Combat Crew

by John Comer

  “Bombardier to Navigator.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “When are the Spitfires due?”

  “In about ten minutes.”

  Some time later. “Ball to crew — ten fighters six o’clock low — could be Spits.”

  “Navigator to crew: I think they’re Spitfires, stayin’ low to keep the Jerries from gettin’ to us.”

  The Navigator was right because no more Bogies climbed up to our level. Before long I could see the gleam of sun on water up ahead and I began to relax because we had our mission almost made. As soon as we were over the Channel, the likelihood of another attack faded out.

  At Ridgewell Airdrome, nine happy men climbed out of aircraft number 765. Jerry was better than we expected, and flak was much worse: Regardless of our initial failure, we had met the enemy and returned safely … something many new crews failed to do.

  The tenth man out of the plane was the Copilot, but he definitely was not happy. He was still fuming about our miserable performance on that first fighter attack. Carqueville glared at me, and stalked off without a word, but I got his message: “I expected more from you! Of all the people on this crew, I didn’t expect you would screw up on your first combat action!”

  After a plane returned the crew was not through. A truck carried the men to Operations for interrogation. Hot coffee, hot chocolate, and Spam sandwiches were waiting, one of the few times Spam ever tasted good! All of the crews gathered in the waiting room and milled about, swapping stories and checking up on other crews’ versions of incidents. The Colonel was there, looking the men over:

  “Nice going, Jim.”

  “Good formation, Lieutenant.”

  “Nice shooting, Sergeant.”

  If he spotted a man who looked shaky, he often patted him on the back with some remark to boost him up. Colonel Joseph Nazzaro was a fine Commanding Officer. He had the respect of the men in his command. The Colonel was from a military family, but no typical brass hat. He was the quarterback on the 1933 West Point football team that lost only one game — 13 to 12 to Notre Dame. (He later became a four-star general and succeeded General Curtis LeMay as head of the Strategic Air Command.) The Colonel was my idea of what a combat commander should have been. I never heard one bitch about him from anyone in his command that made any sense.

  In our Group Interrogation Room the atmosphere was loose and free from any kind of restraint. Here the complete picture of the raid was placed on paper. No one crew could see everything accurately, so the final group picture of the mission was composed from the data supplied by various crews. Often there were new items to report which set in motion the network of Air Force Intelligence (S-2) which was constantly striving to stay ahead of the enemy. A new defensive weapon or method was pounced upon as soon as it showed up, in an effort to find the best counter-method before the Germans had time to exploit a temporary success.

  If a gunner thought he had shot down a fighter he had made his claim at the interrogation, where the briefing officer could get confirmation from other gunners who might have seen the incident. Wilson was positive he had badly damaged a fighter.

  “What kind of fighter was it, Sergeant?” asked the interrogation officer.

  “F.W. 190, an’ I got in three heavy bursts. I could see ’em hittin’ it an’ pieces flyin’ off.”

  “Well, Sergeant, the enemy fighters who intercepted us today were all M.E. 109s with liquid-cooled engines. The F.W. 190 has an air-cooled engine, but the only fighters today with air-cooled engines were our P-47s — did you hit one of them?”

  “Oh, no! I’m sure it wasn’t a P-47 … I — uh — maybe there wasn’t as much damage as I thought. I — uh — withdraw the claim.”

  Balmore said, “Go ahead with your claim, Wilson. Maybe you can get credit for downing a P-47.”

  It was after interrogation that fatigue really hit me. But the day’s work still was not over. Wearily, we went back to the aircraft because the guns had to be cleaned and checked for worn parts, and stowed in oil-soaked cloths. They must be ready for another raid the next morning in case one was scheduled. It was twilight when I got back to our hut. Total exhaustion, such as I had never experienced before, so numbed me that I did not bother to go by the mess hall or take the time to wash. The long hours since the call at two-thirty A.M., the debilitating rigors of high altitude, the intense cold, and the wearying fatigue from fear and tension combined to hit me hard. I literally fell into bed, with part of my clothes on, and in two minutes was oblivious to everything, including the noise and hubbub of men coming and going.

  After that first combat experience, I realized a peculiar phenomenon of the mind: It is more traumatic to listen to a factual telling of a hair-raising experience than actually to go through the same thing yourself. The difference is that when listening to such a story, one has no escape mechanism. However, when living through a harrowing experience, the mind is too occupied with defense and physical actions to provide full accommodation for fright.

  Originally I had some reservations about Nick Abramo, because the ball was so important to the crew. Hanging down there all alone, cut off from the rest of the aircraft, was an unenviable position. By the time we got back from Le Bourget I was satisfied that we had a reliable man guarding the approaches to our plane from below. I guarantee that no other man in the crew would have voluntarily entered that risky, cramped, overexposed contraption. The ball required the knees to be brought upward on each side of the Sperry Computing Sight. Over a long flight the gunner became uncomfortable due to the inability to stretch out his legs to relieve cramped muscles. He was more exposed to the fury of bursting flak shells than anyone else on the aircraft. Almost three-quarters of the ball hung suspended in space, creating a horror of exposure from which there was no protection.

  Unknown to the bomber crews, the English and American Air Commands were at odds over the basic concept of how to conduct the air offense against Hitler-held Europe. In August 1943, the skies offered the only path the Allies could use to reach the heart of Nazi territory.

  The R.A.F. was certain that night saturation bombing of industrial centers was the best method. The Americans were equally convinced that for them, with the more heavily armed B-17s, daylight strategic bombing of selected targets (by virtue of their importance to the German war machine) was a better use of men and machines. True, the R.A.F. certainly had far more war experience, and had tried daylight raids early in the war with disastrous losses. Their night bombing was built around the excellent Lancaster Bomber, which was fast, long ranged, and carried a heavier load of bombs than the B-17s. It was lightly armed, however, and not very rugged. The R.A.F. system was to send over fast target-marking planes early in the night to outline the target area with incendiary bombs that would glow brightly for hours. The Lancasters followed, one at a time, avoiding German fighters under the cover of darkness. Such tactics resulted in a saturation type of destruction hoping to hit war plants, cripple the cities, and demoralize the German workers as well.

  The Americans favored the use of rugged, heavily armed bombers at high altitude because they would be above the worst flak and the effective ceiling of some of the older German fighters. They thought that the highly accurate Norden Bomb Sight would permit pinpoint accuracy of bombing against Germany’s most vital military targets. The American view was that on night raids so many of the bombs fell outside the main target area that their effectiveness was doubtful, as far as reducing the German capacity to produce war materials.

  Based on their own experience with daylight bombing raids, the R.A.F. commanders were sure that when the American bombing fleet became strong enough to begin daylight raids deep into Germany, the losses would be so disastrous that they would be unacceptable. On one night of bombing, however, the R.A.F. lost ninety-six Lancasters! So what was an acceptable loss?

  General Ira Eaker, Commanding Officer of the 8th Bomber Command, was getting ready to put the high-altitude strategic bombing concept to a series of cr
ucial tests. At a secret meeting in North Africa, President Roosevelt had given way to Prime Minister Churchill’s argument that night bombing was the best use of Allied aircraft.5 But Mr. Churchill, in a meeting with General Eaker, gave him a little more time to prove the American bombers could invade heavily defended targets deep inside Germany (where we had not yet attempted to raid). The implication was that if those test raids failed, the American Air Force would begin a shift to the English night raid concept.

  Our crew went on combat status ten days before the first of those really decisive missions was scheduled. In other words, we had arrived in England at the worst possible time of World War II for a bomber crew.

  Chapter IV

  Schweinfurt #1

  The Ball-Bearing Plants

  August 17

  It was to be one of the most storied air battles of this or any other war. Some critical pages from my journal did not survive. The pages where I recorded the names, pilots, and aircraft numbers of the men in my hut who were on that raid were lost. In my early days in England I could find no writing paper of the size I needed, so I had to use the back sides of bulletins or other printed sheets. At that time I had not procured cover binders to hold these sheets together, so several pages somehow got away. Thus, I had no record of which men from the Gleichauf or Cahow crews were on the mission. The only men I was sure of were Jim Counce, Carroll Wilson, and Buck Rogers. In addition, Purus, Shutting, Abramo, and George Reese may have been involved. All of these men were flying as spare crew men where such were needed to fill in. Jim Counce wrote down quite a few notes for the journal and all of them are included. Therefore I decided that the best way to get across to the reader what happened was to take a writer’s privilege and tell the story in the first person, covering the highlights of the action. This is a composite from the accounts of the men of both crews as they told it after the mission.

  An ominous groan came from the Briefing Room. I knew then we were in for a rugged day. We were still groggy from the mission of the previous day, and not in the best physical condition. “The crew I was assigned to had a great deal of experience. They were all strangers to me, and I’m sure they would have preferred having a more experienced gunner. The radio operator cornered me and offered me some advice. ‘We got a peculiar pilot,’ he said. ‘He’s tops when the going gets tough, but he has the habit of cursing the gunners, and raising hell over the interphones. When fighters attack he will call you every kind of sonnuvabitch he can think of. He don’t mean a damn thing by it — nothing personal. It’s just his way of keeping his gunners under control. After the mission he won’t remember a word he said, so don’t let it upset you.’” (From an account by James Counce written for me the day after the raid.)

  The weather was so foggy that I doubted we would get underway, or if we did get off, it would be mid-morning. When the pilot arrived, he called us together. “All right, men. We’re in for a wild one today! We’re hittin’ some ball-bearing plants at a town called Schweinfurt in Bavaria. The route will force us to fly over the middle of Germany, goin’ in and returning. Those plants make more than half of Germany’s ball bearings, and if we destroy ’em, our raid will be a success — even if only a few of us get back.”

  There was an audible groan from the crew.

  “The altitude will be twenty-three thousand feet and we will try to divide the opposition. The Third Division will go first, hit Regensburg dose by, and then fly on to North Africa. The other two divisions will hit Schweinfurt and return to England. Let’s hope the plan works, ’cause if we don’t fool ’em we could see three to four hundred fighters. The First Division will lead the attack on Schweinfurt and the 91st will be in front. The 381st will fly the low group position.”

  The hated word “low” prompted more comments and considerable bitching because the low group always caught the worst attacks.

  “Knock off the bitching! This is gonna be one hell of a raid, and I don’t want to see one Goddamned round of ammunition wasted! You gunners hear me? Not one wasted round! You’ll fire only when the enemy is close enough to hit, and only when they’re attacking our plane! We gotta make that ammo last, and don’t you forget it!”

  Either Hitler’s military staff, or the influential Albert Speer, had become alarmed at the continuous build-up of American bombers, and the prospect of an increasing flow of new bombers from U.S. factories. Unknown to the Allied High Command, General Adolf Galland, commanding the German fighter defense, had pulled back some of his crack fighter groups in France. He had also withdrawn some air units from the Russian Front to form a better defense system. Until then he had a fighter defense protecting Northern Germany, but little behind it. Now the Germans placed reserve forces strategically about Germany so they could battle the Fortresses coming into and going out of the Fatherland. The General felt that he could make the penalty so costly for deep daylight bombing missions that the Americans would be forced to give it up, an opinion shared by the R.A.F. Command.

  The overcast weather hung doggedly on, but Colonel Curtis LeMay’s Third Division managed to get airborne and the mission was on. The air historians and writers emphasize the Third’s ability to get off in the soupy weather. LeMay said it was because he made his pilots practice instrument takeoffs. I doubt if the Colonel could have made successful instrument takeoffs that day with the number of inexperienced pilots we had in the 381st Group. The aircraft would have been so scattered when they came out above the bad weather that too much fuel would have been used up to continue so long a fight. The distance was close to our maximum range.

  When takeoff time came, the fog blanketing the area was even more dense, so we waited, and waited, and waited, and were almost sure the raid would be scrubbed. As the minutes ticked away, the hoped-for advantage in dividing the fighter interception was slowly eroding. By the time the fog decreased enough to take off the Third Division must have hit the target at Regensburg and no doubt was on the way to North Africa. Instead of helping, by dividing the fighters as expected, it had alerted the German Fighter Command to an all-out battle.

  On the climb upward the fog began to break at about one thousand feet. By 1030 hours the 381st was in the air. The formation converged quickly and headed for the Continent. Little time was wasted with feints, and they were up to twenty-three thousand feet altitude approaching the German border. A few minutes beyond the border an unexpected layer of heavy clouds blocked the path. A formation could not fly into clouds, so Colonel Gross, commanding the First Division, had a tough decision to make. He had three choices, none of which was desirable. One, he could pull up over the cloud cover to twenty-seven to twenty-eight thousand feet, but the target might well be covered by the same clouds when he got there. Two, he could switch to an alternate target, which would upset all the planning and action already underway. Three, he could go under the cloud bank between seventeen and eighteen thousand feet, giving the Germans an unusual advantage. That was the choice he decided to take. There was much criticism of his decision later, but those so quick to blame him were not up there that day, faced with an immediate choice from the hard alternatives open to him. Colonel Gross was in an extremely difficult position. Based on his possible choices, I think most Commanders would likely have made the same decision.

  The formation descended to seventeen thousand five hundred feet and plowed steadily on into German airspace. For a while we had an escort of R.A.F. Spitfires, followed by fifty P-47s. They were of little help because of their limited fuel supply. The interceptors were waiting, fired up and ready. The lower altitude was very much to their advantage. The fighting characteristics of the F.W. 190 and the M.E. 109 were extra good at seventeen thousand feet. They had two of her hefty advantages: one, they had more fuel for attacks — two, they could reach the bombers faster after takeoff.

  For ten minutes after our fighters left, nothing happened. Then the Ball Turret called out: “Ball to crew — Ball to crew! Fighters at eight o’clock low! Looks like about seventy of the de
vils!”

  They came rushing up to intercept us and before long the low group was surrounded by a swarm of snarling fighters. They appeared from all directions and quickly showed their intention of a “give no quarter” battle. They just came in and kept on coming in. The German pilots were intense in their attacks and paid little attention to their usual cautious tactics. Attacks were from all angles during the run to the target, but the high nose attack seemed to predominate. At times it looked like the entire Luftwaffe was lined up at twelve o’clock high. The outcome was very much in doubt. The Jerries gave no thought to personal safety in their zeal to teach the Fortress crews a devastating lesson. Fighter losses were high but if ten of their planes went down in flames it seemed like twenty more came up to take their places. Every time two or three fighters were knocked down, a Fortress would go too. “The plane flying on our left wing was hard hit, lost control, and went down. I did not see what happened to the crew. A little later the plane on our right caught fire and exploded. For this kind of fight we had the right pilot. He flew like he had the controls of a fighter craft. He was throwing the ship up and down and from side to side in wild lunges, as the fighters roared in for the kill. The Germans were trying to finish off this squadron before exterminating the next one. There is no question but that we were extraordinarily lucky. It was a combination of a wild pilot doing things not usually done in a formation and pure luck — whatever that is — that kept us from extinction. Evasive action helped, but I wondered what it was doing to the formation.” (From the account of Jim Counce.)

  Colonel Hall, Operations Officer, said that one hour from the target he was not sure that any bomber would reach the objective.

  Much to our surprise, enemy planes were waiting for us all along the briefed route with mathematical precision. At the time, we thought someone had talked too much, not realizing that we were encountering a new fighter defense in depth for the first time. “I remember distinctly how the pilot cursed and screamed at us over the intercom, exhorting us to stay on the ball,” Counce recalled.