Ploesti: The Great Ground-Air Battle of 1 August 1943 (13 page)

 

 

At Terria, the new commander of the Circus, Colonel Addison Baker,
spoke to his men. He was a tall, stem-jawed Regular Army man from Akron,
Ohio. New civilian youths tended to shy away from him until old hands
pointed out, "Baker is all heart. He'll do more for an enlisted man
than any joker in this outfit." As a squadron leader he had led the
Circus through sanguinary air battles in the west. In the briefing
tent he looked at the drawn faces of seven comrades who had completed
their missions with him and were flying with him today. Baker said,
"We're going on one of the biggest jobs of the war. If we hit it good,
we might cut six months off the war. She may be a little rough, but you
can do her, fellows. Good luck."

 

 

A navigator asked, "What'll happen if you and Jerk don't make the target?"
Baker replied, "Nothing like that will happen. I'm going to take you
to this one if my plane falls apart." A radioman asked, "What are the
chances of staying off detection?" Baker grimaced. "Don't think there
will be any surprise to it," he said. "When we get in the air, they'll
hear us clear to Cairo. Low-altitude bombing is the only thing that will
take us through."

 

 

Pilot John R. ("Packy") Roche's flight engineer, Fred Anderson,
a telephone linesman from Washington, D.C., left the briefing thinking,
"There comes a time in every man's life when he hits something big
and feels it all over. This is the biggest thing. The target must be
destroyed to win the war. The idea is to take the bombs exactly to the
AP's [Aiming Points]. Coming back is secondary today."

 

 

The co-pilots distributed the escape kits. They contained a handkerchief
map of the Balkans, a British gold sovereign (or a U.S. twenty-dollar gold
piece), ten one-dollar bills, and six dollars worth of drachmae and lire
-- the latter equal to three months' wages for a Balkan peasant. There
were pressed dates, water purification tablets, biscuits, sugar cubes
and "desert chocolate," which Walter Stewart said "looked like modeling
clay and tasted like it too." There were tiny compasses to secrete in
the body and hair, and one type could be assembled from two suspender
buttons. Ardery saw his men concealing so many compasses on their persons
that "the only way they could walk was north." He taped a hacksaw blade
to the sole of his foot. "I had spent weeks planning my escape after
I was shot down," he said. "I had complete confidence in my ability to
come through it." He was convinced most of the planes would go down and
there would be enough wandering Americans in Romania "to call a general
election, vote the Germans out, and make peace with the Allies."

 

 

The men also received mimeographed vocabularies in Romanian, Bulgarian,
Serbo-Croat, Turkish and Greek -- the phrases chosen to cover wounds,
hunger, concealment and obtaining civilian clothes. Men who found
themselves in Romanian forests were advised to avoid wolves and bears,
but not peasants. "The people of Romania, especially the peasants, are
honest, friendly, kindly and hospitable to strangers," said the escape
notes. "Amongst the middle and upper classes, however, there are many
grafters, friendly to the Germans. Generally speaking, it is safer to
keep to villages and small towns."

 

 

After the briefing, thirty men attended Stewart's Mormon meeting.
"We talked about death, resurrection and the life to come," the pilot said.
"I told the boys that no Nazi gunners could end that which has always been
-- the soul and intelligence of man. I was convinced beyond question that
this life was just part of a great, everlasting, progressive existence
that ruled before we came here, moves on according to our diligence and
obedience here and then to the next life, forever growing without limits
or bounds. This testimony was much appreciated by the warriors of the
93rd. It does not remove fear, which is fixed by nature, but it gives
great purpose to this life."

 

 

Charles L. Roberts, a tail gunner, thought of "the general who told us
the mission would be a success even if none returned."

 

 

Faraway storms of engines sounded, and dust blew all night as the
mechanics tuned them up at Lete, the Pyramider base, and on the
long plains of the Eight Balls at Benina Main, the Sky Scorpions at
Berka Four, the Liberandos at Berka Two, and the Traveling Circus at
Terria. R.A.F. ack-ack men on the perimeter came out of their tents and
brewed up tea, wondering what the bloody hell the Yanks were up to after
this past strange fortnight.

 

 

Sam Nero's men were producing a triumph -- seventeen more planes than were
called for in the field order. The 10 percent increase in aircraft would
partially offset the high percentage of bombs that would not burst.
Duds or not, the bomb loaders grunted under the open bays, hoisting
311 tons of them into the shackles. The Sky Scorpions had only skeleton
ground crews, and the men who would deliver the bombs helped load their
own. During the night, orders came down to put two boxes of British
incendiaries in each plane. The gunners could throw these thermite sticks
into the highly combustible refineries as they passed over.

 

 

The people on the ground were also busy in the enemy camp that night.
"Willi, something big is in the air," said Armament Warden Nowicki's CO,
Major Maier. "Do the best you can." Nowicki checked out 36 flak guns and
fell asleep in exhaustion at midnight. After two hours a battalion clerk
awakened Nowicki. "You're wanted immediately at Battery Four. No time
for breakfast." The
Waffenwart
motorcycled across fragrant harvest
fields and reported to the fire controller of Battery Four, a slim,
bespectacled Viennese sergeant named Aust. "The elevator panel on Bertha
is out of order," said Aust. "First, I must report to your officer," said
Nowicki. Aust waved glumly toward the officers' billet. Nowicki found
Oberleutnant Arnold Hecht profoundly out of the war in a tobacco-stale
bedroom littered with empty brandy bottles. He stirred the officer,
reported, and went to Bertha, the big 88. The man in charge of the
malfunctioning elevation panel, Corporal Walter Becker, in peacetime a
diamond cutter from Idar-Oberstein, helped Nowicki turn off the nuts on
the panel. Inside there were intricate circuits and indicator lights,
manufactured by Zeiss, the camera people. "Hand me this, hand me that,"
said Nowicki to Becker. The gun crew and the Russian slaves came on duty,
yawning and scratching, surprised to see a
Waffenwart
at work so early
in the morning.

 

 

 

 

At Benghazi, about a third of the combat men were weak with dysentery.
Normally, half of such cases would be medically grounded. But the flight
surgeons, like the operations officers, had to produce air crews. Three
army nurses and eight Red Cross girls, the only women among eight thousand
men, helped the medical effort to man Tidal Wave. The doctors grounded
two extreme cases of dysentery, a man with an impacted wisdom tooth,
and three flight neurotics. Three able men refused flatly to fly and are
remembered by those who did. The empty places were taken by some who had
never been in battle and some with no air-crew training, including three
privates. That all posts were manned indicated the summit of resolve
the Ploesti men had reached.

 

 

In a dozen ships additional gunners volunteered, despite the high odds
against coming back. Pilot Richard L. Wilkinson carried two extra
people. Lieutenant Howard Dickson, a Circus ground officer who had
flown twenty combat missions to learn what the men went through, got
a berth on Euroclydon (The Storm) with Enoch Porter. The pilot asked,
"What's the book for today, Dick?" It was Dickson's habit to read
classics on the long hauls to and from the target. He said, " As You
Like It . Shakespeare." Porter said, "Well, don't get too deep in the
book. You're going to see some sights. We're going over in the first
wave with Colonel Baker."

 

 

At Benina Main, Colonel Leon Johnson, commander of the Eight Balls, stood
under his ship, a collection of patches called Suzy-Q, and chatted with
his ground staff officers. A jeep arrived with the news that Johnson's
pilot was prostrated with dysentery. A retired combat man, Major William
Brandon, took his place. Johnson handed his wallet to the group chaplain,
James F. Patterson. Out fell a four-leaf clover given to Johnson by his
wife. Colonels and majors got on their knees, looking for it. The tower
controller shot a flare. The searchers found the charm and handed it up
to Johnson as Suzy-Q rolled away.

 

 

At Berka Four, Father Beck visited the planes before take-off. He was a
jovial, sunburned, white-haired man with a happy, confident smile. He
blessed the Catholics and anyone else who wanted a prayer. A co-pilot
said, "You got good connections up there, Chappie?" Beck said, "I pray
through channels." The men in the plane grinned down at him and held
their thumbs up. "Make contact for us, Padre," a gunner shouted. The
engines were turning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silent cannons, soon to cease your silence,
Soon unlimber'd to begin the red business.
-- Walt Whitman, "Drum Taps," 1865

 

 

5 THE GREAT MISSION AIRBORNE

 

 

During the summers in Cyrenaica the khamseen comes punctually in the
afternoon, flooding dust across the coastal shelf. The Liberators used
to stand in it like elephants bathing, while mechanics cleaned engines
and bombardiers swaddled bombsights against the scouring disease that
took a third of an airplane's life. On this Sunday morning, the first
of August 1943, the dust storm came before dawn, roaring like no wind
of nature. For forty miles along the Libyan bulge, 712 engines blew
up earth upon which no rain had fallen for four months as 178 cruelly
burdened B-24's queued up for take-off. Each plane carried at least
3,100 gallons of gasoline and an average load of 4,300 pounds of bombs,
bullets and thermite sticks, exceeding the Liberator's maximum load
allowance. The first, and possibly suicidal, problem of the flight to
Romania was simply to get off the ground.

 

 

The first wave aircraft in the seven target forces had extra fixed
nose guns; some had armored the flight deck, most had extra belts of
fifty-caliber shells. The mission force carried more than 1,250,000
rounds of armor-piercing, incendiary and tracer shells and 311 tons
of bombs -- more killing power than two Gettysburgs. In Romania much
greater fire power awaited it. The aerial army rolling through the red
dust consisted of 1,763 United States citizens from every state of the
Union and the District of Columbia. Also aboard were a Canadian, Sergeant
Blase Dillman of Kingman, Saskatchewan, flight engineer of Daisy Mae,
and an Englishman, Squadron Leader George C. Barwell, Royal Air Force,
London, flying top turret with Norman Appold. Barwell was present without
leave. The R.A.F. had not given him permission to fly, but for the
Americans his combat art was to be one of the luckiest things of the day.

 

 

As the Liberators gathered at the end of the runways and waited for the
dust to settle, tank trucks came around and topped off the gas loads in
the regular wing tanks and the special bomb bay tanks. During the wait,
Flight Officer Russell Longnecker of Broken Bow, Nebraska, co-pilot of
Thundermug, sat on top of his ship against the top turret wondering
how he could become a first pilot. His squadron operations officer,
John Stewart, came by in a jeep, checking crews. He asked the pilot of
Thundermug, "Well, how do you feel now?" The pilot, who had just left a
hospital bed, still suffering with a bad case of dysentery, said, "I don't
think I can make it." Stewart yelled up to Longnecker, "The lieutenant
isn't going. You think you could take her there yourself?" Longnecker
shouted, "Can I take her! This is what I've been waiting for since
flight school!" "Okay," Stewart said, "I'll find you a co-pilot," and
he jeeped away.

 

 

He returned with another sprouting flight officer, Donald K. ("Deacon")
Jones. The senior officer aboard was now the bombardier, Second Lieutenant
William M. Schrampf, twenty-three, a mathematics teacher, who concealed
his misgivings from the boy pilots. Neither had ever taken a loaded
airplane off the ground. Their first try would entail lifting an overload
of combustibles and an extra man in the crew, Flight Officer Odin C. Olsen,
an observer.

 

 

At 0400 hours Greenwich mean time,* the command meteorological officer,
having stirred the entrails, pronounced the weather auguries favorable
in the Balkans, and with that last ground decision of six months of
ground decisions, the tower controllers shot the flares. At Berka Two,
the lead plane of the mission, Brian Woolley Flavelle's Wingo-Wango,
carrying the mission route navigator, Lieutenant Robert W. Wilson,
started the long and dangerous take-off run.

 

 

* All times of day in the book are given by Greenwich mean time
on the 24-hour European system. The Benghazi bases ran on Egyptian
summer time -- GMT plus three hours -- while Romania was on eastern
European time -- GMT plus two.

 

 

Flavelle was the volunteer who had attacked the Messina ferry slip and
had broken down its ferroconcrete roofs. He had completed twenty-seven
missions without mishap, but had been downed on the twenty-eighth just
prior to Tidal Wave. That was a small epic. His plane was crippled by
enemy attack and forced down in enemy-held Sicily. Flavelle sank her
carefully into a small rocky pasture, with his wheels down, and braked
her so skillfully that the ponderous B-24 stopped with her nose crumpled
against a stone wall without injuring anyone. The crew took to heel and
found an English-speaking Sicilian who had helped excavate the New York
subways in his youth. He put them aboard a fishing vessel for Malta,
where Flavelle's people were forwarded to Benghazi to resume military duty.
Sam Nero gave Flavelle a brand-new airplane called Wingo-Wango to fly
at the brunt of Tidal Wave.