Forgotten Fifteenth

by Barrett Tillman

  After aborts and early losses, 112 bombers loosed 327 tons of ordnance on the target, doing a thorough wrecking job on a fighter assembly building and two hangars, badly damaging another assembly shop plus other firms’ facilities while holing runways.

  Doolittle’s operations officer, Brigadier General Charles F. Born, hailed the mission as “the outstanding event” of the new command’s first four months. Wiener Neustadt production was reduced by 73 percent from the previous month, continuing to decline in December—probably a net loss of about 325 fighters. The Germans proved extremely resilient, however, and the Fifteenth would return to Wiener Neustadt often.23

  In the air, bomber gunners claimed fifty-six interceptors shot down in a twenty-minute gunfight. Both sides overclaimed, but the Germans were far closer to the mark. The Luftwaffe wrote off eight Messerschmitts in exchange for fifteen Viermots credited versus eleven Americans downed. A sevenfold exaggeration in bomber gunner claims was not unusual. With perhaps dozens of gunners simultaneously shooting at multiple targets in a fast, dynamic combat, errors were inevitable.

  Crews of the six missing Forts and five Liberators represented sixty-eight fliers killed and forty-one captured. The 6.5-percent attrition could not be sustained for long. Despite the successful bombing, at that rate the Fifteenth would be extinct in fifteen missions.

  A Fortress pilot flying his fiftieth mission on the Wiener Neustadt raid, First Lieutenant Richard Eggers, ensured that his crew had jumped before he released the controls. The doomed Second Group Fortress dropped into a spin, but Eggers got out. “In the movies,” he said, “you count to three and pull the ripcord. That’s what I did and it worked.” Eggers’s downing was less wrenching than many. He landed in a tree, “hanging a few feet from the ground as safe as a baby in a cradle.” When found by soldiers and civilians, he had no choice but to surrender. “Errol Flynn I am not, and accepted their invitation to lunch in a nearby town.”

  Eggers’s copilot was Flight Officer Donald Elder. The policeman who captured him showed him the dog tags of two dead crewmembers and a pair of baby shoes carried by tail gunner Sergeant Thomas Zelasko. Later a Luftwaffe sergeant told Elder that his friends were buried in a small town near the crash site. “I asked him what kind of burial they had, and he said it was not a military one but they did get a decent burial. . . .” Eggers, Elder, and the other six fliers survived the war as prisoners.24

  Bombers flew in both directions on November 2. That evening the Luftwaffe launched a large air raid against Bari’s port—a hundred Junkers 88 bombers. Surprise was complete, the attack devastating.

  Among the thirty ships in Bari harbor was the transport John Harvey, loaded with tons of secret mustard-gas bombs kept in case the Axis resorted to chemical warfare. She spilled liquid sulfur into the harbor as she went down, and an explosion released a cloud of mustard gas over the town. Hundreds of sailors, medical staff, and civilians were blinded and burned by the poison, and scores died. The Americans and British tried at first to keep the existence of the chemical weapons a secret, for fear of provoking the Germans, but they eventually had to acknowledge the obvious.

  Allied naval casualties at Bari were placed at a thousand dead with perhaps as many civilians killed. Seventeen ships were destroyed, and others sustained serious damage. The port and town were so badly damaged that the facility was not reopened until February 1944.25

  Explosions from ammunition-laden ships blew out several windows in Doolittle’s new headquarters. The next day he delivered pointed monologues to commanders of the area radar stations, night fighter squadrons, and antiaircraft batteries.

  AT WAR WITH THE WEATHER

  The Joint Chiefs had agreed to set up the Fifteenth in part because an Italian base would bring southern targets into the range of air attack but also because of Italy’s weather. The sunny Mediterranean climate, they presumed, would offer more flying days than the Eighth could extract from soggy Britain, and so was seen as an Allied force multiplier. Those expectations proved to be mistaken. Lacking favorable weather, radar bombing capability, and enough long-range fighters, Doolittle’s command did what it could for the rest of the year. After the Wiener Neustadt attack, the Fifteenth logged only six comparable missions before year’s end. Weather beyond Italy limited the command to “local” strikes against communications networks, rail marshalling yards, and airfields in Italy, France, Greece, and Bulgaria, and even those missions were costly. An attack on the Innsbruck marshalling yard and the Augsburg Messerschmitt factory on December 19 cost a dozen bombers.26

  THE POLITICAL FRONT

  In late November, while the Fifteenth was logging its first missions, the Cairo Conference sharpened Allied grand strategy as President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed how to conduct the European war. Then they proceeded to Tehran to consult with the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin.

  In Cairo, General Arnold claimed, “many knotty and controversial problems [were] solved.” That was one interpretation. Though the Combined Chiefs approved creation of the U.S. Strategic and Tactical Air Forces (USSTAF), the British officers added they did “not agree in principle with the American decision.”27

  En route home on December 9, Arnold stopped at Bari to brief Spaatz, Doolittle, and the Twelfth Air Force commander, Major General John K. Cannon. Eisenhower had been named supreme commander for the 1944 invasion of northern France, and he wanted his desert airmen with him in England. That included Doolittle, but mainly it meant Spaatz. Consequently, Major General Ira C. Eaker, who had built the Eighth Air Force from the ground up, would replace Spaatz as Mediterranean air commander. Doolittle was selected to relieve him in London—a situation to Doolittle’s liking if not Eaker’s. The high-level shuffling was interpreted by some as service politics, most notably in Eaker’s circle.

  In February 1942, Eaker had arrived in Britain with a six-man staff, establishing his headquarters in a former girls’ school. By the time he left to command the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces in January 1944, the “Mighty Eighth” had grown to twenty-seven bomb groups and ten fighter groups—two-thirds of its ultimate strength.

  Eaker recalled years later, “Eisenhower—because of his experience in leading the forces in North Africa and the invasion of Sicily and Italy—he was going back to take the Supreme Allied Command. So [General Jacob] Devers, the U.S. senior in Britain, and I were sent down to take his place and Spaatz’ place in the Mediterranean. General Eisenhower had nothing against me as an individual. I do know that General Marshall opposed it. General Arnold, I think, was on the other side. He wanted Spaatz to go back to England and command . . . all our strategic air operations.”

  Eaker remained commander of the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces until April 1945, when he became Hap Arnold’s deputy in Washington.28

  FIGHTERS

  The Fifteenth’s first three fighter groups flew Lockheed’s exotic-looking, twin-boomed P-38 Lightning, which in 1939 became the first American production aircraft capable of 400 mph. With exceptional performance, the wartime ’38 was dubbed the “Fork-tailed Devil” (supposedly by the Germans—der Gabelschwanz Teufel—but the moniker more likely originated in Lockheed’s PR shop).

  Colonel Robert Richard’s First Group traced its heritage to 1918. Its heroes included champion balloon buster Frank Luke of the Twenty-seventh Squadron and the Ninety-fourth’s ace of aces, Eddie Rickenbacker, both Medal of Honor recipients. Many second-generation fighter pilots tried hard to live up to the group’s reputation, and inevitably some pushed too hard. The group diarist wrote the epitaph of one youngster after a December mission over Spezia: “He tried to become a hero and instead lost everything.”29

  The Fourteenth Group found the Lightning a demanding aircraft, losing nearly twenty planes and several pilots before leaving for Britain in August 1942. One squadron remained in Iceland, but the group lost another six pilots and at least eight more planes before leaving England for Algeria in November.30

  The Fourteen
th’s initiation into the aerial combat big leagues was rough, pitting its pilots against Luftwaffe professionals at the top of their game. In about ten weeks the group lost thirty-two of its fifty-four pilots and was reduced to seven operational Lightnings by January 1943. Facing steady attrition, many of the group’s pilots became fatalistic. During an inspection trip, Hap Arnold asked Captain Ralph J. Watson how long he could continue flying. “Doc” Watson replied, “Until I’m shot down, General.”31

  As P-38 production lagged, the Fourteenth was pulled out of combat to re-form with a new squadron in May. Its new commander was Lieutenant Colonel Oliver B. “Obie” Taylor, a former sailor barely four years out of West Point. The group moved to Triolo on December 12, and in the next two weeks its pilots claimed thirteen victories against four losses.

  Taylor logged some four hundred hours in the P-38, and he developed a deep appreciation of the aircraft’s demands and its capabilities. “It required at least twice as much flying time,” he wrote, “perhaps more, to achieve the level of skill which was necessary to realize the full capability of the ship, compared with what it took with a single-engine fighter. In fact, my observation was that you never stopped learning about handling the plane, no matter how much time you logged in it. Naturally, this was something of a problem with green pilots, since you could not develop the desired competence in the usual sixty to eighty hours. Only after about 150 or 200 hours could a man hope to be an expert, but when he reached that point he could be unbeatable in the ’38.”32

  Lieutenant Colonel George McNichol’s Eighty-second Fighter Group had vacated Tunisia for Lecce, Italy, in early October 1943, arriving two months before the First and Fourteenth. On Christmas Day, while on escort to the rail yard at Udine, Italy, the Eighty-second was attacked from above and behind. Leading the high squadron was Major Hugh Muse, on his last scheduled mission. The Luftwaffe pilots were experienced and lethal—Oberleutnant Otto Schultz, a squadron commander, had sixty kills since 1940.

  The fight began at twenty-five thousand feet and wound its way down, penetrating a cloud layer at eight thousand feet and continuing to the ground. The Ninety-fifth Squadron reported, “The P-38s upon reaching the deck experienced ice conditions on windshields and gun sights interfering materially with operation.” The contest lasted forty minutes, several eternities in air combat. Six pilots were missing—three survived in captivity—and two more crash-landed in Italy. Despite the confirmation of only one kill by the Ninety-sixth Squadron, the two German units involved—Jagdgeschwader 51 and 53—wrote off four 109s. The Germans claimed nine, only one more than actual American losses.33

  Missions like Wiener Neustadt had shown that unescorted bombers were as vulnerable in the Fifteenth Air Force as in the Eighth. Doolittle insisted on more fighters, and a fourth “pursuit” unit—the 325th Fighter Group, known as the Checkertail “Clan”—was sent to Italy from the Twelfth Air Force in December. To the desert veterans, the new base at Celone, with its dry, grassy plain, was “the best bivouac area the personnel had enjoyed since coming overseas.”34

  In every military endeavor, leadership counts more than hardware. The 325th’s commander was tall, skinny, redheaded Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Baseler, who enjoyed verbal sparring with enlisted men. In Tunisia, however, he had ribbed his crew chief once too often, insisting that Sergeant Clem Eckert laughed like the ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s puppet Mortimer Snerd. The CO’s P-40 Warhawk bore the name Stud on the left side, and Eckert retaliated by painting Mortimer Snerd on the right. Colonel Baseler ordered the sergeant to remove the offending moniker, but Eckert was obstinate. A compromise of sorts was reached when the group transitioned to Thunderbolts. Baseler’s new mount became Big Stud, minus the secondary name.

  The group’s checkerboard emblem was the result of Baseler’s childhood admiration of the flamboyant German ace Werner Voss, who, it was said, had painted a checkerboard pattern on his Fokker in the Great War. Baseler had adopted a similar emblem for his fighters, only to discover later that Voss’s trademark had actually been a mustached face painted on his cowling.

  Puckishly independent, Baseler was the kind of commander who prefers asking forgiveness rather than permission. When the Allies had closed in on Sardinia, Baseler—then a mere major—took it upon himself to demand the island’s surrender. His P-40 pilots dropped a note to the local commandant, saying in part, “We wish to advise you that this message is directed to you by the ‘Checkerboard’ Warhawk Fighter Group, without instruction from, or the knowledge of higher commands. In the event that you accept the offer, we shall forward it to the High Command for immediate action. We have taken it upon ourselves to make this suggestion because we have been operating regularly over your territory and you are familiar with the situation in which you find yourself.” The Italian commander declined the Clan’s generous offer, requiring American ground forces to seize the island in September.35

  The 325th’s new airplane was quite different from the other groups’ P-38s. There was no Lockheed elegance in the big Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, with its huge two-thousand-horsepower radial engine and its shattering armament of eight .50 caliber machine guns. Its drawback was a relatively short range, even with drop tanks.

  Upon moving to Italy, the group applied its old P-40 yellow and black tail markings to its P-47s. Bob Baseler and his three checkertailed squadrons anticipated taking the fight to the enemy in the new year. Before then, however, a new aerial threat emerged.

  When Mussolini returned from internal exile in September 1943, his armed forces were split along political and geographic lines. The air force, concentrated in the industrial north, largely sided with the Fascist regime, while those units in the south could only join the Allies.

  The erstwhile Regia Aeronautica was divided. The northern portion became the pro-Mussolini Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana (ANR), while the southern Co-Belligerent Air Force entered temporary exile in North Africa, eventually receiving Allied aircraft. The ANR required three months to reorganize and re-equip, emerging in December with three fighter groups, two bomber groups, and a few transport units. Some of the Loyalist pilots were experienced, as half of Italy’s two dozen double aces sided with the ANR.36

  The Fifteenth clashed only rarely with the ANR, probably scoring fewer than fifty kills against Italian aircraft. Italy had always produced world-class airmen, and the World War II generation was stylish as well. When a fighter squadron landed at an American base in late 1943, P-38 pilots were astonished to see the Italians climb from their Macchis in dress uniforms, complete with capes and white gloves.

  THE COMBINED BOMBING OFFENSIVE

  While grand strategy and service politics played out, Doolittle’s fliers continued fighting and dying. The Allied air chiefs continued the Combined Bombing Offensive, begun in June 1943 with the Americans attacking industrial targets by day and the Royal Air Force continuing its nocturnal campaign. The priorities were German aircraft factories, ball bearing plants, petroleum production, and civilian morale.

  Doolittle’s portion of the CBO included the Messerschmitt plant at Augsburg, which produced twin-engine fighters. On December 19 the target was blanketed by clouds, forcing the fifty bombers to unload eighty-six tons into the undercast. The defenders, nevertheless, were able to climb through the weather and hack down three Libs.

  Three days after Christmas, the 376th Group left ten of eighteen Liberators around Vincenza marshalling yard. Things turned to hash from the beginning. Unable to rendezvous with another bomb group in the weather, the 376th’s mission commander, Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Graff, opted to continue without fighter escort. Survivors surmised that Vincenza’s reputation as a “milk run” influenced Graff’s decision. But ten minutes from the target, forty or more Germans hit the “Liberandos,” attacking three and four abreast. They were from the same two wings that had destroyed the Ninety-fifth Fighter Squadron on Christmas Day, and they were just as effective against bombers. Lieutenant James M. Collison’s Liberator w
as perhaps the first hit: two engines shot out, controls damaged, intercom destroyed. Collison ordered a bailout. The rest of the 512th Squadron also was shot down: six B-24s in a matter of minutes.

  Of ninety-nine fliers in the ten missing bombers, only one returned. Collison’s flight engineer, Sergeant Arthur M. Leadingham, who had been picked up by Partisans, turned up safe three months later, though thirty-five pounds lighter. His ordeal included an infected leg, traveling by railroad with a Yugoslavian woman who spoke no English, and hiding in mountain villages. When he got back to Bari, he was told he was going home. “This was great news,” he recalled, “because I don’t believe I had much fight left in me.”37

  The Ninety-seventh Bomb Group arrived just before Christmas, nearly completing the Fifth Wing. The group’s commander, Colonel Frank Armstrong, had become legendary among Eighth Air Force crews in Britain. He described the environment:

  When bomber crews are operating five miles or more above the earth, they are not actually in man’s element. . . . Men cannot live at 25,000 feet without oxygen and heat. A broken oxygen line is the immediate fore-runner of death unless an emergency bottle can be reached. I have known gunners to bail out over enemy territory at high altitude when their oxygen was shot away. Their decision was made quickly—seconds are precious when there is absolutely nothing to breathe. Cold is fierce and deadly at 44 below. . . . In the heat of combat at high altitude when a gun jams, gunners have a tendency to eliminate their gloves for “just a second” in an effort to make an adjustment. Before the gunner realizes what he is doing and replaces his hands inside the heated gloves, frostbite has done its dirty work. Long, weary days in a hospital is the reward. Gunners are aware of the penalty they will surely pay if they do not keep warm. On the other hand I have seen youngsters who would use their frozen hands as hammers to maul a jammed gun back to life.38