Combat Crew

by John Comer

  I could scarcely believe what I was seeing! No doubt they were German students on a gunnery practice flight with a single small-caliber gun. They were taking on a Flying Fortress formation bristling with heavy-caliber guns … Teutonic Don Quixotes cheerfully facing impossible odds. (I thought that the little plane went on through the formation, but I rarely glanced at an aircraft once it passed by and was no longer a threat. Woodrow Pitts said he saw the aircraft shot down. I hope that the youngsters in it managed to bail out — they had unusual courage.)

  “Bombardier to Navigator, my guns are jammed again. This is the fourth time.”

  On the return over Denmark the fighters came up in relays. When one group ran short of fuel another group arrived to take over. One Fort after another was hit and lost.

  “Copilot to crew — two fighters coming in twelve o’clock high.”

  The nose and turret poured heavy fire at them from a thousand yards out all the way in. Both the M.E. 210s were burning when they flashed by us very close.

  “Pilot to Turret — did we get either one?”

  “Both are badly damaged.”

  “Waist to Pilot, the pilot bailed out of one of them.”

  “Turret to crew — slow down on the ammunition. Some of the Forts are already out of ammo.” Not many put on extra ammo. But at least one aircraft did. Ed Klein said his plane had fourteen thousand rounds aboard.

  “Copilot to crew — Hendricks is hit. Don’t know how bad. He’s losing an engine, I think.”

  We were halfway across Denmark and I thought Hendricks had a good chance to make it to the coast where our escort was supposed to pick us up.

  “Tail to Copilot, some M.E. 210s at fourteen hundred yards behind us a little high. They’re gettin’ in some kind of a formation.”

  “Turret to Tail, what are they doing back there?”

  “Nothin’ yet, but they must be up to somethin’ — I see what looks like big tubes under their wings.”

  Flak began to burst around the formation. It was larger in size than what we were used to seeing.

  “Copilot to Navigator, where is that flak coming from? I don’t see any cities or plants down below.”

  “There is not supposed to be any flak in this area.”

  The bursts got more consistent.

  “Tail to Copilot, those 210s are firing something at us. The flashes are bigger than cannon fire.”

  I turned around to watch. Flashes of flame were coming out of those funny-looking tubes. I looked closer — there was a faint vapor trail coming from a fighter and I followed it into the formation where it burst like a flak shell. Rockets! Jerry’s much heralded rocket defensive weapon.

  “Turret to crew. Those ships are throwing rockets at us. It’s not flak. It’s rockets.”

  “Tail to Pilot! Quick! Pull left — fast! A rocket is heading straight for us.”

  Gleichauf responded and the rocket passed a few inches from the horizontal stabilizer, then slowed down to our speed.

  “Turret to crew, look at that damned rocket! It’s spinning like a huge disc.”

  It was not more than twenty-five feet from my turret. Another ten feet and it would have struck the right wing. I took cover, expecting it to explode any second. The rocket slowed some more and spun away from us before it exploded. It was the first time I actually saw a lethal projectile clearly aimed at me.

  We had experienced a few rockets before. We knew the Germans were working feverishly to get them in shape to try to stop the Forts on daylight raids.

  “Turret to Bombardier, that last rocket was much too big to fit in those tubes under the wings of the 210s.”

  “You saw a malfunction, Turret. It was spinning end over end. That’s why it moved so slow and looked like a big disc.”

  “Pilot to Tail, any way we could reach them with our guns?”

  “Turret to Tail, let’s aim high and try to lob some rounds into them.”

  We tried numerous elevations, but it was too far — we had a thousand-yard trajectory with our guns. Beyond that the projectiles lost velocity rapidly. Jerry had the distance figured exactly right.

  The 533rd Squadron began slowly falling behind and as a result we were drawing more of the rocket fire. Purus kept warning us not to waste ammunition, because we did not know how much longer the fight would continue. It seemed to me that seventy to eighty percent of the gun positions were out of ammunition already.

  Major Hendricks was in the lead ship and we were on his left wing. I saw him leave the cockpit and go toward the bomb bay. A few minutes later he returned to his seat. Immediately he dropped down out of the formation. Perhaps he hoped to get close to the ground, below the radar, and try to slip through. I doubted he could make it. There were too many fighters circling about us. A lump came into my throat and I said to myself, “Take a good look at Hendricks — I doubt if we will ever see him again.”

  “Ball to Pilot, is Hendricks trying to surrender? His landing gear is down.”

  “No, that’s his signal for the deputy lead to take over.”

  Gleichauf moved up to take over Squadron lead and I lost sight of Hendricks.

  I could sense the pain in Gleichauf’s voice. He and Hendricks were good friends and it was hard to lose a friend in plain sight with no chance to help him.

  Kels called the Pilot. “Hendricks saw he was slowing down the Squadron and did what he thought was the right thing for the Squadron.”

  “He didn’t have to do it — we could have made the coast. The escort will meet us there.”

  “Legg to crew, four 210s trailing us — may come in.”

  “Turret to Tail — if they start in, fire two quick bursts an’ I’ll turn around and help you.”

  When I heard Legg open up I whirled around. Two 210s were closing fast at six o’clock slightly high. Both of us threw burst after burst at them and they broke off the attack. The other two 210s must have absorbed some hits, too, because they also turned suddenly away and vanished from sight.

  “Ball to crew, 210 trying to come up at us.”

  Harkness tore that ship apart. The Ball had a large advantage when a fighter tried to sneak in from below. A J.U. 88, used that day as an interceptor, tried the same thing and Harkness drove it off, but the 88 took all he could throw at it with no outward signs of damage. It was a rugged ship.

  “Tail to Waist, any ammunition left?”

  “A full box. I’ll shove it back to where you can reach it.”

  “Navigator to Bombardier, most of our planes are out of ammunition.”

  “Copilot to crew, don’t talk about ammo — it might leak through to Jerry.”

  The fight was showing no signs of abating. Ammunition became deadly serious. By that time we were one of the few aircraft with ammunition. I realized that if Jerry discovered we were defenseless, few of us would make it through the day because to ditch, or bail out, in that ice-cold water would amount to a slow death.

  A few minutes later, when I saw the fighters fade away to the south, I thought we almost had it made because the rendezvous time for our escort was a few minutes ahead. Five minutes later the Bombardier called, “Bombardier to crew, the escort at nine o’clock high.”

  They were a welcome sight. It had been a long day and now we could relax and let them worry about the fighters, if any more showed up. All of a sudden I saw something odd. What in the hell were those 47s doing? They knew better than to dive on a B-17 formation! Oh, my God! They were F.W. 190s! If they knew about our ammunition, we were done for. (F.W. 190 fighters did look like P-47s at a distance and they had appeared at the same time and from the same direction that we expected P-47s.)

  “Turret to Waist — Wilson.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “They’re comin’ in on Cahow. Let’s give him some help.”

  I fired so close over Cahow’s head that he might have preferred the fighters if he had a chance. There could not have been much, if any, ammunition left in the 381st Group — certainly not enou
gh to hold off another attack. Until the P-47s arrived we were helpless. The German fighters made one run through the formation, then pulled away and began circling us. All they had to do was drop flaps to slow down to our speed and blast us out of the sky. Never before had Jerry had a formation of B-17s of this size on the ropes. Any minute the slaughter would begin. Wait! What was happening? Were they really turning away to leave? It was hard to believe. Didn’t they know they had us whipped? I watched with a combination of amazement and jubilation as those fighters vanished into the haze. I will never know what saved us. It is possible that the fighters intercepted us at the outer limit of their fuel range.

  “Waist to Copilot, you think they’re gone for good?”

  “You better hope so.”

  Five minutes later I called Jim. “We are not out of the woods yet, but it’s looking better every minute.”

  The formation droned on toward England and I watched the Danish coast fade away to the east. Was it over? Where was the escort? What had happened to Hendricks? I would have prayed for him and his men if I had known how, or what to say. For the next fifteen minutes I anxiously scanned the skies to the south and east until I finally felt that the long air battle was over.

  When I heard about Carqueville at interrogation I went numb. The information was meager: “He was last seen with engines smoking heavily headed downward but still under control.” Herb was with another squadron and I did not know he was on the mission until after interrogation. We went by Operations to ask if there was any word about Carqueville or Hendricks. Nothing!

  In the hours before dawn, after a sleepless night, my thoughts turned back to Carqueville. Did he make it to Sweden? Did he go down in the ice-cold Baltic Sea? Maybe he bailed out over land. I wanted desperately to believe he was all right, but somehow I had the feeling he did not make it. There was that sickening sensation deep within me that told me Herb was gone.12 How did such a communication reach my brain? I frankly do not know. But during the days in England, I developed a psychic ability to perceive things about some people in combat unrelated to facts from the sensitory world. Although he was not a great pilot, Herb Carqueville was my friend. How often we use the word “friend” when we really mean an associate or a neighbor. Often it is because of eccentricities or shortcomings that the attraction develops. The pain of losing a friend never subsides. Could it have been only last April when our crew first came together? It seemed much longer.

  October 10

  Bomber command sent another large force against Munster and caught heavy opposition and lost thirty Fortresses. The 381st was bypassed no doubt to permit more time to repair damaged aircraft. The unlucky 100th Group had another disaster. They lost all twelve of their ships. A sizable consignment of new planes and crews arrived at our base during the day and they were indeed welcome. Our strength was below par, which put a strain on the crews and repair personnel. I watched the newcomers at the mess hall that evening and could not help wondering how long they would last. Which ones would be shot down before we had a chance to learn their names?

  Johnny Purus and I were greatly disturbed by the jamming malfunctions of the chin turret guns on their first test under combat conditions. We got by with it the day before only because the attacks, while strung out over five or six hours, were at no time an intense action of fighters coming in right behind each other; we had time to get the jammed ammunition straightened out between attacks. We could not afford to have the nose turret out of action in an all-out fight. We carefully reexamined the new weapon and concluded that the problem was caused by the assist motor in the ammunition chute. The electric motor was put there to help slide the ammunition along an extra-long chute. The idea was fine, but as we saw it, the motor continued to revolve for a few seconds after the firing ceased, causing the ammunition to jam tightly in the chute, creating a stoppage. We decided that if an adjustable restrictor could be fitted into the chute behind the motor it could be adjusted to exert just enough back pressure to relieve the problem. I borrowed a ruler and we took careful measurements. That night at the barracks I prepared a drawing to proper scale of the modification we thought would work. The officers at the Turret Shop and Armament studied it and agreed it might solve the problem. They sent it to the machine shop with a rush order for four of the devices to install on the two G models on our base.

  My other concern stemming from the Anklam Raid was the rocket fighter menace. Most of the men on the mission were not that worked up about it, because the enemy did not have spectacular success with the rockets. Jim told Lieutenant Adkins, the Gunnery Officer, that the pattern of the rocket weapon was very good. I agreed. It was, he contended, merely a matter of time until Jerry would apply it against us with ten times that many rocket carriers. I felt that it worked much too well for a new weapon and we could expect accuracy to get better. They already had the distance worked out perfectly.

  Adkins said, “We’ve got people smart enough to develop a new weapon with a two- or three-thousand-yard range, but it would take a year to get it to us. We need it now.”

  Jim replied, “Then you think the only fast answer is long-range fighters?”

  “Yes! I do not see anything right now that will work except fighters who can stay with you fellows to the target.”

  That was discouraging news because, if Adkins was right and our only practical defense was long-range fighters, where were they coming from? Did we have such fighters?

  One other worry had been solved the day before. When Nick was wounded, it meant a new man in his position. Harold Harkness showed me over Denmark that he was a top-notch ball gunner. We were lucky to draw a man so solid and steady from the unassigned gunners on the base. When lethal flak shells were exploding around the ball, it took some kind of man to hang in there calm enough to do his job. The shells were fused to burst under the aircraft, so the ball always caught more of it than the rest of us. There was no place for Harkness to take cover. Of course, there was little cover anywhere in an airplane, but for most positions there were barriers that flak shrapnel had to penetrate from at least some directions. The rest of us donned heavy metal-lined flak vests when we approached the flak areas, but it was impossible in the ball, due to the restricted space. Harold had traded a farm tractor for a weird glass-and-aluminum ball hanging under the belly of the B-17 like a single giant testicle. Did he wonder at times if the ball was securely fastened to the aircraft? I would have. Suppose the plane took a heavy hit! Could he get out of that awkward prison in time to jump? Nick was impetuous and unpredictable. Harkness was the opposite: steady and methodical. I often speculated about the problem of an overflowing bladder in the ball. What did the gunner do? I suspected that I knew the answer, but never discussed it with Harold.

  That night Jim said, “How in the hell did we get by with that takeoff? When it sunk to the ground I thought we were all gone!”

  “So did I? No way we could have cut it thinner!”

  “That’s the second time we almost got it on takeoff. Remember that night at Boise when Captain Glenn almost got us killed?”

  “I’ll never forget it,” I answered.

  Pitts spoke up. “You say some Captain almost crashed the plane?”

  “No, we were scheduled for a night instrument takeoff check for the pilot. I got to the ship ahead of the others and Captain Glenn, the instructor pilot, was already there and impatient to get the flight over with. He told me he had already done the preflight inspection, so let’s get the engines started. I climbed into the copilot seat and reached for the checklist.

  “‘I’ve already been through the checklist — don’t need it again,’ he said.

  “‘But I thought we had to do …’

  “‘Sergeant, I told you I have already been through it! Now start those engines!’

  “‘Yes, Sir!’

  “When Carqueville got there the Captain told him, ‘We’ve already done the checklist. We’ll get the hood in place and take off.’ (With the hood in place, the pilot
could see only the instruments.) The flight was an instrument check. A few minutes later we roared down the runway and at ninety-five I saw Herb pull back on the elevator controls. Great Gods! The elevator was locked! I was standing alongside the copilot (Captain Glenn had his seat) directly over the elevator locking device! Both of us instantly dived to the deck to try to unlock it in time for the aircraft to get airborne before we ran out of runway! All we managed to do was knock each other out looking very much like a Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy comedy: Herb jammed brakes, released them, and jammed them again and again. Near the end of the runway he revved up an outboard engine and skidded the aircraft around. We slid sideways up to the end of the runway. We ruined the brake system and both tires and were lucky to get by with nothing worse.”

  Balmore said, “I think that day we almost crashed into the mountain in Oregon was the closest thing we’ve had. It was worse than the takeoff this morning.”

  Counce added, “You’re right! We were seconds from a head-on crash and it looked like there was no way to avoid it.”

  Jim was talking about a hazardous incident that took place on a training flight over the Pacific Ocean. I was not on the flight and Jim was serving as engineer. It was a check out of the Navigator and Radio Operator on over-water procedure. In a short time we would be heading out over some ocean for an overseas assignment. The flight started at Marysville, California. Soon after takeoff, fog closed in solidly up to twenty thousand feet. The Operations Tower directed them to continue the flight as planned because there would be no break in the fog for several hours. That put Lieutenant Shutting on a pure dead-reckoning13 course with no means of checking his position for wind drift until the fog dispersed. Carl did fine for the first five hundred miles over the water. Radio contact indicated that they passed over a checkpoint on time. But the Navigator listened to considerable radio talk from ships and decided that the wind had shifted direction from the early morning briefing. After an hour or two on his changed heading (he had shifted the heading some to allow for the supposed change in the wind direction), he realized that the change was probably in error and he could not pinpoint where they were. The Navigator had downed too many cups of coffee and had to take time to go to the bomb bay to urinate. But he found the perchant tube hard frozen.