The Bomber Boys (26 page)

Charles Lyon
had a brief reunion with his pilot, Lyle Pearson, in Bolzano before the Germans sent the two men in different directions. Lyon was sent to Stalag 7A near Nuremberg where he spent several hard months. In the last days of the war, many of the Nuremberg POWs were forced to march more than one hundred miles across Germany as their guards sought to avoid Russian troops and surrender to American forces. Lyon’s liberation came on April 29, 1945. He was sent home and discharged in November.

In January of the following year, Lyon was in his dress uniform, sitting in the front-row pew of a small church in Anthon, Iowa. Several young women in the congregation found it impossible to keep their eyes off the young air veteran. Lyon,
however, focused his gaze on the lovely girl playing the church organ. He especially appreciated the organist’s toned, slender legs as they worked the pedals. Her name was Mary Jo Hoskins, and she also had noticed her admirer as well. His stare was distracting but not unwelcome. Charlie and Mary Jo were married the following August.

During his 1998 trip back to Austria, Charlie asked to visit the mountain house where he had enjoyed an Austrian family’s warm hospitality on the night of December 29, 1944. The man currently living in the house told Charlie that it was his father, Josef Frener, who had “captured” the young airman, saving him from freezing to death. The senior Frener was by then deceased, but Charlie was reunited with the three daughters who had been so delighted by the visit of the “ . . . handsome young American flyer,” fifty-four years before.

Charlie was informed that Mrs. Josef Frener was still living in the house, but she was extremely frail and ill. As he was led to her bedside, the old woman began to smile. She took his hand, each of them sensing that a circle of life had been completed.

Beginning in 1945, Charlie Lyon earned his living as a bee-keeper, just as his father had before him. From that point, Charlie was the owner of Herrick Honey Farms, which these days produces a million pounds of honey “in a good year” and sells under the Blue Star Honey brand. His son, James, and one grandson have followed the tradition and are beekeepers in the family business, in Anthon. Besides James, the Lyons raised a daughter, Kathy. Five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren were later born into the Lyon family. Charles Lyon died in May 2005.

William “Jack” Ferguson
and
Sam Wheeler
were allowed to recover together for a while at a German hospital in Merano. Ferguson ended up in Stalag 7A with Charles Lyon, where he
remained until May 1945. During his tour of duty, the bombardier had accomplished something few other airmen could claim: He had survived the crashes and destruction of three B-17s.

Back in the States, Ferguson went to work for his father’s Chevrolet dealership in Windsor, Missouri. In the summer of 1945, he met Alice Ebing, the widow of Navy pilot Eugene Webb. Ferguson and Webb had been good friends in high school. Webb had died while attempting to land his torpedo plane on the deck of an escort carrier, leaving a wife, a four-year-old daughter and a baby son he had never seen. In January 1946, Ferguson married Ebing and adopted the two children, Carol and Dennis. Dennis graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1966 and served in Vietnam. Two more offspring were born to the Fergusons: a daughter Janice and a son Jerry, as well as two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Ferguson’s father retired in 1965, relinquishing control of the auto dealership to his son. Jack headed the company until he too retired in 1988. During their retirement years, Jack and Alice lived on the shore of a beautiful Missouri lake. William “Jack” Ferguson died in 2007.

Samuel Wheeler
was sent home to the U.S. soon after his brief reunion with Lyle Pearson at Camp Lucky Strike. Wheeler liked flying, especially when no one was trying to shoot him down, and he decided to reenlist. He spent twenty years as an Air Force officer. A proud highlight of his military service was his participation in the postwar Berlin Airlift. Sam Wheeler is deceased.

Grant Dory
also reenlisted and served in the Air Force for twenty years. During his military career, Dory married and the couple had a daughter. After the Air Force years, the Dorys retired to Arizona. Grant Dory died in the late 1990s.

Farrell Haney
,
Mitchell Vuyanovich
,
Charles Williams
and
Robert Halstein
: All four of these American patriots died in the
explosion and crash of their bomber. Local civilians buried the bodies of Haney, Vuyanovich, and Williams in a church cemetery on January 3, 1945. Later that year, the bodies of these three airmen were transferred to the American Military Cemetery in Mirandola, Italy, for burial. (It is possible one or more of these bodies may have eventually been returned for burial in the United States.)

For days after the B-17 crash, German soldiers searched the Austrian mountain area trying to locate the bomber’s young radioman, or at the very least, his body. Civilians living near the crash site would continue looking for years after the war. The body was never found—only a pair of dog tags bearing the name: Sergeant Robert J. Halstein.

Today a monument near the town of Brixen stands as a reminder of the terrible cost of war, dedicated by the citizens of Brixen in the summer of 1998. Inscribed on it are the names of the four young Americans who died on Rutzenberg Mountain on December 29, 1944.

Crew Reunion
: The six airmen who survived the crash of their Fortress managed to maintain contact with each other after the war via telephone and occasionally in person. In 1990, Art Frechette, Lyle Pearson and Jack Ferguson were reunited at a 301st Bomb Group reunion. Charlie Lyon and Pearson returned to Brixen together in 1998, taking part in the monument dedication ceremonies. Pearson also visited Grant Dory at Dory’s home in Arizona.

The Belly Gunner and Big Ben

GEORGE AHERN

 

351ST BOMB GROUP

 

509TH BOMB SQUADRON

 

 

 

 

 

The gunners who manned the Flying Fortresses always seemed different from any of the other fighting men of World War II. They fought differently. While the B-17 was one of the most effective offensive weapons of the war, the bomber gunner’s role was a defensive one—fighting to protect the “Fort.”

B-17 gunners even looked different. Dressed in their layers of combat gear consisting of electric suits, flak jackets, parachutes, oxygen masks, goggles and flak helmets, the bomber gunners looked more like invaders from outer space than American soldiers. Their lifestyle was certainly different from that of the infantryman or the sailor. During the day, an Eighth Air Force gunner could be flying through the hellish gauntlet of German antiaircraft fire and fighting off attacks by Luftwaffe wolf packs. In the evening, that same airman could be sharing a draft ale with a young English lovely in a cozy pub.

Like the foot soldier and the sailor, the bomber gunner just wanted to do his duty and survive, but unlike the others, the airman knew exactly how many battles he must fight in order to
go home. At least he thought he knew. Twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five combat missions—the numbers kept changing. It was a very large carrot at the end of an increasingly long stick. Thousands would never reach that lucky number, and few ever expected they would. How could they not be different?

If the gunners were different, then one of their subsets was unique. Perhaps no other military specialist of the war emerged with the mystique that surrounded the ball turret gunner. Sometimes even his fellow crew gunners did not understand him, and they knew even less about the strange weapon he operated. If called upon in an emergency, a ball turret gunner could replace a waist gunner, tail gunner or top turret gunner. It was rare that anyone else on board a B-17 could replace the ball turret gunner, nor did they want to.

The ball turret, tucked beneath the belly of the aircraft, was a complicated and forbidding place. The gunner who manned the ball turret was required to have a unique combination of skills and attributes. First, he had to be somewhat small, usually the smallest man on the crew. Naturally, even the slightest tendency toward claustrophobia would disqualify someone from being a ball turret gunner. Another advantage could be youth.

Of course, most B-17 crewmen were young. Many airmen had just turned twenty by the time they flew their first missions. Even some officers, such as navigators and bombardiers, could be as young as nineteen. The pilot/commanding officer was usually the oldest member of the crew. The average age of pilots might have been twenty-four or twenty-five, but twenty-one-year-old pilots were not unheard-of. However, being a mere teenager could give a ball turret gunner a definite edge.

Endurance and flexibility became important qualities when a gunner was required to remain curled up in the ball turret during long missions deep into Germany. Sometimes he would be in
the turret almost nonstop for seven to eight hours. During the last hour of a flight over enemy territory, a belly gunner’s senses and reaction time had to be as sharp as during the first hour. It also helped if he could control his urinary urges. Ball turret gunners as young as eighteen seemed especially able to meet such demands.

Sergeant George Ahern was still only eighteen years old and stood only five feet, five inches when he earned his gunner’s wings and was assigned as the ball turret gunner of Lieutenant Marvin Walker’s B-17 crew. Walker quickly demonstrated to his new crew an authoritative command style. Sergeant Philip Duke, a waist gunner, showed up for the first crew meeting without bothering to shave. Walker gave him hell for it. George suppressed a smile. For the first time in his life, he was glad he was too young to need a razor.

Walker’s airmen became quick friends. Young George was especially popular, but he was the closest with Duke and the other waist gunner, Sergeant Charles “Buddy” Armstrong. Twenty-three-year-old Duke was from the small town of Wellsville, New York, and had married the girl next door only weeks before. Armstrong, from Blytheville, Arkansas, was a kid with a solid build.

By the first week of June 1944, when the Walker crew took off from Newfoundland, Canada, bound for England, nobody on board had any doubt about their pilot’s flying ability. However, there was some concern about his all-business approach to command. That concern was about to turn to appreciation.

As Walker’s B-17 approached the coast of England, its fuel tanks were nearly empty. Thankfully, navigator Lieutenant Donald Knuepple’s plotting was perfect. Walker could see the airfield in the distance. He could also see several other bombers in the area, and when he radioed the tower for permission to
land, he was told: “You’ll have to hold.” Walker tried to explain that he was flying on fumes and could not afford to hold. The airfield controller was unmoved.

“Hold on. . . . I’ve got four other planes ahead of you,” he replied.

Walker had heard enough. “Well, get them out of the way. I’m coming in!” With that, Walker switched off his radio and brought the Fortress in for a safe landing. From that day on, Lieutenant Marvin Walker had the unwavering respect and confidence of his crew.

Soon after turning nineteen, George was flying his first combat mission with the 351st Bomb Group and the 509th Bomb Squadron out of Polebrook, an air base north of London. The rookie crew’s first mission, on July 6, was to hit German V-1 rocket launch sites in France. There was some flak but no enemy fighters to test George’s skills.

The following day came the first of many bombing missions into Germany. Now the new ball turret gunner’s specialized training came into play. George was shocked at the speed of the German Me-109s. The attacking fighters were within gun range, and seconds later they were gone. On the other hand, George found the smooth operation of the ball turret and its twin .50 caliber machine guns a thing of beauty.

The electric turret could swivel its guns 360 degrees horizontally, or point toward the tail or the front of the aircraft or straight down in a few heartbeats. A good ball turret gunner could cover the entire expansive defensive zone beneath a B-17. To do this required an amazing feat of hand, eye, and foot coordination on the part of the gunner.

Curled in the turret with the gunsight and trigger handles between his knees, the gunner tracked the incoming flights. Looking through the sight, he saw a red horizontal line and two
vertical lines. The trick was to put the enemy plane on the horizontal line and then close up the two vertical lines until they reached the attacker’s wingtips. The gunner positioned the red horizontal line by using the gun handles to move the turret. At the same time, he used a foot pedal to control the vertical lines of the gunsight. If he could effectively train his crosshairs on the target, the gunsight’s mechanical computer would automatically adjust the “lead” needed to hit the rapidly moving enemy fighter. Then the ball turret gunner squeezed the trigger buttons with his thumbs and tried to stay trained on the target as long as possible. Of course, all of this had to be accomplished in a matter of two to five seconds.

The Army Air Corps’
Pilot Training Manual for the Flying Fortress
described the unique nature of the gun turret operation: “The power turret gunners require many mental and physical qualities similar to what we know as inherent flying ability, since the operation of the power turret and gunsight are much like that of airplane flight operation. While the flexible gunners do not require the same delicate touch as the turret gunners, they must have a fine sense of timing and be familiar with the rudiments of exterior ballistics.”

The ball turret gunner alone faced the daunting task of trying to hit a streaking target from a fast-moving aircraft (sometimes traveling in the opposite direction), while his body was being moved independently with the guns. Despite these challenges, many of the best Luftwaffe pilots feared and respected the ball turret more than any other gun position on the B-17 bomber.