After a few days at Camp Kilmer we were moved out to board ship in
the middle of the night. All I can remember is going up a very
wide gangplank into a big black opening about 20 foot square in
the side of the ship. The U.S.O. girls were there passing out
coffee and doughnuts and I think there was a band playing. The
ship was the Queen Elizabeth, owned and operated by the English,
and there were thousands of us on this trip. I believe there were
about 12,000 troops and a crew of 1,700 on the ship, but am not
certain of the figure. We sailed at night and by daylight we were
at sea. I will note that we never did see the Statue of Liberty
then or when we returned.
The entire ship had been altered to carry troops and the
staterooms that originally were for two people now held twelve of
us. there were four bunks with just a narrow aisle in the middle
and one small shower. We didn't take many showers as it was salt
water and left you so sticky. As I recall we had Just a little
fresh water to rinse off with. The only open areas were the
lounges and the large ballrooms of peace time. In these the almost
continuous poker games took place. I spent very little time on
dock except for the abandon ship drills. It was December and the
weather was not very good. On the few good days we could go up on
the stern and shoot skeet. The shells were free and we could shoot
all we wanted. We usually found an enlisted man to run the machine
to shoot the clay targets. It gave us a little more practice in
1eading a moving target.
I didn't get seasick, but in the morning when I went to the dining
room and saw the fish for breakfast I did not feel so well. I took
a couple of rolls and bacon for sandwiches and went back to my
room to eat them in my bunk. This being an all English crew we got
very English food. About half way across the Atlantic the ship
began to take a zigzag course and the direction was changed every
three minutes. It took longer this way but was the only
protection against the German submarines as we were alone with no
escort ships. When walking down the corridors we would feel the
ship 1ean one way and then the other. We soon got used to that and
the thing which bothered us the most was at meal time. The tables
had a board along the edge and all the plates would slide from one
side to the other. When you wanted salt, pepper, etc. you would
grab it when it came to your side of the table. We had to hang
onto our plates as we ate, but that didn't seem to hurt our
appetites. As it was such a large ship the movement was slow and
not violent unlike the small ship I came home in.
The normal four day crossing took us seven days and we landed at
Gloucester, Scotland, harbor in the middle of December. As we
disembarked we looked back at the ship and that was the first time
we saw the Queen in its entirety. It was huge in the brilliant
sunlight. We next had our first experience with an English train.
The aisle runs down the side of the car with small compartments on
the side. We were packed in so tightly with all our luggage that
the aisle was full and prohibited any walking around. We made part
of the trip in the daytime so we saw some of the Scottish and
English country side.
On December 23 we arrived it Keevil, England in the southwest not
far from Bath. This was not an airfield, just a place to stay
until we got a base and planes. Keevil was horrible and the worst
of places to spend your second Christmas away from home. We lived
in board shacks covered with tar paper and the weather was cold
and damp. We had little stoves in our shacks but nothing to burn
in them. The only tools we had were knives so we used them to cut
branches of trees and bushes. It was green wood so we would coat
the twigs with shoe polish to make them burn. We had one large
building for a mess hall with one stove in the middle of it. Here
we were served powered eggs for breakfast every morning and they
were terrible... tasteless, smelly and a sickly green color.
Instead of the eggs we would get a couple of slices of bread and
toast them on a stick in the one stove in the middle of the room.
Neill and I made one trip to Bath where we went through the old
Roman baths and walked through the rest of the city. We made one
trip to London by train and walked around the city. Trafalger
Square remains in my memory. It was a long trip by train from
Keevil so we only went once while stationed there. Later we were
closer to London and went more often. I remember once getting a
cup of coffee while waiting for a train back to base. The English
were unfamiliar with coffee making and it was so hot and strong
that the train arrived before it was cool enough to drink. One of
the interesting things at Keevil was how we would take a bath. The
bath house was a long narrow building with openings at either end
and had a cement floor. Partitions separated bathtubs set up on
higher concrete slabs in each stall. It was winter and there was
no heat in the building but the water was always hot. We would
hang all our clothes, including our shoes up high, fill the tub
with water, jump in and leave the water running the entire time.
The tubs would run over and the water would run down the aisle and
out the doorways at either and. The building would fill with steam
and we would lay in the tubs for one to three hours as it was the
only place we could get warm. I have no idea how they heated the
water, but it was always hot. I was in the same shack as Ullo and
Bruce so we all suffered that place together. While we were
overseas we asked Lettie and Ullo's girl friend Dolores, who lived
in Oakland to get together and they became friends.
After a couple of weeks we moved to Riverhall, near Colchester.
Here we lived in metal nissan huts and conditions were a little
better. We still didn't know what kinds of planes we would get,
P-51 or P-47s and were very happy when we got the P-51s. it was
January, still cold and we had one small stove in the center of
the metal building and we were still trying to burn green wood.
The mess building used soft coal to cook and it came in big
blocks some chunks over a foot square. We would go down there and
steal a chunk when the cooks were not looking and run like hell.
We broke it up for burning, and would keep warm for awhile. I had
about ten Army blankets on my cot. First I covered the cot with a
thick layer of newspapers and then put all the blankets on, tied a
rope around to hold everything on and never made my bed the
entire time I was there. I crawled in Just like it was a sleeping
bag. You had to watch out lest someone from another hut come in
and put a hand full of shells from our 45 caliber revolvers into
the stove when no one was looking. They made quite a noise, but
would Just rattle the stove and not really hurt anyone.
Ullo had an electric razor that ran on 110 volts but of course
the English power was all 220 volts. Ullo was an electrician by
trade so we went to Colchester to the "sparkmonqer" (hardware) and
bought a lot of wire, bulbs, ect. and Ullo put up about ten foot
wire over our bunks with a lightbulb connected about every foot.
When they were all lit it cut the voltage down so the razor would
run. If your beard was tough you could just unscrew another bulb
and the razor would run faster. Real handy, it worked fine and we
both used it.
I still had a camera and started using it again. I can't remember
why I didn't take any pictures during flight training but Bill
Haynes, from Chicago, and I took a lot around the base, of the planes,
gun emplacements, etc. I had about ten rolls taken and kept them
in my locker. Due to security reasons I didn't get them developed,
but I should have sent them home undeveloped and taken the chance.
When I was shot down they were all in my locker and I never saw
it, or them again. After the war I tried to contact Bill Haynes
to see if he had any, but was not able to find his correct
address. It would be wonderful to see them.
We were Just north of London and were now experiencing air raids
by the Germans at night. By this time we had been through enough
that we didn't have any fear so we would go outside during the raid
to watch the searchlights pick out the German bombers and listen
to the anti-aircraft guns. We were out in the country so there
were no close targets and we felt safe.
At Rivenhall it was a long way to the mess hall from our barracks
so in the morning we would come outside to smell the air to
determine if they were serving powdered eggs. If they were, we
would just skip breakfast. Real eggs were very scarce in England
at the time and once every week or two we were issued two real
eggs. We kept them in our lockers and on the mornings when we
would smell the powdered eggs at their worst we would carry our
hoarded eggs down to the mess hall. We carried them in our jacket
pockets and it was difficult to make it there without someone
breaking them. If someone thought you were carrying eggs, they
would chase you all the way to the mess hall. They got me once and
it made a mess in your pocket! Anyway, our aim was to get the eggs
to the cook who would fix them any way you wanted while you
waited.
We were still having classes in aircraft identification and a lot
of map study so that we would recognize all the coastline of
Europe and England. The boys were still playing poker and Al
Johnson was still borrowing money and paying me back every payday.
He owed me money most of the time. We went to London several times
and stayed at the Palace Hotel. It was near the center of London
and one of the best hotels. It made the English angry as we got
the hotel room and would fill the little gas heater up with
shillings then would go out to eat while it was running to heat
the room up. The heater would run about twenty minutes for a
shilling, but the English would never run the heater unless they
were in the room as gas was in short supply. We had the money and
felt that we needed heat more than they did. One night we were
there during an air raid and didn't oven bother to get out of bed
to look for a shelter. The hotel shook a lot and it was noisy, but
we survived. We ate some of our meals at the Grovesner House which
was a huge place. The serving was cafeteria style and 2,000 could
be seated at a time. The food was good and there was a bar there
too. One night in the blackout and the fog we found a little bar
where they served warm beer in big pitchers which we tried to cool
by adding ice. It was so dark and foggy outside that you kept
bumping into people and all you could see were taxis with little
slits of light for headlights. They still drove them in the total
darkness. While in London we also visited several art museums and
saw one stage show.
The English prostitutes were really a problem to some of us. One
night Ullo and I were staying at the Palace Hotel and when we
opened the door to leave, there were six or more of them who
pushed into the room. We had quite a time getting them to leave,
and they followed us all the way out to the main entrance onto the
sidewalk. With all the people around it was embarrassing as they
were swearing at us. We lost ourselves in the crowd as fast as we
could. There were a large number of prostitutes in London and I
suppose they made a good living off the Americans. The English
soldiers had no money and the Americans were loaded with it. I
never did understand the English system of money and when Paying
for food or a bus ride would usually Just hold out a handful of
change and let them take the right amount. I guess most people
were honest because I know enough about it to suspect if they were
Cheating.
I enjoyed walking around the little narrow back streets and
stopping in the tea shops for tea and biscuits. I remember one
little place because when you were ready to leave you had to bend
over to turn the doorknob which was only about a foot and a half
off the floor. One time several of us went to Colchester for the
weekend and stayed at the Red Lion Inn. There were inns of that
name all over England. They all had the high beamed ceiling, a
the dark woodwork, with a small bar and a place for eating. For
breakfast they served eggs and bacon with toast and coffee. We
couldn't figure out how they fed us like that when the English
people were going without due to shortages. Probably they did it
for the money although it seemed a reasonable price to us.
Lenny Pierce was at an airbase in central England about thirty
miles from where I was stationed and he was already flying
missions. I contacted him and made arrangements to go up to visit
I made the trip by ambulance as that was a cheap and good way to
get around. They were headed in every direction so I would catch
one going one way and when they stopped at a base I would catch
another going in the next direction. At one base I was waiting
when they wheeled in a stretcher with the remains of an Englishman
who had been trying to defuse a bomb. He was still alive, but not
much was left of him. I finally made it to Len's field and spent
the night there. He was living in a beautiful brick home that was
probably the residence of a British officer before the war. At
night he would set his shoes out in the hall and in the morning
they would be returned polished. Something different from the
conditions in which we found ourselves! We were able to travel
around like this when the weather was bad and there was no chance
of flying. After we began flying missions we had to be more
careful to stay near our base. Len Pierce was also flying P-51s
and was with one of the best outfits. He entered the service a
couple of months ahead of me and was Just that much further ahead.
We received a base pay each month and a flying pay for each month
when we flew at least four hours. During the first two months we
received no flying pay as we had no planes. Just before I left the
States, I arranged to have $100 a mouth from my pay go to Lettei
in California.
Finally our new planes arrived and this was the first time we were
sure we were really getting P-51s. A lot of the other squadrons
were getting P-47s and P-38s so we considered ourselves lucky to
be getting the planes we wanted most. It was near the end of
February and everyone was anxious to begin flying after two
months. These were the best fighter planes in the war and
thousands of them had been built. Until this time there had been
no fighters with long enough range to escort the bombers deep into
Germany and our effort was taking a real beating from the German
fighters. On February third I flew the P-51 for the first time and
it was a thrill. It had so much more power than anything we had
flown before and was a pleasure to fly. In it you truly felt part
of the plane. That was what they called a "Pilot's Plane". For
several days we just took the planes up to get their feel. On
clear days you could see France and Belgium across the Channel
but in general we flew near the base. Some pilots wore crazy and
one even slipped across the Channel and shot all his ammunition at
a train. This aggressive type of pilot usually proved to be the
best in combat, so he was only reprimanded and grounded for three
days. Due to the English weather, we were probably al1 grounded
anyway.
We had a softball diamond for use when we were not flying. You had
to watch it all the time because some one would fly across the
field just above the ground when they could. They were so low that you
would be forced down into the dirt. All fighter pilots were a little
crazy, but mostly the nicest guys you'd ever meet. Several times I
went up to 33,000 feet which was the highest the plane would go
before the controls got sluggish due to the thin air. When you
started the plane you could not take too much time getting into the air
the air. You needed to taxi out and take off as soon as possible
as it was a liquid cooled engine and the liquid would overheat and
boil out al1 over the plane. That would make your maintenance crew
real unhappy as they would have to clean the sticky material off
the whole plane. This happened to me just once as I was getting
ready to take off and it was the only mission when my flight had
to go without me. The P-51 landed at about 90 mph and took off at
100 to 110 mph.
One day Bruce, Tilson and I were flying together and landed at
another field where they had P-47s and we had the opportunity to
look them over closely. We didn't think much of them as they were
big and clumsy next to our sleek planes. The fog started to close
in and we headed home in a hurry. By the time we got back to the
field we were on instruments only as we couldn't see a thing. The
base put us at different altitudes 500 feet apart and brought us
down one at a time by radar. It was a good thing we had all the
instrument training and by following the radio instructions we
were brought right to the end of the runway before we even saw the
ground.
We were in the Ninth Air Force, the 363 Fighter Group, and the 380
th squadron. Each field had three squadrons at different locations
around the field. We had the 380th 381 and 382 squadrons. Our
squadrons consisted of 25 pilots and a lot of the guys I flew with
in the States were in the other squadrons, but we didn't get
together much. We were all second Lieutenants except for one
first lieutenant, Martin DoLong from Dansville, N.Y. and our
commanding officer, Captain McCall. Our commander was a very poor
leader and was scared to death to fly a mission. Most of the other
groups in England were led by majors or colonels and sometimes
even by a general. Good leaders made all the difference, and the
squadrons had much better combat records than we did because of
this. Those squadrons with good records were sent to the areas
where most of the fighting was taking place. Most of our missions
were led by the first Lieutenant Martin DeLong. Years after the
War I heard that he was a colleqe professor down in Dansville
But never got down there to see him.
When we flew missions, our squadron flew four flights of four
planes in each flight and the other two squadrons the same. On
occasions we were down a few planes due to damage. Our flight was
usually Tilsen leading with his wingman and I with my wingman. 0n
one mission I led our flight. Most often Bruce flew as my wingman.
When you were flying, your wingman was supposed to protect you
from an attack from behind. It was good to have a friend there.
We had our own doctor at the field and he was a nice fellow a
Michael DeMaio MD. He was always checking us as he certified us
for flying duty and could ground anyone for sickness or flying
fatigue. We also had a dentist, Dr. Axelrod, to whom I went a
couple of times. The office was a tent with a dirt floor and the
drill was run by a foot pedal. He had an enlisted man who sat in
front of you and pumped the pedal when the doctor told him. The
faster he pumped, the faster the drill went. I did not notice the
equipment was from Ritter in Rochester, so I felt right at home.
Dr. Axelrod was big man, 6 foot tall and over 200 pounds.
Mr. Woods was a baldheaded man of at least 60 years who taught us
map reading and aircraft identification. We now had to be able to
recognize all the English, American and enemy planes which made a
large number to identify quickly. In one class this gentle man was
showing us the location of different cities in Germany and we
asked him where Blutengluten was. We sat there giggling for 15
minutes while he tried to find it. We had Just made up the name
and after a while he caught on.
Mr. Fagan was also an older man who gave us the weather conditions
and other information. I think it was remarkable how those older
men were serving their country doing whatever they were qualified
for. They were necessary for each outfit and at their time of life
it must have been even harder for them to be away from home and
living under such hard conditions. At age twenty six I was older
than most of the other pilots myself.
After six hours of flying in England to get used to the planes
and practice landings, we were about ready to fly missions. Now we
were to get our own planes. I understood that each plane cost
about $45,000 which seemed like a lot then, but is nothing compared
to the price of a plane today. We had our own crew which consisted
of a crew chief armorer and mechanics. They were proud of their
plane and kept it in excellent condition. They would wash the
plane with gasoline and then wax and polish it so there would be
less air resistance and it could go a couple of miles an hour
faster. My crew chief was Alvin Wolfe from Buffalo New York. Each
squadron had their own identification number and mine was A9-R
which was on the side of the plane in large letters. This was the
only way we could identify the squadrons that we might get mixed
up with over Germany.
I should mention here that Ullo was always playing cribbage, and
he and Snyder would often be playing on the wing of a plane right
up to takeoff time. Neill Ullo and I had been to London and
decided to take piano lessons. What a time and situation to start
something like that! We walked all around the little back streets
of London until we found an old man who gave lessons. We made a
down payment and set a date for our first lesson, but due to what
was to happen to us, we never made it back again.
Our first mission was on February 25, 1944. After breakfast (if
you were not too nervous to eat) we would report to the Ready
Room which was similar to a school classroom with chairs, a
platform up front, and a large map showing England and Germany
was covered with a drape and we would sit there buzzing with talk
and nervous about where we might be going. When they pulled back
the drape there was a red ribbon from our base to the target and
back. If it was a short ribbon everyone would cheer and a long
ribbon would fill the room with groans. Our first mission was
across the Channel to France to see if any German planes would
come up. We ran into no opposition and it was an easy time. It is
not too clear after all these years, but I remember that first
mission we were short of equipment and I flew without either a
parachute or a life raft. I believe it was a parachute I was
missing because that usually fit into the bucket seat to raise you
up and I filled mine with a jacket and rags. It was on my mind the
whole mission that if anything happened I would have to land the
plane and not bail out. We were ordered to fly ... and we had to go,
but that never happened again.
I will not be able to describe the missions in order, so I will
simply describe experiences as I recall them. We had a nice
concrete runway at this base but Captain McCall only flew a couple
of missions as our squadron leader. lieutenant DeLong led most of
the early missions and McCalls record was so bad he was soon
replaced. We got a West Point grad who wasn't much better, but he
was big on discipline. This was completely lost on a bunch of
fighter pilots. When you go through long missions and lose a lot of
your best friends, you are not about to spend time worrying about
West Point rules and regulations. He even tried to give bed and
equipment inspection and had us line up for full uniform
inspection on the runway. I can't remember what finally happened
to him, but on one mission were led by a Colonel who came from
another base and was an experienced combat pilot. I think he was
sent to check out what kind of an outfit we were.
Of the 23 missions I flew, most were bomber escorts and a few were
bombing runs to targets in France and not too deep into Germany. The
P-51 had two tanks that hung one from each wing and they hold 150
gallons of gasoline each. On bombing runs these two racks held a 500
pound bomb each. If we were called back from a mission due to a change
in the weather, we would drop them in the Channel as it was too
dangerous to land with them still attached as they might Jar loose on
the runway. We thought about all the gas Rationing at home while we
were dumping all that fuel. These tanks and the 50 gallon tank that was
located right behind the pilot plus the tanks in the wings were the
reason the P-51 could stay in the air about six hours and was able to
escort the bombers all the way to Berlin and back. The English
Spitfires could only go as far as Belgium and France with the bombers
and the bombers suffered heavy losses until we were there to intercept
them. We would also be there to guard the bombers coming home slowly
after being damaged and losing engines. The Spitfire planes would
escort them as far as Belgium where we would pick them up, then the
Spitfires would meet them there again coming home. The other American
fighters like the P-47 and the P-38 could go a ways into Germany, but
not all the way to Berlin until their range was increased later in the
war. During flight the wing tanks had to be used first as they were
dropped at the first sighting of enemy aircraft. They created drag and
affected the maneuverability of the plane. You had to remember, even in
combat, to keep switching the tanks to keep the plane's weight
distributed equally and also to keep the tank From running dry, causing
the engine to quit. You could start it again by switching tanks and
putting the nose down, but you couldn't afford to have that happen in
combat.
You can see why our training was so extensive as the fighter pilot was
his own, pilot, gunner, bombardier, and navigator. He had to be trained
in all areas. on our second mission, which was the first one for Ullo,
he failed to return. Even though no one actually saw what happened, we
figured he had gone down. Remember that he was the one who had gone to
Texas to advanced gunnery school and came back to California to teach
us all he had learned He went down on his first mission and probably
never got to fire his guns. His bad luck spelled the end of our piano
lessons in London. His story is interesting and you will Learn of it
1ater, After we got together again.
We had another pilot, James Barlow from Klamath Falls, Oregon, who
during training was always on the radio singing on the radio "here I
sit, fat, dumb and happy". He was shot down on one of our early
missions and we heard him call on his radio "So long guys here goes
fat, dumb, and happy bailing out. We were beginning to lose pilots now
and were getting replacements from the States. I'm glad I never had to
Join a group like that, not knowing anyone. We had been together so
long by then that we knew each other and were good friends. We did not
dwell much on the friends we had begun losing. Each of us had accepted
the probability that it could happen to us any day, so had conditioned
ourselves to the situation. Some of the missions made us nervous but I
wouldn't say that we were inordinately bothered by fear. We were so
occupied and it was a thrilling experience to actually be a part of
combat over enemy territory. However we did look forward to the days
that the weather was bad and no missions were flown. We would sit
around the "Ready Room" playing cards and discussing past missions. I
should mention that my Flight Leader T.J. Tilson or Bruce had given me
the nickname of "Buck" Benson when we were in training in California
and that is what I was called from then on. I don't remember anyone
ever calling me Bunny.
One of our missions was a dive bombing run on some factories in France.
We flew in formation to the target and peeled off one at a time diving
down at a large building and releasing our bombs. I saw some of them go
right into a large door at one end of the building. We were down to
about 500 feet and when we pulled up I saw the plane in front of me
blow up and I flew right through the pieces. I don't remember the
pilots name, but recall seeing something yellow go by me and thinking
it was the yellow "Mae West" life vast we all wore. Anti-aircraft fire
must have hit his tanks. I was flying with Bruce and when we got back
to the field he found several bullet holes in his plane. Several times
when we flew together he got bullet holes, but I never did get hit.
When going on a mission we would start our planes and taxi out onto the
runway. You taxied by zigzagging because the nose of the plane was up
while on the ground and you couldn't see directly in front of you. We
took off by twos with the second plane at the side and slightly behind
the other. The second plane watched the lead plane only and kept the
same distance from him. You didn't look at the instruments on the
runway, just the other plane. Sounds hard now, but it was easy once you
got used to it. We would then climb by twos until reaching a specific
altitude, circle until everyone was in formation, then we would head
for Europe. Sometimes when it was cloudy you were forced to climb on
instruments only until getting above the clouds, anywhere up to 30,000
feet. The sun would be shining there and the clouds as white as new
snow. It gave one the feeling that you were just above the earth and
could step out and walk on top of the clouds. The other planes would
pop up out of the clouds. It was quite a sight.
One time we had a Lieutenant Colonel leading our squadron and when he
got up on the runway the pilot who was taking off with him either
misjudged or didn't use his brakes and he ran into the back of the
Colonels plane, chewing off the entire tail section. The pilot probably
wished he could have died right there, but nobody was hurt. Another
time a boy by the name of Snyder came back from a mission with a
damaged plane and he ran off the end of the runway and crashed. The
emergency trucks went out and covered the plane with foam to prevent a
fire and he got out okay. He was not injured but during the next few
weeks his hair turned completely white. I wouldn't have believed that
could happen if I hadn't seen it myself.
The weather at this time of year was not very good in England, with fog
and a lot of cloudy days. If the weather was good over the target we
would usually fly anyway. Coming back from missions we were usually at
about 15OOO feet and when we got to where we thought the field was, we
would dive down and pull out just above the ground. We could get up to
550 mph in those dives and the the wings would start to vibrate and the
plane would shake, but that didn't stop us from doing it. At times we
would come down through a thick overcast sky and wouldn't see the
ground until we came out from beneath the clouds... sometimes pretty
close to the ground.
After we took off and headed for Europe across the Channel there would
usually be someone who would abort the mission. This was the term for
dropping out and going back to the field. Usually this was due to
engine trouble or knowing that something didn't feel Just right with
the plane, but we had a few pilots who were "chicken" and just made up
an excuse, particularly if the mission was to be a long one. They
didn't stand very high on the popularity list with the other pilots. I
had my ground crew to thank for keeping my plane in excellent condition
so I never had to "abort".
There are a few facts about the P-51 which I will mention here. There
was a lever that controlled openings that kept the coolant from boiling
over while waiting to take off and it closed as soon as you were in the
air. The wheels were pulled up as soon as you left the ground so you
had to remember to put them down again before landing. The four bladed
propeller was a variable pitch and had to be set so it would bite more
air, getting you into the air faster, climbing steep, then set back to
the right angle. A small tube at the and of the wing ran the wind
indicator so you know how fast you're going. The plane had a cockpit
heater that didn't always work too well and that was a primary
complaint of the pilots. At 30,000 feet the temperature could be
anywhere from zero to minus 60 degrees so you needed all the heat you
could get. The guns were fired by pressing a button on the top of the
stick and we would test them on the way across the Channel to be sure
they were working. There was a camera mounted on the wing which worked
from the same button and it took pictures every time the gun fired.
This verified the enemy planes the pilots claimed to have destroyed.
One pilot in our squadron had the cutest little puppy. It was a little
brown fat thing with fur soft as cotton. It would sleep on' the back of
his neck and he took it everywhere but on the missions. Another
incident I remember took place when I was walking in London. There were
so many Americans around, I started looking for someone I might have
known in the States. I finally saw someone who looked familiar standing
across the street, so I dashed over and asked his name. You can imagine
my embarrassment when he said: "Yes, sir, I am the armorer on your
plane."
On the days that we were to fly escort for the bombers we would get up
about 6:00 am as we heard the bombers taking off. We went to breakfast
and then the Ready Room for briefing. When the curtain was pulled back
and the ribbon went all the way to Berlin you knew you would have a
tough mission. The weather man would give us the weather over the
target and what to expect when we returned to England. All of our
compass headings depended on the weather, our point of rendezvous with
the bombers, heading to the target, and the compass heading home. The
map man would describe the coast of Europe at the entry point and
additional points of identification along the way so we would be
certain of our location. He explained where we would be likely to
encounter flak (the big German guns) and where we could anticipate the
most enemy fighters. We wrote down all of this information on a pad
fastened just above our knee so we could refer to it in a hurry.
All this time you could hear the steady roar of the bombers taking off.
When there were about a 1,000 four engine bombers taking off you could
hear it all over southeastern England. It took a good hour for all the
bombers in a squadron to get into the air and another half hour for
them to get to the right altitude where they would circle until in
formation and ready to head for the target in Europe. They used a lot
of gasoline and time just getting ready to go. After our briefing we
would all make our trip to the bathroom and then to the equipment room
to get our parachutes and other equipment. We didn't have to leave the
field until about two hours after the bombers because we were so much
faster. We would catch up with them soon after they crossed the
coastline of Europe and it was a very pretty sight to see the
formations of B-17s in the sky for miles ahead, especially on a sunny
day. Some days there would be big white clouds and the B-17s would
create their own clouds from vapor trails. The bomber vapor trails
would be straight and the fighter trails would be above them back and
forth across the blue sky.
When escorting the bombers we had to fly as slowly as we could and
weave back and forth so as to not outdistance them. The closer to the
target the heavier the flak and we would see the black bursts all
around the bombers and once in a while one would go down. The bombers
had to fly straight and level with no chance of taking evasive action
and we would think how brave they were all the time never considering
changing places with them. We were above them and when we saw the flak
bursts could go up or down 500 feet, flying safely there for several
minutes until the German guns could correct for our altitude. We never
worried about the flak much because we could normally avoid it. Once in
awhile we lost a fighter plane to flak, but usually it was to enemy
fighters. After the bombers had dropped their loads they could take
some evasive action.
On one of the Berlin raids it was a clear day and we watched the
bombers drop their load and could see the bombs fall and the big
explosions go up right down the middle of a wide main street in Berlin.
After the bombs were dropped we would fly with the B-17s until they
reached the Channel. I went on several Berlin raids and on other
occasions we would be diverted to closer targets as the weather had
turned bad before we got to Berlin. The P-51 could stay in the air
about six hours which was the amount of time it took to go to Berlin
and back. Our missions took anywhere from one to six hours. After being
tightly strapped in and unable to move around in that small cockpit for
six hours, it was difficult to even stand up when getting out of the
plane. Some guys would step out of the cockpit onto the wing and fall
off onto the ground. We used to tease one fellow because he opened his
parachute when he fell off the wing. Being so tired (and the strain of
combat really was exhausting) the shot of whiskey we got at the
debriefing after a mission was welcome.
On each mission we had one pilot who flew up and down the coast of
England at 30,000 feet. This was the "relay plane" used to relay any
massages to the planes over Germany. Due to the curvature of the earth
and communication equipment at that time, radio messages could not be
sent directly. If the wind direction changed while the planes were over
Germany it would affect the compass heading we were given to return to
England and if it was overcast we could have blown off course, missed
England entirely and gone out to sea. If your home field was fogged in
you were directed to another field. I flew the relay plane just once
and it was very monotonous sitting up there for hours. You could
throttle the engine down so it would Just keep you from stalling out
and save gas that way. One pilot stayed up seven hours and we thought
he'd gone down as six hours was the limit. He had just seen how long he
could possibly stay aloft by using the technique and came happily back
to base long after the mission was over.
They were very strict about talking on the radio from the time you took
off until you were over Germany and even then it was used only for
necessary messages and warning each other when in combat. Any
unnecessary talk might have given away information to the Germans (even
though they had probably picked us up on their radar). The English
bombers always bombed the enemy at night and they continued to do this
throughout the War. They thought that the Americans were crazy to bomb
in broad daylight. The B-17 bombers, however, were heavily armed and
could defend themselves fairly well. The English bombers, on the other
hand, had few guns. When the B-17s first began flying, the Germans had
so many fighter planes that the losses were terrible. With ten men in
each bomber, sometimes five or six hundred men would be lost in a
single mission. The situation reversed itself when the fighter planes
had range enough to escort the bombers all the way to the target. At
the time I was flying, the American fighters were beginning to
outnumber the enemy. Their losses were so heavy that on some of, our
missions we did not see a single enemy plane.
One time, before we started flying missions we had the opportunity to
visit an English radar station in southern England. It was a large
curved glass about six feet across at table top level with a map of
England and Europe on the glass. The room in which it was placed was
dark and there was a light under the glass. The planes returning from a
mission were little blips on the glass. A couple of the blips were over
the ocean way south of England and they were trying to contact them by
radio to reorient them. they were far off course and expected to run
out of fuel over the Atlantic. I imagine there were more than a few who
ended up missing England due to wind changes or bad weather during the
war.
When we did use our radio we had a code for each mission and the four
flights of each squadron were: red, blue, green, etc. We used these
codes when talking to each other so we knew who we were talking to
without using any given names. We looked forward to short missions to
France or Belgium and these were called "milk runs". The long missions
with flak and enemy fighters were the ones we dreaded. I should mention
that we had a certain amount of fear on these missions. It has been
said that anyone who doesn't experience fear in combat is lying. It
affected some more than others, however, and we were constantly being
observed by our doctor for any signs of battle fatigue. The strain
would begin to tell after you had flown a lot of missions.
When we began to lose friends, I guess one just developed an attitude
that it wasn't going to happen to you. If you were shot down there was
still a good chance of surviving if you bailed out safely. The only
instruction we ever had about parachutes took about five minutes. "You
put the chute on this way and this is what you pull", and that was
about it. One time I visited a building on the base where they were
packing parachutes and I learned how they folded them, but I would
never have had the nerve to do my own. When talking to some of the
bomber crews that were in prison camp with us, we learned-much about
their experiences having to bail out. They did not wear their
parachutes and had to put them on before Jumping. They told about some
airmen who were wounded or unconscious and they would put parachutes on
them and push them out. Even the unconscious ones turned up In prison
camp so it seems a fact that oven the unconscious mind reacts, telling
the body what to do. They must have pulled their own rip cords to open
their chutes.
One of the missions most memorable to me was to a target in northern
Germany where we were providing escort for bombers. When we got over
Denmark the weather turned very bad and we couldn't avoid the overcast
so were forced to fly on instruments. We never did find the bombers. If
it had been clear weather we could have seen Norway and Sweden as we
were close enough. The relay plane broadcast the message to return to
England and by this time we were all separated and lost in the storm. I
headed for home alone and decided to try to get under the clouds as I
couldn't get above them. When I came down out of the clouds I was about
twenty feet above the waves of the North Sea. The waves appeared to be
about fifty feet high and I was flying Just above them. Suddenly a big
bomber went across in front of me in the mist and clouds. I don't know
if it was enemy or friendly but I couldn't have found it again anyway.
I was having enough trouble just flying my own plane. I was tense, my
heart was in my throat and really pounding I flew across water all the
way to England so it didn't much matter that I wasn't crossing the
Channel at the narrowest point (my usual effort). I gained altitude
when I thought England was near, went back on instruments in the
overcast and called the base for a heading. The base would give you a
heading to fly for couple of minutes then change to another heading so
they could pick you out of the other planes on the radar screen. They
could then determine your position and give you a heading home. When
you are headed properly you pick up a steady beep on your radio. You
try to keep the beep increasing in loudness as it gets fainter if you
are turning to either side. You could fly a straight line to the base
and when you approached you would be given an altitude to fly in at.
They even gave instructions as to when to let the wheals down. The
radio truck was parked at the end of the runway and when I came down
out of the overcast I was about ten feet above the truck lined up with
the runway And able to make a perfect landing. I was tired and relieved
to be on the ground. The guys on the radar truck did a great Job!
The rest of the squadron gradually returned until we were all down and
each pilot could go through debriefing, where he told what had happened
on the mission. We found out then that from the three squadrons from
our field there were eight pilots missing. Our squadron lost no one on
that mission. Usually when a pilot goes down he calls an his radio or
there is a lot of chatter if they engage enemy fighters. This time
there was only silence on the radio. With forty eight planes in our
three squadrons, if someone went down they should have been seen by one
of us. We suspected the missing pilots might have flown to Norway or
Sweden ( neutral countries ) for some reason. Some of those missing
were friends of mine, but not as close as the fellows in our own
squadron. High Command in England thought the Germans might have come
up with a new weapon as no flak or enemy fighters were seen. All
flights from England were grounded for three days while an
investigation took place. None of those pilots ever turned up in prison
camps and I don't think anyone ever knew what really happened to them.
On another mission we escorted the bombers to Regansburg in southeast
Germany, which was about as far as to Berlin, to bomb the ball bearing
factories in that area. It was a tough mission because the flak was so
heavy and the other defenses were greater because the factories were
important. There were about 1500 planes from England and another 1100
came up from Africa. Someone erred in the planning of this mission as
we crossed at right angles at the same altitude and we had trouble
keeping from flying into each other. I never saw so many planes in the
air at one time and guess the Germans hadn't either as they didn't send
up any fighters! it was reaching the point where we had more planes
than they did and so they only came up when they had a chance of
success. We observed something unusual on that mission. Some white
smoky objects came up from the ground in a spiral track to about 15,000
feet before they disappeared. They couldn't reach our altitude and
seemed to move slowly. We reported them upon our return, but no one
knew what they were. On other missions where the Germans didn't send up
fighters, our fellows would be allowed to go down to ground level and
shoot anything they could see.
On this raid our squadron went down and we dove shooting at some large
boats on the Danube River. Every tenth bullet was a tracer that made a
white trail in the sky allowing you to track them. It seemed strange to
set your bullets going down and those from the ships coming up. I
watched my bullets hitting the decks. We flew all the way back to
England Just above the tree tops but never saw a train or airfield to
shoot at. There were flak towers, but they were too dangerous and we
all flew around them. They were concrete towers with many guns that
could shoot in all directions. It did no good to shoot at them.
By now I had flown ten missions and was entitled to receive the Air
Medal. At a ceremony at the base, we were presented with the medal by
General Whelan. For each additional five missions we got an Oak Leaf
cluster which we fastened to our theatre ribbon. I received two of
these before being shot down.
On occasion we had the job of censoring outgoing mail from the enlisted
personnel. No one liked doing this as it was a tedious Job. We had to
read all their letters and cross out any military info that the enemy
might pick up. Our mail was censored by the squadron commander then
sealed and sent out. After reading letters for a couple of hours, I
don't believe we bothered to cross out much.
Some of the English women living near the air base were selling chances
on a fruit cake for a shilling a ticket. I had the winning ticket and
when they delivered the fruit cake we could hardly believe it. It was
in a washtub three feet across and over a foot high. We Put it on the
table in our Ready Room where we spent our time relaxing. We had to cut
it with one of our Jungle knives, a machete (another one of the Army's
questionable issues: a Jungle kit for each of us in England). The
bottom six inches of the fruit cake was solid fruit so you know it was
rich. We cut off two sections for the other two squadrons and some for
the enlisted men and still had enough to last a week. I don't know how
they baked anything that big, but it tasted very good.
One other of our missions somewhere over Germany we lost several more
of our pilots. We ran into a lot of German fighter planes and were soon
scattered all over the sky. I was so busy trying to keep from being
shot down that I didn't get an opportunity to shoot an enemy plane.
When things calmed down I found myself alone so headed back to England.
When I gained enough altitude I heard the relay plane calling a new
compass heading as the wind had changed to about 50 mph from the north.
I corrected to the new heading but there was no way of knowing if
everyone had picked up the message. It was uncanny, the sense of
direction I had. I believe I could have crossed at the narrowest part
of the Channel even without a compass heading! It must have been a
sense of direction I was born with because it made no difference what
my location was over Germany, I knew exactly where England was all the
time.
As it turned out, I was the only one from our squadron of 16 planes
that made it back to our airfield. Most of the others were low an gas
by the time they got over land and were scattered all over England upon
landing. One of our flights of four planes was unaware of the wind
changes, were blown off course and were way south of England. They were
still over land, luckily, when they ran out of gas and had to bail out.
Al Johnson the big Swede was one of them and it was the only time in
the year that he didn't owe me any money! They were along the coast of
France and were captured by the Germans. He was not in our prison camp
so I did not see him until we were in Atlantic City for discharge. He
told me that all four had landed safely and that when he came down in
his parachute, he went through an old barn roof and landed in a pile of
manure.
At about this time we made another move to a field near Maidstone, a
small town southeast of London. We were closer to the Channel here and
the field was entirely different. Some one else flew my plane down here
and I went by train with the rest of the group. It is interesting to
note that we went through the village of Sittingbourne where my mother
was born. The train didn't stop so I had no chance to visit there. Our
living conditions at Maidstone were different: in a tent with a dirt
floor in the middle of an apple orchard. There were four of us in each
tent sleeping on army cots with a stove in the middle for heat. On warm
days we could role up the sides of the tent for ventilation. Another
tent was the mess hall and we ate sitting on the ground under the apple
trees. We ate with our army mess kits and rinsed them out in a barrel
of hot water.
This was much different from the beautiful place where Len Pierce was
stationed. The runway at Maidstone was a grass field surrounded by
trees. They put heavy wire mesh in the ground to keep us from sinking
in when the field was muddy. It was a bumpy field to begin with! The
field was not very long and you had to get down before running into the
trees at the and of the runway. One time I came back from a mission and
the wind was blowing across the runway. (Planes always landed into the
wind and took off the same way) I was not lined up correctly with the
runway and was drifting to the right. It was too late to pull up and go
around again as I was down to landing speed. This decision had to be
made quickly and I decided to land. When my wheels touched the ground I
began to bounce to the right and by using brakes and all the other
controls I kept from crashing, managing to stop Just before hitting the
trees at the end of the runway. It was the worst landing I over made,
but I was relieved not to have damaged my plane. I was very embarrassed
when I got out in front of my crew.
By now some of us had flown enough missions that our papers were sent
in for review for promotion to First Lieutenant. We only had one First
Lieutenant in our squadron and it was about time we had some
promotions. I didn't get notification that they had been approved until
I was back home after the war. The year I was in prison camp they paid
me the lower wage so after the war I wrote to Washington and received
all the difference in pay that was due me. We were also looking forward
to the end of our tour of duty at this time. After flying a total of
twenty five missions you were supposed to be sent back to the States.
We were getting closer all the time and then they changed the total to
40 missions. You can imagine what this did to our morale. We gave up
thoughts of going home and Just concentrated on surviving as many
missions as we could.
We were about to get some new planes with the bubble canopy and were
looking forward to that as they made it easier to see all around you
without all the metal braces in the canopy. One day I was told my plane
was coming that day and was looking forward to checking it out. We
would take it up high over England to check the performance at high
altitude, the guns and controls... just to get the feel of it. In the
afternoon we had to escort some A-20 bombers to France on a bombing run
and when I got back my new plane was gone. One of our new replacement
pilots had been sent up to check it out and at 30,000 feet he said
something felt wrong and he bailed out. My new plane crashed somewhere
in England and I never even got to see it! He was just a young kid and
I never did believe that anything was really wrong with the plane. I
was angry with him for a long time as I never did get one of the new
planes and flew all the remaining missions with the old one.
Another time when our flight was returning on instruments as the
overcast was so thick, we came down to 1000 feet and broke out to find
ourselves over London with the barrage balloons all around us. They
were balloons that had a steel cable hanging down from them to prevent
enemy planes from flying low over the city. We pulled up fast and were
lucky to get out of there in a hurry without being hit by one of them.
One other mission when I was coming back alone I got over an area where
the flak was heavy--bursting all around me so that the sky was
blackened with shells. I realized than that I was directly over the
Ruhr Valley which was the industrial center of Germany. It was heavily
defended and normally all missions were routed around this area. I flew
all the way across the area and had to use a lot of evasive action,
including changing of altitude When flak bursts in the air it makes a
black puff or cloud-and there were thousands of them shot up at me. It
did make me feel good to think of all the shells they wasted and what
it cost just to shoot at me!
When you are starting the plane there is a knob that you push out and
pull in called the primer pump and it gives extra gas to the engine for
starting. On one mission Paul Maxwell was in our flight and his engine
quit on the way back. He found that the only way he could keep it
running well enough to stay in the air was to work the primer pump. We
all slowed down enough to stay with him and prayed that he could make
It across the Channel. On the east coast of England at the point
closest to Europe there was a landing strip on top of the white cliffs.
It was called the Masden emergency field and all the planes that were
damaged or having problems would head for there. A lot of the bombers
would land there if they couldn't make it back to base. The runway was
wide and straight in from the Channel so they didn't have to make any
turns. Paul Maxwell landed there and his fingers were covered with
blood from his having to work, the primer pump constantly.
During the last couple of weeks that I was in England we began to hear
the V-2 rockets that the Germans began to use. Most of them were
directed at London but we could hear the sound they made as they went
over us. The gun emplacements that fired them were all along the coast
of Europe and it wasn't long before they were sending them over at
night. It was interesting to fly over England at this time as
everything was being readied for the eventual invasion. Every field in
southern England was covered with big pile of boxes and equipment. I
didn't realize until after the war the tremendous amount of supplies,
food, gas, ammunition and hundreds of other things that were needed to
supply an invasion of that magnitude. No wonder there were shortages
back in the U.S.! So much of this was to be lost in the Channel when
ships were sunk on invasion day.
One night Bruce and I were hungry so we decided to break into the
supply tent and find something to eat. We got up the side of the tent
and reached under the roof where we found a gallon can, of fruit
cocktail. Wt ran back to the tent where we began to eat it. We were
soon full, but had no where to hide the remainder so were forced to eat
the rest. It is no easy task to eat that much fruit cocktail and we
decided not to try that again. At the other bases there was no form of
entertainment and we had to go to the nearest city for alcohol and
movies. Finally at this base they put up two metal nissan huts: one a
bar, the other a theatre. I didn't use either one for very long due to
the following events.
On May 10, 1944 they opened the bar at 6 pm and Bruce and I ordered a
glass of Scotch and a beer each. After a couple of them we were feeling
good and decided to go to the movies in the other hut. Bruce and I got
to laughing so hard at the comedy that they threw us out of the hut. We
realized then that the movie hadn't started yet! We staggered back to
the tent and in the darkness Bruce tripped over something and fell
against the hot stove receiving a burn to the side of his hand. I will
mention here the value of the "Purple Heart" medal because Bruce
received one later for getting drunk and falling on a hot stove and I
received nothing for being burned when I bailed out.
The next day, May 11, 1944, we were not scheduled for a mission...a
good thing because Bruce and I were in poor shape. Some of the other
pilots had been shipping their foot lockers home with all their extra
belongings. They would go to Fort Levenworth, Kansas and be kept there
until our return. I filled mine up with a complete sheepskin leather
flying suit including the boots, a pair of English flying goggles which
were very different from ours, a pair of warm English silk flying
gloves that came up nearly to the elbow my Jungle kit with the machete
knife, all my extra clothing and the undeveloped rolls of film I had
taken in England were also included. I had so many good items in there
and was looking forward to having them after the war. About 4 pm we
carted them off to the base Post Office to fill out the papers and pay
for the shipping.