Bomber Pilot

by Philip Ardery

  I started to coach him or take over but I decided not to. I thought he was far enough along to handle it himself, and I didn't want to show lack of confidence in him. As his glide continued he got farther off to the left of the runway. Just as it was apparent he might not be able to get back on the runway without making a low steep turn to the right into his dead engine, I said: “You've failed to untrim the ship properly and you've let the trim take over. Give her the power now and go around.”

  Captain Brooks was in the tower, having come there when he heard that a ship in trouble was about to make an emergency landing. He was frantically calling instructions to us over the tower radio. He didn't know I was in the airplane, or I think he would have given fewer instructions. Faking complete calm I answered him: “We missed our approach and are going around.”

  At that moment I gave full rpm on three good engines and full throttle. I locked the throttles wide open and set the superchargers to give fifty-two inches of manifold pressure—the most they would give—pushing them hard up against the stops. I pulled the flap lever into the up position little by little, drawing the flaps up to halfway position, and then locked them. Then I jerked the landing gear lever forward to bring the wheels up. We were just wavering over the fence at the end of the field. The ship was lumbering and struggling with everything the three engines had. Ahead of us was a desert expanse of rolling sand dunes covered with scrub growth. I had seen what happened to a B-17 that piled into those hills two nights before. The only one of the crew who lived was the pilot and he was seriously injured.

  For what seemed hours we flopped along, only half flying. Ed started to gain altitude, but I had my nose almost against the air speed indicator and seeing it only register 120 to 125 miles per hour, I held forward on the wheel to keep the nose down. We were too close to stalling speed to try pulling the nose up. We were turning a little to the right because of the force of our good engines under full power, but we let it turn a little. It seemed an eternity that those wheels took coming up. All the while I heard Brooks calling loudly over the radio, “Don't stall it! Don't stall it! Pancake it in if you have to.”

  For a distinct moment I thought we really were going to have to pancake it in. We must have gone two miles past the boundary of the field before the wheels came fully up and we gained enough speed and altitude to start making a turn.

  Finally when we had about six hundred feet under us we started a wide sweeping turn to the left and made another approach. This time when Ed pulled off the power, I untrimmed the ship. We hit the runway squarely and stayed on it. We taxied up to the line and cut the engines. I said nothing but got out of the ship and walked away. The men in the crew knew I was scared and mad. I didn't feel I ought to say anything, for I knew Ed wouldn't forget that lesson, nor would I.

  It would have helped had it happened that day, but it happened the next that as I was taxiing in to the line I saw my adjutant, waiting in my parking space waving a piece of paper at me with a big smile on his face. I guessed what it was. It was my captaincy! With it I felt much more the part of a squadron commander.

  Several weeks before we were to complete our training in El Paso, upon the advice of the group surgeon, I had Anne go home. Her mother came from San Angelo to drive her back and I moved to the field to live in the bachelor officers’ quarters for the remainder of training at Biggs.

  Time went by in which Major Lancaster became a lieutenant colonel, and Yaeger, then Cross, and then Burton became majors. Colonel Lancaster twice recommended me for promotion to major, but both times the recommendation was returned owing to my not having enough “time in grade” as a captain. That was really a fair enough reason for my promotion not going through.

  We took on maturity as an organization. When we arrived at Biggs Field we were only the skeleton of a heavy bomber group. Gradually sinew and muscle grew on the skeleton. It became a unit with as much individuality as a person has, and was as different from other organizations of like size and designated purpose as one human being is different from another. As our spirit grew, we found ourselves harping on our points of superiority and minimizing our weaknesses in contrast with other organizations.

  During those last days at El Paso I felt increasing anxiety about Anne. I knew the doctor had predicted the great day would fall on April 2, but I felt he did that just to be kind. What he really meant was April 1, but he didn't want to say we would have an April Fool's baby, so he put it back a day. My thoughts about the day the baby would arrive seemed prophetic when about noon of April 1 I got a long-distance phone call from Anne's mother. She said quietly, “If you can I think you'd better come now. Anne has been in the hospital since early this morning and the doctor says he believes the baby will come sometime today.”

  I rushed over to Colonel Lancaster's room. He was in bed with a cold but I burst in on him: “Can I take a ship and fly to San Angelo?”

  “Sure, Phil, go ahead. Hope it's a girl. Boys are more trouble than they're worth.”

  All my flyable aircraft were flying. I went to Yaeger's operations and found a ship they would let me have. I got a crew together, rushed across the ramp, jumped in, and started the engines. Despite a slightly vibrating engine, I took off and headed east. I was pulling more power than I was supposed to, but I didn't have too far to go and I knew the ship would take it. I slid through the Guadalupe Pass and across the flat plain toward San Angelo faster than my anxious mind would admit, and soon I looked down on the familiar sight of Goodfellow Field. The air was swarming with basic trainers. I had to look out for them. They were flown by a bunch of wild gadgets who knew little and cared less about my having the right of way. I called the tower and requested transportation to town. When we taxied up to the line I jumped out without much more than a goodbye to my crew and ran to the car that was waiting.

  It was a long afternoon and evening and about two in the morning of April 2, a nurse came out of the room and said: “That boy'll be here in a few minutes.” In a little while they wheeled Anne back to her room. She was groggy but all right, and we had ourselves a fine baby boy. The day after he was born the nurses let me hold him up and hug him. We named him Peter Brooks.

  A persistent rumor going the rounds of the group for some weeks was soon confirmed—we were to leave Biggs Field to complete our last phase of training for combat at Lowry Field in Denver. And one morning we began to load our Liberators to fly north to Lowry with as many men and as much equipment as they would carry. We made several shuttle trips and transported all the crews and air support people, plus a good deal of extra baggage. The ground troops followed by rail.

  At Lowry Field the battle of housing facilities started all over again. But there the natural layout was more conducive to equal division. My squadron got as good a break on its headquarters as any of the other squadrons had, and on the flying line a little better one. My men had the only building available out there for their engineering and technical supply shack. The fact that we had it was simply due to my luck at drawing straws. Training continued pretty much as it had been: the missions were a little longer and more intricate as the level of crew proficiency rose. The men saw Denver as a warm-hearted hospitable town, with lots to do and many places for a soldier to spend his money and not be gouged.

  Flying at Denver was certainly nothing like what I feared it might be. Usually the sky was clear as quartz and the backdrop of mountains to the west gave the optical illusion of being right up against the field. Their snowy, majestic tops were typical of many natural beauties which are real hazards to the flier.

  Much of the work of my squadron's operations during those days was characterized by the very imaginative and ingenious efforts of two smart young officers, Bill Goodykoontz and Fred Willis. They were continually coming up with some novel idea to interest the boys and add pep to the organization. They bought a little cocker spaniel and sold “dog shares” to pay for him. They had a voting contest to name him, and the popular will dictated his name to be Propwash. T
hey finagled around a rule that no one would be allowed to sell Coca-Cola but the PX and managed to have it for sale in our intelligence section. This not only drew personnel of our squadron but also of the other three squadrons which had no Cokes for sale. They ran a lottery on the Kentucky Derby that was won by a shy PFC truck driver who had been nicknamed Lovebug. The revenue of these enterprises went to purchase a Speed-Graphic camera for the squadron. We had not been able to draw a government issue camera and we needed one for keeping the squadron history. In the midst of all these antics, Goodykoontz and Willis put out the news of the day, taught aircraft identification, and performed in a superior manner all the normal functions of a squadron intelligence section.

  One day when we were almost ready to leave Denver we got the bad news that Colonel Dave Lancaster was considered temporarily physically incapacitated for overseas service. He had been in the hospital a good many days. It was a distressing blow to him, and we hated to lose the good friend and commander who had taken us through such a successful period of training. He asked me to fly him to his home near Daytona Beach, Florida. I was glad to accept, not only to be with him, but also because I hoped on the way back that I might be able to stop by Kentucky to say goodbye to my parents. A few days later I left Denver at ten o'clock one night and landed in Daytona Beach about eight the following morning. There I said goodbye to Colonel Lancaster and, with his permission, routed my return trip via Kentucky. After some delay in servicing I arrived over the land of the bluegrass and the white fences about three in the afternoon the same day. The Lexington airport was incomplete, but its runways were finished and I had clearance from flight control for a ten-minute stop there. I had brought an extra pilot to take over the ship and fly it to Bowman Field, Louisville.

  To hit my runway I had to circle over a pasture which was part of Warren Wright's Calumet Farm. As I cut throttles and glided down to the end of the runway, I looked under me and saw a half-dozen broodmares madly racing around the pasture. I was sorry to scare the great ladies like that, but I was bent on a matter of real importance to me. By the time I landed several cars were there that had not been there a moment before. I'm sure this was the first four-engined aircraft ever to land at Bluegrass Field.

  I caught a ride into Lexington and called mother and dad. It was good to see them again and assure them I was ready for combat. I had every reason to believe I would come through without serious harm. My feeling of confidence helped allay their worries.

  Returning to Denver I found the new CO, Colonel Jack Wood. He was an extremely good-looking man with wavy, iron-gray hair. If he is up to his looks, I thought, he will be a wonder. In a matter of days after my return, brand new B-24s began coming in. We were to shake them down and then take them to the staging area. There they would be given the final checkup for the flight across. Up until a very short time before we left we were virtually certain we were headed west to fight the Japs. Now we found we were going to England—at least we were headed east, and we supposed that meant England.

  Some of our old ships had to be delivered to San Antonio. I managed to fly one down as far as San Angelo and drop off there for two days. I got the chance I needed to see Anne again and catch a final glimpse of Peter, now two months old and still a good bit of a squirming infant, but considerably changed from the time we'd met on his birthday in the hospital. Anne and I both realized we were living in a time when issues were being decided which cosmically transcended personal considerations. Even if I don't come back, I thought, we are lucky. I had loved Anne and Peter and that is much more than many ever have.

  A day or two after I returned to Denver we were on our way to the staging area. There we sat around the officers’ club, talked about our wives, called them long-distance, and played the slot machines to while away the time as the ships were being checked.

  In those last few days at the staging area I had plenty of time to reflect on the events since that day in the late summer of 1940 when I had said goodbye to my law practice in Kentucky and set forth to become a pilot. In less than three years I had logged 1800 flying hours—close to 1000 hours in the heaviest four-engined aircraft the Army used—and I was entrusted with what was then estimated at $10,000,000 worth of equipment. But the greater change was in my point of view. Bacon, I remembered, said, “He who hath a wife and children hath given hostages to fortune.” I had arrived in the Air Corps filled with an attitude which would forbid giving hostages to fortune. Now I had given hostages of the dearest kind, and I was sincerely glad.

  3

  Ted's Flying Circus

  The crews of my squadron came into the staging area the last of the group. This was in accord with the way the movement out of Denver was ordered. I was determined not to get left behind, and so when I got into staging I did everything I could to rush up the departure. As a result I managed to get ahead of them all, and my ship was the first one in the group to leave for overseas.

  I picked an excellent crew with the ship I was flying, that of Second Lieutenant Lloyd H. Hughes of Corpus Christi, Texas. Hughes was a laughing, youngish, handsome lad and a much-better-than-average pilot. I had taken Fowble out of his assistant operations job and made him a flight commander of C Flight. This flight consisted of his own crew, Hughes's crew, and the crew of Lieutenant Robert Lee Wright of Austin, Texas. As a patriotic Kentuckian I was a little jealous of the ascendancy of Texans, but I had to admit that next to Kentuckians they were about the toughest competitors of all.

  I felt that perhaps Hughes somewhat resented my taking over as pilot of his ship for the long hop across the ocean. He probably was a better pilot than I, since administrative duties had recently kept me from flying as much as he did. But I wanted to sit in the pilot's seat and “fly my own ship” across, although it was really Hughes's ship. He took it with good nature.

  From the staging area, by a couple of hops, we soon reached our jumping off point in Newfoundland, where we stopped momentarily. The weather was reasonably good over the Atlantic, with a prospect of soon getting worse. And so we were almost immediately briefed for an early night takeoff. As the sun was sinking low on the horizon in the subarctic night we took off. It was June 11, 1943. At that time of year and in the latitudes we flew, we didn't see much darkness on our way across, except where we met heavy cloud cover. As we cruised along, the sun dipped a little lower than it was at takeoff; then it seemed to ride along on the rim of the horizon for a long time. Finally it dropped into the sea for about half an hour at midnight and then popped up again. There was always a red glow in the northern sky, and beneath us we could see the cold black water, sometimes with great snowy icebergs floating in mock peacefulness.

  I set the autopilot on course and sat placidly in the pilot's seat watching the indicator lights on the automatic control panel flash lazily as the impulses of the servos were transmitted to the controls. The wheel in my lap moved slightly back, slightly forward, a little to left and then right in a jerky, mechanical way. It reminded me of the wheel of the car in the old Topper movies when the invisible hero was driving. Here we were, a bomber load of people who had never seen the other side of the ocean, flying our own airplane over to join the war. Beyond a doubt within the next few months the greatest and perhaps even the last adventures of our lives would be taking place.

  From time to time I checked my position and heading with Lieutenant Sidney Pear, the navigator. Pear was a New Jerseyite from Weehawken and a navigator whose skill was exceptional. He knew how to use his sextant, and he was as busy as a pack rat facing a hard winter. I could see him up in the astrodome taking starshot after starshot. Then he would make his calculations and call me on interphone and give me the word on our course and, as expected, his readings continually placed us within a few miles of where we should have been.

  The engineer every half hour would stick his head in from the flight deck and report on fuel consumption. When we were half way across we were pulling along at thirty inches of manifold pressure and 2,000 RPM, indica
ting a good 165 miles per hour airspeed. When these readings were corrected for altitude and winds, I knew we had a true speed considerably higher. Our gas was spending according to expectation; we had passed the point of last return and the boys in the back waist compartment were dozing. They never gave a single call over the interphone.

  After the sun got a good start into the sky again from its shallow dip at midnight, we managed to pick up the beacon from the other side on our radio compass. The needle pointed the direction to the station hundreds of miles ahead, and showed we were exactly on course on the heading we had been steering. We passed through a moderate stretch of cloud with a slight bit of rime ice in it, but nothing to worry about.

  We cruised on into the morning and finally I got a somewhat stern but proud announcement from Lieutenant Pear that we should see the coast of Ireland in about half an hour. The weather was thicker now. The clouds were heavy in some places, though occasionally there was a hole and we could see the ocean, cold and green, below us. On the very dot of the time Pear gave us, we were lucky enough to find a break in the clouds and there beneath us lay the surf-crested coast of Ireland. We were thrilled. We had come from one world into another that none of us had ever seen before, and as we caught other glimpses of the shore and later the patchwork of perfectly kept, tiny fields bounded by stone walls, we noted the accuracy in the name the Emerald Isle. The isle had been washed by a June rain that morning and it glittered like no emerald ever has except, of course, those gems of the great Emerald City of Oz.