Combat Crew (29 page)

“Yes,” I answered, “I could see the strike OK — one of the few times I ever saw them hit — an' I saw too many Forts on fire or out of control.”

“I saw too many of those myself.”

“Woodrow, I used to feel nauseated an' sick when I saw a Fort go down an' no one get out. But that day I watched them fall with a cold, impersonal feeling — like there were no men in them.”

“You're just getting used to it. When you see so many lost, you quit thinking about it.”

“Are we becomin' so callous we don't care when we see our own men trapped in a falling airplane?” I asked.

Jim Counce spoke up. “Don't you think it's nature's way of conditioning a man for what he has to do? People can get used to worse than what we've seen.”

“In combat you have to become accustomed to death all around you or you'll blow up inside,” Pitts added.

“Think how much worse it would be if we were fighting hand to hand with bayonets. But we could get used to that, too, if we were in it long enough,” Jim said.

Of course they were both right and it was a good thing. One could not dwell on what happened to other men — even those he knew well — and maintain his sanity.

After lights were out that night and I thought the others were asleep, Lancia muttered into the darkness: “We've gotta have long-range fighters.”

He was voicing the thought uppermost in the minds of all personnel in Bomber Command, from the Commanding Officer down to the newest gunner. Without some way to stop those rockets we were all but finished as an effective deep offensive force.

“Where ya goin' to get 'em?” came from a voice at the other end of the hut.

“They could send us some P-38s.” I recognized Pitt's voice.

“But are they good enough to go against the 190s and that new 109G?” I asked.

“That leaves us nothing but the P-51s — the new models we've heard about. But no one has seen them in combat yet, so we don't know what they can do,” Pitts added.

“Well, the P-38s would be a lot better than nothing,” said Jim. “They could tear up those rocket-carrying fighters — that's for sure.”

On days that missions were not scheduled, Operations often called crews for wearisome practice flights, or to slow-time aircraft with new engines. There were also flights to test repairs that could only be checked out at high altitude. With a shortage of crews, we caught a lot of those assignments if Operations could find us. We developed a sensitive ear for the sound of the Operations Jeep, and if we heard it in time escaped quickly to other locations. If they could not find us, they picked up others less fortunate, especially flight engineers, radio operators, and pilots.

Ridgewell Airdrome was located at about fifty-two degrees latitude, which corresponds with the lower end of Hudson Bay and Labrador. Only the warm waters of the Gulf Stream make the British Isles a decent place for people to live. But the northern latitude meant that long winter nights were rapidly approaching. Our crude metal hut was ill-equipped to withstand the ordeal soon to descend. So Jim and I went into Cambridge and managed to procure wire, receptacles, lamps, and insulators to install individual lights for each bunk. We also got caulking compound and sealers to plug up the cracks that let the north wind blow in unhindered. The English electrical system was two hundred twenty volts, requiring more care in installation than our one hundred ten system. We made some crude chairs from wood we could scrounge, and a table for the poker games and for writing. A few pinups of nude women provided the remaining touches, and we were more ready for the cold days and long nights of mid-winter.

Balmore was on pass in Cambridge doing some shopping the day we nailed shut the back door and sealed it securely. Early the next morning George heard the Jeep coming. He hastily grabbed his jacket and coveralls and made a run for the back door. While he was frantically trying to open it, Lieutenant Franek, the operations officer, came in the front door.

“Well! Well! Where you heading so eagerly? Do you always run around in your long handle drawers? Maybe we can find something for you to do. Be at Operations at nine hundred hours for a slow-time.”

He turned to go, then came back to George's bunk. “I'm glad to know we have such eager men who leap out of bed so early in the mornings. We will try to find some more interesting flights for you, Balmore.”

After Franek left George glowered at the rest of us who were shaking the hut with loud laughter. Lancia said, “How about that? You are getting to be Franek' s favorite boy.” And he rolled out of the way of the vicious kick he knew was coming. Balmore could be pushed just so far and that temper would explode!

“What the hell is the matter with that back door! I couldn't budge it.”

“No wonder,” Counce replied. “Me an' John nailed it up yesterday.”

“You could have told me about it, instead of lettin' Franek catch me with my pants down. Now he will have me on one of those miserable slow-times for two or three days a week.”

In Washington doubts were developing about the ability of the Fortresses on daylight strategic combat missions into Germany, where it really counted. The R.A.F. Command was still unconvinced about the accuracy of the bombing or the ability to resist the certain fierce attacks on deep daylight missions. General Eaker was unshaken in his feeling that the American concept could hit the enemy harder with fewer men and materials. What had the October raid on Schweinfurt proved? One, that the Fortresses could severely damage any target in Germany regardless of enemy opposition. Two, the losses of men and machines were too severe for continuous attacks into central Germany without long-range fighter escort.

It is unfortunate that the Lancasters and the Fortresses did not concentrate their bombing offenses jointly on a few key German industries, using daylight and night raids to obliterate them. Eaker could never get the R.A.F. to help destroy the bearings production, regardless of the fact that the enemy only had five or six locations that could have been eliminated with better cooperation and understanding of what such a blow could have done to German military production. Then there were the oil and transportation industries, and they were almost as vulnerable. An oil refinery or large storage tank site was difficult to conceal. In late 1943 it seems to me that the Allies had the combined air strength to wipe out at least one or two of those industries. No modern army could fight long if deprived of any of them. Instead of concentrating on a few vital targets, we scattered our air strength over so many kinds of targets that in truth we succeeded in destroying none of them. German war production continued until the Allied armies broke into the interior of the Fatherland.

There was some free time that morning. At the hut I asked, “Anyone want to join me? I'm headin' for the bath house.”

“You better hurry and get in line,” Green said.

Jim chipped in, “I do like the big windows in the bath house — such a good view. We don't really need any glass in the windows — better ventilation an' no mildew.”

“Well, is anyone else comin'?”

“Hell, no! Not me. I'm not gonna freeze my ass in that ice box,” Buck answered.

“You know somethin'? You guys from the north are always the first to bitch about being cold. In all barracks you will see men from Maine and Michigan near the stove an' the men from Texas an' Florida at the end of the room.”

The bath house was located in the middle of the personnel huts but in winter it was shunned as if the plague lurked in its murky interior. An icy north wind blew unhindered through the open window spaces. This is what went through my mind: “Why don't I put it off? Hell, I had a bath last week. No! You got to get on with it. Won't be any warmer tomorrow. Well, here we go! Get undressed — that's it. Hang your clothes on those nails. Forget about that freezing wind. Now off with those shoes. All right, go ahead and yell! That cold mud is hell. Come on, let's get it over with before pneumonia sets in. Over to the shower — now turn on the water. That's it, leap back when the water starts squirtin' out. Now hold the wash rag in the water and get it lathered up real heavy. OK, now soap down all over. Quit shaking; the blue skin will recover in ten or fifteen minutes. You are committed now! You've got to get under that shower to get the soap off. All right! Step under the shower. No! There's no hurry. Yes there is. Now get under that water! Owwwww! Yell louder! You're not going to disturb anyone. Do those yells actually make me a little warmer or is it my imagination? That's enough. Get out of here, you're wasting water. Turn it off and make a run for the towel. Where in the hell did I hang the clean underwear? Oh damn! It fell off into the mud on the floor. Well, put on the dirty underwear. Now on with the shirt and pants. You are feeling much better now. Right? Sure you are. Now rinse off the mud from your feet. You feel great! Just great! It was worth the ordeal, wasn't it? Tell that to the boys back at the hut!”

George, Hubie Green, and I were lingering over a last cup of coffee at the mess hall. The building was almost empty as most of the men had departed.

“Hey, look comin' in — some brand new officers,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Green, “you can see that look on their faces. They must have arrived today.”

Five minutes later they had their trays and were seated at a table next to us. The temptation was too much to resist: it was time to start their initiation. Immediately we launched into a morbid discussion of combat raids in drastic detail, explosions, aircraft fires, dead crewmen, amputations, planes falling in spins out of control. We made it a point to act as if we did not realize they were listening. When the conversation was particularly gory, there was no sound of knife or fork from the next table. I noted with satisfaction when we left that the newly arrived officers were no longer hungry. It was our warm and friendly welcome to the 381st Combat Group and Ridgewell Airdrome.

There were nights when we could hear the faint sound of air raid sirens from the east toward the coast. We would lie there quietly listening to the spine-tingling wails, hoping they would fade away to the north or south. But some nights sirens closer to us would open up, then the nearby towns would come alive, and we knew the German bombers were coming in our direction. There were no air raid shelters at the base. There were some slit trenches near each hut, but they were always half full of water and mud. Most of us had rather chance the bombs than the freezing water and mud. If the weather was clear, men swarmed outside to find a vantage point and try to catch a glimpse of the action. Sometimes a dark shape of a bomber could be seen in the sky, silhouetted against a searchlight beam or the moon. On those rare occasions when a Jerry plane was caught by a blinding searchlight beam, it would shine brightly in the night sky, a perfect target for the R.A.F. night fighters. One night in October, eight parachute flares burst into brilliance over the base but floated over an adjacent village and burned luminously. It was clear that the bombers were after the 381st that night.

The weather looked questionable when I left the hut. The first man I saw at Operations was Chaplain Brown watching each man as he arrived. What did he look for? And if he pinpointed a man who appeared shaky, what did he say to him? Did he say, “God will watch over you and protect you,” knowing that the man was on his way to kill and destroy?

When Gleichauf arrived at the aircraft, I had no idea what kind of mission we would face for the day. “We're hittin' Wilhelmshaven in Germany. Fighter opposition will be about the same as we get over Bremen, which can be rough. Flak is estimated from medium to heavy concentration. We'll pick up fifty P-47s at the coast on the way in. But the big news is we will have P-38s with us over the target.”

There were whoops of joy! We were completely unaware that P-38s had arrived in England until that day. The Lockheed Lightning was powered by two liquid-cooled engines and had a double tail boom. Its main feature was long range and strong construction. Fighting characteristics were good, but not great. It had performed well in the North African campaign against German aircraft, but how it would stack up in the rarefied air of twenty-five to thirty thousand feet, against the best pilots the enemy could muster, was yet to be determined. But even a fair performance on those long penetrations, with the rocket menace hovering in the background, would be a tremendous help. There was no doubt that they could easily handle the rocket-carrying fighters with those awkward chutes hanging under each wing.

A few minutes after the P-47s turned back toward England, the Tail gunner came on intercom: “Tail to crew — here come the Bogies-five o'clock low.”

The fighters climbed rapidly to our altitude and began circling to look us over as they usually did.

“Turret to crew — Turret to crew — those Germans got a big surprise coming. P-38s at four o'clock high.”

I watched a P-38 lead plane pick out a target and go into a steep dive. To my surprise the P-38 caught a blast of fire from somewhere and broke into two pieces and fell away in flames. The other P-38s pulled back up and decided to look things over a bit more carefully.

“Navigator to Copilot.”

“Go ahead.”

“Did you see what happened to that P-38?”

“He got caught by a 109 he never saw — it'll take a while, but they'll learn to use the P-47 tactics — get careless with those 109s an' they'll blow your ass off.”

German and American fighters were evenly matched in numerical strength. I noticed that 38s seemed to fight in elements of two, while the P-47s used elements of four. But the 38s did better than I expected on their first encounter with the more experienced foes.