Fighter Pilot
Page 14
By October, the 434th completed conversion to P-51s, with just one remaining P-38, the dear old piggyback. I was comfortable in the new airplane and one happy fighter pilot eager for some action. It wouldn’t take long.
On October 6 the weather was beautiful, no clouds, unlimited visibility, and crystal-clear skies. Two unusual things were making me uneasy. Our bombers were at 31,000 feet, much higher than I had ever seen them fly, and there were no contrails, none at all. That wasn’t good. Contrails were a big part of our being able to spot the enemy. We were already at a disadvantage. We had a hard time keeping track of our charges, the bombers, and an equally hard time picking up enemy attackers.
The mission went smoothly until we made the rendezvous with our box of B-24s and B-17s. We were on time and on course. We were fast approaching the target somewhere near Berlin and there’d been no sightings of enemy aircraft. The rest of the 2nd Air Division bomb groups were there, all turning precisely southward at the initial point … but our box wasn’t among them. We frantically flew down the bomber stream, looking at tail codes for our assigned charges. No luck. Then, just as I started to turn my flight around the trailing box, I saw huge explosions at our altitude far up north. Those could only be bombers under heavy attack. Nothing else looked like that. God, what had happened?!
We tore up that way and arrived just in time to see waves of Me-109s and Fw-190s pouring down from six o’clock high on the hapless bombers. I managed to sandwich my wingman and me between the enemy waves, but it was practically useless. The Jerries hit so hard and so fast that there was little we could do. In singles and pairs, the squadron followed suit, and there was a chaotic parade: a wave of Fw-190s, a couple of P-51s, another wave of Germans, then more P-51s. Luftwaffe shooting at bombers and us shooting at Germans where we could. There was no way to estimate the number of stricken bombers or even make a wild guess at the number of Jerries. There was no time to count or worry about it. I had never seen such a melee, and I was hell-bent on getting some of those bastards.
The 190s split-S’d down as they completed each attack. We followed. The ensuing battle had all the charm of a dance in a junkyard. I maneuvered behind one Fw but he got lucky. The guns in my right wing jammed and the recoil from the three in my left slewed me sideways, spoiling my aim. The enemy plane fired his burst at a B-17 and the bomber lit up all along the fuselage and burst into flames. The 190 flipped over into a split-S and dove away with me right behind him. I tried to compensate for my aiming problem by walking the gun sight back and forth across the wingspan. That did it! I saw strikes and the canopy flew off, followed by several other large pieces. The Fw went into a violent skid, giving me a clear quartering shot. I hit the cockpit and flew over the Jerry as he plunged down, trailing smoke.
Just about that time I had to dodge the tail section of a B-17 falling straight for me. It was spinning like a maple leaf, and the poor tail gunner’s chute must have caught in his escape hatch door. He was out at the end of his chute lines like a rock in a sling, still alive and trying desperately to free himself. We made eye contact for a split second as he fell close past my canopy. His face was grim with determination, not fear. That image burned itself into my mind.
Debris was falling through my piece of sky: parts of fuselages, stray bombs, half a wing, an engine, bodies, a whole plane flaming madly as it disintegrated on its way down. Above, I could see scores of chutes descending amid the mess. Suddenly tracers went past my canopy. I broke hard left and hollered for my wingman, “Newcross Blue Two, get this guy off my tail!”
“Just a minute,” he responded, “I’ve got one cornered!”
I turned around in my seat looking for the bandit who was sniping away at me and saw, not the nose of a Focke-Wulf, but the silver spinner of a P-51, and yelled, “You idiot! Stop shooting! That’s me you’ve got!” Needless to say, that guy never flew my wing again.
The trip home was grim. We had all seen bombers go down before. But this was different. This had been a total massacre—all those bombers, all those men. We picked up a few stragglers, some trailing smoke, some with tattered fuselages and feathered engines, all with damage, and, I presumed, most with on-board casualties. For what it mattered, our little group of surviving heavies made it back to the coast of England and our flight turned for Wattisham. I don’t remember my landing. I felt shattered and I fought a lump in my throat when I taxied in and shut down. Glen Wold sensed my dejection and didn’t ask for details. I just told him it had been really bad and that I had to hurry to debrief.
The squadron ready room was quiet. Faces of the mission pilots were drawn, mouths tight, each man trying to deal with the horrific memories of what he had seen. The voices of the interrogating intelligence officers were brittle, knowing questions had to be asked and hating to have to do so.
Major Pillsbury, group intelligence chief, came into our midst. He stopped our proceedings and announced that someone from 2nd Air Division was on the phone. Headquarters wanted to find out what had happened, who was responsible, and why we fighter pilots hadn’t stopped the attack on the bombers. The boss wanted a couple of pilots who took part in the action to report to 2nd Div immediately, right now, and to be quick about it. The tone of the request and the nature of the questions had an ominous ring. Someone wanted to hang somebody, and it would appear that the selected somebody might very well be a hapless fighter pilot. Before he could look around, I told Lieutenant Colonel Herren I would go, since I was the one who first spotted the bombers and was perhaps in the best position to provide factual data. Herren agreed (a little too quickly, I thought). Major Glover from the 435th Squadron was selected as the other victim. We grabbed our chutes and headed out to the flight line. Our transport to the 2nd Div was an AT-6, a trainer used for instrument instruction and general utility purposes. Since Glover was a major and I had just made captain, rank was invoked and I climbed into the backseat.
Our journey to Cambridge took about twenty minutes, and a waiting staff car whisked us to headquarters. There we were hustled into the presence of one very distraught and irate general. I don’t remember his name, only his anger.
Once the location and timing of the forces involved were understood and plotted on the wall map, the general’s anger faded. Those were his men and their terrible losses hurt deeply. The general realized the leader of this particular box of bombers had managed to get his formation far to the north of his planned course. Not only was he all alone out there with his escort vainly looking for him at the rendezvous point, but, as luck would have it, he had put himself squarely in the path of that large force of Me-109s, which happened to be headed south for the main bomber stream. The general dismissed us with a wave of the hand and a feeble “Thank you.” The staff officer escorting us back to the airfield told us that at last count, the 2nd Div had lost forty-two bombers in that battle: over four hundred men.
Night fell before we took off back to Wattisham. I was dead tired and the drone of the engine faded into a lullaby. I dozed off in the backseat and must have slept for quite a while because when I awoke, something didn’t feel right. Too much time had passed. We should have been in the traffic pattern at Wattisham by now. I glanced at the luminous dial of my issue watch and realized with a start that we had been airborne for over an hour. Was it possible the major was lost? Even in Britain’s total blackout, the landmass of East Anglia could always be faintly discerned. You couldn’t hide rivers or coastlines. And this wasn’t the blackest of nights. The compass showed us headed north. That wasn’t right. Wattisham was south of Cambridge! I peered hard toward the earth and could see absolutely nothing: no clouds obscuring vision, no mist, just Stygian blackness. It dawned on me. We were over the North Sea headed God knew where or how far out.
Now what? If I voiced my suspicions, or suggested my belief that he was lost, the major was sure to get pissed off. Hell, he knew he was lost. He didn’t have to have some smart-assed junior officer tell him that. I’d be tactful, and give him an out.
No answer. Uh-oh. What’s your next move, Robin? Ask him if he’s getting in a little night flying time? No, that was a bit snide, wouldn’t do at all. I asked, “Uh, Major, could I ask a favor? I’m mighty behind on both my instrument time and my night hours. I sure would be grateful if you’d let me fly her for a while.”
The stick shook and I grabbed it happily. I pretended to make some practice single-needle width turns, and gradually got us headed a little south of due west. Hell, we couldn’t miss the whole of England and Scotland. To keep us on that heading without rousing the major’s suspicions, I did a few controlled 300-foot-a-minute climbs and descents, coupled with 45-degree turns right and left. During one of the turns I caught the faint glow of surf on a beach. The setting looked familiar, and soon I picked up the sheen of the river we always used on low-visibility days as a pointer to the runway at home plate. The major hadn’t been too badly lost. But if he had held his last heading, we might have made Norway in an hour or two, or maybe not.
October wore on, mostly with bad weather that kept us grounded for days at a time. Bud Grenning failed to return from a mission to Mannheim, and I was worried sick about my close friend. Then we heard he had landed safely in Brussels. He came back saying he would make all future emergency landings at Brussels and reported it was still a great city despite long German occupation.
I was out preflighting before takeoff, doing the usual walk-around to make sure both wings were on and the tail section was where it was supposed to be, the most important part of the ritual being the usual leak in the grass at the rear of the aircraft, when, just before climbing up on the wing, I noticed something had been done to my Mustang.
“Glen, what the hell is this window?”I asked, pointing to a small glass-covered opening on the left side of the fuselage just above the coolant radiator.
“It’s a camera, sir. Some guys came into the hangar when I had the bird in for inspection and installed it.”
“A camera? What the hell for?”
“They didn’t say, but come here.” Glen became all business and his voice was serious. “Take a look. See the lens? And over here; climb up on the left wing. See the two red lines painted on the left side of the canopy? Now look out at the wingtip. See the single red line painted out there? The guys told me that if you line up those marks, it’s where the camera points. Then, all you have to do is turn the power on and hit this switch next to it over here on the right side of the cockpit, and you’ll take pictures until you turn the switch off. The thing is automatic, they tell me. It’ll keep on shooting all by itself till you tell it to stop.”
I just shrugged. Take pictures of what? I thought. What’s this about? I had a mission to fly, so I hopped in and promptly forgot all about the camera.
Two days later Don Horton and Tommy Thomas, our two squadron intel officers, took me aside before the early-morning group briefing. They had some glossy eight-by-tens lined up on a table and led me over there. “See these? Recognize what they are?”
“Sure,” I replied. “What’s the deal? That’s a marshaling yard, a big one. Where is it?” I was beginning to get suspicious.
“Stuttgart,” Don answered as he and Tommy exchanged nervous glances.
I was more than a little suspicious now. “Come on. Out with it. Is this today’s target? Why all the personal attention? What’s it got to do with me?” All of a sudden, I connected. The camera. Holy shit! What was going on?
Don became all business. “Robin, this is highly classified. Really secret stuff; 8th Air Force headquarters at Wycombe wants the pilot of L2-W—that’s you—to take a sequence of photos of today’s target before, during, and after. Down low, real, real low—”
I interrupted. “What the hell do you mean ‘during’ and ‘down low’? That’s crazy! You ever count the guns around that marshaling yard? You want me to zip across that place three times? Down low? During? During the bomb drop? AFTER? You’ve got to be shitting me!”
Don put on his sternest official look and assured me he was not.
I didn’t like it one damned bit, but knowing I would do it anyway (what choice did I have?), my mind was already racing with half-baked ideas and a lot of questions. Most important, I sure wanted someone to know I thought the idea was totally stupid. Orders were orders, but I needed a plan to accomplish the task, so I hustled Don and Tommy over into a corner.
“OK, let’s get busy,” I barked. “What’s the TOT? Will the lead bomber drop the usual smoke bombs? How long does it take for a load of 500-pounders to fall from, what is it, 28,000 feet? Am I going in alone or do I drop out of our escort and get up ahead in time to do this thing? Hell, let me see those pictures again. What’s the weather forecast in the target? Will I be able to see the bomber stream from low altitude? How about the flak? Where are the guns relative to the target? You got any area blowups so I can pick a low-level run-in checkpoint? Jesus, Horton, whose fucking idea was this?”
Twenty minutes later I had it figured out. I had to forge ahead of everyone to set up for the photo runs. The configuration of that sighting procedure meant going in at about 300 feet and passing down the right side of the target, three times! The normal bomber force procedure was for the lead aircraft to drop some smoke markers. The rest of the bombardiers dropped on that smoke, or so we had been briefed. I would be able to see the smoke down on the deck where I intended to circle. OK, I had it: bomb drop time, first pass not too soon BEFORE (those three passes were now capitalized in my mind), then circle into position to see the bomber stream on their run-in, be so many seconds out so that I could pass down the right side of the target DURING the impacts, haul ass around to get the AFTER shot. Then head for home low, fast, alone, and hopefully alive. The second pass might be the real bitch, particularly if the bombers were ragged in their formation or didn’t have the winds doped right. No telling where bombs might scatter while I was next to the target.
I didn’t pay much attention to the regular briefing. Everything was normal, if you could call a huge bomber raid on a major German city normal. Weather was good. Flak anticipated as heavy, intense, and accurate over the target. Standard drill. Takeoff, rendezvous point, bomber tail markings, routes, altitudes, timing for everything, radio calls, winds aloft, safe course home, location of other fighter forces, latest intelligence info on the new German jets, emergency procedures, home-plate weather forecast, call sign and locations for the air-sea rescue people, our own aircraft assignments, taxi sequence, and so on.
Highway Lead gave his pitch about radio discipline and formation positions, issued a few cautions to the assembled group, and then said, “Newcross Blue Lead will be leaving formation prior to the initial point. Any questions?”
Questions? Hell yes! I thought. Is this necessary? Goddamned bomber people ought to take their own damned pictures. Grumble, grumble. I was in a snit.
“Hey, Robin, what the hell is that all about?” the guy sitting next to me asked. “What are you doing?”
A trifle dramatically, I replied, “I can’t tell you. Ask Horton.”
After the group briefing, the 434th Squadron ready room was in the usual turmoil: shouts for coffee, maps being drawn, individual flight briefings, people rushing about, tension in the air, lots of nervous banter. The squadron CO gave his standard briefing, followed as always by a mad dash for the johns, six hours being a long damned time to be strapped tight in a small cockpit. We used to wonder if the bomber boys, who had to fly almost twice as long, carried chamber pots. Soon we were off into Sergeant Charlie Claybaugh’s domain to don our Mae Wests, pick up our helmets and chutes, then dump the contents of our pockets into our lockers. It wouldn’t do to have old Jerry know anything about us if we got shot down. Heavens no, he only had a brochure and photographs on each of us since May, knew everything about us, probably more than each of us remembered about himself.
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The churning in my stomach settled down as the jeep dropped me off at the hardstand where SCAT V made its home. Time for business. Sergeant Wold gave me his usual, calm “Good morning,” but called me up onto the wing and went over the camera procedure again, somewhat unnecessarily, I thought. Then it occurred to me: How the hell did he know?
I asked him. “Glen, why are you giving me special attention this morning?”
“Well, Captain, this guy from group came by early and loaded up that camera with film, so I figured something was up today.”
The mission proceeded normally, almost too precisely. The B-24s were right where they were supposed to be, on time and on course. The weather was great. Holland lay ahead and I could see across the coastal peninsula all the way to the eastern shore of the Zuider Zee. Everything was going according to plan, a somewhat unusual occurrence, leaving no need for makeshift adjustments.
With little to distract me, I couldn’t help but think about the task ahead. I had to admit I was more than nervous, and I didn’t like the feeling. This was the usual excitement but pumped by about 1,200 psi adrenaline flow. I never worried about flak or German fighters. Those always took care of themselves as they happened. Sometimes the local English weather ground at me. Hell, it bugged all of us. Those 200-foot ceilings with a half-mile visibility would bug anyone with as little instrument training and experience as any of us had. But now I had time to think about the guns and that marshaling yard. This wasn’t impromptu. I knew my chances were good on the BEFORE pass. The Jerries would never suspect anyone to be dumb enough to come barreling across a target like that. Surely they’d be focused on the approaching bombers, or so I reasoned. Otherwise, how did those recce guys survive? But here was something that cut right across the grain. No sense at all. Old-timers and survivors all preached: “One pass and haul ass!” OK. Maybe I’d get by with the DURING pass. The bombs would be going off, confusion would reign supreme, and no one had ever been dumb enough to make a run like that twice. But the third pass? Waiting until the second box of heavies had dropped, maybe the third and fourth, then going in? Christ, the Germans would be raging mad, and rightly so. They’d remember that crazy lone Mustang pilot and probably be waiting, teeth clenched, eyes aflame, wanting to do something to get even. And I would be it. I really didn’t give myself much of a chance to get within a mile of the target for that AFTER pass, let alone make a nice photo run. When hit, the best I could hope for would be to be able to pull up high enough to bail out. That is, assuming I wouldn’t be a ball of fire like so many I had seen in the past.