by Jon E. Lewis
Then he and I went down lower into the fight after the rest of the enemy planes. We figured that the whole pack of our planes was going to follow us down, but the clouds must have obscured us from their view. Anyway, George and I were not paying too much attention, just figuring that the rest of the boys would be with us in a few seconds, as usually was the case.
Finding approximately ten enemy planes, George and I commenced firing. What we saw coming from above we thought were our own planes – but they were not. We were being jumped by about twenty planes.
George and I scissored in the conventional Thatchweave way, protecting each other’s blank spots, the rear ends of our fighters. In doing this I saw George shoot a burst into a plane and it turned away from us, plunging downward, all on fire. A second later I did the same to another plane. But it was then that I saw George’s plane start to throw smoke, and down he went in a half glide. I sensed something was horribly wrong with him. I screamed at him: “For God’s sake, George, dive!”
Our planes could dive away from practically anything the Nips had out there at the time, except perhaps a Tony. But apparently George never heard me or could do nothing about it if he had. He just kept going down in a half glide.
Time and time again I screamed at him: “For God’s sake, George, dive straight down!” But he didn’t even flutter an aileron in answer to me.
I climbed in behind the Nip planes that were plugging at him on the way down to the water. There were so many of them I wasn’t even bothering to use my electric gun sight consciously, but continued to seesaw back and forth on my rudder pedals, trying to spray them all in general, trying to get them off George to give him a chance to bail out or dive – or do something at least.
But the same thing that was happening to him was now happening to me. I could feel the impact of the enemy fire against my armor plate, behind my back, like hail on a tin roof. I could see enemy shots progressing along my wing tips, making patterns.
George’s plane burst into flames and a moment later crashed into the water. At that point there was nothing left for me to do. I had done everything I could. I decided to get the hell away from the Nips. I threw everything in the cockpit all the way forward – this means full speed ahead – and nosed my plane over to pick up extra speed until I was forced by the water to level off. I had gone practically a half mile at a speed of about four hundred knots, when all of a sudden my main gas tank went up in flames in front of my very eyes. The sensation was much the same as opening the door of a furnace and sticking one’s head into the thing.
Though I was about a hundred feet off the water, I didn’t have a chance of trying to gain altitude. I was fully aware that if I tried to gain altitude for a bail-out I would be fried in a few more seconds.
At first, being kind of stunned, I thought: “Well, you finally got it, didn’t you, wise guy?” and then I thought: “Oh, no you didn’t!” There was only one thing left to do. I reached for the rip cord with my right hand and released the safety belt with my left, putting both feet on the stick and kicking it all the way forward with all my strength. My body was given centrifugal force when I kicked the stick in this manner. My body for an instant weighed well over a ton, I imagine. If I had had a third hand I could have opened the canopy. But all I could do was to give myself this propulsion. It either jettisoned me right up through the canopy or tore the canopy off. I don’t know which.
There was a jerk that snapped my head and I knew my chute had caught – what a relief. Then I felt an awful slam on my side – no time to pendulum – just boom-boom and I was in the water.
The cool water around my face sort of took the stunned sensation away from my head. Looking up, I could see a flight of four Japanese Zeros. They had started a game of tag with me in the water. And by playing tag, I mean they began taking turns strafing me.
I started diving, making soundings in the old St George Channel. At first I could dive about six feet, but this lessened to four, and gradually I lost so much of my strength that, when the Zeros made their strafing runs at me, I could just barely duck my head under the water. I think they ran out of ammunition, for after a while they left me. Or my efforts in the water became so feeble that may be they figured they had killed me.
The best thing to do, I thought, was to tread water until nightfall. I had a little package with a rubber raft in it. But I didn’t want to take a chance on opening it for fear they might go back to Rabaul, rearm, and return to strafe the raft. Then I would have been a goner for certain.
I was having such a difficult time treading water, getting weaker and weaker, that I realized something else would have to be done real quickly. My Mae West wouldn’t work at all, so I shed all my clothes while I was treading away; shoes, fatigues, and everything else. But after two hours of this I knew that I couldn’t keep it up any longer. It would have to be the life raft or nothing. And if the life raft didn’t work – if it too should prove all shot full of holes – then I decided: “It’s au revoir. That’s all there is to it.”
I pulled the cord on the raft, the cord that released the bottle of compressed air, and the little raft popped right up and filled. I was able to climb aboard, and after getting aboard I started looking around, sort of taking inventory.
I looked at my Mae West. If the Nips came back and strafed me again, I wanted to be darned sure that it would be in working order. If I had that, I could dive around under the water while they were strafing me, and would not need the raft. I had noticed some tears in the jacket, which I fully intended to get busy and patch up, but the patching equipment that came with the raft contained patches for about twenty-five holes.
“It would be better first, though,” I decided, “to count the holes in this darned jacket.” I counted, and there were more than two hundred.
“I’m going to save these patches for something better than this.” With that I tossed the jacket overboard to the fish. It was of no use to me.
Then for the first time – and this may seem strange – I noticed that I was wounded, not just a little bit, but a whole lot. I hadn’t noticed it while in the water, but here in the raft I certainly noticed it now. Pieces of my scalp, with hair on the pieces, were hanging down in front of my face.
My left ear was almost torn off. My arms and shoulders contained holes and shrapnel. I looked at my legs. My left ankle was shattered from a twenty-millimeter-cannon shot. The calf of my left leg had, I surmised, a 7.7 bullet through it. In my groin I had been shot completely through the leg by twenty-millimeter shrapnel. Inside of my leg was a gash bigger than my fist.
“I’ll get out my first-aid equipment from my jungle pack. I’d better start patching this stuff up.”
I kept talking to myself like that. I had lots of time. The Pacific would wait.
Even to my watch, which was smashed, I talked also. The impact had crushed it at a quarter to eight on the early morning raid. But I said to it: “I’ll have a nice long day to fix you up.”
I didn’t, though. Instead, I spent about two hours trying to bandage myself. It was difficult getting out these bandages, for the waves that day in the old South Pacific were about seven feet or so long. They are hard enough to ride on a comparatively calm day, and the day wasn’t calm.
After I had bandaged myself as well as I could, I started looking around to see if I could tell where I was or where I was drifting. I found that my raft contained only one paddle instead of the customary two. So this one little paddle, which fitted over the hand much like an odd sort of glove, was not of much use to me.
Talking to myself, I said: “This is like being up shit creek without a paddle.”
Far off to the south, as I drifted, I could see the distant shore of New Britain. Far to the north were the shores of New Ireland. Maybe in time I could have made one or the other of these islands. I don’t know. But there is something odd about drifting that I may as well record. All of us have read, or have been told, the thoughts that have gone through other men under similar
circumstances. But in my case it was a little tune that Moon Mullin had originated. And now it kept going through my mind, bothering me, and I couldn’t forget it. It was always there, running on and on:
On a rowboat at Rabaul,
On a rowboat at Rabaul . . .
The waves continued singing it to me as they slapped my rubber boat. It could have been much the same, perhaps, as when riding on a train, and the rails and the wheels clicking away, pounding out some tune, over and over, and never stopping.
The waves against this little rubber boat, against the bottom of it, against the sides of it, continued pounding out:
. . . On a rowboat at Rabaul,
You’re not behind a plow . . .
And I thought: “Oh, Moon Mullin, if only I had you here, I’d wring your doggone neck for ever composing the damn song.”
Boyington was “rescued” by a Japanese submarine and spent the remainder of the war in a POW camp.
HEAVY BABIES
HEINZ KNOKE
Heinz Knoke flew over 400 operational missions for the Luftwaffe during World War II, shooting down 52 Allied aircraft before being invalided in October 1944 in a road attack by Czechoslovak partisans. Below is Knoke’s diary for two of those missions, 25th February 1944 and 29th April 1944, undertaken whilst serving with No. 11 Fighter Wing in its defence of the Reich against the Flying Fortress (“heavy babies”) bombers of USAAF.
25th February, 1944
The Americans and British conduct their large-scale air operations in a way which leaves us no respite. They have rained hundreds of thousands of tons of high explosive and phosphorus incendiary bombs upon our cities and industrial centres. Night after night the wail of the sirens heralds more raids. How much longer can it all continue?
Once again Division Control reports those blasted concentrations in sector Dora-Dora. It is the daily waiting for the action call, the permanent state of tension in which we live, which keeps our nerves on edge. Every mission is now followed by some more pictures going up on the wall.
Concentrations in sector Dora-Dora! This report has now come to have a different significance for us: it is a reminder that, for the moment, we are still alive. The faces of the comrades have become grave and haggard.
Concentrations in sector Dora-Dora! Today it will be the same story again. In silence we prepare for take-off. One by one we again retire into the can. That is also part of the same routine. No laxatives are needed to assist the sinking feeling Dora-Dora creates.
Take-off at 1600 hours.
The Squadron circles the airfield until it is assembled in formation.
“Climb to 25,000 feet on course due north,” calls base. “Heavy babies approaching over the sea.”
At 15,000 feet over Lüneberg Heath we are joined by the Flights from our Third Squadron. It is cold. I turn on the oxygen.
20,000 feet: we maintain radio silence. Base periodically gives the latest enemy position reports, “Heavy babies now in sector Siegfried-Paula.”
22,000 feet: we fly strung out in open formation. The monotonous hum of the code-sign in our earphones: Di-da-di-da-di-da-di-da . . . short-long-short-long-short-long. . . .
25,000 feet: our exhausts leave long vapour-trails behind.
30,000 feet: my supercharger runs smoothly. Revs, boost, oil and radiator temperatures, instrument check shows everything as it should be. Compass registers course three-six-zero.
“On your left . . . watch for heavy babies to your left.”
There is still no sign of them. Nerves are tense. I am suddenly very wide awake. Carefully I scan the skies. Vast layers of cloud cover the distant earth below as far as the eye can see. We are now at an altitude of 33,000 feet: it should be just right for bagging a few enemy bombers or fighters.
Vapour-trails ahead. There they are!
“I see them,” Specht reports with a crackle of his ringing voice.
“Victor, victor,” base acknowledges.
The bomber-alley lies about 6,000 feet below us – 600 to 800 of the heavy bombers are heading eastwards. Alongside and above them range the escorting fighters.
And now I am utterly absorbed in the excitement of the chase. Specht dips his left wing-tip, and we peel off for the attack. Messerschmitt after Messerschmitt follows him down.
“After them!” The radio is a babel of sound, with everybody shouting at once.
I check my guns and adjust the sights as we dive down upon the target. Then I grasp the stick with both hands, groping for the triggers with my right thumb and forefinger. I glance behind. Thunderbolts are coming down after us.
We are faster, and before they can intercept us we reach the Fortresses. Our fighters come sweeping through the bomber formation in a frontal attack. I press the triggers, and my aircraft shudders under the recoil.
“After them!”
My cannon-shells punch holes in the wing of a Fortress.
Blast! I was aiming for the control cabin.
I climb away steeply behind the formation, followed by my Flight. Then the Thunderbolts are upon us. It is a wild dog-fight. Several times I try to manœuvre into position for firing at one of their planes. Every time I am forced to break away, because there are two–four–five – or even ten Thunderbolts on my tail.
Everybody is milling around like mad, friend and foe alike. But the Yanks outnumber us by four or five to one. Then some Lightnings come to join in the mêlée. I get one of them in my sights. Fire!
Tracers come whizzing in a stream close past my head. I duck instinctively.
Woomf! Woomf! Good shooting!
I am forced to pull up out of it in a steep corkscrew climb, falling back on my old stand-by in such emergencies. For the moment I have a breathing space. I check the instruments and controls. All seems well. Wenneckers draws alongside and points down at four Lightnings on our left.
“After them!”
Our left wing-tips dip, and we peel off. We hurtle down towards the Lightnings as they glisten in the sun. I open fire. Too fast: I overshoot the Lightning. I wonder what to do about my excessive speed.
But now a Lightning is on my tail. In a flash, I slam the stick hard over into the left corner. The wing drops. I go down in a tight spiral dive. The engine screams. I throttle back. My aircraft shudders under the terrific strain. Rivets spring from the wing-frame. My ears pop. Slowly and very cautiously I begin to straighten out. I am thrust forward and down into the seat. My vision blacks out. I feel my chin forced down on to my chest.
A Lightning passes me, going down in flames. There is a Messerschmitt on its tail.
“Got it!”
It is Wenneckers.
A few moments later he is alongside me again. I wave to him with both hands.
“Congratulations!”
“The bastard was after your hide,” he replies.
It is the second time Wenneckers has shot a Yank from off my tail.
After we land I go up to Wenneckers to shake hands, congratulate him on his success, and— But Wenneckers interrupts before I am able to thank him: –
“No need for you to thank me, sir. I only wanted your wife not to be made a widow by that bastard. Besides, think what a nuisance to the Flight it would have been to have had to dispose of your remains!”
All the mechanics standing around greet this remark with roars of laughter. I dig the lanky lad in the ribs. We go together into the crew-room. Meanwhile the others have also been coming in to land. This is one day we all come back.
29th April, 1944
“Concentrations of enemy aircraft in Dora-Dora!” Here we go again! The reorganised Squadron is ready for action.
Three Bomber Divisions are launching an offensive from the Great Yarmouth area. Our formations in Holland report strong fighter escorts. My orders are to engage the escorting fighters in combat with my Squadron, draw them off and keep them occupied. Other Squadrons of Focke-Wulfs are thus to be enabled to deal with the bombers effectively without interference.
1000 h
ours: “Stand by, the entire Squadron!”
I have a direct ground-line from my aircraft to the control room at Division. Enemy situation reports are relayed to me all the time. They pass over Amsterdam . . . the south tip of Ijssel Bay . . . north of Deventer . . . crossing the Reich border . . . west of Rheine.
At 1100 hours the spearhead of the formation is over Rheine.
1104 hours: “Entire Squadron to take off; entire Squadron to take off!” The order booms forth from the loudspeakers across the field. Signal rockets and Vérey lights are sent up from the Flight dispersal points. Engines roar. We are off! The Flights rise from the field and circle to the left, closing in to make up a single compact Squadron formation.
I turn on the radio and contact base. “Heavy babies in sector Gustav-Quelle. Go to Hanni-eight-zero.”
“Victor, victor,” I acknowledge.
I continue climbing in a wide circle to the left up to the required operational altitude . . . 20,000 . . . 22,000 . . . 25,000 feet.
North and south of us other Squadrons are also climbing. They are mostly Focke-Wulfs.
“Heavy babies now in Gustav Siegfried; Hanni-eight-zero.”
“Victor, victor.”
I have now reached 30,000 feet. The new superchargers are marvellous.
1130 hours: off to the west and below I spot the first vapour-trails. They are Lightnings. In a few minutes they are directly below, followed by the heavy bombers. These are strung out in an immense chain as far as the eye can reach. Thunderbolts and Mustangs wheel and spiral overhead and alongside.
Then our Focke-Wulfs sweep right into them. At once I peel off and dive into the Lightnings below. They spot us and swing round towards us to meet the attack. A pack of Thunderbolts, about thirty in all, also come wheeling in towards us from the south. This is exactly what I wanted.
The way is now clear for the Focke-Wulfs. The first of the Fortresses are already in flames. Major Moritz goes in to attack with his Squadron of in-fighters (Rammjaeger).
