After a few days at Camp Kilmer we were moved out to board ship in the
middle of the night. All I can remember is going up a very wide
gangplank into a big black opening about 20 foot square in the side of
the ship. The U.S.O. girls were there passing out coffee and doughnuts
and I think there was a band playing. The ship was the Queen
Elizabeth, owned and operated by the English, and there were thousands
of us on this trip. I believe there were about 12,000 troops and a
crew of 1,700 on the ship, but am not certain of the figure. We sailed
at night and by daylight we were at sea. I will note that we never did
set the Statue of Liberty then or when we returned.
The entire ship had been altered to carry troops and the staterooms
that originally were for two people now held twelve of us. there were
four bunks with just a narrow aisle in the middle and one small
shower. We didn't take many showers as it was salt water and left you
so sticky. As I recall we had Just a little fresh water to rinse off
with. The only open areas were the lounges and the large ballrooms of
peace time. In these the almost continuous poker games took place. I
spent very little time on dock except for the abandon ship drills. It
was December and the weather was not very good. On the few good days
we could go up on the stern and shoot skeet. The shells were free and
we could shoot all we wanted. We usually found an enlisted man to run
the machine to shoot the clay targets. It gave us a little more
practice in 1eading a moving target.
I didn't get seasick, but in the morning when I went to the dining
room and saw the fish for breakfast I did not feel so well. I took a
couple of rolls and bacon for sandwiches and went back to my room to
eat them in my bunk. This being an all English crew we got very
English food. About half way across the Atlantic the ship began to
take a zigzag course and the direction was changed every three
minutes. It took longer this way but was the only protection against
the German submarines as we were alone with no escort ships. When
walking down the corridors we would feel the ship 1ean one way and
then the other. We soon got used to that and the thing which bothered
us the most was at meal time. The tables had a board along the edge
and all the plates would slide from one side to the other. When you
wanted salt, pepper, etc. you would grab it when it came to your side
of the table. We had to hang onto our plates as we ate, but that
didn't seem to hurt our appetites. As it was such a large ship the
movement was slow and not violent unlike the small ship I came home
in.
The normal four day crossing took us seven days and we landed
at Gloucester, Scotland, harbor in the middle of December. As we
disembarked we looked back at the ship and that was the first time we
saw the Queen in its entirety. It was huge in the brilliant sunlight.
We next had our first experience with an English train. The aisle
runs down the side of the car with small compartments on the side. We
were packed in so tightly with all our luggage that the aisle was full
and prohibited any walking around. We made part of the trip in the
daytime so we saw some of the Scottish and English country side.
On December 23 we arrived it Keevil, England in the southwest not far
from Bath. This was not an airfield, just a place to stay until we got
a base and planes. Keevil was horrible and the worst of places to
spend your second Christmas away from home. We lived in board shacks
covered with tar paper and the weather was cold and damp. We had
little stoves in our shacks but nothing to burn in them. The only
tools we had were knives so we used them to cut branches of trees and
bushes. It was green wood so we would coat the twigs with shoe polish
to make them burn. We had one large building for a mess hall with one
stove in the middle of it. Here we were served powered eggs for
breakfast every morning and they were terrible... tasteless, smelly
and a sickly green color. Instead of the eggs we would get a couple of
slices of bread and toast them on a stick in the one stove in the
middle of the room.
Neill and I made one trip to Bath where we went through the old Roman
baths and walked through the rest of the city. We made one trip to
London by train and walked around the city. Trafalger Square remains
in my memory. It was a long trip by train from Keevil so we only went
once while stationed there. Later we were closer to London and went
more often. I remember once getting a cup of coffee while waiting for
a train back to base. The English were unfamiliar with coffee making
and it was so hot and strong that the train arrived before it was cool
enough to drink. One of the interesting things at Keevil was how we
would take a bath. The bath house was a long narrow building with
openings at either end and had a cement floor. Partitions separated
bathtubs set up on higher concrete slabs in each stall. It was winter
and there was no heat in the building but the water was always hot. We
would hang all our clothes, including our shoes up high, fill the tub
with water, jump in and leave the water running the entire time. The
tubs would run over and the water would run down the aisle and out the
doorways at either and. The building would fill with steam and we
would lay in the tubs for one to three hours as it was the only place
we could get warm. I have no idea how they heated the water, but it
was always hot. I was in the same shack as Ullo and Bruce so we all
suffered that place together. While we were overseas we asked Lettie
and Ullo's girl friend Dolores, who lived in Oakland to get together
and they became friends.
After a couple of weeks we moved to Riverhall, near Colchester. Here
we lived in metal nissan huts and conditions were a little better. We
still didn't know what kinds of planes we would get, P-51 or P-47s and
were very happy when we got the P-51s. it was January, still cold and
we had one small stove in the center of the metal building and we were
still trying to burn green wood. The mess building used soft coal to
cook and it came in big blocks some chunks over a foot square. We
would go down there and steal a chunk when the cooks were not looking
and run like hell. We broke it up for burning, and would keep warm for
awhile. I had about ten Army blankets on my cot. First I covered the
cot with a thick layer of newspapers and then put all the blankets on,
tied a rope around to hold everything on and never made my bed the
entire time I was there. I crawled in Just like it was a sleeping bag.
You had to watch out lest someone from another hut come in and put a
hand full of shells from our 45 caliber revolvers into the stove when
no one was looking. They made quite a noise, but would Just rattle the
stove and not really hurt anyone.
Ullo had an electric razor that ran on 110 volts but of course the
English power was all 220 volts. Ullo was an electrician by trade so
we went to Colchester to the "sparkmonqer" (hardware) and bought a lot
of wire, bulbs, ect. and Ullo put up about ten foot wire over our
bunks with a lightbulb connected about every foot. When they were all
lit it cut the voltage down so the razor would run. If your beard was
tough you could just unscrew another bulb and the razor would run
faster. Real handy, it worked fine and we both used it.
I still had a camera and started using it again. I can't remember why
I didn't take any pictures during flight training but Bill Haynes,
from Chicago, and I took a lot around the base, of the planes, gun
emplacements, etc. I had about ten rolls taken and kept them in my
locker. Due to security reasons I didn't get them developed, but I
should have sent them home undeveloped and taken the chance. When I
was shot down they were all in my locker and I never saw it, or them
again. After the war I tried to contact Bill Haynes to see if he had
any, but was not able to find his correct address. It would be
wonderful to see them.
We were Just north of London and were now experiencing air raids by
the Germans at night. By this time we had been through enough that we
didn't have any fear so we would go outside during the raid to watch
the searchlights pick out the German bombers and listen to the
anti-aircraft guns. We were out in the country so there were no close
targets and we felt safe.
At Rivenhall it was a long way to the mess hall from our barracks so
in the morning we would come outside to smell the air to determine if
they were serving powdered eggs. If they were, we would just skip
breakfast. Real eggs were very scarce in England at the time and once
every week or two we were issued two real eggs. We kept them in our
lockers and on the mornings when we would smell the powdered eggs at
their worst we would carry our hoarded eggs down to the mess hall. We
carried them in our jacket pockets and it was difficult to make it
there without someone breaking them. If someone thought you were
carrying eggs, they would chase you all the way to the mess hall. They
got me once and it made a mess in your pocket! Anyway, our aim was to
get the eggs to the cook who would fix them any way you wanted while
you waited. We were still having classes in aircraft
identification and a lot of map study so that we would recognize all
the coastline of Europe and England. The boys were still playing poker
and Al Johnson was still borrowing money and paying me back every
payday. He owed me money most of the time. We went to London several
times and stayed at the Palace Hotel. It was near the center of London
and one of the best hotels. It made the English angry as we got the
hotel room and would fill the little gas heater up with shillings then
would go out to eat while it was running to heat the room up. The
heater would run about twenty minutes for a shilling, but the English
would never run the heater unless they were in the room as gas was in
short supply. We had the money and felt that we needed heat more than
they did. One night we were there during an air raid and didn't oven
bother to get out of bed to look for a shelter. The hotel shook a lot
and it was noisy, but we survived. We ate some of our meals at the
Grovesner House which was a huge place. The serving was cafeteria
style and 2,000 could be seated at a time. The food was good and there
was a bar there too. One night in the blackout and the fog we found a
little bar where they served warm beer in big pitchers which we tried
to cool by adding ice. It was so dark and foggy outside that you kept
bumping into people and all you could see were taxis with little slits
of light for headlights. They still drove them in the total darkness.
While in London we also visited several art museums and saw one stage
show.
The English prostitutes were really a problem to some of us. One night
Ullo and I were staying at the Palace Hotel and when we opened the
door to leave, there were six or more of them who pushed into the
room. We had quite a time getting them to leave, and they followed us
all the way out to the main entrance onto the sidewalk. With all the
people around it was embarrassing as they were swearing at us. We lost
ourselves in the crowd as fast as we could. There were a large number
of prostitutes in London and I suppose they made a good living off the
Americans. The English soldiers had no money and the Americans were
loaded with it. I never did understand the English system of money and
when Paying for food or a bus ride would usually Just hold out a
handful of change and let them take the right amount. I guess most
people were honest because I know enough about it to suspect if they
were Cheating.
I enjoyed walking around the little narrow back streets and stopping
in the tea shops for tea and biscuits. I remember one little place
because when you were ready to leave you had to bend over to turn the
doorknob which was only about a foot and a half off the floor. One
time several of us went to Colchester for the weekend and stayed at
the Red Lion Inn. There were inns of that name all over England. They
all had the high beamed ceiling, a the dark woodwork, with a small bar
and a place for eating. For breakfast they served eggs and bacon with
toast and coffee. We couldn't figure out how they fed us like that
when the English people were going without due to shortages. Probably
they did it for the money although it seemed a reasonable price to us.
Lenny Pierce was at an airbase in central England about thirty miles
from where I was stationed and he was already flying missions. I
contacted him and made arrangements to go up to visit I made the trip
by ambulance as that was a cheap and good way to get around. They were
headed in every direction so I would catch one going one way and when
they stopped at a base I would catch another going in the next
direction. At one base I was waiting when they wheeled in a stretcher
with the remains of an Englishman who had been trying to defuse a
bomb. He was still alive, but not much was left of him. I finally made
it to Len's field and spent the night there. He was living in a
beautiful brick home that was probably the residence of a British
officer before the war. At night he would set his shoes out in the
hall and in the morning they would be returned polished. Something
different from the conditions in which we found ourselves! We were
able to travel around like this when the weather was bad and there was
no chance of flying. After we began flying missions we had to be more
careful to stay near our base. Len Pierce was also flying P-51s and
was with one of the best outfits. He entered the service a couple of
months ahead of me and was Just that much further ahead.
We received a base pay each month and a flying pay for each month when
we flew at least four hours. During the first two months we received
no flying pay as we had no planes. Just before I left the States, I
arranged to have $100 a mouth from my pay go to Lettei in California.
Finally our new planes arrived and this was the first time we were
sure we were really getting P-51s. A lot of the other squadrons were
getting P-47s and P-38s so we considered ourselves lucky to be getting
the planes we wanted most. It was near the end of February and
everyone was anxious to begin flying after two months. These were the
best fighter planes in the war and thousands of them had been built.
Until this time there had been no fighters with long enough range to
escort the bombers deep into Germany and our effort was taking a real
beating from the German fighters. On February third I flew the P-51
for the first time and it was a thrill. It had so much more power than
anything we had flown before and was a pleasure to fly. In it you
truly felt part of the plane. That was what they called a "Pilot's
Plane". For several days we just took the planes up to get their feel.
On clear days you could see France and Belgium across the Channel but
in general we flew near the base. Some pilots wore crazy and one even
slipped across the Channel and shot all his ammunition at a train.
This aggressive type of pilot usually proved to be the best in combat,
so he was only reprimanded and grounded for three days. Due to the
English weather, we were probably al1 grounded anyway.
We had a softball diamond for use when we were not flying. You had to
watch it all the time because some one would fly across the field just
above the ground when they could. They were so low that you would be
forced down into the dirt. All fighter pilots were a little crazy, but
mostly the nicest guys you'd ever meet. Several times I went up to
33,000 feet which was the highest the plane would go before the
controls got sluggish due to the thin air. When you started the plane
you could not take too much time getting into the air the air. You
needed to taxi out and take off as soon as possible as it was a liquid
cooled engine and the liquid would overheat and boil out al1 over the
plane. That would make your maintenance crew real unhappy as they
would have to clean the sticky material off the whole plane. This
happened to me just once as I was getting ready to take off and it was
the only mission when my flight had to go without me. The P-51 landed
at about 90 mph and took off at 100 to 110 mph.
One day Bruce, Tilson and I were flying together and landed at another
field where they had P-47s and we had the opportunity to look them
over closely. We didn't think much of them as they were big and clumsy
next to our sleek planes. The fog started to close in and we headed
home in a hurry. By the time we got back to the field we were on
instruments only as we couldn't see a thing. The base put us at
different altitudes 500 feet apart and brought us down one at a time
by radar. It was a good thing we had all the instrument training and
by following the radio instructions we were brought right to the end
of the runway before we even saw the ground.
We were in the Ninth Air Force, the 363 Fighter Group, and the 380 th
squadron. Each field had three squadrons at different locations around
the field. We had the 380th 381 and 382 squadrons. Our squadrons
consisted of 25 pilots and a lot of the guys I flew with in the States
were in the other squadrons, but we didn't get together much. We were
all second Lieutenants except for one first lieutenant, Martin DoLong
from Dansville, N.Y. and our commanding officer, Captain McCall. Our
commander was a very poor leader and was scared to death to fly a
mission. Most of the other groups in England were led by majors or
colonels and sometimes even by a general. Good leaders made all the
difference, and the squadrons had much better combat records than we
did because of this. Those squadrons with good records were sent to
the areas where most of the fighting was taking place. Most of our
missions were led by the first Lieutenant Martin DeLong. Years after
the War I heard that he was a colleqe professor down in Dansville But
never got down there to see him.
When we flew missions, our squadron flew four flights of four planes
in each flight and the other two squadrons the same. On occasions we
were down a few planes due to damage. Our flight was usually Tilsen
leading with his wingman and I with my wingman. 0n one mission I led
our flight. Most often Bruce flew as my wingman. When you were flying,
your wingman was supposed to protect you from an attack from behind.
It was good to have a friend there.
We had our own doctor at the field and he was a nice fellow a Michael
DeMaio MD. He was always checking us as he certified us for flying
duty and could ground anyone for sickness or flying fatigue. We also
had a dentist, Dr. Axelrod, to whom I went a couple of times. The
office was a tent with a dirt floor and the drill was run by a foot
pedal. He had an enlisted man who sat in front of you and pumped the
pedal when the doctor told him. The faster he pumped, the faster the
drill went. I did not notice the equipment was from Ritter in
Rochester, so I felt right at home. Dr. Axelrod was big man, 6 foot
tall and over 200 pounds.
Mr. Woods was a baldheaded man of at least 60 years who taught us map
reading and aircraft identification. We now had to be able to
recognize all the English, American and enemy planes which made a
large number to identify quickly. In one class this gentle man was
showing us the location of different cities in Germany and we asked
him where Blutengluten was. We sat there giggling for 15 minutes while
he tried to find it. We had Just made up the name and after a while he
caught on.
Mr. Fagan was also an older man who gave us the weather conditions and
other information. I think it was remarkable how those older men were
serving their country doing whatever they were qualified for. They
were necessary for each outfit and at their time of life it must have
been even harder for them to be away from home and living under such
hard conditions. At age twenty six I was older than most of the other
pilots myself.
After six hours of flying in England to get used to the planes and
practice landings, we were about ready to fly missions. Now we were to
get our own planes. I understood that each plane cost about $45,000
which seemed like a lot then, but is nothing compared to the price of
a plane today. We had our own crew which consisted of a crew chief
armorer and mechanics. They were proud of their plane and kept it in
excellent condition. They would wash the plane with gasoline and then
wax and polish it so there would be less air resistance and it could
go a couple of miles an hour faster. My crew chief was Alvin Wolfe
from Buffalo New York. Each squadron had their own identification
number and mine was A9-R which was on the side of the plane in large
letters. This was the only way we could identify the squadrons that we
might get mixed up with over Germany.
I should mention here that Ullo was always playing cribbage, and he
and Snyder would often be playing on the wing of a plane right up to
takeoff time. Neill Ullo and I had been to London and decided to take
piano lessons. What a time and situation to start something like that!
We walked all around the little back streets of London until we found
an old man who gave lessons. We made a down payment and set a date for
our first lesson, but due to what was to happen to us, we never made
it back again.
Our first mission was on February 25, 1944. After breakfast (if you
were not too nervous to eat) we would report to the Ready Room which
was similar to a school classroom with chairs, a platform up front,
and a large map showing England and Germany was covered with a drape
and we would sit there buzzing with talk and nervous about where we
might be going. When they pulled back the drape there was a red ribbon
from our base to the target and back. If it was a short ribbon
everyone would cheer and a long ribbon would fill the room with
groans. Our first mission was across the Channel to France to see if
any German planes would come up. We ran into no opposition and it was
an easy time. It is not too clear after all these years, but I
remember that first mission we were short of equipment and I flew
without either a parachute or a life raft. I believe it was a
parachute I was missing because that usually fit into the bucket seat
to raise you up and I filled mine with a jacket and rags. It was on my
mind the whole mission that if anything happened I would have to land
the plane and not bail out. We were ordered to fly ... and we had to
go, but that never happened again.
I will not be able to describe the missions in order, so I will simply
describe experiences as I recall them. We had a nice concrete runway
at this base but Captain McCall only flew a couple of missions as our
squadron leader. lieutenant DeLong led most of the early missions and
McCalls record was so bad he was soon replaced. We got a West Point
grad who wasn't much better, but he was big on discipline. This was
completely lost on a bunch of fighter pilots. When you go through long
missions and lose a lot of your best friends, you are not about to
spend time worrying about West Point rules and regulations. He even
tried to give bed and equipment inspection and had us line up for full
uniform inspection on the runway. I can't remember what finally
happened to him, but on one mission were led by a Colonel who came
from another base and was an experienced combat pilot. I think he was
sent to check out what kind of an outfit we were.
Of the 23 missions I flew, most were bomber escorts and a few were
bombing runs to targets in France and not too deep into Germany. The
P-51 had two tanks that hung one from each wing and they hold 150
gallons of gasoline each. On bombing runs these two racks held a 500
pound bomb each. If we were called back from a mission due to a change
in the weather, we would drop them in the Channel as it was too
dangerous to land with them still attached as they might Jar loose on
the runway. We thought about all the gas Rationing at home while we
were dumping all that fuel. These tanks and the 50 gallon tank that
was located right behind the pilot plus the tanks in the wings were
the reason the P-51 could stay in the air about six hours and was
able to escort the bombers all the way to Berlin and back. The
English Spitfires could only go as far as Belgium and France with the
bombers and the bombers suffered heavy losses until we were there to
intercept them. We would also be there to guard the bombers coming
home slowly after being damaged and losing engines. The Spitfire
planes would escort them as far as Belgium where we would pick them
up, then the Spitfires would meet them there again coming home. The
other American fighters like the P-47 and the P-38 could go a ways
into Germany, but not all the way to Berlin until their range was
increased later in the war. During flight the wing tanks had to be
used first as they were dropped at the first sighting of enemy
aircraft. They created drag and affected the maneuverability of the
plane. You had to remember, even in combat, to keep switching the
tanks to keep the plane's weight distributed equally and also to keep
the tank From running dry, causing the engine to quit. You could
start it again by switching tanks and putting the nose down, but you
couldn't afford to have that happen in combat.
You can see why our training was so extensive as the fighter pilot
was his own, pilot, gunner, bombardier, and navigator. He had to be
trained in all areas. on our second mission, which was the first one
for Ullo, he failed to return. Even though no one actually saw what
happened, we figured he had gone down. Remember that he was the one
who had gone to Texas to advanced gunnery school and came back to
California to teach us all he had learned He went down on his first
mission and probably never got to fire his guns. His bad luck spelled
the end of our piano lessons in London. His story is interesting and
you will Learn of it 1ater, After we got together again.
We had another pilot, James Barlow from Klamath Falls, Oregon, who
during training was always on the radio singing on the radio "here I
sit, fat, dumb and happy". He was shot down on one of our early
missions and we heard him call on his radio "So long guys here goes
fat, dumb, and happy bailing out. We were beginning to lose pilots
now and were getting replacements from the States. I'm glad I never
had to Join a group like that, not knowing anyone. We had been
together so long by then that we knew each other and were good
friends. We did not dwell much on the friends we had begun losing.
Each of us had accepted the probability that it could happen to us
any day, so had conditioned ourselves to the situation. Some of the
missions made us nervous but I wouldn't say that we were inordinately
bothered by fear. We were so occupied and it was a thrilling
experience to actually be a part of combat over enemy territory.
However we did look forward to the days that the weather was bad and
no missions were flown. We would sit around the "Ready Room" playing
cards and discussing past missions. I should mention that my Flight
Leader T.J. Tilson or Bruce had given me the nickname of "Buck"
Benson when we were in training in California and that is what I was
called from then on. I don't remember anyone ever calling me Bunny.
One of our missions was a dive bombing run on some factories in
France. We flew in formation to the target and peeled off one at a
time diving down at a large building and releasing our bombs. I saw
some of them go right into a large door at one end of the building.
We were down to about 500 feet and when we pulled up I saw the plane
in front of me blow up and I flew right through the pieces. I don't
remember the pilots name, but recall seeing something yellow go by me
and thinking it was the yellow "Mae West" life vast we all wore.
Anti-aircraft fire must have hit his tanks. I was flying with Bruce
and when we got back to the field he found several bullet holes in
his plane. Several times when we flew together he got bullet holes,
but I never did get hit. When going on a mission we would start our
planes and taxi out onto the runway. You taxied by zigzagging because
the nose of the plane was up while on the ground and you couldn't see
directly in front of you. We took off by twos with the second plane
at the side and slightly behind the other. The second plane watched
the lead plane only and kept the same distance from him. You didn't
look at the instruments on the runway, just the other plane. Sounds
hard now, but it was easy once you got used to it. We would then
climb by twos until reaching a specific altitude, circle until
everyone was in formation, then we would head for Europe. Sometimes
when it was cloudy you were forced to climb on instruments only until
getting above the clouds, anywhere up to 30,000 feet. The sun would
be shining there and the clouds as white as new snow. It gave one the
feeling that you were just above the earth and could step out and
walk on top of the clouds. The other planes would pop up out of the
clouds. It was quite a sight.
One time we had a Lieutenant Colonel leading our squadron and when he
got up on the runway the pilot who was taking off with him either
misjudged or didn't use his brakes and he ran into the back of the
Colonels plane, chewing off the entire tail section. The pilot
probably wished he could have died right there, but nobody was hurt.
Another time a boy by the name of Snyder came back from a mission
with a damaged plane and he ran off the end of the runway and
crashed. The emergency trucks went out and covered the plane with
foam to prevent a fire and he got out okay. He was not injured but
during the next few weeks his hair turned completely white. I
wouldn't have believed that could happen if I hadn't seen it myself.
The weather at this time of year was not very good in England, with
fog and a lot of cloudy days. If the weather was good over the target
we would usually fly anyway. Coming back from missions we were
usually at about 15OOO feet and when we got to where we thought the
field was, we would dive down and pull out just above the ground. We
could get up to 550 mph in those dives and the the wings would start
to vibrate and the plane would shake, but that didn't stop us from
doing it. At times we would come down through a thick overcast sky
and wouldn't see the ground until we came out from beneath the
clouds... sometimes pretty close to the ground.
After we took off and headed for Europe across the Channel there
would usually be someone who would abort the mission. This was the
term for dropping out and going back to the field. Usually this was
due to engine trouble or knowing that something didn't feel Just
right with the plane, but we had a few pilots who were "chicken" and
just made up an excuse, particularly if the mission was to be a long
one. They didn't stand very high on the popularity list with the
other pilots. I had my ground crew to thank for keeping my plane in
excellent condition so I never had to "abort".
There are a few facts about the P-51 which I will mention here. There
was a lever that controlled openings that kept the coolant from
boiling over while waiting to take off and it closed as soon as you
were in the air. The wheels were pulled up as soon as you left the
ground so you had to remember to put them down again before landing.
The four bladed propeller was a variable pitch and had to be set so
it would bite more air, getting you into the air faster, climbing
steep, then set back to the right angle. A small tube at the and of
the wing ran the wind indicator so you know how fast you're going.
The plane had a cockpit heater that didn't always work too well and
that was a primary complaint of the pilots. At 30,000 feet the
temperature could be anywhere from zero to minus 60 degrees so you
needed all the heat you could get. The guns were fired by pressing a
button on the top of the stick and we would test them on the way
across the Channel to be sure they were working. There was a camera
mounted on the wing which worked from the same button and it took
pictures every time the gun fired. This verified the enemy planes the
pilots claimed to have destroyed.
One pilot in our squadron had the cutest little puppy. It was a
little brown fat thing with fur soft as cotton. It would sleep on'
the back of his neck and he took it everywhere but on the missions.
Another incident I remember took place when I was walking in London.
There were so many Americans around, I started looking for someone I
might have known in the States. I finally saw someone who looked
familiar standing across the street, so I dashed over and asked his
name. You can imagine my embarrassment when he said: "Yes, sir, I am
the armorer on your plane."
On the days that we were to fly escort for the bombers we would get
up about 6:00 am as we heard the bombers taking off. We went to
breakfast and then the Ready Room for briefing. When the curtain was
pulled back and the ribbon went all the way to Berlin you knew you
would have a tough mission. The weather man would give us the weather
over the target and what to expect when we returned to England. All
of our compass headings depended on the weather, our point of
rendezvous with the bombers, heading to the target, and the compass
heading home. The map man would describe the coast of Europe at the
entry point and additional points of identification along the way so
we would be certain of our location. He explained where we would be
likely to encounter flak (the big German guns) and where we could
anticipate the most enemy fighters. We wrote down all of this
information on a pad fastened just above our knee so we could refer
to it in a hurry.
All this time you could hear the steady roar of the bombers taking
off. When there were about a 1,000 four engine bombers taking off you
could hear it all over southeastern England. It took a good hour for
all the bombers in a squadron to get into the air and another half
hour for them to get to the right altitude where they would circle
until in formation and ready to head for the target in Europe. They
used a lot of gasoline and time just getting ready to go. After our
briefing we would all make our trip to the bathroom and then to the
equipment room to get our parachutes and other equipment. We didn't
have to leave the field until about two hours after the bombers
because we were so much faster. We would catch up with them soon
after they crossed the coastline of Europe and it was a very pretty
sight to see the formations of B-17s in the sky for miles ahead,
especially on a sunny day. Some days there would be big white clouds
and the B-17s would create their own clouds from vapor trails. The
bomber vapor trails would be straight and the fighter trails would be
above them back and forth across the blue sky.
When escorting the bombers we had to fly as slowly as we could and
weave back and forth so as to not outdistance them. The closer to the
target the heavier the flak and we would see the black bursts all
around the bombers and once in a while one would go down. The bombers
had to fly straight and level with no chance of taking evasive action
and we would think how brave they were all the time never considering
changing places with them. We were above them and when we saw the
flak bursts could go up or down 500 feet, flying safely there for
several minutes until the German guns could correct for our altitude.
We never worried about the flak much because we could normally avoid
it. Once in awhile we lost a fighter plane to flak, but usually it
was to enemy fighters. After the bombers had dropped their loads they
could take some evasive action.
On one of the Berlin raids it was a clear day and we watched the
bombers drop their load and could see the bombs fall and the big
explosions go up right down the middle of a wide main street in
Berlin. After the bombs were dropped we would fly with the B-17s
until they reached the Channel. I went on several Berlin raids and on
other occasions we would be diverted to closer targets as the weather
had turned bad before we got to Berlin. The P-51 could stay in the
air about six hours which was the amount of time it took to go to
Berlin and back. Our missions took anywhere from one to six hours.
After being tightly strapped in and unable to move around in that
small cockpit for six hours, it was difficult to even stand up when
getting out of the plane. Some guys would step out of the cockpit
onto the wing and fall off onto the ground. We used to tease one
fellow because he opened his parachute when he fell off the wing.
Being so tired (and the strain of combat really was exhausting) the
shot of whiskey we got at the debriefing after a mission was welcome.
On each mission we had one pilot who flew up and down the coast of
England at 30,000 feet. This was the "relay plane" used to relay any
massages to the planes over Germany. Due to the curvature of the
earth and communication equipment at that time, radio messages could
not be sent directly. If the wind direction changed while the planes
were over Germany it would affect the compass heading we were given
to return to England and if it was overcast we could have blown off
course, missed England entirely and gone out to sea. If your home
field was fogged in you were directed to another field. I flew the
relay plane just once and it was very monotonous sitting up there for
hours. You could throttle the engine down so it would Just keep you
from stalling out and save gas that way. One pilot stayed up seven
hours and we thought he'd gone down as six hours was the limit. He
had just seen how long he could possibly stay aloft by using the
technique and came happily back to base long after the mission was
over.
They were very strict about talking on the radio from the time you
took off until you were over Germany and even then it was used only
for necessary messages and warning each other when in combat. Any
unnecessary talk might have given away information to the Germans
(even though they had probably picked us up on their radar). The
English bombers always bombed the enemy at night and they continued
to do this throughout the War. They thought that the Americans were
crazy to bomb in broad daylight. The B-17 bombers, however, were
heavily armed and could defend themselves fairly well. The English
bombers, on the other hand, had few guns. When the B-17s first began
flying, the Germans had so many fighter planes that the losses were
terrible. With ten men in each bomber, sometimes five or six hundred
men would be lost in a single mission. The situation reversed itself
when the fighter planes had range enough to escort the bombers all
the way to the target. At the time I was flying, the American
fighters were beginning to outnumber the enemy. Their losses were so
heavy that on some of, our missions we did not see a single enemy
plane.
One time, before we started flying missions we had the opportunity to
visit an English radar station in southern England. It was a large
curved glass about six feet across at table top level with a map of
England and Europe on the glass. The room in which it was placed was
dark and there was a light under the glass. The planes returning from
a mission were little blips on the glass. A couple of the blips were
over the ocean way south of England and they were trying to contact
them by radio to reorient them. they were far off course and expected
to run out of fuel over the Atlantic. I imagine there were more than
a few who ended up missing England due to wind changes or bad weather
during the war.
When we did use our radio we had a code for each mission and the four
flights of each squadron were: red, blue, green, etc. We used these
codes when talking to each other so we knew who we were talking to
without using any given names. We looked forward to short missions to
France or Belgium and these were called "milk runs". The long
missions with flak and enemy fighters were the ones we dreaded. I
should mention that we had a certain amount of fear on these
missions. It has been said that anyone who doesn't experience fear in
combat is lying. It affected some more than others, however, and we
were constantly being observed by our doctor for any signs of battle
fatigue. The strain would begin to tell after you had flown a lot of
missions.
When we began to lose friends, I guess one just developed an attitude
that it wasn't going to happen to you. If you were shot down there
was still a good chance of surviving if you bailed out safely. The
only instruction we ever had about parachutes took about five
minutes. "You put the chute on this way and this is what you pull",
and that was about it. One time I visited a building on the base
where they were packing parachutes and I learned how they folded
them, but I would never have had the nerve to do my own. When talking
to some of the bomber crews that were in prison camp with us, we
learned-much about their experiences having to bail out. They did not
wear their parachutes and had to put them on before Jumping. They
told about some airmen who were wounded or unconscious and they would
put parachutes on them and push them out. Even the unconscious ones
turned up In prison camp so it seems a fact that oven the unconscious
mind reacts, telling the body what to do. They must have pulled their
own rip cords to open their chutes.
One of the missions most memorable to me was to a target in northern
Germany where we were providing escort for bombers. When we got over
Denmark the weather turned very bad and we couldn't avoid the
overcast so were forced to fly on instruments. We never did find the
bombers. If it had been clear weather we could have seen Norway and
Sweden as we were close enough. The relay plane broadcast the message
to return to England and by this time we were all separated and lost
in the storm. I headed for home alone and decided to try to get under
the clouds as I couldn't get above them. When I came down out of the
clouds I was about twenty feet above the waves of the North Sea. The
waves appeared to be about fifty feet high and I was flying Just
above them. Suddenly a big bomber went across in front of me in the
mist and clouds. I don't know if it was enemy or friendly but I
couldn't have found it again anyway. I was having enough trouble just
flying my own plane. I was tense, my heart was in my throat and
really pounding I flew across water all the way to England so it
didn't much matter that I wasn't crossing the Channel at the
narrowest point (my usual effort). I gained altitude when I thought
England was near, went back on instruments in the overcast and called
the base for a heading. The base would give you a heading to fly for
couple of minutes then change to another heading so they could pick
you out of the other planes on the radar screen. They could then
determine your position and give you a heading home. When you are
headed properly you pick up a steady beep on your radio. You try to
keep the beep increasing in loudness as it gets fainter if you are
turning to either side. You could fly a straight line to the base and
when you approached you would be given an altitude to fly in at. They
even gave instructions as to when to let the wheals down. The radio
truck was parked at the end of the runway and when I came down out of
the overcast I was about ten feet above the truck lined up with the
runway And able to make a perfect landing. I was tired and relieved
to be on the ground. The guys on the radar truck did a great Job!
The rest of the squadron gradually returned until we were all down
and each pilot could go through debriefing, where he told what had
happened on the mission. We found out then that from the three
squadrons from our field there were eight pilots missing. Our
squadron lost no one on that mission. Usually when a pilot goes down
he calls an his radio or there is a lot of chatter if they engage
enemy fighters. This time there was only silence on the radio. With
forty eight planes in our three squadrons, if someone went down they
should have been seen by one of us. We suspected the missing pilots
might have flown to Norway or Sweden ( neutral countries ) for some
reason. Some of those missing were friends of mine, but not as close
as the fellows in our own squadron. High Command in England thought
the Germans might have come up with a new weapon as no flak or enemy
fighters were seen. All flights from England were grounded for three
days while an investigation took place. None of those pilots ever
turned up in prison camps and I don't think anyone ever knew what
really happened to them. On another mission we escorted the bombers to
Regansburg in southeast Germany, which was about as far as to Berlin,
to bomb the ball bearing factories in that area. It was a tough
mission because the flak was so heavy and the other defenses were
greater because the factories were important. There were about 1500
planes from England and another 1100 came up from Africa. Someone
erred in the planning of this mission as we crossed at right angles
at the same altitude and we had trouble keeping from flying into each
other. I never saw so many planes in the air at one time and guess
the Germans hadn't either as they didn't send up any fighters! it was
reaching the point where we had more planes than they did and so they
only came up when they had a chance of success. We observed something
unusual on that mission. Some white smoky objects came up from the
ground in a spiral track to about 15,000 feet before they
disappeared. They couldn't reach our altitude and seemed to move
slowly. We reported them upon our return, but no one knew what they
were. On other missions where the Germans didn't send up fighters,
our fellows would be allowed to go down to ground level and shoot
anything they could see.
On this raid our squadron went down and we dove shooting at some
large boats on the Danube River. Every tenth bullet was a tracer that
made a white trail in the sky allowing you to track them. It seemed
strange to set your bullets going down and those from the ships
coming up. I watched my bullets hitting the decks. We flew all the
way back to England Just above the tree tops but never saw a train or
airfield to shoot at. There were flak towers, but they were too
dangerous and we all flew around them. They were concrete towers with
many guns that could shoot in all directions. It did no good to shoot
at them.
By now I had flown ten missions and was entitled to receive the Air
Medal. At a ceremony at the base, we were presented with the medal by
General Whelan. For each additional five missions we got an Oak Leaf
cluster which we fastened to our theatre ribbon. I received two of
these before being shot down.
On occasion we had the job of censoring outgoing mail from the
enlisted personnel. No one liked doing this as it was a tedious Job.
We had to read all their letters and cross out any military info that
the enemy might pick up. Our mail was censored by the squadron
commander then sealed and sent out. After reading letters for a
couple of hours, I don't believe we bothered to cross out much.
Some of the English women living near the air base were selling
chances on a fruit cake for a shilling a ticket. I had the winning
ticket and when they delivered the fruit cake we could hardly believe
it. It was in a washtub three feet across and over a foot high. We
Put it on the table in our Ready Room where we spent our time
relaxing. We had to cut it with one of our Jungle knives, a machete
(another one of the Army's questionable issues: a Jungle kit for each
of us in England). The bottom six inches of the fruit cake was solid
fruit so you know it was rich. We cut off two sections for the other
two squadrons and some for the enlisted men and still had enough to
last a week. I don't know how they baked anything that big, but it
tasted very good.
One other of our missions somewhere over Germany we lost several more
of our pilots. We ran into a lot of German fighter planes and were
soon scattered all over the sky. I was so busy trying to keep from
being shot down that I didn't get an opportunity to shoot an enemy
plane. When things calmed down I found myself alone so headed back to
England. When I gained enough altitude I heard the relay plane
calling a new compass heading as the wind had changed to about 50 mph
from the north. I corrected to the new heading but there was no way
of knowing if everyone had picked up the message. It was uncanny, the
sense of direction I had. I believe I could have crossed at the
narrowest part of the Channel even without a compass heading! It must
have been a sense of direction I was born with because it made no
difference what my location was over Germany, I knew exactly where
England was all the time.
As it turned out, I was the only one from our squadron of 16 planes
that made it back to our airfield. Most of the others were low an gas
by the time they got over land and were scattered all over England
upon landing. One of our flights of four planes was unaware of the
wind changes, were blown off course and were way south of England.
They were still over land, luckily, when they ran out of gas and had
to bail out. Al Johnson the big Swede was one of them and it was the
only time in the year that he didn't owe me any money! They were
along the coast of France and were captured by the Germans. He was
not in our prison camp so I did not see him until we were in Atlantic
City for discharge. He told me that all four had landed safely and
that when he came down in his parachute, he went through an old barn
roof and landed in a pile of manure.
At about this time we made another move to a field near Maidstone, a
small town southeast of London. We were closer to the Channel here
and the field was entirely different. Some one else flew my plane
down here and I went by train with the rest of the group. It is
interesting to note that we went through the village of Sittingbourne
where my mother was born. The train didn't stop so I had no chance to
visit there. Our living conditions at Maidstone were different: in a
tent with a dirt floor in the middle of an apple orchard. There were
four of us in each tent sleeping on army cots with a stove in the
middle for heat. On warm days we could role up the sides of the tent
for ventilation. Another tent was the mess hall and we ate sitting on
the ground under the apple trees. We ate with our army mess kits and
rinsed them out in a barrel of hot water.
This was much different from the beautiful place where Len Pierce was
stationed. The runway at Maidstone was a grass field surrounded by
trees. They put heavy wire mesh in the ground to keep us from sinking
in when the field was muddy. It was a bumpy field to begin with! The
field was not very long and you had to get down before running into
the trees at the and of the runway. One time I came back from a
mission and the wind was blowing across the runway. (Planes always
landed into the wind and took off the same way) I was not lined up
correctly with the runway and was drifting to the right. It was too
late to pull up and go around again as I was down to landing speed.
This decision had to be made quickly and I decided to land. When my
wheels touched the ground I began to bounce to the right and by using
brakes and all the other controls I kept from crashing, managing to
stop Just before hitting the trees at the end of the runway. It was
the worst landing I over made, but I was relieved not to have damaged
my plane. I was very embarrassed when I got out in front of my crew.
By now some of us had flown enough missions that our papers were sent
in for review for promotion to First Lieutenant. We only had one
First Lieutenant in our squadron and it was about time we had some
promotions. I didn't get notification that they had been approved
until I was back home after the war. The year I was in prison camp
they paid me the lower wage so after the war I wrote to Washington
and received all the difference in pay that was due me. We were also
looking forward to the end of our tour of duty at this time. After
flying a total of twenty five missions you were supposed to be sent
back to the States. We were getting closer all the time and then they
changed the total to 40 missions. You can imagine what this did to
our morale. We gave up thoughts of going home and Just concentrated
on surviving as many missions as we could.
We were about to get some new planes with the bubble canopy and were
looking forward to that as they made it easier to see all around you
without all the metal braces in the canopy. One day I was told my
plane was coming that day and was looking forward to checking it out.
We would take it up high over England to check the performance at
high altitude, the guns and controls... just to get the feel of it.
In the afternoon we had to escort some A-20 bombers to France on a
bombing run and when I got back my new plane was gone. One of our new
replacement pilots had been sent up to check it out and at 30,000
feet he said something felt wrong and he bailed out. My new plane
crashed somewhere in England and I never even got to see it! He was
just a young kid and I never did believe that anything was really
wrong with the plane. I was angry with him for a long time as I never
did get one of the new planes and flew all the remaining missions
with the old one.
Another time when our flight was returning on instruments as the
overcast was so thick, we came down to 1000 feet and broke out to
find ourselves over London with the barrage balloons all around us.
They were balloons that had a steel cable hanging down from them to
prevent enemy planes from flying low over the city. We pulled up fast
and were lucky to get out of there in a hurry without being hit by
one of them.
One other mission when I was coming back alone I got over an area
where the flak was heavy--bursting all around me so that the sky was
blackened with shells. I realized than that I was directly over the
Ruhr Valley which was the industrial center of Germany. It was
heavily defended and normally all missions were routed around this
area. I flew all the way across the area and had to use a lot of
evasive action, including changing of altitude When flak bursts in
the air it makes a black puff or cloud-and there were thousands of
them shot up at me. It did make me feel good to think of all the
shells they wasted and what it cost just to shoot at me!
When you are starting the plane there is a knob that you push out and
pull in called the primer pump and it gives extra gas to the engine
for starting. On one mission Paul Maxwell was in our flight and his
engine quit on the way back. He found that the only way he could keep
it running well enough to stay in the air was to work the primer
pump. We all slowed down enough to stay with him and prayed that he
could make It across the Channel. On the east coast of England at the
point closest to Europe there was a landing strip on top of the white
cliffs. It was called the Masden emergency field and all the planes
that were damaged or having problems would head for there. A lot of
the bombers would land there if they couldn't make it back to base.
The runway was wide and straight in from the Channel so they didn't
have to make any turns. Paul Maxwell landed there and his fingers
were covered with blood from his having to work, the primer pump
constantly.
During the last couple of weeks that I was in England we began to
hear the V-2 rockets that the Germans began to use. Most of them
were directed at London but we could hear the sound they made as they
went over us. The gun emplacements that fired them were all along the
coast of Europe and it wasn't long before they were sending them over
at night. It was interesting to fly over England at this time as
everything was being readied for the eventual invasion. Every field
in southern England was covered with big pile of boxes and equipment.
I didn't realize until after the war the tremendous amount of
supplies, food, gas, ammunition and hundreds of other things that
were needed to supply an invasion of that magnitude. No wonder there
were shortages back in the U.S.! So much of this was to be lost in
the Channel when ships were sunk on invasion day.
One night Bruce and I were hungry so we decided to break into the
supply tent and find something to eat. We got up the side of the tent
and reached under the roof where we found a gallon can, of fruit
cocktail. Wt ran back to the tent where we began to eat it. We were
soon full, but had no where to hide the remainder so were forced to
eat the rest. It is no easy task to eat that much fruit cocktail and
we decided not to try that again. At the other bases there was no
form of entertainment and we had to go to the nearest city for
alcohol and movies. Finally at this base they put up two metal nissan
huts: one a bar, the other a theatre. I didn't use either one for
very long due to the following events.
On May 10, 1944 they opened the bar at 6 pm and Bruce and I ordered a
glass of Scotch and a beer each. After a couple of them we were
feeling good and decided to go to the movies in the other hut. Bruce
and I got to laughing so hard at the comedy that they threw us out of
the hut. We realized then that the movie hadn't started yet! We
staggered back to the tent and in the darkness Bruce tripped over
something and fell against the hot stove receiving a burn to the side
of his hand. I will mention here the value of the "Purple Heart"
medal because Bruce received one later for getting drunk and falling
on a hot stove and I received nothing for being burned when I bailed
out.
The next day, May 11, 1944, we were not scheduled for a mission...a
good thing because Bruce and I were in poor shape. Some of the other
pilots had been shipping their foot lockers home with all their extra
belongings. They would go to Fort Levenworth, Kansas and be kept
there until our return. I filled mine up with a complete sheepskin
leather flying suit including the boots, a pair of English flying
goggles which were very different from ours, a pair of warm English
silk flying gloves that came up nearly to the elbow my Jungle kit
with the machete knife, all my extra clothing and the undeveloped
rolls of film I had taken in England were also included. I had so
many good items in there and was looking forward to having them after
the war. About 4 pm we carted them off to the base Post Office to
fill out the papers and pay for the shipping.