To Kingdom Come (46 page)

The account of Ted Wilken’s death following his attempt to keep the plane in the air until the rest of his crew was clear was provided by Olivier Mauchamp, a young French farmworker at the time of the crash. Mr. Mauchamp’s full statement, which includes the description of how Lieutenant Wilken’s parachute was snagged by the spinning bomber as it plunged to earth, can be found at the 388th Bomb Group Database.

The author is firmly convinced that
Patricia
was shot down by Egon “Connie” Mayer, who claimed a victory over a Flying Fortress at 12:17 p.m. on September 6, approximating the location it crashed as “six kilometers west of Troyes.” The crash site of
Patricia
was seven kilometers from the western edge of Troyes. Radio operator Joe Schwartzkopf reported that
Patricia
was shot down at twenty minutes past the hour, only a three-minute discrepancy. Warren Laws reported that he landed in his parachute at thirty minutes past the hour. No other Fortresses went down that day in proximity to
Patricia
.

The events that occurred after Warren Laws and Joe Schwartzkopf safely parachuted out of the stricken
Patricia
were drawn from the Escape and Evasion Reports filed by the two men, as well as the written account of the mission and its aftermath by Warren Laws.

Hard Landings

In relating the events leading up to the ditching of
Old Squaw
in the English Channel, copilot Bud Klint provided the author with an account of the mission in his interviews. Another account of these events from the perspective of the entire crew can be found in Brian D. O’Neill’s
Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer: B-17s Over Germany.

The description of the return of General Robert Travis in
Satan’s Workshop
to the 303rd Bomb Group’s air base at Molesworth accompanied by four other aircraft was drawn from the postmission reports filed by Major Lewis Lyle, and squadron leaders Captain George Stallings and First Lieutenant Donald Gamble. The quoted statements made by General Travis and Major Lyle after the mission can be found on the Web site of the 303rd Bomb Group (303rd BG [H] Combat Mission No. 67).

The Last One Left

Yankee Raider
may well have been the last Fortress in the original bomber train of 338 planes still heading for England at the time it was shot down. It was certainly one of the last stragglers still airborne.

In describing
Yankee Raider
’s last minutes in the air, the author drew on his interviews with crew members James Armstrong, Olen Grant, Clifford Hammock, and Wilbert Yee. In particular, Mr. Grant had indelible recollections of
Yankee Raider
heading toward earth with him being the last man still aboard.

In the course of writing his own book,
Escape!
, Mr. Armstrong recorded his own interviews with many of the surviving crew members, including Olen Grant, Eldore Daudelin, Creighton Carlin, Walter House, and Wilbert Yee, garnering their own impressions of the mission. These were also helpful to the author in reconstructing the minute-by-minute narrative.

Slipstreams

Remains of the Day

The opening scene of this chapter, in which Colonel Budd Peaslee, the 384th’s ’s group commander, witnessed the return of his group from the mission, including his shock at realizing that only two out of the eighteen bombers that had been dispatched that morning were returning to the base, is drawn from Colonel Peaslee’s narrative of this event in his book,
Heritage of Valor: The Eighth Air Force in World War II.

The growing anxiety of General Frederick Anderson, head of Eighth Air Force Bomber Command, as he waited for the first Flash Reports to arrive during the afternoon of September 6 is documented in General Anderson’s confidential diary for that day, which is in his collected papers at the Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, California (Box 2, Folder 8).

The account of Robert Artaud, the young French ambulance driver who rescued Mr. Grant from his crashed bomber and drove him to the local hospital, was provided to the author by Mr. Grant’s daughter, who visited Mr. Artaud in his French village long after the war to thank him for saving her father’s life.

The description of how General Arnold spent the daylight hours of September 6 was drawn from his diary entries, which detailed his activities from early that morning until his return from the shopping expedition with General Eaker in the late afternoon.

The formal dinner at Claridge’s Hotel in General Arnold’s honor on the evening of September 6 required substantial planning. There were more than sixty invited guests, including every senior British and American war leader in England at that time. A complete file folder on preparations for the dinner, including copies of the invitations, acceptances, declinations, the menu, the seating arrangements around the fifty-foot-long table, and follow-up correspondence from the guests after the dinner, is archived in the Eaker papers at the Library of Congress.

In describing the events leading to Mr. Karnezis’s decision to seek help at the farm of Marcelle Andre, and her subsequent tending of his injuries along with her daughter, Marie Therese, the author relied on his interviews with Mr. Karnezis.

Eventide

The reference to General Anderson’s ascension to Eighth Air Force Bomber Command was drawn from James Parton’s
Air Force Spoken Here
. The accounting of the disastrous Stuttgart mission results, including the stark fact that not one of the 262 bombers that reached Stuttgart hit one of the principal targets while sustaining a loss of 45 Fortresses, was compiled at Eighth Air Force Bomber Command headquarters in High Wycombe from the Flash Reports submitted by each group after the collation of the individual crew interrogation reports. A preliminary narrative of the complete operation was provided to General Eaker on the evening of September 6.

The account of Mr. Armstrong’s first night as an escapee in France was provided to the author in an interview. It was supplemented by additional details included by Mr. Armstrong in his own book,
Escape!

There were numerous sources for the author’s recounting of the dinner held in General Arnold’s honor at Claridge’s Hotel on the night of September 6. General Arnold’s diary provided many details, and he also wrote about the evening expansively in his book,
Global Mission
. Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory recorded his own observations in a letter to General Eaker after the dinner, including his admiration of General Arnold’s personality and the high quality of General Eaker’s cigars, among other details. This letter is archived in the Eaker papers, along with the correspondence received from other guests. The seating details were extracted from a commemorative folio that was signed by every guest at the dinner. Their signatures appear next to their places at the table.

General Anderson’s trepidation at what he would tell Arnold if asked about the success of the Stuttgart mission is fully documented in his confidential diary entries for September 6, which were drafted by his closest aide. Excerpts include, “Today’s mission was hell.... The bombs were scattered all over hell’s half acre.... The target was not destroyed and probably the only gains we could claim are some destruction of unimportant buildings in cities and towns.... The general was placed in a particularly tough spot in attending this dinner party tonight. It wasn’t easy for him to have to face the questioning of General Arnold . . . on a day when he had just lost 46 bombers and crews without any tangible gains. The general feels badly enough without having to make an accounting at the moment to any higher-ups.”

According to General Arnold in his book,
Global Mission
, General Anderson informed him at the Claridge’s dinner that “the bombing results on Stuttgart ‘had been excellent.’ ” This would explain Arnold’s anger when he learned differently a few days later, resulting in his branding the mission “a complete failure” after receiving Eaker’s subsequent report.

As of September 8, General Anderson still hadn’t recovered from the subterfuge of two days earlier. In the general’s daily diary, his aide recorded, “General Anderson seemed pretty much whipped today, the strain of the past few days seeming to catch up with him.”

The Day After

The meeting between Andy Andrews and Allen Dulles was recounted by Mr. Andrews to the author. It is also detailed in his written narrative of the Stuttgart mission. Another version of their first meeting appears in an account written by the American Swiss Foundation.

The first series of misadventures of Jimmy Armstrong, from the morning he woke up on September 7 in a French briar patch to his arrival in Paris on September 20, were told to the author by Mr. Armstrong. After the war, he fulfilled his promise to return to France to thank the people who had protected him from arrest by the Gestapo, and the accounts of those who survived the war are included in his book,
Escape!

The Back of the Tiger

The September 10 confidential memorandum sent by General Eaker to General Arnold in response to Arnold’s insistence on a personal report from Eaker on the Stuttgart mission, entitled
Further information on Stuttgart mission as requested your A3517 September 9th
, is archived in the Eaker papers at the Library of Congress.

The renewed demands by General Arnold in September to resume the air offensive against Germany in the wake of the Stuttgart failure, and General Eaker’s subsequent actions limiting the Eighth Air Force to raids within France while replacement crews arrived to make up the Stuttgart losses, are documented by James Parton in
Air Force Spoken Here
and Thomas Coffey in
HAP
.

The sources for the author’s description of the events surrounding the official reprimand of General Travis by Generals Eaker and Anderson were the official military records that included the charges against Travis of having made a “base slander” against the Eighth Air Force, the exhibits of several letters written by Travis that were included with the charges, General Travis’s response to the reprimand, and the final adjudication of the matter. The folder is archived in the papers of General Carl A. Spaatz in the Library of Congress.

Interlude

In describing the morale and fighting condition of the Luftwaffe fighter command in September 1943, the author relied on Caldwell and Muller’s
The Luftwaffe Over Germany: Defense of the Reich
.

In chronicling the continued success of Egon “Connie” Mayer that September in combat against the Eighth Air Force, the author drew from the record of his victories in Kacha’s Luftwaffe Page and the Luftwaffe Archives & Records Reference Group.

Paris Blues

The narrative related to Olen Grant’s stay in the German military hospital in Paris was provided by Mr. Grant to the author in interviews. Additional details can be found in Mr. Grant’s unpublished war reminiscence,
For You the War Is Over
.

The account of Mr. Karnezis’s journey from La Chapelle-Champigny to Paris, as well as the story of his weeks at the home of the Maraceaux family, his encounter with a German Wehrmacht officer, and his witnessing of the attack on Paris by the Eighth Air Force was related to the author by Mr. Karnezis.

The makeup of the crews and aircraft from the 388th Bomb Group that participated in the September 15, 1943, raid on Paris was found in Ed Huntzinger’s
The 388th at War
.

Hitting the Road

In relating the story of Warren Laws’s and Joe Schwartzkopf’s first days on the run, and their being sheltered by Marcel Vergeot and Monsieur Nelle, among other families, while Warren developed his proficiency in French, the author relied on his interviews with Warren P. Laws, Jr., himself a former air force pilot, who traveled to France several times to meet and interview the people who had helped his father escape from occupied Europe, including the Vergeot family, the Nelle family, the LeDantecs, the Bonnards, and the Dorés, all of whom protected or sheltered Warren and Joe during their time in France. Warren and Joe were staying at the LeDantecs’ when Warren saw the wrecked
Patricia
being hauled back to Germany. The accounts of the French families were related to the author by Warren Laws, Jr., and Elizabeth “Libby” Laws. She also provided the author with the details of their courtship that were included in this chapter.

Eclipse

The description of the events surrounding the notification of Braxton Wilken that Ted Wilken was missing in action was drawn from author interviews with Braxton Wilken Robinson. She also provided the author with copies of the telegrams and letters excerpted in this chapter.

The account of the steps taken by her stepfather, Chester “Red” McKittrick, to ascertain Ted’s fate, and her reactions to the letter from Gene Cordes, one of Ted’s former crew members, were related to the author in an interview.

Greek Holiday

All the material in this chapter, including Mr. Karnezis’s final days with the Maraceaux family, his journey to Brittany and then Brest, the reconnection with other fliers shot down on the Stuttgart mission, his five days aboard the French fishing boat with fifteen other escapees, and their voyage to England, was recounted to the author in interviews with Mr. Karnezis. Another perspective on the escapees’ time aboard the French fishing boat can be found in the Wikipedia encyclopedia entry for Wing Commander John Checketts.

Friends and Enemies

The decision by General Arnold in the wake of the Stuttgart mission to make the delivery of long-range P-51 fighters and jettisonable gas tanks to England a top priority is documented by both James Parton in
Air Force Spoken Here
and Thomas Coffey’s
HAP
.