Combat Crew

by John Comer

  The total loss was twenty Forts, which was too high in view of the moderate opposition.

  December 5 — Paris

  Jim Counce and I were scheduled to ride with the crew of Lieutenant Deering, the pilot George Reese was with when they accidentally came down over the Continent. I suspect that the assignment was to give Deering a little experience in his crew, but there was not always any particular reason for assignments. The raid would be Deering’s second attempt and I was leery of him as a pilot. Of course Jim, as well as myself, was annoyed at being put with a green crew. The Paris area always threatened to throw Goering’s crack “Yellow Nose” squadrons at us, and they were as mean as fighters could be. If they caught us near the target, with a pilot throttle-jockeying the formation, it would send out a clear signal of “green crew — hit it first.”

  Riding in the rear of the personnel truck in complete darkness to the perimeter where the aircraft were parked was a different experience each mission morning. Some days the men were morosely silent, lost in speculation of what the next few hours would be like. Or they were gabby, covering their anxieties with the bravado of inane chatter. That morning I did not see them get into the truck so they were only voices in the darkness.

  “Why the hell didn’t they send someone to tell us they were loading bombs last night? We closed the Goddamn pub. I feel like hell.”

  “Some pure oxygen will snap you out of it — always works for me when I got a hangover.”

  “The way you soaked up the ale last night I bet you piss in your pants down in the ball today.”

  “Hey, you remember that redheaded broad we saw at the pub last week?”

  “Yeah — she looked good.”

  “I had her out two nights ago.”

  “How was it?”

  “Allllll right! Her ol’ man only gets home every three weeks and she can’t wait that long.”

  “We got us a new boy flyin’ Navigator today. Our Navigator’s got the clap — on that last pass to London I guess.”

  “They can cure the clap easy now with that sulpha stuff — dries it right up.”

  “Let’s hope it stays dried up.”

  We got out at aircraft 719 and as the truck pulled out I could hear the conversational drivel still going on. “Hey, let’s go to Ridgewell tonight — there’s a blond bitch you’d go for …”

  The crew chief headed my way with a glum look on his face, “Sorry, but 719 is redlined for today.”

  “Damn! We draw a green crew an’ now the airplane’s canceled out.”

  Jim asked, “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Number three is vibrating too much — real rough.”

  “Did you call Engineering?” I asked.

  “Yeah, they’re sendin’ a truck to pick ya up.”

  Jim groused, “Another one of those delays — not enough time to get the guns ready — and on top of that a new crew.”

  The wait for the truck wasted precious time needed to get the aircraft, whatever one it would be, ready for a mission. When we finally piled out at the replacement airplane it was near engine starting time. Deering arrived at the same time we did.

  “Pilot,” I said, “we don’t have time left to get the guns ready. How about calling Operations and telling them that we will be late taking off because of a last-minute change of aircraft?”

  Operations told Deering to try to catch the formation over the Channel and set up a rendezvous time. Of course formations were rarely that close on timing. A minor mechanical problem added another ten minutes to the takeoff delay.

  When the aircraft finally became airborne we were twenty minutes late. It was time-consuming for the process of squadrons to gather their planes, then for the groups to form and the wing to assemble into proper positions. Deering had instructions to head straight for the final rendezvous over the Channel. When we got to the Channel the 381st was in sight but so far ahead that to try to catch up was impractical. We trailed the rest of the way over water midway between two groups. I think Deering still hoped to overtake the 381st.

  “Top Turret to Pilot.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Fighters can show up anytime now. Not good being out of a formation.” He did not reply. Ten minutes later he still had made no move to get into a formation. That was how aircraft got shot down. Flight Engineers do not tell pilots what to do, but something had to be done right away. “Top Turret to Pilot.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “There’s a vacant spot in the high group to our left — it’s always better to be in the high group if fighters attack.”

  “Good idea — don’t think we can catch the 381st.”

  “No chance of that.”

  A few minutes later Deering pulled into the high group and I felt a hundred percent better about the situation.

  “Pilot to Copilot.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I hope they don’t raise hell about us bein’ in the wrong group.”

  So that was what had been worrying him. I suppose he did get chewed out for that episode with Reese and he did not want to get back on the carpet on his next flight.

  “Top Turret to Pilot. Don’t worry about that. Planes fly with other groups all the time when they can’t find their own outfits. You got a good excuse. Operations didn’t really expect you to catch our Wing when they saw you take off twenty minutes late.”

  “Thanks.”

  After that Deering relaxed and did what I thought was an excellent job for a pilot with so little formation experience. We got off in such a hurry that all I knew about the target was that it was an aircraft plant somewhere near Paris.

  “Copilot to crew — I’ve got good news for you. Today we’re gonna have a P-51 escort. How about that?”

  Super news! At last we were getting what had been billed as a long-range fighter that would be a match for the best Germany could throw at us. We would soon find out if the P-51s were that good.

  “Tail to crew — fighters at six o’clock high.”

  As soon as they were close enough I saw what they were. “Top Turret to crew — they are P-51s.”

  They were beautiful airplanes. I wondered if the Germans knew we had P-51s in England and what they thought about them. The secret had been well kept from the bomber crews. I watched with glee as the 51s drove off a handful of Jerry fighters and stayed with us to the I.P., where a group of P-47s with the larger disposable fuel tanks took over escort duties. Shortly afterwards seven F.W. 190s came poking up toward us. The 47s dived after them and the action moved beyond my vision. As far as I saw there were no fighter attacks against the formations. Visibility was zero over the target. The weather forecast missed completely.

  “Pilot to Bombardier — we going to drop the bombs?”

  “Not on this target — they may try an alternate.”

  The soup covered Europe, and by that time Bomber Command in England knew it. The B-17s turned back to England with no blow struck against Adolf. It was a frustrating day, with so much effort expended for no results. At one-thirty we touched down at Ridgewell Airdrome. Seven more raids would put me over the top. With those P-51 beauties, my prospects looked far brighter.

  The P-51 Mustang Fighter began as a mediocre low-level fighter used mainly for strafing. The original Allison engine was replaced with the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. Other modifications were made and it emerged as the finest propeller-driven fighter plane of World War II. With disposable fuel tanks, the plane could go with the bombers to the deepest targets.

  After the landing I singled out Lieutenant Deering. “I want to compliment you for the way you held tight formation today. That is the best I’ve seen for a new pilot since I arrived in England. If you keep that up, your crew will be OK.”

  December 6

  When newspapers from the U.S. occasionally found their way overseas, there were distorted stories and statements about the war that were irritating. I remember one silly news article: a U.S. Senator said the German Air Force was almost
eliminated. That was 1943, when the Luftwaffe was at its height. A Congressman orated that the war would be over by June, the date of the Normandy landing. An American newspaper was an object of both nostalgia and derision at some of the fanciful tales.

  December 8

  If a Sunday was free I sometimes attended chapel services on the base. The Chaplain was named Brown and he got along well with the English people who lived nearby. I can remember the familiar sight of the farm families from close by walking down the runways on Sunday mornings to church. One Sunday about time services were to begin, a large, awkward soldier in oil-stained coveralls and muddy shoes stumbled down the aisle and took a front seat. Obviously, he came directly from work. That was certainly all right, but it seemed to me he should have taken a back-row seat in his soiled clothes as the civilians were dressed in their best. A few minutes later that big bear of a man with grimy hands stood and faced the audience. Suddenly he was transformed: the notes of the “Lord’s Prayer” in a powerful and beautiful baritone voice filled the chapel. It was a magnificent solo, as good as any of the top-rated baritones of that day could have done. When the last notes died away, his shoulders sagged and he was once again a weary G.I. mechanic. He nodded to the Chaplain and was gone. Who was he? With such a voice he had to be a highly trained professional singer; I never discovered his name or saw him again around the base. In this time of war any man in uniform might have been a well-known name that one did not recognize among the thousands wearing military garb that made us all look a little alike.

  Eight months earlier, when we were a newly formed flight crew at Boise, Idaho, I arrived at the aircraft site for a night flight ahead of the rest of the crew.

  The instructor pilot was already there, so we went through the preflight inspection procedure, and I picked up the aircraft flight form to write in the names of those on the flight.

  “Sir, may I have your name, rank, and serial number?”

  “Oh, let me have it and I’ll fill it in. That way I know I’ll get the serial number right,” he replied.

  There was a wearisome two-hour flight with six of us crowded into the cockpit space. A week later I was in the P.X. barbershop getting a haircut when the same instructor pilot came in. I noticed that he went out of his way to nod to everyone nearby.

  “That officer must be a politician in civilian life,” I whispered to the barber.

  “Don’t you know who he is?”

  “Sure. The name is Stewart — instructor pilot.”

  “Don’t you recognize Jimmy Stewart, the movie actor?”

  Chapter XIX

  Mission to Emden

  December 11 — Emden, Germany

  Aircraft 719: Hellcat

  Our aircraft was ready to fly again, we hoped, and the question was, would it handle as well as it did before the damage? It was snowing when Gleichauf pulled the wet nose of 719 into the air and the thick gray soup. Pilots detested that nerve-wracking procedure that could at any time so easily end in a head-on crash with another plane. The flight of airplanes could not be held precisely to the exacting specifications of the briefing plan, and especially with so many pilots short of flying experience.

  “Pilot to crew — keep alert — it’s going to be thick today — Bombardier.”

  “Go ahead, Paul.”

  “Watch ahead — if you see anything call out quick.”

  He turned to me. “Get in the turret and help us look — keep a sharp eye above us.”

  “I know how many green pilots are taking off this morning all over England. That’s what bothers me most in this stuff,” I said to George Reese, who was our copilot for the mission.

  “Bothers both of us,” he replied.

  “Pilot! Pilot! Eleven o’clock level — that dark blob! What is it?” After intense scrutiny it turned out to be a splotch of darker cloud. But with nerves drawn tight we were ready to see the dark form of an aircraft on a collision course.

  At nine thousand feet we broke through into brilliant sunshine and a sparkling sky. The world atop the fleecy billowing clouds was one apart from the winter drab and mud below. I had not seen the sun in so long it was reassuring to know it was still shining, and that the sky was as blue as I remembered it.

  “Navigator to crew — Navigator to crew — the temperature will be only thirty-eight below today. We’ll have an escort of P-51s at the German coast and we’ll sic them on those Jerry fighters and sit back and watch the fun.”

  The target was the port facilities at Emden, Germany, from an altitude of twenty-three thousand feet, lower than usual. We were scheduled to fly with a high composite Group made up of elements from several groups in order to add extra strength. The slow climb to nine thousand feet through fog disrupted the timing enough that our squadron missed the Group we were supposed to be part of. That left the decision of what to do to the Squadron Commander and he elected to go on alone.

  A little before ten o’clock we started across the North Sea toward Germany bucking a strong headwind that required heavy power on the four engines. Even so, the crossing consumed two hours, because the velocity of the headwind subtracted from the airspeed of the ship.

  Emden was not regarded as a difficult target, but the formation that day turned out to be ragged, with aircraft throttle-jockeying back and forth.

  “Damn these new pilots — I can’t keep up a steady airspeed — one minute I’m drawing too much power and the next minute we’re barely above stalling,” fumed Gleichauf.

  “Klein’s raisin’ hell every time you dogleg,” said the Copilot.

  “Navigator to Pilot, there’s the Frisian Islands right at one o’clock.”

  A voice cut in on the intercom. “Hey, Bombardier, drop some bombs on that seaplane ramp and watch the Krauts scatter.”

  “Copilot to crew, cut the unnecessary chatter.”

  “Bombardier to crew, single fighter coming from the south at nine o’clock high.”

  The solitary M.E. 109 circled us cautiously for a few minutes.

  “Bombardier to crew — flak at twelve o’clock level.”

  Fortunately it did not amount to much, then the Navigator spotted something. “Fighters at ten o’clock — about thirty-five of them.”

  The enemy interceptors came in to five thousand yards and after a few minutes pulled away to the left and were soon out of sight. For some reason not known to us they elected not to attack. It could have been that they were at the far end of their fuel range.

  “Pilot to Navigator, where did you say the escort would pick us up?”

  “At the coast, Paul. If they are comin’ we oughta see ’em soon. In five minutes we’ll swing to the right inshore then make two left turns to come in over the target downwind.”

  Fifteen minutes went by and Purus called. “We’re starting the bomb run.”

  “OK, Bombardier.”

  Flak began popping at us as we approached the target. There was a loud crashing sound from the rear section of the aircraft.

  “Copilot to Waist, anyone hurt? Any damage?”

  “This is Jim — big chunk struck where I was standin’. The armor plate deflected it. Otherwise would have got me. No serious damage.”

  “Bombardier to Radio, stand by to watch bomb-bay doors down.”

  George, as usual, was standing with the front radio door open to watch the bombs fall out. “Radio to Bombardier — Radio to Bombardier, over.”

  “Go ahead, Radio.”

  “Three bombs hung up in the racks. Thousand pounder stuck on the bottom rack an’ two five hundred pounders on top of it.”

  “Turret to Bombardier, I’m goin’ back to release the bombs.”

  “OK, John — Radio, stand by to see if Turret needs any help.”

  The bomb load was mixed. Thousand pounders were carried on the lower racks while five hundred pounders were hung on the middle racks. Above those were clusters of either incendiaries or fragmentation bombs held in place by small steel cables. The situation in the bomb bay was a w
eird mess. One thousand pounder had failed to release on a rack well below the catwalk. Resting on top of it two five hundred pounders were also hung up on the loose cables used to hold the fragmentation bombs in the racks. To trip the rack shackle on the lower bomb a screwdriver had to be used, but access to the shackle was blocked by one of the five hundred pounders directly on top of the big one. I caught a glimpse of Balmore in the radio room motioning me to return to the cockpit.

  “Turret to Bombardier, it’ll take two of us to clear the bomb bay.”

  “OK. We’ll wait ’til we are down to fifteen thousand feet.”

  It would have been foolish to attempt the release at high altitude because of the limited working time of the portable walk-around bottles, and the risk of losing oxygen and tumbling out into space. A few minutes later I called Purus again. “The thousand pounder is stuck on the lowest inside rack below the catwalk. The two five hundreds are resting on top of it and tangled up in the loose cables from the frag cluster.”

  “When we release the thousand pounder, will the two fives fall free?”

  “It’s impossible to tell for sure. We may have to cut them loose,” I answered.

  “How can we cut those steel cables?”

  “I always carry some hacksaw blades, Bombardier. One of us is going to have to hang down below the walk and slip a screwdriver between the big one and the fives on top of it.”

  “I’m smaller than you so I’ll do it while you hold my legs.”

  “OK. I will straddle the catwalk and lock my legs around it. You hang down in front of me so I can get a good hold on your legs. We got to be careful that when that big one falls out the fives don’t knock us off of the catwalk.”

  At fifteen thousand feet we cut loose of oxygen and began the risky procedure that had to be done. An airplane could not land at an airfield with hung-up bombs. The risk was too great to the other aircraft and base facilities. I sat on the narrow catwalk and locked my legs around it. Purus climbed over me and slid head down so I could grasp his legs. There was barely enough room between the bombs to work. Johnny carefully pushed the long screwdriver, working by feel in the cramped space between the bombs. When he got the tool in position to attempt the release he looked back at me, and I increased my grip on him and the narrow beam we were sitting on. We did not know which way the two upper bombs would move and had to be ready. When he pushed the shackle release the big one let go smoothly and the other two bombs shifted their hang positions slightly but not enough to endanger us. That was a tremendous relief! But not for long! The two five hundreds began to swing back and forth on the cables, striking the vertical support beams on each swing. Theoretically they were not supposed to explode as long as the impeller was in place, but I would have preferred not to put the theory to a test.