by John Comer
As soon as we got to lower altitude, and the threat of fighters had eased, I got out of the turret and looked for any damage I could see. After checking the hydraulic system I stood where Gleichauf and Kels could hear me.
“We got trouble with the hydraulic system. No pressure! We won’t have any brakes on landing.”
Paul asked, “Are you sure we can’t raise any pressure temporarily?”
“Yes, the fluid is gone.”
“Pilot to crew. We will have to land without brakes. I’ll try to touch down at the end of the runway, then rev up number-one and -two engines. If we can ease off into the sticky mud to the right of the runway, that ought to stop us.”
On the final approach Paul brought number 719 in as slow as he dared — aiming at the end of the runway. What he saw ahead was unbelievable! Kels screamed out, “Paul, look at those damn people, lining both sides of the runway!”
“What are they doin’ out here in our way!” Paul was frantic with helpless rage. “We can’t turn off the runway and kill a dozen people!”
When the wheels touched down, Kels opened his side window and leaned far outside, trying to attract the attention of the people lining the runway. He frantically motioned the crowd to get out of our way. They smiled brightly and waved back at Kels. Gleichauf was infuriated! “Those stupid people are gonna make me wreck this airplane! We can’t stop! Who the hell let them out here?” The pilot was turning red with rage. Kels was still trying to signal the crowd to get out of our way. Total failure! The high speed of the aircraft meant nothing to them! Then it was too late! The end of the landing strip was coming up fast and we were still rolling at considerable speed with no possible chance to make the turn onto the taxi strip.
Number 719 sped toward rough ground, roads and ditches, but little soft mud needed to slow us down. This was long before a pilot could reverse the propeller pitch to slow down an aircraft. (There was a large field of sticky mud to the right side of the runway, if only we could have turned into it.) I asked many questions about why that unwanted crowd of people was lining the runway, not only in the way but in danger from the damaged aircraft coming in to land, some of which were without the usual landing controls. No one would tell me why the men were there, or who was responsible for an absurd situation that defied common sense. I suspect some officer ordered the men out to welcome “the boys back home.” It might have sounded like a great idea to someone in an alcoholic daze.
The aircraft was coasting toward a country lane when I saw an English soldier blithely pedaling along on a certain collision course apparently unaware of impending doom. I watched in horror! At the last moment the man looked to his left and saw those huge whirling propellers coming right at him. Then he passed out of sight under the wing and I felt a slight impact as if we had struck something.
I said to Paul, “I’m afraid we got him!”
“Oh, God! I hope not!” Gleichauf replied.
“Last I saw he was about ten feet away with number-four prop headin’ right into him.”
We bounced crazily this way and that, over more ditches and obstructions, slowing down. I saw with dismay that we were heading straight for a barnyard and two elderly ladies were sitting on a wooden fence directly in our path. There was a sizable ditch and the wheels dropped into it, throwing one wing into the ditch, and the other up at a grotesque angle. The aircraft came to a lurching halt, with the nose of the plane resting about where I saw the two women sitting a few seconds earlier. Among the crew our only serious injury was to Harkness.
Paul leaned out of the window and called to some men nearby. “Did we hit those ladies sittin’ on the fence?”
“No, it was a bit of a scramble, but they made it, you know.”
That was a relief. The soldier on the bike was the only casualty. There was nothing we could have done to have prevented killing him. Number 719 was a sorry mess and it was all so stupid and unnecessary. A man killed and a new airplane wiped out for no sane reason! We should have gotten by with nothing more serious than a lot of sticky mud and perhaps a twisted landing gear.
The medical team arrived quickly to take Harkness to the hospital and get that glass out of his eyes. Those medics were always efficient and fast when we had wounded men aboard. A crowd gathered around the plane, but I was concerned about the extent of damage to number 719. One wing tip would have to be replaced and the landing gear was destroyed. The bomb bay was in sad shape and the bomb-bay doors would definitely have to be replaced. One engine was shot, and possibly a second from the collision with the ditch. While I was climbing around estimating the repairs that would be needed, a muddy English soldier walked up and tapped me on the shoulder. His clothes were badly torn and he looked like he had been in a fight.
“Your bloody machine nearly got me, Yank,” the soldier said.
“What’s that?” I turned to stare at him.
“The propeller damned near cut me haid off — and I fell between the wheels — smashed me bike to bits. Bloody ruined!”
“I thought we killed you, soldier. Don’t know how you escaped.”
“I was on my way to the pub. I look up, and was never so scared in me whole life. I see that bloody propeller comin’ right at me!”
Shutting climbed wearily out of the airplane with his briefcase of maps and his bag of flying equipment. He looked around until he located the radio operator. “Balmore, you saved us today!”
“What do you mean by that?” George responded.
“If it hadn’t been for this little Boy Scout compass you gave me early this morning we couldn’t have made it back. All my instruments were shot out!” His voice was almost breaking with emotion as he continued. “No compass. No drift meter! No nothing except this little doodad. So. I says, ‘Carl, this is it! The whole Wing is depending on you to navigate us home,’ so I brought ’em back with this little Boy Scout compass. I want to thank you for giving it to me, Balmore.”
George and Shutting shook hands solemnly. Those of us who were close enough offered our solemn congratulations. Of course, all of this was pure nonsense! Shutting had no more use for a compass that day than I did. Our plane merely followed on the Colonel’s left wing all day, while the lead navigator did the navigating. But unknown to us, an Associated Press reporter was in the crowd writing down this insane foolishness word for word. The next morning the A.P. all across the U.S. carried a front-page story of the incident. The account hinged on Shutting’s supposed heroic leadership in navigating a wing of Fortresses home by means of a Boy Scout compass. It made big headlines in all the hometown papers of the crew. Within two weeks some of us began getting letters from home asking about the crash. Was anyone injured or wounded? At first it sounded like they had us confused with some aircraft that crash-landed in England. Then Shutting received a letter containing a clipping from a Chattanooga newspaper. It read: “Carl Shutting Leads Forts Home With Scout Compass” in big, black, front-page headlines. Before Carl could recover from his shock, someone spirited the clipping out of his hut, and the next day it was pinned on the 381st bulletin board. That embarrassed our bashful navigator no end! It looked like Carl had been sending home some fanciful stories of his heroism.
November 6
One man that I remember so well was always welcome at our hut. We saw him nearly every day. His name was Pete Ludwigson. It was a relief to see such a clean and wholesome young man untouched by the sordid aspects of war. We had traveled the same path since the days of the Engineering School at Boeing Aircraft, Seattle. His crew and ours went through training procedures at the same time, and we ended up at the 381st on the same day. Pete did not let anything bother him. He was always the same. When the rest of us would get worked up over some fancied abuse, Pete would say, “Quit bitching. It’s all part of the game. A week from now you won’t remember what you’re so hot about now.” And he was right: gripes, shortages, inconvenience, dirt, mud, cold, military orders that made no sense, fear, and above all, sheer boredom, were the things that
made up the military life. I wished that I could be more like Pete and take things of no real importance less seriously. On the mission yesterday our good friend Ludwigson was lost somewhere over the Ruhr Valley. That was all we knew because there were no witnesses to what happened after the aircraft had to drop out of the formation and fell far behind us, struggling along on two engines and a third operating at half speed. I had a hard time going to sleep last night wondering what Pete endured and if he made it out of the plane when it finally gave up. We knew that the Fort did not get back to England. It was a blow to lose a man like Pete. We hoped that he was able to bail out in time. Often I could achieve a psychic feeling about a crew that was lost, but in this case I had no impression about their fate.
In early November we began to hear more rumors about super weapons being hastily developed by the Germans. Hitler made numerous veiled references to frightening new instruments of destruction that he said would turn the war in Germany’s favor. Goebbels’s propaganda machine turned these dire predictions to advantage in raising the spirits of the German workers. Allied Intelligence slowly accumulated more specific information as to what German scientists were attempting. None of this leaked through to our level, except the disturbing worry that if some super weapon did emerge from the war, Germany would be most likely to come up with it because of the seven or eight year head start they had with preparations for a war.
After lights were out I made the following remark to whoever was awake and listening: “This afternoon I talked to Lieutenant Atkins, the Gunnery Officer. He says there are rumors that Hitler’s boys are workin’ on a gigantic rocket that they can fire across the Channel.”
Rogers said, “It sounds like one of Goebbels’s pipe dreams to me.”
“The trouble is, Buck, these people have the brains an’ the know-how to do it, if they get enough time,” I answered.
Jim added, “They’ve probably been at it since 1936.”
Lancia said, “Those Germans are damned smart. We can’t sell them short. Ever’ raid I look around an’ halfway expect to see something new thrown at us.”
“Me, too,” I said. “I’ve seen two extra-large explosions recently up high. They had a brownish color and looked big enough to blow a group out of the sky if it burst in the middle of a formation. Has anyone else seen this thing?”
No one had and I hoped it was my imagination.
Pitts asked, “Well, suppose they can make a huge rocket. How are they goin’ to hit anything with it fired from a distance?”
“It could be controlled by an aircraft near the target like a model airplane,” Counce added.
“They think the Allied Intelligence will find out soon where it is being tested,” I said.
Then there was silence except for an occasional snore, and the faint sound of engines on the distant flight line. Did it mean a mission in the morning? I never could sleep well when I thought a raid was shaping up.
Chapter XVI
Mission to Wesel
November 7 — Wesel, Germany
Aircraft 808
I wanted to get in a mission because the weather had slowed down the air offense. George Reese read the roster and the aircraft was number 808 from another squadron.
I asked George, “What kind of ship are we flyin’ today?”
“It’s a new G — only been on two missions.”
Jim peeped outside, “Don’t see much low hangin’ mist — we might get off this morning.”
I asked Counce to wait outside the Briefing Room while I went on out to the aircraft. Anytime it was a strange ship I wanted more time to look it over and talk to the crew chief, as all aircraft had peculiarities that it was good to know about. It was a very dark morning and my flashlight quit working. I knew those planes well enough to feel my way along in the dark. I thought I was the first one on the plane. As I groped slowly forward in the waist area suddenly something very hard struck me on the head just above my eyes. I fell flat on the floor and counted a dozen stars from the pain. A flashlight came on and Wilson helped me to my feet.
“John! I’m sorry! Didn’t know anyone was in the plane but me.”
“What did you hit me with?” I inquired in a shaky voice.
“I jerked out my gun barrel just as you walked by in the dark.”
“My head throbs! An’ both eyes feel like they’re swellin’ shut. This is the first time you’ve been early since we got to England. From now on go back to bein’ late.”
I was still woozy and hurting when Gleichauf arrived. “What’s the matter with you? Been in a fight?”
“Our brilliant waist gunner hit me in the head with a gun barrel in the dark.”
“Can you make it today?”
“I’ll make it — going to have two shiners — nothin’ worse, I hope.”
The rest of the crew arrived and it was time for the briefing. “The target is Wesel, in Germany, on the far edge of the Ruhr Valley, but we’ll cut across the valley and try to miss the worst flak. The temperature will be near fifty below, so watch yourselves for frostbite. We’ll use the Pathfinder System19 today, so we can drop through fog and not have to worry about clear weather at the target. We’re glad to have Trapnell with us in the radio room. Once more — watch out for the low temperature.”
At twenty-eight thousand feet, I became concerned about the bitter cold.
“Turret to Navigator.”
“Go ahead, Turret.”
“How cold is it?”
“Minus forty-eight centigrade.”
“Turret to Bombardier — with this low temperature, we may get some ice in oxygen masks — you might want more frequent crew checks.”
“Good idea, Turret. We’ll have one ever’ twenty minutes.”
The escort was on time and gave us perfect coverage. What fighters came up, if any, were quickly turned away and the formation was untouched. The bomb run was twelve minutes long, double the usual length.
“Bombardier! Are we goin’ to drop or not?”
“No, we missed it, Paul. Looks like we’re going around again.”
“Hope he drops this time — we stay around here too long an’ fighters will get to us.”
“Bombs away” was good news.
“Radio to Bombardier — Radio to Bombardier — bomb hung up in the bomb bay. Keep the doors open.”
“Turret to Bombardier — I’m goin’ back to take a look at it.”
The hung-up bomb was high on the outside rack and difficult to get to the shackle with a screwdriver. The problem was to keep the bomb from knocking me off the catwalk when it fell free. On my fourth attempt it released.
“Turret to Bombardier, the bomb bay is clear. You can raise the doors.”
“Radio to Copilot — I think I’m gettin’ frostbite on one hand — it’s numb — no feeling.”
“Is your ’lectric glove workin’ on that hand, Radio?”
“It’s workin’ but the heat is not on the fingers where I need it to handle cold metal.”
My mic went silent and after a hasty change to a reserve mic, I called the Radio Operator. “Radio, can you hear me?”
“I can hear you.”
“This ship has ’lectric gun heaters — turn on the gun heat and put your hand where the heat is.”
I liked the idea of the Pathfinder System if we learned to hit a target with it. We would know after photo planes came up with a good picture of the damage in a day of two. That equipment showed promise of opening up the air offensive in poor weather. I could feel both eyes swelling almost shut and my head ached from the blow. The return to England was painful and tiresome. But I would trade two classic black eyes and a throbbing headache for an easy mission like that one anytime. I was not going anywhere on pass for a while anyway, so I did not let the jibes and wisecracks bother me. The incident did not increase my affection for Carroll Wilson.
November 8
Jim Counce had girl problems that worried him. He had broken up with a girl he had been seeing for a long
time before his last furlough and became engaged to a girl he did not know very well. He was a bit bewildered by the speed at which it came about, but was serious, and had every intention of carrying out his pledge. He worried that there should have been more time to get to know each other better, but he was glad that his mother approved his choice.
Counce was our mainstay in the aft section of the aircraft. We needed at least one solid man with top-notch mechanical aptitude back there. Balmore was excellent at his radio position, but he was helpless with some sudden mechanical problem for which there had been no specific training.
Wherever we were situated for a few weeks, Counce would find a temporary girl friend. He was the kind of man that women are attracted to. By late August he had two girls close enough to the base that no pass was needed. One interesting and unexpected entanglement worked out. An English mother liked Jim as much as her daughter did. He talked about that development with George but never mentioned it to me. Why? Perhaps he thought I would disapprove of the bizarre situation. I suppose that I never quite shed the image of being a little square.
November 9
Rain! Rain! Rain! It was bitterly cold and there was no fuel for the tiny stove. We had our hoarded crosscut saw, but it had to be kept out of sight. We could cut the King’s trees only at night and when weather allowed. Did you ever try to saw wet wood? When the rain let up enough, two or three men would pedal into the nearby village and bring back copious amounts of cider and ale. Enough ale and the cold was less difficult to handle.
