursts of very accurate flak caught us almost dead center. I quickly grabbed the wheel and ducked out of that spot fast. I threw the ship up and down and took as much evasive action as I thought the crew could stand.

‘Copilot to Navigator, we've got to find out where we are so you can give us a heading for England.'

‘Copilot to crew — Copilot to crew. Watch for fighters. They're goin' to hit us if we don't get out of here quick.'

Back in the waist, tail, and radio room, the ammunition had been thrown out of the cans and the men banged up a bit by the drastic evasive action. The gunners were frantically trying to get the ammunition straightened out. Deering turned west and flew parallel to the coast in the hope that Stanford or me would see something familiar. Thirty minutes of this and we turned southeast. High and inaccurate flak came up. A few minutes later a lone F.W. 190 appeared and made two passes. Fortunately both were against the tail where we have our best defense. Deering did a good job of evasive action.

‘Copilot to Tail, good going back there! Let 'em have it when they come in.'

Deering turned into land again. ‘Copilot to crew, two fighters at two o'clock high — pour the lead to 'em if they try to attack us.'

The pilot dodged into a cloud bank before the fighters could strike.

‘Good work, Pilot. Stay in this cloud until we shake those fighters, but we got to find out where we are — we can't hang around here all day.'

‘Copilot to Radio.'

‘Go ahead.'

‘Do you know how to get a fix?'

‘I think we're too far away for a fix.'

‘I was afraid of that. Try anyway.'

When we came out of the clouds, Deering turned inland again and headed for a sizable city in full view. Without warning all hell broke loose! Flak and small arms fire came up in a hail of lead.

‘Copilot to Pilot. I know where we are. That is Calais! Let me have the controls.'

I took more evasive action but not fast enough. I heard a loud noise underneath the aircraft.

‘Copilot to Ball, where did we get hit? Any bad damage?'

‘The bomb-bay doors were knocked down.'

‘Copilot to Top Turret, go back an' see if you can hand-crank the doors back up.'

The doors would not come up, but it was not important. We had plenty of fuel.

‘Pilot to Navigator, give us a heading for Ridgewell and be sure to allow for that heavy wind current.'

Deering took over and climbed to six thousand feet. Two more F.W. 190s came up from the rear. Both had belly tanks and one had a rocket chute.

‘Copilot to Tail, watch that fighter with the rocket. When you see the rocket fire, follow the vapor trail an' tell the pilot which way to move the airplane.'

‘Pilot, this is the Tail. It's gettin' in position about fifteen hundred yards behind us, slightly high. He fired it! It's comin' straight at us! Pull up! Pull up!'

Deering jerked the aircraft up an' the rocket passed under us real close.

‘Tail to crew, fighter comin' in five o'clock level.'

I could hear the tail and waist guns hammering an' saw the fighter flash by below my window. It pulled up high and tried a nose attack.

‘Pilot! Evasive action!'

The attack failed and the two fighters disappeared into the mists.

‘Copilot from Top Turret, I think we hit that fighter — maybe knocked it down.'

‘I doubt it. Those 190s are heavily armored and can take a lot of punishment.'

The radio operator had been feverishly attempting to pick up a fix. He got a response all right, but the station failed to answer his challenge for the day. He knew then it was a German station trying to lure us in for a kill. That was a trick used by both sides. (The radio operators used Morse code, which was easy to fake.) Actually we were a little too far away for a reliable fix. Halfway across the water that same F.W. 190 our gunners thought they had shot down appeared again. That persistent bastard followed us all of the way to the English coast. Radio finally got in contact with a home station and established a Q.D.M. At the coast a Spitfire showed up and the F.W. 190 took off for Germany in a hurry. I was much relieved to see the outlines of Ridgewell show up. There was one final error: Radio was confused about the damage to the aircraft and had radioed ahead that our landing gear was shot out. When we came in to land I saw to my surprise ambulances, crash wagons, and fire trucks standing by. The Old Man was plenty teed off! He blamed me for the mixups and damage to the plane.

During this period the 381st was constantly being infused with new crews, who had yet to learn the hard lesson that tight formation was as essential to their well-being as blocking is to a football team. We received new crews, but continued to lose experienced ones, and that meant an exhaustive effort to keep the quality high. Training went on but too many replacement crews lessened our ability to fly good formations consistently. Either the new pilots arrived with some high-altitude formation experience or they had to start learning it on combat missions. Sure, we flew some formation practice, but there was no way that the 381st could provide the training that the crews were supposed to have had in the States. For quite a while the Group was losing as many men as it was gaining from new arrivals. We did not have the time, or the aircraft, or the fuel to retrain those new arrivals.

The rain clouds cleared and there was a part of a moon. Eight or ten of us pedaled into a nearby village and enjoyed an evening at the pubs. At closing time we started back to the base. The men in the lead used their flashlights and the rest of us followed along in the dark. Between the local road and our quarters there was a swift-running stream spanned by a narrow bridge. We were strung out in single file behind a Captain in the lead. Suddenly the Captain dropped his flashlight and everything went dark. I heard a wild yell and a splash as something hit the water. I switched on my light in time to see an officer's cap floating jauntily downstream bobbing gently in the water like a toy boat.

Someone yelled, “Where's the Captain?”

Four flashlights scanned the empty water rushing by. An authoritative voice took command. “All right! Jerk off your blouses! All of you! Now! Get in that creek! Couple of ya go downstream and work back. We gotta find him — and quick!”

The frigid water sobered me real quick. In one or two minutes someone located the Captain and we pulled him out of that freezing water. Fortunately he did not take on much water internally, and in ten minutes he was recovered enough to be out of danger. I was shaking with a bad chill by the time I got to the hut and into some dry clothes. The temperature was thirty-five degrees.

The month of November was frustrating because the weather kept the B-17s grounded for a week at a time. When a mission was called we fully expected it to be canceled before takeoff, or in the air before we reached enemy territory. If clouds were almost certain to cover the target, there was no point in continuing the mission unless the drop was scheduled to be by Pathfinder equipment. Since the middle of the month we had taken off eight times back to back without getting in a mission. That was hard on morale. Being confined too much of the time to the small metal quarters, we became irritating to each other. Sometimes Lancia's noise became abrasive and Wilson's disorderly bunk was always revolting to a person like me, who wanted things neat and shipshape. There were days when Rogers withdrew into a morose silence and ignored the rest of us. When he was in one of those moods it was better to leave him alone. Tedesco's continual harping on Brooklyn and New York got on my nerves. Hadn't he ever been anywhere else before he was drafted into the service? The least offensive occupant of our hut was Hubie Green. He was such a nice, gentle young man I could find little to resent about him.

Jim climbed wearily out of bed and groaned, “Another false alarm I suppose. Will we ever get in another mission?”

“We haven't flown a completed raid since early November,” I said. “At this rate we'll be here another year.”

Harkness added, “But we've been in sight of enemy territory four times before we turned back.”

Gleichauf intercepted me at Operations. “We're carryin' a General with us this mornin' so get things in good shape before we get there.”

I did not like the idea of high-ranking brass on a mission. It meant extra trouble and having to be more careful over the intercom. As soon as I examined the cockpit of aircraft 730 I made a run for the perimeter road and was lucky to hail down a passing Jeep. “Get word to Operations real quick that aircraft 730 has no extra cockpit oxygen outlet — cannot handle an extra passenger in the cockpit.”

When Gleichauf arrived he said, “They switched the General to another ship. The target is Leverkusen, at the edge of the Ruhr Valley.”

There were groans from the crew.