Combat Crew (35 page)

“Pilot to Bombardier — we going to drop the bombs?”

“Not on this target — they may try an alternate.”

The soup covered Europe, and by that time Bomber Command in England knew it. The B-17s turned back to England with no blow struck against Adolf. It was a frustrating day, with so much effort expended for no results. At one-thirty we touched down at Ridgewell Airdrome. Seven more raids would put me over the top. With those P-51 beauties, my prospects looked far brighter.

The P-51 Mustang Fighter began as a mediocre low-level fighter used mainly for strafing. The original Allison engine was replaced with the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. Other modifications were made and it emerged as the finest propeller-driven fighter plane of World War II. With disposable fuel tanks, the plane could go with the bombers to the deepest targets.

After the landing I singled out Lieutenant Deering. “I want to compliment you for the way you held tight formation today. That is the best I've seen for a new pilot since I arrived in England. If you keep that up, your crew will be OK.”

When newspapers from the U.S. occasionally found their way overseas, there were distorted stories and statements about the war that were irritating. I remember one silly news article: a U.S. Senator said the German Air Force was almost eliminated. That was 1943, when the Luftwaffe was at its height. A Congressman orated that the war would be over by June, the date of the Normandy landing. An American newspaper was an object of both nostalgia and derision at some of the fanciful tales.

If a Sunday was free I sometimes attended chapel services on the base. The Chaplain was named Brown and he got along well with the English people who lived nearby. I can remember the familiar sight of the farm families from close by walking down the runways on Sunday mornings to church. One Sunday about time services were to begin, a large, awkward soldier in oil-stained coveralls and muddy shoes stumbled down the aisle and took a front seat. Obviously, he came directly from work. That was certainly all right, but it seemed to me he should have taken a back-row seat in his soiled clothes as the civilians were dressed in their best. A few minutes later that big bear of a man with grimy hands stood and faced the audience. Suddenly he was transformed: the notes of the “Lord's Prayer” in a powerful and beautiful baritone voice filled the chapel. It was a magnificent solo, as good as any of the top-rated baritones of that day could have done. When the last notes died away, his shoulders sagged and he was once again a weary G.I. mechanic. He nodded to the Chaplain and was gone. Who was he? With such a voice he had to be a highly trained professional singer; I never discovered his name or saw him again around the base. In this time of war any man in uniform might have been a well-known name that one did not recognize among the thousands wearing military garb that made us all look a little alike.

Eight months earlier, when we were a newly formed flight crew at Boise, Idaho, I arrived at the aircraft site for a night flight ahead of the rest of the crew.

The instructor pilot was already there, so we went through the preflight inspection procedure, and I picked up the aircraft flight form to write in the names of those on the flight.

“Sir, may I have your name, rank, and serial number?”

“Oh, let me have it and I'll fill it in. That way I know I'll get the serial number right,” he replied.

There was a wearisome two-hour flight with six of us crowded into the cockpit space. A week later I was in the P.X. barbershop getting a haircut when the same instructor pilot came in. I noticed that he went out of his way to nod to everyone nearby.

“That officer must be a politician in civilian life,” I whispered to the barber.

“Don't you know who he is?”

“Sure. The name is Stewart — instructor pilot.”

“Don't you recognize Jimmy Stewart, the movie actor?”

Our aircraft was ready to fly again, we hoped, and the question was, would it handle as well as it did before the damage? It was snowing when Gleichauf pulled the wet nose of 719 into the air and the thick gray soup. Pilots detested that nerve-wracking procedure that could at any time so easily end in a head-on crash with another plane. The flight of airplanes could not be held precisely to the exacting specifications of the briefing plan, and especially with so many pilots short of flying experience.

“Pilot to crew — keep alert — it's going to be thick today — Bombardier.”

“Go ahead, Paul.”

“Watch ahead — if you see anything call out quick.”

He turned to me. “Get in the turret and help us look — keep a sharp eye above us.”

“I know how many green pilots are taking off this morning all over England. That's what bothers me most in this stuff,” I said to George Reese, who was our copilot for the mission.

“Bothers both of us,” he replied.

“Pilot! Pilot! Eleven o'clock level — that dark blob! What is it?” After intense scrutiny it turned out to be a splotch of darker cloud. But with nerves drawn tight we were ready to see the dark form of an aircraft on a collision course.

At nine thousand feet we broke through into brilliant sunshine and a sparkling sky. The world atop the fleecy billowing clouds was one apart from the winter drab and mud below. I had not seen the sun in so long it was reassuring to know it was still shining, and that the sky was as blue as I remembered it.

“Navigator to crew — Navigator to crew — the temperature will be only thirty-eight below today. We'll have an escort of P-51s at the German coast and we'll sic them on those Jerry fighters and sit back and watch the fun.”

The target was the port facilities at Emden, Germany, from an altitude of twenty-three thousand feet, lower than usual. We were scheduled to fly with a high composite Group made up of elements from several groups in order to add extra strength. The slow climb to nine thousand feet through fog disrupted the timing enough that our squadron missed the Group we were supposed to be part of. That left the decision of what to do to the Squadron Commander and he elected to go on alone.

A little before ten o'clock we started across the North Sea toward Germany bucking a strong headwind that required heavy power on the four engines. Even so, the crossing consumed two hours, because the velocity of the headwind subtracted from the airspeed of the ship.

Emden was not regarded as a difficult target, but the formation that day turned out to be ragged, with aircraft throttle-jockeying back and forth.

“Damn these new pilots — I can't keep up a steady airspeed — one minute I'm drawing too much power and the next minute we're barely above stalling,” fumed Gleichauf.

“Klein's raisin' hell every time you dogleg,” said the Copilot.

“Navigator to Pilot, there's the Frisian Islands right at one o'clock.”

A voice cut in on the intercom. “Hey, Bombardier, drop some bombs on that seaplane ramp and watch the Krauts scatter.”

“Copilot to crew, cut the unnecessary chatter.”

“Bombardier to crew, single fighter coming from the south at nine o'clock high.”

The solitary M.E. 109 circled us cautiously for a few minutes.

“Bombardier to crew — flak at twelve o'clock level.”

Fortunately it did not amount to much, then the Navigator spotted something. “Fighters at ten o'clock — about thirty-five of them.”

The enemy interceptors came in to five thousand yards and after a few minutes pulled away to the left and were soon out of sight. For some reason not known to us they elected not to attack. It could have been that they were at the far end of their fuel range.

“Pilot to Navigator, where did you say the escort would pick us up?”

“At the coast, Paul. If they are comin' we oughta see 'em soon. In five minutes we'll swing to the right inshore then make two left turns to come in over the target downwind.”

Fifteen minutes went by and Purus called. “We're starting the bomb run.”

“OK, Bombardier.”

Flak began popping at us as we approached the target. There was a loud crashing sound from the rear section of the aircraft.

“Copilot to Waist, anyone hurt? Any damage?”

“This is Jim — big chunk struck where I was standin'. The armor plate deflected it. Otherwise would have got me. No serious damage.”

“Bombardier to Radio, stand by to watch bomb-bay doors down.”

George, as usual, was standing with the front radio door open to watch the bombs fall out. “Radio to Bombardier — Radio to Bombardier, over.”

“Go ahead, Radio.”

“Three bombs hung up in the racks. Thousand pounder stuck on the bottom rack an' two five hundred pounders on top of it.”

“Turret to Bombardier, I'm goin' back to release the bombs.”

“OK, John — Radio, stand by to see if Turret needs any help.”

The bomb load was mixed. Thousand pounders were carried on the lower racks while five hundred pounders were hung on the middle racks. Above those were clusters of either incendiaries or fragmentation bombs held in place by small steel cables. The situation in the bomb bay was a weird mess. One thousand pounder had failed to release on a rack well below the catwalk. Resting on top of it two five hundred pounders were also hung up on the loose cables used to hold the fragmentation bombs in the racks. To trip the rack shackle on the lower bomb a screwdriver had to be used, but access to the shackle was blocked by one of the five hundred pounders directly on top of the big one. I caught a glimpse of Balmore in the radio room motioning me to return to the cockpit.

“Turret to Bombardier, it'll take two of us to clear the bomb bay.”

“OK. We'll wait 'til we are down to fifteen thousand feet.”

It would have been foolish to attempt the release at high altitude because of the limited working time of the portable walk-around bottles, and the risk of losing oxygen and tumbling out into space. A few minutes later I called Purus again. “The thousand pounder is stuck on the lowest inside rack below the catwalk. The two five hundreds are resting on top of it and tangled up in the loose cables from the frag cluster.”

“When we release the thousand pounder, will the two fives fall free?”

“It's impossible to tell for sure. We may have to cut them loose,” I answered.

“How can we cut those steel cables?”

“I always carry some hacksaw blades, Bombardier. One of us is going to have to hang down below the walk and slip a screwdriver between the big one and the fives on top of it.”

“I'm smaller than you so I'll do it while you hold my legs.”

“OK. I will straddle the catwalk and lock my legs around it. You hang down in front of me so I can get a good hold on your legs. We got to be careful that when that big one falls out the fives don't knock us off of the catwalk.”

At fifteen thousand feet we cut loose of oxygen and began the risky procedure that had to be done. An airplane could not land at an airfield with hung-up bombs. The risk was too great to the other aircraft and base facilities. I sat on the narrow catwalk and locked my legs around it. Purus climbed over me and slid head down so I could grasp his legs. There was barely enough room between the bombs to work. Johnny carefully pushed the long screwdriver, working by feel in the cramped space between the bombs. When he got the tool in position to attempt the release he looked back at me, and I increased my grip on him and the narrow beam we were sitting on. We did not know which way the two upper bombs would move and had to be ready. When he pushed the shackle release the big one let go smoothly and the other two bombs shifted their hang positions slightly but not enough to endanger us. That was a tremendous relief! But not for long! The two five hundreds began to swing back and forth on the cables, striking the vertical support beams on each swing. Theoretically they were not supposed to explode as long as the impeller was in place, but I would have preferred not to put the theory to a test.

Now it was my turn. With Purus holding me I leaned far out and began sawing away at the steel cable holding the closer of the two remaining bombs with a hacksaw blade. Meanwhile we were speeding across the North Sea assisted by a terrific tailwind that Purus and I had forgotten about. At the moment the first five hundred pounder broke off and fell free I caught a frantic signal from Balmore at the door of the radio room. He pointed down: To my horror that bomb was headed straight for an English seaplane base on the coast of England. All I could do was watch in shocked consternation. As it neared the base the bomb appeared to the eye to veer slightly seaward and struck the water fifty yards from the ramp. It was frightfully close to a disaster! Gleichauf turned back over the sea and circled until I cut the last bomb hazard loose.

When I returned to the cockpit Gleichauf was visibly upset. “What were you trying to do? Wipe out an English base?”

“We forgot about that strong tailwind.”

“We had been trying to stop you back there,” he replied testily. “You can't hear much in an open bomb bay with that deafening wind noise.”

“We'll get chewed out when we get back to Ridgewell — maybe some disciplinary action — you can bet on that!” And he was right. We knew the English would get our aircraft number and lodge an angry complaint.

When the Bombardier raised the doors a limit switch failed to shut off and the circuit began to sputter and smoke, but fortunately I was nearby and saw it quickly. That circuit fuse should have blown out instantly, breaking the current connection. I had no choice but to reach in with my fingers and pull out that hot fuse to avoid a fire. It was painful and I had bandaged fingers for a week, but was far better than what a cockpit fire could have done to us. It would be interesting to know what the odds were against two malfunctions on the same circuit at the same time.