Escape from Paris

by Stephen Harding

  And things were about to go from bad to worse, for at noon on June 12 the 94th was alerted for a mission that would turn out to be the greatest single air battle of the war thus far. It would also test the men of Natural almost to the breaking point.

  ONE OF THE FIRST MEMBERS OF THE 94TH TO HEAR THE DETAILS OF THE upcoming mission was “Salty” Saltsman, who on the afternoon of June 12 was summoned along with the group’s other squadron commanders to a pre-operational briefing. Held at 4th Bomb Wing Headquarters at Elveden Hall—a stately home in Thetford, some thirty miles north of Earls Colne—the gathering included the leaders of the 95th and 96th Bomb Groups and was hosted by the wing commander, Brigadier General Frederick L. Anderson.20 Also present at the briefing was Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest III—great-grandson of the famous Confederate general of the U.S. Civil War—who had been tapped to lead a new provisional bomb wing. An accomplished pilot who had done much to organize USAAF heavy bombardment training both before and after Pearl Harbor, Forrest would participate in the mission as part of his preparation for wing command.

  As outlined to those at the briefing, the next day’s mission was to be a “maximum effort,” meaning that the groups involved were to get as many of their bombers into the air as possible. The targets would be the naval facilities and port complexes at Bremen and Kiel, Germany, with Forrest leading some 150 Fortresses of the 1st Bomb Wing against the latter. The Kiel attack group, designated the 4th Air Division, would consist of the 94th, 95th, and 96th Bomb Groups. They, in turn, would be split into the 401st and 402nd Combat Wings. The first would consist of the bulk of the 94th and a composite group made up of remaining 94th aircraft and about half of the 96th’s Fortresses, and the second would comprise the bulk of the 95th and a composite group of 95th and 96th B-17s. Saltsman would lead both the 94th and the 401st Combat Wing.21

  While the squadron and group commanders present at Elveden Hall grasped the importance of the mission, they were concerned by two aspects of the plan. First, though Allied fighters would fly wide-ranging sweeps over western Europe on the day of the raid, neither air division would have fighter escorts. Second, and perhaps more troubling, the attacking bombers were to abandon their normal wing combat boxes for two types of new and as yet untried formations. The 401st Combat Wing and the 402nd’s composite 95th-96th Group would fly the so-called “javelin-down,” in which each group box trailed the lead in descending altitudes. The reason for the change was apparently to increase bombing accuracy, but it was clear to many of those at the briefing that the alteration would reduce the effectiveness of the formation’s defensive fire. An even greater puzzlement was Forrest’s announcement that the bulk of the 95th Group would fly a formation he had devised, in which the second elements of the lead, high, and low squadrons would fly tightly behind the lead elements. Forrest believed the positioning of the aircraft would increase the formation’s defensive fire, though several combat veterans among those at the briefing saw immediately that such a tight grouping would prevent the B-17s in the second elements from employing their guns against frontal attacks. Forrest was apparently unmoved by their opinions, however.22

  The mission overview presented to Saltsman and the others at Elveden Hall was fleshed out over the following hours by a series of teletype messages sent from VIII Bomber Command to all of the participating units. While the information in such communiqués often changed over the course of the night preceding the mission—usually due to weather issues over the Continent, or updated intelligence on German defenses—Saltsman noted that this particular mission seemed to be generating a greater-than-normal amount of confusion. When the bomb groups involved received the first warning order at noon on June 12—even before the Elveden Hall meeting—the ordnance load for all aircraft was specified as ten 500-pound general-purpose bombs. Ground crews at the three bases were well into the loading process when, in the late afternoon, a teletype message canceled the use of 500-pounders. The already tired ordnance men were unloading all the B-17s that had already been “bombed up” when, at 9:15 P.M., yet another message arrived at the various group bases reinstating the loading of the 500-pound bombs. Then, at 4:30 A.M. on June 13 a further message instructed armorers to change out the tail fuzes on the bombs to be used in the raid.

  Bureaucratic indecision was not the only challenge the 94th Bomb Group had to deal with as it prepared for the Kiel mission. Despite having moved from Bassingbourn to Earls Colne just weeks earlier, the unit had been ordered to relocate once again—to the former B-26 medium bomber base at Rougham, just outside Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk.23 All of the group’s ground personnel were to make the twenty-mile road trip north to the new base once the aircraft had taken off early on June 13, while the 94th’s B-17s would depart on the mission from Earls Colne but return to Rougham. The impending move added considerably to the preflight confusion, and when the crews reached their aircraft following the morning mission briefing many found that bomb loading hadn’t yet been completed, nor had some of the Fortresses been fully fueled. These problems could only have added to the anxiety many of the aviators likely were feeling after being told during the briefing that they could expect some of the heaviest German fighter opposition they’d yet encountered.24

  Despite the glitches that had plagued the 94th’s preparation for the Kiel mission, all fourteen bombers that constituted the group’s contribution to the raid were airborne within less than twenty minutes. Soon after forming up, the bombers were joined by the aircraft of the 94th-96th composite group, and the entire formation—now totaling fifty-six aircraft rather than the planned seventy-six—turned to the northwest to pull in behind the 402nd Combat Wing. By 7:30 A.M. the mass of aircraft had crossed the English coast at the Wash—a vast estuary on the northwest edge of East Anglia—and set a course out over the North Sea. At a point about ninety-five miles north of the Dutch coast, Forrest in the lead aircraft turned the formation to the southeast on a heading for Kiel.

  The progress of the American bomber formation had not gone unnoticed, of course. By 8:45 A.M. German controllers had started launching interceptors—Bf 109s from an airfield on the island of Heligoland-Düne in the German Bight, and Fw 190s from Jever, just west of Wilhelmshaven. More than one hundred Luftwaffe fighters began hitting the leading 95th Group before the Fortresses reached the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein, and furious head-on attacks quickly showed the folly of Forrest’s altered formation. His aircraft was among the first to go down, giving Forrest the dubious distinction of being the first American general killed in action in the European Theater. Within moments, nine more Fortresses from the 95th were spiraling earthward.

  After decimating the lead group, the German 109s and 190s—now joined by twin-engine Bf 110s, Messerschmitt Me 210s, and Junkers Ju 88s lobbing 20mm cannon rounds from long range—turned their attention to the 94th. Among the first B-17s to suffer the Germans’ wrath was Natural. Flying lead in the second element at 27,500 feet, the Fortress was well short of the target when an Fw 190 bored straight in from directly ahead. The German pilot pumped a stream of 20mm rounds into Natural’s right wing, and one of the explosive rounds detonated against the propeller hub of the inboard right engine, knocking it out and sparking a fire. Shrapnel from the hit ripped through the right side of the cockpit, slightly wounding copilot Carroll Harris and knocking out the B-17’s flight-deck oxygen system. Almost immediately both Harris and Ed Purdy lost consciousness; Natural dropped abruptly out of formation and began rapidly losing altitude as engineer/top turret gunner Technical Sergeant Richard Marquardt—Russ Crisp’s replacement—struggled to put the mask of his portable oxygen bottle over Purdy’s face. By the time he succeeded and the pilot regained consciousness the B-17 had lost more than 3,000 feet of altitude and was on its own, just the type of damaged straggler guaranteed to attract enemy fighters looking for an easy kill.

  The sudden loss of altitude had caught the men in the rear of the plane by surprise, first tossing both Joe Cornwall and Frank Sa
ntangelo upward against the rough ceiling of the bomber’s fuselage, then dropping them onto the machine’s equally unforgiving floor. Initially convinced Natural was beginning a terminal dive, the two men struggled toward the tail where their parachutes were stored. But when they realized that the aircraft was still on an even keel, rather than in the flat spin that usually marked the beginning of a bomber’s death spiral, both men pulled themselves back along the floor toward their guns. When Purdy regained consciousness and leveled the aircraft out, both waist gunners knew it wouldn’t take long for the enemy fighters to come after the damaged bomber like wolves after an injured deer.

  And come the wolves did. Over the next two hours some thirty German fighters took turns savaging Natural, knocking out the mechanism that operated the ball turret, killing a second engine, and punching fist-sized holes through the bomber’s vertical stabilizer and both wings. Joe and the other gunners did their best to drive the hunters off, scoring hits on several of the fighters and sending two into the clouds trailing smoke. Purdy and the semiconscious Harris took the plane progressively lower, eventually leveling off a mere one hundred feet above the choppy North Sea. This prevented the German fighters from attacking the B-17’s now-undefended belly, and made it highly unlikely that an attacker coming in from above would have time to pull out before slamming into the unforgiving ocean. Apparently convinced that the obviously crippled Fortress would eventually crash of its own accord, the German fighters eventually turned for home, leaving Natural limping westward just off the Dutch coast on a course for the 94th’s new base at Rougham. The flight was uneventful—until the B-17 was almost in sight of the English coastline. Two twin-engine Bf 110s suddenly appeared out of the clouds and, carefully dropping in directly astern of the bomber, began hurling 20mm cannon rounds at the Fortress’s tail. A few of the explosive shells found their target, further holing the rudder and horizontal stabilizers, but accurate return fire from tail gunner Larry Templeton eventually drove the marauders away.

  Through excellent airmanship and sheer strength of will, Purdy was able to keep Natural in the air despite its injuries. His approach into Rougham was hindered by the fact that he couldn’t lower the Fortress’s flaps, and when he extended the landing gear Joe Cornwall informed him that the left tire was flat. This caused the B-17 to swerve to the left when it touched the runway, but Purdy quickly straightened Natural out and it rolled to a halt. As soon as the aircraft stopped moving an ambulance pulled up alongside in response to the red flare Marquardt had fired as the plane had turned onto its final approach. Medics carefully lowered the injured Harris through the lower fuselage hatch just forward of the cockpit, allowed him to climb into the ambulance on his own, and then raced off to the base hospital.

  Natural had made it home—unlike twenty-two other Fortresses dispatched to Kiel, nine of them from the 94th—but a quick survey of their damaged aircraft convinced the remaining crew members that she would likely never fly again.25 Purdy and his men knew just how lucky they had been, but they also realized that as soon as they’d been assigned a replacement aircraft they’d go back on the flight roster. In the meantime, they would explore the countryside around their new home in search of ways to relax.

  For Joe and his best friend, twenty-seven-year-old Staff Sergeant Richard S. Davitt—a top turret gunner on another 331st Bomb Squadron Fortress—the quest for relaxation led to a humorous and ironic encounter. After attending the usual postmission debriefing the two men secured permission to go into Bury St. Edmunds, their intention being to seek out a pub that had been recommended to them. The Sword in Hand was on Southgate Street, barely a mile and a half from the airfield. Rather than walk the distance, the tired airmen “borrowed” a bicycle left unattended near the Quonset hut in which both gunners slept, and set off with Joe pedaling and Davitt riding on the handlebars.

  As the two airmen entered Bury St. Edmunds a U.S. Army military policeman sitting in a jeep motioned them to a halt.

  “You’ll have to get off the handlebars and walk,” the MP said to Davitt.

  Puzzled, the gunner responded, “Why?”

  “It’s too dangerous,” was the response.

  The two young men, who earlier that day had participated in the greatest air battle yet fought by Americans in the skies over Europe, looked at the man in disbelief and then dissolved in helpless laughter.26

  Almost exactly one month later both gunners would find themselves in a far less humorous situation—shot down, on the run from the Gestapo, and being hidden almost in plain site by a dedicated French family in the city that was the administrative heart of Germany’s occupation of France.

  Paris.

  Chapter 2

  KEEPERS OF THE TOMB

  IT WAS A SIGHT CERTAIN TO SEAR THE SOULS OF THE MORIN FAMILY, AND OF any other true son or daughter of France.

  On the morning of Friday, June 14, 1940—eight days before France’s June 22 acceptance of the armistice with Germany—elements of General Fedor von Bock’s Army Group B took time off from their pursuit of retreating French units to undertake an impromptu victory march down the Champs-Élysées in the heart of Paris.1 The capital had been declared an open city four days earlier, so the invaders encountered no resistance, and the formations of triumphant troops—still carrying their rifles and many with stick hand grenades wedged under their belts—did not even bother to goose-step as they marched in review past Bock, the Arc de Triomphe soaring into the summer sky behind them. The infantry soldiers were followed in turn by dozens of horse-drawn artillery pieces, and behind them came squads of bicycle-mounted reconnaissance troops, pedaling along with an almost nonchalant air.

  Although it was not the first time the hated Boche had paraded through the French capital—Kaiser Wilhelm I himself had led his Prussians down the Champs-Élysées on March 1, 1871, following the North German Confederation’s victory in the Franco-Prussian War—it was a spectacle most of France’s people had not expected to witness in the twentieth century. Following their nation’s declaration of war against Germany in the wake of the latter’s September 1939 invasion of Poland, most of France’s citizens had assumed that the new conflict would unfold in much the same way as had World War I: years of back-and-forth combat that, while expensive in blood, would at worst result in a German occupation of Alsace and perhaps parts of Lorraine. Gathered in sidewalk cafés and around tables laden with Sunday dinner during the first months of what came to be known as the “Phoney War,” people from the Belgian border to the sunny shores of Provence assured each other that with the grudging help of Britain—that irritating little island that had been both friend and foe over the centuries—the nation of Napoléon and the Sun King would rout the Germans, who would fail in their latest attempt to dismember La Belle France and would ultimately be sent scurrying back over the border like a pack of feral dogs that had been taught a necessary lesson in obedience.

  It is understandable, then, why the people of France were collectively dumbfounded by the speed and completeness of the German victory. In just six weeks the Boche2 had rolled up the vaunted French army like a threadbare rug, bypassing or destroying entire units—most of which seemed unable to organize a coherent defense. The fabled Maginot Line, that chain of supposedly impregnable fortresses built along the Franco-German border after the last war, had done nothing to stop the ravening Teutonic hordes. Certainly, the French agreed, there had been some actions in which the advancing Wehrmacht3 had initially come out second-best—the armored clash in mid-May at Stonne, for example.4 Yet in the final reckoning there had been no last-minute salvation; the British, those pasty-faced sales clerks, had abandoned France in her darkest hour, characteristically racing back across the Channel in such a panic that they left behind most of their weapons and equipment. Shameful, the French muttered, but what else could one expect of the English?5

  Nor were France’s own leaders any better, people agreed. On June 10 Prime Minister Paul Reynaud and his government fled Paris for the presumed saf
ety of Tours, and the following day the French capital was declared an open city. The announcement sparked a massive exodus from the metropolis and its environs: some 2 million people—both Parisians and refugees who had flooded Paris in the weeks since the beginning of the German assault—choked the roads leading west and south in an ultimately futile attempt to escape the catastrophe that was about to engulf the City of Light. The sudden appearance of the first German troops on the streets of Paris early on June 14 convinced the majority of Reynaud’s nomadic cabinet that further resistance was futile, and on the fifteenth the ministers voted to ask the Nazis for armistice terms.6 Reynaud had argued that France could carry on the fight from its colonies abroad, and saw the cabinet vote as tantamount to treason. He resigned on the sixteenth, and was promptly replaced as prime minister by the eighty-four-year-old World War I hero Marshal Philippe Pétain. He, in turn, quickly announced his intention to seek peace with Germany, and that intent became reality when France signed the armistice agreement on June 22.7

  The Pétain government framed the ceremony held in the historic railcar at Compiègne as an “accommodation” necessary for France’s survival and touted the establishment of the Zone Libre—an area in the southern half of the country not occupied by German troops and nominally controlled by Pétain’s Vichy-based collaborationist regime—as proof that the nation remained at least partially in command of its own fate.8 Yet the French people, whatever their political beliefs and wherever they lived in their newly divided nation, understood that La Belle France was now a German vassal state. Nor did their subjugation seem likely to end any time soon—in less than a year Nazi Germany had conquered virtually all of Europe, proving itself to be the continent’s dominant military power and raising the specter of a “Greater German Reich” that might last for decades, if not centuries. Stunned by their nation’s defeat and swift capitulation, and convinced of their conqueror’s invincibility and the futility of continued resistance, the vast majority of France’s people initially chose to seek whatever semblance of normalcy might now be possible. For some—indeed, more than France would ultimately care to admit—the key to a “normal” life was collaboration with, and even military service on behalf of, the new masters. Many others declared their own personal armistices, neither confronting nor supporting the Germans or their Vichy lapdogs, striving to stay unnoticed and seeking solace and some measure of peace in the traditional refuges of family, church, and community.