Combat Crew

by John Comer

  It took me a while to get used to Gleichauf’s cockpit procedure. He was as different from Herb as day is from night! He had none of the easygoing, relaxed characteristics of most four-engine pilots. He was all business from the moment engines started, and prone to issue short, concise orders, which at first sounded irritable on the intercom. But I knew we were lucky to get Gleichauf’s kind of experience and ability.

  Herb Carqueville was from Chicago, where his family operated a lithographing business. Prior to the war he was quite active in the business, and expected to return to it when the war was over. A good relationship developed between Carqueville and me, partly because both of us had been in the business world for a number of years. Herb’s background gave him a different perspective from young men fresh out of college. At twenty-seven, he acted more like a mature man of forty.

  Our Navigator, Lieutenant Carl R. Shutting, was from Chattanooga, Tennessee. I had a mental picture of a navigator: he would be a neat, orderly, well-organized person with cold, mathematical efficiency, and precise methodical habits. Carl Shutting was at the opposite end of the spectrum from such an image. He had been married before entering the service, but had recently been the recipient of a “Dear John” letter. Carl was twenty-four, and prior to the war had worked in the post office in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

  Johnny Purus, the Bombardier, was from the Boston area. He was in his early twenties, and as dependable as a person could be. He was a bit shy, soft-spoken, and not easy to evaluate immediately. For a short period he had worked as an aircraft mechanic, but not on B-17s. It was good to have another man with mechanical aptitude on the crew. There might come a time in the future when his help would be crucial.

  When the war broke out I was thirty-one, married for not quite two years, and living in Corpus Christi, Texas. My education had been at Trinity University and the University of Texas. I was a competent outside salesman for machine tools, equipment, and auto parts. I had a solid background in the field of mechanics and supply, and also some electrical experience (fortunate because a B-17 was operated and controlled mainly by electric circuits). My position was flight engineer and I fired the top turret guns. The turret was mounted in the cockpit directly behind the pilot and copilot.

  It did not occur to us that we were already on combat status. No one had told the gunners a single thing about the 381st procedure for gunners. In fact we had not seen a gun since we reached Ridgewell. We were still waiting for the briefing that the Operations Officer promised shortly after we arrived. I understood that we would get at least one gunnery practice flight that would outline the 381st gun armament procedures. We should have asked questions. Where did the crews keep the guns? Where did we get parts or supplies needed on a mission in a hurry? What about the briefing procedures on mission mornings. Did we report to the Briefing Room or go to the aircraft? But military life discourages initiative, so we waited and waited for the instructions, so vital, that never came.

  July 29

  At 0230 (two-thirty A.M.) the lights snapped on and six startled men roused enough to hear the Operations Officer:

  “Now listen to this, Comer, Counce, Balmore, Abramo, Wilson, and Rogers. You’re flyin’ 765 with Gleichauf. Briefing at 0400 hours. Chow’s ready now. Come on! Out of that sack!”

  “This is a combat raid!” said Counce. “Why didn’t they tell us we were on combat status. No one has told us one thing! Do we go to the briefing with the officers?”

  “Don’t know,” I answered. “We gotta catch Gleichauf before he gets to the Briefing Room and get orders.”

  There were fresh eggs for breakfast but I was too nervous to be hungry. I watched the men come and go in anxious fascination. Our crew seemed to be the only newcomers there. I had a tight feeling in my chest and was beginning to feel nauseated. I envied the confident air of the vets who appeared totally unperturbed. I wondered if I would survive long enough to develop such a carefree attitude. Probably not! I was under no illusions as to what generally happened to new crews. Not many made it back!

  Trucks were lined up to ferry us to Operations, and in the dark they assumed ghostly shapes. Men talked, if at all, in subdued whispers. Most were silent except for an occasional curse as some new arrival stepped on a foot. It was a black, gloomy predawn, and our spirits were in complete harmony with the cheerless atmosphere.

  Just before the truck pulled out I recalled, with a feeling of panic, that my electric flying suit was back at the hut. I had taken it there to make some needed adjustments. I had no idea if I could survive the intense cold without it, so there was no choice except to jump out of the truck and run through the dark and mud to the hut. When I got back to where the trucks were parked, all had left. I had to run all the way to the Operations Office, following the indistinct shapes of other men in the darkness, and quickly drew my equipment. I found the rest of our men huddled together in a corner of the room, with their flying equipment piled around them.

  “What did you find out from Gleichauf?” I asked Jim, who had been the first to get to Operations.

  “He was in the Briefing Room before we got here. Everybody who knows anything is in the Briefing Room.”

  “Don’t you see the other gunners are headin’ out to the planes?” Jim said.

  “Yeah, I see that, but they got orders to do so. We don’t. Suppose Gleichauf expects us to be waitin’ here,” George answered.

  About that time the Briefing Room doors opened, and I made a dash for Gleichauf. “Are we free to go to the aircraft?”

  “You gunners oughta be there now. Hurry it up or we won’t be ready in time!”

  We made a run for the trucks and got a new driver who took far too much of our time wandering around the perimeter trying to locate the aircraft. A quick check of the plane showed no signs of any guns. The only man at the plane was a sleepy PFC mechanic.

  “Where th’ hell do they keep the guns?” I asked.

  “Guns? I don’t know nothin’ about guns,” he answered. It was obvious he didn’t give a damn, either. “Ain’t they in the ship?”

  We had only one flashlight and searched everywhere. I was getting very nervous as the time ticked away.

  “Don’t you know any place the guns might be? We’re running out of time.”

  “Sometimes Armament pulls out the guns while a ship is laid up a spell with heavy damages,” he replied.

  I hailed an empty truck and the driver agreed to take Abramo and me to Armament, wherever that was. When we got there no one knew anything about our guns. I turned to an officer who had just arrived.

  “Sir, we’ve got to have twelve guns for 765 — and real quick.”

  He turned to a Sergeant. “Get these men some guns and I mean right now!”

  “Wait! See those guns in the comer over there, all stripped down? Maybe they’re from 765,” someone said.

  Our ship number was painted on the barrels. Every gun was disassembled and Nick and I tore into them at top speed and got them more or less together. There was no time to make a careful inspection of each gun to be sure there were no missing parts. When we got back Jim checked the guns and asked, “Where are the bolt studs? Didn’t you or Nick bring them?” (A bolt stud was a one-inch-long metal device required to insert a round of ammunition into the firing chamber to permit the firing to begin. Unless that round was in place to start the action, the gun would not fire.)

  “You mean there are no bolt studs in the ship? Check again. They’re supposed to be tied to the receivers,” I responded. But there were none in the airplane that we could discover. An obstinate habit of each gunner having his own bolt studs had developed in defiance of regulations to leave them in the airplane. We did not know this at that time. (Before long I was carrying them in my pocket wherever I went.)

  An Operations Jeep drove up just then and Carqueville hailed the driver. “Take off for Armament and get us twelve bolt studs. Hurry! You got to get back before we taxi out.” The Jeep tore off at high speed. All of the hurry-hur
ry and confusion was enough to create a panic situation. This was no game we were preparing for! Planes would take off with or without guns in working order! Would he make it? Two minutes before taxi time the Jeep slid to a halt and the driver fought his way through the propeller blast to hand Jim the twelve bolt studs at the waist entry hatch. What a relief that was! Without them, not a gun would have fired.

  There was no time for a briefing on the target before takeoff. As soon as we were settled down in the formation Gleichauf came on intercom: “Pilot to crew, Pilot to crew — we’re heading for Kiel in northern Germany. There are several hundred fighters in the area and you can expect a hot reception. Be ready for attacks halfway across the North Sea. This is your first mission — now don’t get excited an’ let ’em come in on us!”

  The formation was far better than I expected. Hour after hour we droned on. It would not be long now: if only we could be lucky enough to get by this one! The way Gleichauf was holding tight formation, I hoped the fighters would not pick us out to be a new crew. Of course I was keyed up to a high pitch and I wondered if I would forget what little I knew about aerial gunnery in the excitement of the first fighter attacks.

  Number-four engine began to vibrate too much and I watched in alarm as it started slowing down. It looked like either the fuel pump or the magneto had failed. The engine was finished for the day!

  “Pilot to Copilot.”

  “Go ahead, Paul.”

  “Feather number four.” The propeller slowed down and ceased to spin. We were ten minutes from the enemy coast.

  For a few minutes Gleichauf tried to keep up, but the formation began to pull away. If we could not keep up it would be suicide, as well as useless, to go on and get knocked off over the target area. Fighters invariably ganged up and finished off the stragglers in comparative safety before they tackled the formation. There was only one thing to do. Gleichauf pulled out of the formation and started the long flight back to England.

  “Bombardier to gunners — Bombardier to gunners! Keep alert! We got a long way to go, all alone. Watch for fighters!”

  It was a long, tiresome, and frustrating day, and all for nothing! No credit. We still had twenty-five missions to go.

  While we were attempting our first mission, six men from the crew of Lieutenant William Cahow moved into the six empty bunks in our hut. Two of them were from Brooklyn, one from Texas, one from California, one from upstate New York, and one from New Jersey. They would become an intimate part of our world for many months to come.

  Ugo Lancia was the radio operator and a good one. He was a husky, handsome Italian — loud-speaking and excitable. He had a good singing voice and played numerous instruments, which he somehow acquired in England. The result was that we had the noisiest hut on the base.

  Woodrow Pitts, from Houston, Texas, was the engineer. He had a better command of colorful profanity than anyone else in the hut. He needed such an outlet for his temper, especially when he would discover another flat tire on his cranky bicycle. That machine defied all efforts at repairs. Something was wrong every day. Two times that I remember Woodrow picked up an infestation of “crabs” (a tiny licelike parasite that flourished in hair). That caused a frantic trip to the infirmary and a spraying of everything in the hut. Once I picked up the lice from Pitts or from some other unknown source.

  Moe Tedesco, a husky Italian from Brooklyn, was one of the gunners. He looked like Brooklyn, and he acted like Brooklyn. He knew little about life in any other environment. His thoughts and interests began and ended back there in the neighborhood where he was born and reared. He said he wanted me to come visit him someday when we got back to the States, and he would show me the real Brooklyn. He gave me his address but also the name of a pool hall. He said they would always know where to find him. Moe was about twenty-five. The Brooklyn accent, tinted with Italian speed, made his conversation interesting. Moe was the kind of man I would want along if I should suddenly end up in a brawl on some dark street in a tough neighborhood.

  Hubert (Hubie) Green was the other waist gunner. He was from a city about sixty miles from New York. Like Carroll Wilson, he spent most of his spare time in bed. He had this one big habit — writing letters. That man wrote more letters than anyone I knew in the service. Hubie was tall, dark, slender — very nice looking. He had a good disposition and never gave anyone any trouble. I think he was about twenty-two years old. I didn’t know what kind of gunner Hubie was. He always said he merely went along for the ride. I never heard any of his crew complain, however, about his performance not being on a par with the other gunners.

  Ray Bechtel, from California, was the tail gunner. He was quiet, easygoing, and cooperative. He rarely had anything to say except when a question was directed to him. Ray was so quiet I would forget he was there for hours at a time. He was a good man to have in our hut because he balanced, to some extent, the noisier characters, of which we had a surplus. I saw Ray in action many times and I know that he handled that position extremely well.

  Bill Kettner was Cahow’s ball gunner. He was slow-moving, steady, and methodical, which was the opposite of most of his crew mates. The men in our hut were grateful to Bill because of one lucky incident. He was returning from a nearby village one day, and while walking through some woods, he saw a crosscut saw hanging on a tree limb. He immediately appropriated it. That solved our fuel problem. Those long, cold winter nights were made more livable by the fuel we scrounged with that crosscut saw. When the war was over the King’s forests nearby were minus a lot of trees, but we had fuel when no one else did. We kept the saw out of sight and only brought it out after dark when some choice trees had been carefully scouted in advance.

  The diagrams on the following pages are printed courtesy of The Boeing Company Archives.

  1. The nose section.

  This is a B-17E model. It does not show the gun on the other side. The navigator fired both guns depending on the direction of the attack. The bombardier’s gun fired forward. In the later G model both side guns were removed and two guns mounted in a chin turret under the bombardier’s position. The platform where the Norden Sight was carried in combat can be plainly seen directly in front of the bombardier’s seat.

  2. The cockpit (or sometimes called cabin).

  The two seats for the pilots can be seen clearly. Behind them the flight engineer stood in the top turret. The two turret guns were fired by a Sperry Computing Sight, which automatically compensated for lead and all other aiming factors if it was tracked smoothly and if the wing length of the fighter was properly set into the sight. The door seen at the rear opened into the bomb bay. Access to the nose section was a constricted space under the pilots’ positions.

  3. The bomb bay.

  Note the narrow catwalk down the middle of the bay. The two vertical supporting beams in the center of the walk created a narrow space that caused the crew men all kinds of trouble trying to squeeze through it due to their bulky high-altitude clothing and the combat gear they all wore. There was not enough space to get through it wearing a chute, so when bombs malfunctioned we had to work on that walk without a chute knowing that if we lost our oxygen supply we could tumble out into the air. The bomb-bay doors down below would open at a weight under 75 pounds.

  4. The radio room.

  You can see the radio operator’s work table at right front (right side of the picture). The door at that point opened into the bomb bay. The door to the rear (left side of the picture) opened into the rear of the aircraft, called the waist. Since this is an early drawing the radio gun is not shown. It was mounted in an open hatch about five feet long and two feet wide. This created an enormous draft of super-frigid air gushing through like a storm. Imagine working a radio wireless key with the air temperature 50 below zero. The later G model enclosed the hatch space with clear plastic with the gun mounted into it. That saved many R.O.s from freezing injuries.

  5. The waist and tail.

  The door at the front of the waist opened into the ra
dio room. Just behind this door the ball turret was hung with about two-thirds of the turret suspended below the aircraft where the worst of the flak burst. The gun that can be seen is mounted in an open window. With two such openings the wind storm was terrific, causing countless freezing casualties. The later G model closed the two windows with clear plastic and mounted the guns through the thick plastic. This cut back on frostbite, but the waist guns were no longer as effective as the earlier open window mountings. The tail position was, as you can see, quite crowded. It was so deadly to fighters that they did not attack us very often from the rear.

  Chapter II

  Mission to Brussels

  August 10

  I heard the Jeep stop outside a little after two A.M. I could never sleep soundly when I thought a mission was likely. I would listen to the far-off roar of aircraft engines and shiver at the thought of where we might go in the morning.

  We had learned a lot from that first aborted mission, and this time we were ready when the officers arrived. Each Group had different systems. At the 381st they considered it to be more important for the gunners to go directly to the aircraft and get it ready for the mission than to sit through a briefing. Really, all we wanted to know was the kind of target it was going to be. The rest of the briefing information was of little interest to the gunners. We worked out an easy way to evaluate the target. One of us would stand outside the door of the Briefing Room. As soon as the doors were closed, the curtain covering the target map was pulled back and the reactions of the officers could be plainly heard; that told us about how rough the target was going to be. If an extra-rough mission was indicated, we wanted advance notice. One thing was extra ammunition. It was against regulations, but I wanted more ammo if there was any real chance we might need it.