Combat Crew

The Story of Twenty-Five Combat Missions Over Europe From the Journal of a B-17 Gunner

Combat Crew
is one of the best memoirs about the air war over Europe ever written. John Comer kept a journal of the twenty-five missions he flew in 1943 when the casualty rate on his base was close to 80%. After each raid Comer gathered the crew together and pieced together the air battle from a 360-degree perspective. His book is handwritten history, recorded within hours after the battles occurred.

Comer vividly creates his experiences as top-turret gunner/flight engineer in a B-17 Squadron that was thrown against the best pilots the Luftwaffe could offer. In 1943 the Germans were more experienced than the Americans and the Army Air Force had no long-range fighters to protect the B-17's as they flew deep into enemy territory. That Comer survived is a testament to his crew's skill and his luck; his 533d Squadron (8th Air Force, 1st Division, 381st Group) lost three out of every four men on combat status during the six months Comer flew his first twenty-five missions.

Comer's powerful narrative is devoted to the men who flew the planes, dropped the bombs, and fired the guns. Their everyday life was filled with terror, friendship, and fatigue. Comer recorded it all in his diary. The reader shares the fears of flight crew as they wonder if their heavily loaded bomber can actually lift off the runway. Many planes didn't make it. Then there are the freezing temperatures in unheated planes (63 degrees below zero with the bomb-bay doors open and 200 M.P.H. winds blowing through the aircraft). There are missed targets, faulty equipment, red-hot shrapnel from antiaircraft fire, and what it was like to look German fighter pilots in the eye as they barreled in with cannons blazing. Above all, there is the horror of watching friends being shot down on every bomb run — no matter how “easy” the mission might have been.

Immediate, straightforward, compelling,
Combat Crew
is destined to become a classic of aerial warfare.

What People Are Saying About Combat Crew

“I find your remarkable book,
Combat Crew
, engrossing. It's one of the best records of aerial combat in World War II I've ever read, and I want to tell you how impressed I am.”

— Charlton Heston, actor

“
Combat Crew
was a very special experience for me to read. You certainly put it down the way it was.”

— James “Jimmy” Stewart, actor and B-17 instructor pilot, United States Army Air Force

“The author flew on many of the most violent air raids flows by the United States 8th Air Force during World War II.
Combat Crew
gives the reader an accurate, dramatic, and firsthand, on-the-scene account of the way it was. It is a book that cannot be aside once started.”

— George G. Shackley, Colonel, USAF (Retired), C.O., 533rd Squadron

“John was kind enough to let me have a sneak preview of his manuscript, and it brought back a lot of old memories. He has a knack of relating our feelings and experiences in combat. It is a great book, and I recommend it highly.”

— Lieutenant Colonel William Cahow (Colonel Cahow participated in most of the combat action that is described in this book.)

“An accurate, gripping portrayal of a combat-crew member's thoughts and actions while participating in twenty-five of the toughest missions flown by the 8th Air Force over Europe. A genuine account of aerial warfare from the top turret of a B-17.”

— Lieutenant Colonel Stuart S. Watson, C.O., 533rd Squadron

Copyright © 1988 by John Comer All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Comer, John.

Combat crew / John Comer.

p. cm.

Reprint. Originally published: Dallas: J. Comer, c1986.

ISBN 0-688-07614-9

I. Comer, John. 2. World War, 1939-1945 — Aerial operations, American. 3. World War, 1939-1945 — Campaigns — Europe. 4. World War, 1939-1945 — Personal narratives, American. 5. Flight engineers — United States — Biography. 6. United States. Air Force — Biography.

I. Title.

[D785.U6C64 1988]  87-28085

940.54'4973'0924 — dc19  CIP

Combat Crew
Is Dedicated to the Memory of

James Counce
Hardin County, Tenn.
K.I.A. Jan 11, 1944

George Balmore
Bronx, N.Y.
K.I.A. Jan. 11, 1944

Herbert Carqueville
Chicago, Ill.
M.I.A. Oct. 9, 1943

Raymond Legg
Anderson, Ind.
K.I.A.

And to the Memory of All the Men
Who Gave Their Lives
in the Air War Over Europe
That the Rest of Us
Might Continue to Live in Freedom

The ultimate objective of
Combat Crew
is to make the combat missions come alive for readers of this book. In particular I want the wives, the sons, the daughters, and the grandchildren of the participants to feel that they are experiencing the extreme cold, the constant dangers, and the traumatic events that were common to all the men who manned the Flying Fortresses in the high thin air over the European Continent. To the extent possible my purpose is to take the reader along with us on the combat missions.

This account tells how one combat crew handled the boredom and monotony of barracks life, all the while sweating out the missions as the air battles unfolded. Every crew was different, reflecting the discipline desired by the pilot. However, I flew with thirteen air crews and found that all experienced crews were far more alike than different. The well-researched documentary books about this period may leave the impression that all of the missions were life-and-death struggles. It was not like that: each crew had some very rough missions and some easy ones. Often the accounts of the air battles over Europe are concerned with the commanders and the generals and their agonizing decisions. Again, it was not like that for us: We knew nothing about where we were going or why until two or three hours before takeoff. Once in the air we merely followed the formation, not being concerned about tactics.

What happened to “Gleichauf's Crew” was much like the experiences of men in other crews who succeeded in completing their quota of missions. Each crew could see only part of the action within its range of vision. When our crew had a rough go, sometimes crews in another part of the same battle had it easy. And even on the missions we called “milk runs,” almost always some unlucky crews were shot down. Death was never more than a few feet or inches from the men in the Flying Fortresses.

As we approached the site where Ridgewell Airdrome once stood I was overcome with memories. It was June 1972. All at once I was transported back three decades in time. I could hear the raucous roar of Flying Fortress engines revving up for takeoff in the damp predawn cold of an English morning. I could smell that mixture of oil and gasoline that filled the air when engines coughed and started. I could feel again the vibrations of those overloaded aircraft struggling to escape the runway and lift up over the mists. I recalled that uncomfortable feel of an oxygen mask fitted tightly against my face. I remembered the hours I spent recalculating the odds of surviving and the daily realization that they were not good.

Suddenly I shivered despite the warmth of the summer day. I could not shake off the chill of the past. Was this return to Ridgewell going to be a mistake? One by one I recalled the faces of my crew — a group of young men from diverse locales and backgrounds, thrown together by chance and placed under intense pressure. We were such ordinary men from whom the extraordinary was demanded. We were half-trained and woefully inexperienced. Most of our men had been in military service barely a year. We were expected to face the fury of Germany's superbly trained and experienced Luftwaffe and survive. Some of us did. During those months together we formed bonds of friendship I have never experienced before or since.

We were getting closer and I strained to catch a glimpse of something familiar — anything that would confirm that I had once been a part of this place. Ridgewell had been home, prison, and refuge — the center of my world for so many months. I squinted ahead, secretly hoping for rain, but there was none. That seemed so strange! Ridgewell — without that eternal drizzle and everlasting mud? But that week England played a trick on my memory. The sun made daily appearances and the sky remained uncharacteristically free of moisture. Then it happened! About a hundred yards from the site of the base a gentle drizzle began to fall from skies that up to that moment had shown no hint of rain. It was eerie, as if it had been staged just for me. I was tempted to look upward and say, “Thank you.” And I knew I was right in returning to Ridgewell.

Then I was jolted back to reality. The site had long since returned to grain fields. Two old hangars were still standing, but now they were filled with farm machinery. They had traded airplanes for tractors! Part of me knew this was as it should be. Another part reached back through the years remembering how those hangars were once alive with men — and Flying Fortresses needing major repairs. I wanted to regain for a few moments the experiences that could be relived only by those men who flew from this field in that long ago time of war. I stood there silently in the soft rain for a long time, remembering.

My wife and two close friends were with me, but they could not participate in my nostalgia. Nor did they try. To me, it represented the most intensely lived year of my life. To me, this was ground as hallowed as Lincoln's Gettysburg. Although I flew out of other combat airfields far distant from England, none was burned as deeply into my memory as Ridgewell. It was from here that I had the first traumatic shock of combat. It was from here that so many of my friends, some of the finest men I have ever known, began their last flight.