Combat Crew (2 page)

A thousand men were assembled on the parade ground at Sheppard Field, Texas, on that November day, just eleven months after Pearl Harbor. A dapper Major strode to an elevated speaker's stand. I will remember him as long as I live. The man was a spellbinder, a military pitchman with superb talents. I listened in hypnotic fascination as he described the adventurous life of an aerial gunner. Carried away by his fiery enthusiasm, I could picture myself holding off a swarm of Japanese Zeroes! With exciting fervor the speaker challenged those of us who had an extra share of guts. Some might, he hinted, be accepted for aerial gunnery. The Major concluded his remarks: “Those of you who want to escape menial assignments for the next three or four years, and live a life of excitement, fall out to my right for physical examinations.”

About fifty of us, whose judgment at the moment was questionable, lined up as directed. An hour later I was still sitting in the silence of the reception room at the base hospital awaiting my turn.

The hypnotic spell was beginning to wear off. Men were leaving quietly until there were only a few of us left. What the hell was I doing there? Did I really want to trade a safe aircraft mechanic's job for active combat? Since when had I developed an extra share of guts? Slowly rational thinking returned. I got up and began easing out, and was ten feet from the exit when a hall door opened.

“Comer!”

“Here,” I responded automatically.

“That room on the left. Strip down; they'll be with you in a few minutes.”

How often the timing of a trivial incident shapes our lives. If that orderly had been five seconds later I would have been gone, and the war for me would have been a vastly different story.

I suddenly remembered the crushing blow ten years earlier when an unexpected visual depth perception change abruptly ended my hoped-for aerial career at the Air Corps Flying Detachment at Brooks Field. I had to conclude that the defect would still be there and I was sure the medical exam would be the same as for pilots.

But now a strange feeling came over me: I wanted very much to pass those tests. And I did great until it came to the depth perception. Once more it floored me. When I showed such obvious dismay at the results of the depth perception gauges, the examining officer asked, “Are you in the Aircraft Mechanics School?”

“Yes, Sir, I am.”

“You might qualify for aerial engineer.”

“Aerial engineer?” I had never heard the term before.

“Yes, a flying aircraft mechanic who is also an aerial gunner.”

It was certainly an interesting new possibility.

“We are not as strict on engineers as on the other gunners. The Colonel might OK you.”

When I got to the Colonel he used a new instrument I had not seen in the past — an electric depth gauge. He studied the results, then looked at me.

“Comer, you're close enough that I can waive the defect if you are sure you want to be a flight engineer. It will probably mean combat. Is that what you want?”
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I had no time to ponder my decision.

“Sounds great to me!”

“OK. I'll mark your records as medically qualified for Flight Engineer-Gunner. Good luck!”

As the personnel truck sped through the wet English countryside my apprehension and uneasiness increased. In a few days we would be facing the fury of the German Luftwaffe. I glanced at the other five men of our crew. Each was silent, immersed in his own contemplation of what the immediate future held in store. It was July 1943, and it was all coming to a head for us quite soon now. What would it be like? Could we handle it? After only ten days of orientation in England, I knew we needed more gunnery practice. The truck slowed down and I saw we were approaching our destination. All day I had been dreading that moment. Most likely the base would be one of those hard-luck outfits who regularly lost high percentages of their aircraft. The worst of all was the 100th Group. Please! Not that unlucky snake-bit command! But logic indicated that the depleted groups would need more replacement crews like us, who had been hurriedly trained and rushed to the 8th Air Force to cover the heavy losses.

It was shortly after dusk, a poor time to arrive at a strange base with no conception of what it would be like. I looked at Herbert Carqueville, the pilot, and he pointed to George Balmore, the radio operator, who was dozing.

“Wake up, George. We're coming into the base.”

Carl Shutting, the navigator, straightened his uniform. George Reese, the copilot, looked like he did not have a care in the world. He was like that. Johnny Purus, the bombardier, looked worried — as I was.

The truck wheeled into an obviously quite new base. Looking around, my first impression of the base was prefabricated metal buildings thrown hastily on top of English mud. At headquarters we piled out and unloaded baggage.

A Major took his time examining our papers. There was another crew with us, from the same training command in the States. “I know you are wondering where you are. You are assigned to the 381st Bombardment Group at Ridgewell Air Base.”

What a relief that was! The 381st was not one of the high-loss groups we had been hearing about.

“I am sending you to the 533rd Squadron, under the command of Major Hendricks. They are low on crews. A driver will take you to the squadron headquarters. Good luck on your new assignment.” From what I had seen since reaching England, we were going to need some luck!

“Major,” said Carqueville, “we've heard so many stories, how tough is it? What kind of losses are you having?”

The Major hesitated before answering and studied a large chart on the wall crowded with names. “See that chart? That's the combat roster. We've been here sixty days, and so far we've lost a hundred and one percent of our combat personnel.”

That seemed impossible! Did he mean a lot of replacement crews had arrived and were already lost in addition to originals? Surely the Major would burst out laughing in a few seconds. I watched his face for some sign that it was a joke pulled on new arrivals. The smile did not come. The message was clear. I did not know then if that frightful loss figure was factual, or inflated to get across his point that the playing was over. (Those were his exact words! But later I found out that the early losses, while serious, were not that bad.)

The Major continued, “You'd know it anyway in two or three days. I guess it's just as well to let you have it straight right now. Our strength is down and we are happy to have you with us.”

I glanced at the other men and noted that the color had drained from their faces. No one said anything as we loaded the baggage into a transportation truck. Each of us was trying to digest the startling high-loss situation and struggling, with scant success, to translate those figures into what they meant to us individually.

At the Squadron Headquarters we were greeted warmly by the Operations Officer. “I'm Lieutenant Franek. Welcome to the 533rd Squadron. We're glad you're here because we have only four combat crews in the squadron, and our minimum strength is supposed to be seven.”

Carqueville asked, “Have you any information on our four gunners? They were supposed to arrive about the same time we got here.”

“Yes, we do have information,” Franek answered. “They're due tomorrow.”

That was the only good news I was to hear that day it was a great relief to know Jim Counce and the other gunners would definitely rejoin us. It would give our sagging spirits a lift just to see them again.

A truck transported us to the combat site, and the driver pointed out the small, metal Quonset huts that would be our quarters. The officers would be in one hut and the enlisted men in another, not far away. The driver said, “Note that here we are widely dispersed to prevent serious damage from German bombing raids. Personnel trucks make regular rounds of the field perimeter during the daytime, and early in the mornings when there is a mission. Combat personnel are quartered separately from the permanent personnel.” I picked up the nuance in his voice: what it meant was that combat people were not expected to be around very long.

The driver continued. “You men have a separate combat mess because your hours will be so different from the other men. As soon as you can manage it, I suggest you get into Cambridge and buy a used bicycle. It will make getting around the base a lot easier.”

“How far is Cambridge from Ridgewell?” I asked.

“About eighteen miles. A supply truck makes a run every day, and there's also train service from a nearby village.”

I doubt if I ever had a more miserable evening in my life. The dingy hut, designed for twelve men, was a dirty, dimly lighted, depressing place. It was bare except for twelve crude cots. A single low-watt bulb hung in the center of the small metal building. I decided on a bunk and opened my bags, but before I could get my gear unpacked, some veteran gunners started drifting in to look us over.

“Where you guys from?” one asked.

Balmore answered, “I'm from New York, and Comer is from Texas.”

“That's a helluva combination! You got some more men comin' in?”

“Yes,” I said. “Our other four gunners will be here tomorrow.”

“Your pilot got a lot of high-altitude formation time?”

“Nope,” said Balmore. “Not much.”

A second man entered just in time to hear what George had said. “I feel Goddamned sorry for you guys if your pilot can't fly tight formation.”

“Oh, I think he can do OK on formation,” I offered.

“It takes seventy to a hundred hours of high-altitude formation experience to be a fair pilot in this league. Your pilot got that many hours?”

“Far as I know he's never been in a high-altitude formation, and has only a few hours of low-altitude formation,” I said.

“If they don't find you a new pilot who knows what he's doin' at high-altitude formation you're in trouble. Those Jerry sonnuvabitches can spot a new crew on their first circle aroun' the formation and they — ”

They'll tear into your ass on their first attack, interrupted another vet, “'cause they always pick the easiest Forts to knock down.”

A third man came in. “Don't worry about it, you might make it — sometimes a new crew does get back from its first raid. This week it wasn't too rough: we only lost twenty Forts — mostly new crews!”

Another voice added, “As soon as the Jerries approach us they look for you fresh jokers.”

“How can they tell which crews are new?” asked Balmore.

“Damned easy, friend. Green pilots can't stay in tight formation. They throttle-jock back and forth — might as well flash a neon sign!”

A new voice spoke up. “Relax! Don't get lathered up. Mebbe your crew will be one of the lucky ones. We were once new and we're still here!”

“When you hit a German fighter with some good bursts, what happens? Does it break off the attack?” I asked.

The six vets laughed uproariously. “Hell, no! You can see your tracers hit those 190s
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and 109s
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an' they bounce off like it's a Goddamned flyin' tank! Those square-headed Krauts keep comin' at you no matter what you throw at 'em!”

The most vocal of the group continued. “The worst bastards they got are Goering's Abbeville Kids — those yellow nose and red nose M.E. 109s are the roughest you'll ever see.” He turned to Balmore. “Hey, kid, you're about my height. What size blouse you wear?”

George replied testily, “None of your damn business!”

“Don't get your guts in an uproar, friend. I need a new blouse, so I spot all you new gunners my size — one of you jokers don't get back, I grab me a blouse before those orderly room pimps get over here to pick up your gear.”

One of the vets explained it: “At the 381st they don't issue any replacement clothes. If you tear your pants, or ruin a blouse, you sweat it out until a gunner your size don't make it back.”

“That's how we do it over here,” said another. “That way ain't no red tape — say, any of you men wear size thirty-eight?”

“I do,” I replied. “But don't get any ideas — 'cause I'm gonna make it!”

“Maybe! But the first rough raid will thin out these huts — a lot of you new bastards won't get back — maybe one of you will be my size.”

“Say — there was a nice lookin' kid had that bunk over there for five or six days,” one of the vets remarked. “Saw his plane blow up — no chutes!”

He pointed to an empty cot. “The fellow who slept there — they brought him back with no balls.”

“Well,” a voice added, “that poor bastard don't have to worry no more about findin' a prophylactic station open at four A.M.!”

Ribald laughter reverberated from the thin metal walls, but I couldn't share in their hilarity. My insides were tightening into knots, and I wondered if all those tales were true. I knew they were trying to scare the hell out of us — and succeeding! I kept thinking about those high losses the Major told us about, and realized the vets didn't need to embellish their stories. The plain, unvarnished facts were frightening enough for me.

“Hey, you guys gotta watch those 'lectric fly suits. If a shoe or glove goes out at fifty below zero you can lose a hand or foot. “

“But the big thing is an engine fire,” from another voice. “When you rookies see that fire you got mebbe thirty or forty seconds before the explosion!”

The vets finally tired of their oft-repeated initiation game and drifted off. George looked at me for a long time without saying a word. He didn't need to for I knew what his thoughts were. Sleep for that night was completely out of the question. The reality of what we faced was almost too much to absorb. Always ringing in my ears were the Major's words: “We've lost a hundred and one percent of our combat personnel.” The vets told us we would get in about three missions a month, and the odds stacked up four to one that we wouldn't make it! (Which later proved to be quite accurate.)