Escape from Paris

by Stephen Harding

  By the middle of July all fifteen of the B-17 groups then operational in the United Kingdom were participating in the offensive, and the Eighth Air Force was steadily increasing both its reach—in terms of distances flown and targets hit—and the accuracy of its bombing.8 But the Germans were also improving, both with regard to their ability to track incoming raids and in the effectiveness of their defenses. In June alone, the Eighth lost ninety-three heavy bombers—shot down, missing in action, or damaged beyond repair—and nearly one thousand crewmen dead or missing.9 While the 94th Bomb Group had lost no aircraft since the June 22 raid, several crewmen had been killed and dozens injured on the five subsequent missions, and morale at Rougham, as at most other U.S. bomber bases, was far from good. Evenings spent in the on-base officers and enlisted clubs and off-duty visits to nearby pubs—there were nearly fifty in the Bury St. Edmunds area at the time—were of only marginal help in improving the men’s spirits.10 Not even an afternoon performance on June 29 by American comedian Bob Hope, guitarist Tony Romano, and singer Frances Langford had done much to lift the pall of gloom that hovered over the 94th like a cloud.

  Bad weather over the United Kingdom kept the Eighth Air Force’s heavy bombers grounded for six days following the July 4 mission to La Pallice. Conditions improved enough by the tenth to allow the launch of a major attack against three Luftwaffe airfields in France, at Abbeville, Caen, and Le Bourget—the latter a former civilian field outside Paris—with 277 Fortresses from all fifteen operational groups participating.11 The 94th was part of the 101-aircraft contingent sent against Le Bourget, with Salty’s Naturals leading the 331st’s second element. The raid was strongly opposed by German fighters on the way to the target, which the B-17s were unable to bomb because of heavy cloud cover, and two Fortresses from other groups were shot down. Although several enemy interceptors also went down in flames, the mission was for all intents a failure—Le Bourget remained intact and operational.12

  Though Salty’s Naturals returned to Rougham undamaged and with her crew unharmed, the grueling and ultimately futile sortie further reinforced Joe Cornwall’s belief that his chances of completing the required twenty-five missions were increasingly slim. While ineffably sad, the thought did not frighten him as much as it had during his first few combat missions. That gut-wrenching, barely controlled terror had given way to something akin to resigned fatalism. Having seen so many bombers spiraling out of control, their wings missing or engines engulfed in flames, and having watched as dead and dying men were pulled from aircraft that had managed to limp home, Joe no longer thought in terms of whether he’d be shot down—he now assumed it was merely a question of when. He only hoped that he would have the courage to face whatever came and, even more importantly, that he would not disappoint or let down his crewmates.13

  Joe didn’t have much longer to ponder his fate, however, for his next combat mission was destined to be his last.

  THE FAILURE OF THE JULY 10 RAID AGAINST LE BOURGET, AND THE AIRFIELD’S continuing importance as both a Luftwaffe fighter base and a major aircraft repair facility, guaranteed a return visit by the Eighth Air Force. That second strike was scheduled for July 14—Bastille Day—as part of VIII Bomber Command Mission No. 73. The three-pronged assault would see other groups attacking the Luftwaffe air depot at Villacoublay and the fighter field at Amiens/Glisy, while the 94th, 95th, 96th, and 100th Bomb Groups headed for Paris.

  On the afternoon of July 13 Fred Castle called his squadron and element leaders together for a pre-mission briefing. There he announced—to the groans and curses of most everyone in the room—that the 94th would be flying as low group in the wing formation. Castle himself would fly the lead bomber in the lead 332nd Squadron, with Major Kee Harrison—a founding member of the 94th and one of its most capable and popular officers—commanding the 332nd’s second element. The 410th’s commander, Major Franklin Colby (known as “Pappy” because at forty he was the oldest operational pilot in the Eighth Air Force at that time), would lead the high squadron, and “Salty” Saltsman and the 331st would be low squadron. Saltsman announced that he would fly as copilot in Captain Willis Frank’s Good Time Cholly II, and then turned to Ed Purdy and tapped him as leader of the 331st’s second element. The assignment was a clear indication of Saltsman’s trust in Purdy and his crew, but it also meant that Salty’s Naturals and the two other Fortresses in the second element would be the three lowest bombers in the entire wing formation—solidly in “Purple Heart Corner.”

  After giving a few further details of the mission, Castle beckoned to an officer who had been quietly observing the meeting from the back of the room. As the man walked forward, the others immediately noted a few curious things about him. For a start, though he wore captain’s bars on his immaculately tailored uniform, his graying air indicated that he was decidedly older than most men of his rank. And while his branch insignia and the Eighth Air Force patch on his shoulder confirmed his USAAF status, the absence of wings on his left breast clearly indicated that he was not a pilot, bombardier, navigator, or gunner.14 And, finally, several of those present recognized the man’s several campaign ribbons as dating to World War I.

  When the man joined Castle at the front of the room, the group commander introduced him as Captain Jeff Dickson, the photographic officer from 4th Wing headquarters at Elveden Hall. In a slow but cultured Mississippi drawl, the forty-seven-year-old Dickson explained that he had been directed by the wing commander, Brigadier General Frederick L. Anderson, to shoot motion-picture footage of raids launched against targets in Occupied Europe. He had already flown several combat missions with other units, and would join the 94th the following day for the attack on Le Bourget. The flight would be bittersweet for him, he confided to his listeners, because after U.S. Army service as an enlisted photographer during World War I he had stayed on in France. He’d spent twenty years in Paris, first as the owner of an English-language news service and later as a promoter of sports events. He’d done pretty well for himself in the French capital, he said, and he still considered it home.15

  As the meeting broke up, Saltsman took Dickson aside and asked him which aircraft he wanted to fly in the following day. Smiling slowly, the photographer replied, “Which is least likely to turn back?” Without missing a beat, the squadron commander responded, “Purdy’s.” Dickson said that sounded fine to him, and asked Saltsman to introduce him to the bomber’s crew. Minutes later, Dickson was seated at a makeshift picnic table outside the enlisted men’s club, sharing a beer with the ten men of Salty’s Naturals. He told them that for takeoff and landing he would sit on the floor in Chuck Sprague’s radio room, but for most of the mission he would be in the nose or moving throughout the aircraft—using one of the walk-around oxygen bottles—and would be shooting footage with a handheld 16mm movie camera. He would try not to get in anyone’s way, he said, but if he did, they should feel free to just shove him aside—but not too hard, or he’d have to pay for the broken camera. His easy humor and relaxed manner immediately put the others at ease, and when the “official” discussion was over Dickson sat with Joe Cornwall and a couple of the other enlisted men in the warmth of an English summer afternoon, drinking beer and talking of home and of Dickson’s life in Paris. Later, after dinner, Dickson joined Purdy and Salty’s Naturals’ three other officers for more conversation and a nightcap.16

  It proved to be a short night for all concerned, however.

  JUST AFTER TWO O’CLOCK ON THE MORNING OF JULY 14, A LONE FIGURE walked down the narrow gravel pathway leading to the hastily constructed Nissen huts that were home to the officers and men of the 331st Bomb Squadron. Though dawn would bring the warmth of summer, at that hour it was cool and misty. Wearing a fleece-lined flying jacket to ward off the chill, the man carried a nearly empty enamel mug of coffee in one gloved hand, a red-lensed flashlight in the other, and a wooden clipboard wedged securely beneath one arm.

  Threading his way carefully between the bicycles haphazardly arrayed near the door
of the first hut, he drained the mug and shoved it into one of the jacket’s two large exterior pockets. After pausing briefly to take in the smell of the night air—a combination of loamy earthiness from nearby farm fields and the faint but unmistakable tang of high-octane aviation gasoline—the man ran the flashlight’s subdued beam down the list of names on the clipboard. Satisfied, he opened the hut’s door, pushed aside the suspended hunk of old drapery that served as both blackout curtain and draft preventer, then snapped on the lights and started bellowing in his best drill-field voice.

  “Rise and shine gentlemen. Breakfast at zero-two-thirty, briefing at zero-three-thirty!” He repeated his message twice more, then, his task done, he strode back out the door and moved on down the path to rouse other crewmen.

  Jolted from sleep, the twelve occupants of the hut—the enlisted men of Salty’s Naturals and Good Time Cholly II, the bomber in which Saltsman was to fly the mission—each greeted the new day with a quiet groan, or a shallow cough or a softly muttered string of inventive profanities. Tossing back their rough wool blankets, the men rolled out of their narrow beds and gasped as their feet hit the hut’s cold wooden floor. Tendrils of smoke soon curled into the air from the first cigarettes of the day as the men slipped lightweight coveralls over their heavy cotton underwear, shoved their now sock-encased feet into fleece-lined boots, and donned leather flying jackets, the back of each one adorned with the name of the man’s aircraft and hand-painted bomb symbols indicating the number of times its owner had faced death in the hostile skies above German-occupied Europe. Dressed but not yet fully awake, the men shuffled out the door and headed for the chow hall, Joe Cornwall walking with his friends Dick Davitt—Good Time Cholly II’s flight engineer and top turret gunner—and Staff Sergeant Harry Eastman, Cholly’s thirty-four-year-old left waist gunner, whom Cornwall and Davitt affectionately called “Old Man Harry” both because of his age and his premature baldness.17 The three men spent much of their free time together, and jokingly referred to themselves as the “Gunner Trio.”

  After a breakfast of powdered eggs, Spam, toast, and copious amounts of coffee, the three friends walked to the briefing hall. All of the 94th’s twenty operational Fortresses had been scheduled for the day’s mission, so the large space was packed with two hundred crewmen—officers on folding chairs toward the front, enlisted men on long wooden benches in the back. Some of the aviators were animated and talking loudly; others sat quietly, gazing toward the covered map boards at the front of the room; and still others sat hunched, looking downward with unfocused eyes. At exactly 3:30 A.M. a senior NCO shouted “Attention!” as Castle strode in, followed by his squadron commanders, the group intelligence and weather officers, and, bringing up the rear, Jeff Dickson. After the group reached the small raised dais at the front of the room Castle turned to face his men, barked “As you were!” and took his own seat as the gathered aviators sat down, lit cigarettes, and waited to hear the details of what most hoped would be a “milk run”—an easy mission from which men and aircraft would most likely return unscathed.

  As soon as the group intelligence officer pulled back the drapes masking the largest map board it was clear to all in the room that VIII Bomber Command Mission No. 73 would be no milk run. Three lengths of black string—one each for the group’s lead, high, and low squadrons—started at Rougham and stretched southward, skirting London to the east and then turning slightly west to hit the English Channel near the Isle of Wight. The strings then turned southeast, crossed the Channel, and reached the French coast at a spot halfway between Dieppe and Le Havre in Normandy. At Évreux the black lines turned sharply to the northeast, tracing a straight course to a point some twenty-four miles northwest of central Paris. There the lines changed direction again, directly toward Le Bourget, eight miles northeast of the capital. Up to that point the strings had indicated the formation’s “ingress route,” but from the target on they marked the “egress” route. After plunging straight southeastward of Paris, at Evry the black lines turned northwest, crossed the French coast south of Le Havre, and at the Isle of Wight turned back toward Rougham, basically reversing the first leg of the outbound journey.

  The briefing room had fallen eerily quiet as the gathered airmen took in the information depicted by the long black strings, and most of those present understood the reasons for the apparently circuitous route. Not only would it allow the formation to avoid the heavy German flak belts that fronted the English Channel from upper Normandy to southern Holland, it would mean that the escorting RAF Spitfires—most of which were based in southern England—could stay on the ground until the last minute, conserving their fuel and thus being able to stay with the bombers longer after joining up.

  But most of the men in the briefing room also immediately saw the drawbacks of the planned route. Though perhaps not so well protected by antiaircraft batteries as upper Normandy and the Pas de Calais, lower Normandy was by no means defenseless. The region between the Channel coast and Paris was home to several German fighter fields—all of which were defended by significant numbers of flak guns—and the Luftwaffe could always be counted on to fiercely engage any incoming threat. Moreover, the greater Paris region was among the most heavily defended areas in German-occupied Europe, with layered antiaircraft defenses backed up by still more fighter fields. And while the route would indeed allow the escorting Spitfires to remain with the formation longer than they might otherwise be able to, the nimble British fighters would still have to turn back long before the bombers reached Le Bourget. Finally, more than a few of the men in the room were puzzled and not a little dismayed by the fact that the mission route was not all that different from the one followed on the unsuccessful July 10 raid. Once German radar detected the formation’s general heading, they worried, wouldn’t Luftwaffe ground controllers be able to guess the formation’s destination and deploy fighters accordingly?18

  Castle gave the airmen a few additional moments to take in the information displayed on the large map, then stepped forward, cleared his throat, and gave the gathered aircrews a broad overview of the mission’s purpose and execution. Le Bourget and the other airfields targeted by the 4th Wing were vital to the Luftwaffe’s ability to operate and maintain fighter aircraft over France and the Low Countries, he said, and destroying or severely damaging the installations would allow the USAAF and RAF to further ramp up the Combined Bomber Offensive. That, in turn, would hasten the day when Allied forces could land in France and begin the long and undoubtedly hard process of freeing all of Europe from the Nazi yoke. His remarks concluded, Castle released all the enlisted gunners from the remainder of the briefing. The group’s operations, intelligence, and weather officers then spent the following hour providing the pilots, navigators, and bombardiers with the details each would need for the mission.

  Being excused from the briefing did not mean that Joe Cornwall and his fellow gunners could relax until takeoff time. Outside the briefing hall the men split into two groups, with the top turret, ball turret, and tail gunners boarding trucks that would take them directly to the hardstands where their aircraft were being fueled and loaded with the sixteen 300-pound general-purpose bombs each Fortress would later drop on Le Bourget. The turret and tail guns normally remained in place between missions, and the gunners manning those positions used the preflight time to load the weapons and check the mechanical operation of the turrets.

  Joe and the other “flexible gunners,” on the other hand, boarded a second truck that took them to the squadron armory, where each man signed out the .50-caliber M2 machine gun he would use to defend his aircraft. The gunners for each Fortress also signed out the three weapons that would be installed in the bomber’s nose and manned by the bombardier and navigator. Though all of the flexible guns had been cleaned by their operators after the previous mission, Joe and his colleagues nevertheless dismantled and closely inspected each weapon, not trusting the gun’s operation—and their lives—to whomever had previously signed it out. Once satisfi
ed, Joe and the others loaded the weapons aboard a truck, then climbed in themselves for the ride to the hardstand area, where each weapon was installed in its proper location.

  At about 5:15 A.M. a crowded jeep rolled to a stop near the nose of Salty’s Naturals and off hopped Ed Purdy, the crew’s other three officers, and Jeff Dickson. As the ground crew did their final mechanical checks and the ordnance specialists winched the last few bombs into the Fortress’s open bay, Purdy called his men together near the B-17’s nose. The pilot reviewed the broad outlines of the mission, ensured that none of the men had discovered any new mechanical issues, then wished them all good luck. After tugging bright-blue, electrically heated flying suits over their coveralls and then donning fleece-lined flying pants and jackets, each man pulled a bright yellow “Mae West” life jacket over his head. Next came a heavy stitched-canvas parachute harness—the chutes themselves were stored in strategic positions throughout the aircraft—followed by gloves and fleece-lined leather flying helmets fitted with radio earphones for the gunners and Jeff Dickson, while the crew’s officers retained their stylishly “crushed” dress caps.19

  Once suitably attired, the men of Salty’s Naturals boarded their aircraft. The “front office” crew—Ed Purdy, copilot Carroll Harris, navigator Charlie Lichtenberger, bombardier Ed Jones, and flight engineer/top turret gunner Rick Marquardt—pulled themselves upward through the hatch on the left side of the bomber’s nose, just forward of and below the cockpit. Radio operator Chuck Sprague, photographer Jeff Dickson, ball turret gunner John Smith, and waist gunners Joe Cornwall and Frank Santangelo had an easier entry, clambering into the aft fuselage through the crew door just forward of the horizontal stabilizer on the right side of the Fortress. Tail gunner Larry Templeton, the only crew member with a personal entrance, boarded through a small, hinged hatch directly aft of the right-side crew door, beneath the broad expanse of the right stabilizer. Upon reaching his position, every man save Smith—who would have to wait until after takeoff to enter the ball turret—plugged the cords for his headphones and flying suit and the long, ribbed hose of his oxygen mask into nearby outlets.