The Bomber Boys (11 page)

It was March 1943 when Peter joined his B-17 crew in Moses Lake, Washington, where they would begin their in-flight training before transferring to Walla Walla. His assignment was left waist gunner. The aircraft commander was First Lieutenant Giles Kauffman Jr. The pilot’s quiet demeanor, Peter soon learned, was not aloofness. Kauffman turned out to be friendly enough once you got to know him. Casual with his men while off duty, he was a no-nonsense, get-the-job-done type of officer when commanding his aircraft. Most of the crew thought those were admirable traits for a man who was about to lead them into air combat.

One day, during a break from their B-17 flight training, one of the boys suggested a game of touch football. Although it was a typical drizzly Washington day, Peter could not remember when he had such a great time. Everyone seemed to be getting along fine. At the end of the lively game, someone asked Kauffman’s crew to pose for a photo. Peter stood at the end of the back row, his baseball cap tilted back on his head.

When he was given his copy of the crew picture, Peter sent it along to his sister Margaret in Brooklyn, writing on the back of the photo: “The best damned B-17 crew in the Army Air Force! We will make history!”

Half boast and half tongue-in-cheek joke, the young waist gunner’s words would prove to be prophetic.

Kauffman’s crew received orders to report to the Eighth Air Force in England upon completing training. Luckily for Peter, he was granted a three-day pass to visit his family in Brooklyn. Returning to the East Coast, he took the ferry across the Hudson River and caught a Brooklyn-bound subway train from Manhattan.

Peter had never thought much about the concept of fate until then, but as he exited the subway at the Myrtle Avenue station, he experienced one of life’s rare and mysterious moments. Walking up the stairs leading to the street level, Peter encountered a beautiful young girl coming down the steps.

“Helen!” he said, stopping so suddenly that several people behind him bumped into each other. The look of total surprise on Helen’s face was quickly replaced with a warm smile.

Peter Seniawsky,
she thought,
from out of nowhere and looking wonderful in his uniform.

“Peter, what are you doing here?”

He started to explain that he was heading overseas and to tell her all about his new assignment, but he stopped in midsentence. Peter realized for the first time that he was in love.

“Helen, what are you doing tonight?” he asked.

“Nothing, I guess . . .”

“Will you go out with me?”

“Yes, you know I will.” Helen laughed and hugged him. The next day Peter asked her to marry him. She said, “Yes.”

Without an official engagement ring, the young airman offered his new fiancée his Air Corps wings. She proudly pinned them on her blouse. The following day Peter and his crewmates shipped out for Britain.

When they arrived in England, Giles Kauffman’s crew was assigned to the 547th Bomb Squadron as a part of the 384th Bomb Group at Grafton Underwood airfield. By September they
were in the air on their first combat mission. When their B-17 popped out of the clouds, Peter marveled at the blueness of the sky, which seemed filled with olive drab bombers.

“Man, I’m finally here,” he said out loud. Soon Kauffman gave the okay for the gunners to test-fire their weapons. Peter stood at the left waist machine gun and rattled off a couple of quick bursts. It felt good. It was the first time he had ever actually fired a .50 caliber in the air. Underneath his goggles and oxygen mask, Peter was wearing his prescription sunglasses. He had stashed a second pair and a third, clear pair in his flight jacket and pants. He was taking no chances.

He gave the machine gun’s trigger another quick squeeze and watched as the tracers streaked into the open sky. It was reassuring. He felt he was ready to deal with an enemy fighter, should one come close. Almost as soon as the bomber group cleared the English Channel, the young waist gunner found out he was very mistaken.

As Peter scanned the sky beyond the squadron’s other bombers, an enemy fighter flew right through the formation.

“My God, that’s a German airplane,” Peter said.

There was no time to get a shot off—it was there. Then it was just a gray blur and then it was gone. There would be many other opportunities for the left waist gunner. Early in the war, the Luftwaffe command was fully aware the American bombers lost their escorts early in a mission. When the American fighters turned back to England, the bomber crews could count the seconds before German fighters appeared. If their bomber survived the trip to the target and the flak, the crew still had to fight their way home. So it went for the first two missions flown by Kauffman’s boys.

On October 4, Kauffman drew one of the original B-17s assigned to the 384th Bomb Group. Stenciled on the bomber’s tail fin was the serial number 42-30043, but everyone called her
Ruthless
. The crew stowed their equipment on board, then gathered under the bomber’s nose to wait for the signal for takeoff.

As some of the men chatted, Peter sat quietly and observed his crewmates—they had known each other only a few months, but they were a combat family now.

First Lieutenant Giles F. Kauffman Jr., the pilot, was quiet and steady. From Lewistown, Pennsylvania, he had spent a couple of years at Penn State studying chemical engineering. Kauffman’s father had died early, leaving his son to go to work in his teen years—something to which Peter could relate. Most of the crew called their pilot Junior.

Second Lieutenant George Molnar, the copilot—good natured, always smiling. The men nicknamed him Happy.

Second Lieutenant J. J. Lecroix was the bombardier.

Second Lieutenant Frank Pogorzelski served as the navigator. Nobody could pronounce his Polish name, so he told the crew to just call him Pogo. The name stuck.

Sergeant William Jarrell was the crew’s flight engineer. Jarrell seemed to be an expert on information about a wide range of topics. He was the crew’s only Republican. The boys called him Whataman.

Sergeant Stanley T. Ruben, a Cherokee Indian from Oklahoma, was the tail gunner. Peter and Ruben had become almost instant friends back in Walla Walla.

Sergeant Jacob M. Martinez, a good-looking kid, was the ball turret gunner.

Sergeant Jules Beck was the crew’s radioman.

Sergeant Paul Spodar, the baby-faced right waist gunner, stood back-to-back with Peter during air combat. Spodar was from Cleveland, and he and Peter had at least two things in common. Spodar also had a vision problem (a weakness in his left eye), and like Peter his father had immigrated to America from the Ukraine. The two waist gunners were friendly, but
during off-duty time Peter tended to hang out with Ruben, while Spodar was close to Beck.

Peter had complete confidence in each of his crewmates, but after what he had seen on the first two missions, he did not expect their luck could hold up.

Kauffman and Molnar were discussing the evacuation procedure in case of a ditching. Both the pilot and copilot were supposed to leave the aircraft through the cockpit’s sliding side windows. Neither man was sure that could actually be accomplished in an emergency. Some of the other crewmen expressed their opinions on the best way to quickly get out of a B-17. There seemed to be some confusion on the subject.

“We’ve got the time, Junior. Why don’t we walk through the evac drill now?” Peter suggested. Kauffman thought it was a good idea. The crew climbed aboard their bomber and each man found his station. Kauffman read the procedure from his manual, and on his signal each crew member went to his assigned escape location. Since a crash landing and a water ditching required different escape routes, the pilot made sure each man knew where to go in either situation before he ended the drill.

Peter did a last-minute check of his machine gun. He was glad he had suggested the escape drill, but he thought it was unlikely they would ever use it. He guessed they were much more likely to be blown out of the sky by flak or an ME-109 fighter. A few minutes later,
Ruthless
roared down the runway and climbed into a cloudy sky on what would be her last mission.

The objective that day was an attack on Frankfurt, Germany. To Peter it seemed pretty much like his first two missions. The gunners were kept busy fending off enemy fighters on the way to the target. Kauffman dodged Frankfurt’s plentiful flak to drop his bombs, and then he turned
Ruthless
toward home. The German fighters hit the group again on the return trip, but
Ruthless
rumbled along seemingly untouched.

The first Peter knew of trouble was when Kauffman informed the crew over the interphone: “Boys, we’re going to have to lighten the aircraft. We are very low on fuel.” Peter was surprised when he heard the pilot’s announcement, and he looked at Spodar. The other waist gunner shook his head with a frown. He had witnessed a scene before takeoff that now seemed very important. The ground crew apparently had been given a directive on rationing each bomber’s fuel supply for the mission. Spodar had been nearby when Kauffman had become engaged in a heated argument with a staff officer over the subject. The pilot made it clear that he felt they were cutting it too close on fuel, but the other officer would not relent.

Perhaps on a better day, the fuel allotted would have been sufficient, but many unforeseen factors could come into play on any given mission. Wind currents could be more severe. Getting into formation could take a little longer. Flying a “tail-end Charlie” position or a poor running engine could eat up additional fuel. Whatever the reason,
Ruthless
was almost dry.

Peter and Spodar wasted no time discussing the whys of their predicament. They began tossing anything loose and not absolutely essential out the side windows. When the crew had disposed of almost everything they could think of, Peter asked the pilot, “Junior, what about the guns?”

A few seconds of silence elapsed before Kauffman’s voice came back over the interphone.

“Dump the guns, too!”

Peter reluctantly disengaged the .50 caliber and shoved it out the left window. Spodar, behind him, did the same. Then out went the remaining ammo, which was now useless to them.
Ruthless
was now flying over Belgium, defended only by her nose, tail and ball turret guns. If a German fighter came at them from above or either side, the bomber would be a sitting duck.

Kauffman took
Ruthless
down until she was flying just above
the treetops. Peter watched farms and small Belgian villages pass underneath and wondered how much farther it was to the coast. Then pastures and forests gave way to marshy grasslands and rocky coves—and finally, whitecapped waves rippled below the bomber.

Now the lone B-17 would be under the wings of American or British fighters, in theory anyway. Peter kept a watch for “little friends,” and sure enough an RAF Spitfire soon pulled up just off the bomber’s left wing. Spodar tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to a second Spitfire to their right.

The crew waited for an update on their situation from their pilot. Could they make it back to Grafton Underwood or at least to a coastal RAF base? Kauffman’s answer to his crew’s unspoken question was direct, and it was also an order.

“All right, boys, prepare to ditch! Everyone to his assigned place. Prepare to ditch!”

Peter and Spodar helped Martinez out of his ball turret. Ruben joined them from his tail gun position and then the four gunners headed forward to the radio room. Jarrell and Beck were already there, preparing to go out the ceiling hatch once Kauffman put the airplane down in the North Sea. Lecroix and Pogorzelski arrived from the nose compartment.

The pilot gave them a quick “Get ready!” over the interphone just seconds before
Ruthless
touched the water. The B-17’s tail hit first; then seawater came pouring into the plane before she stopped her forward motion. The aircraft’s fuselage had cracked at a point right behind the radio room. Peter could see that everyone in the radio room had survived the jarring landing, but he was not sure eight men could climb out the overhead hatch before the airplane sank. The cold seawater was already swirling around his knees.

Someone pulled the lever to release the bomber’s life rafts. The first two men out were responsible for getting the rafts into
position. The third man out was to stay near the hatch to give a hand to the men still in the radio room.

As Pogorzelski attempted to exit, he slipped and with his right hand grabbed the first thing he could find to keep from falling back into the radio room. What the navigator’s hand found was Paul Spodar’s head—the right waist gunner was pushed beneath the rising water. Spodar popped back up only to have the navigator slip and grab his head a second time. Spodar had had enough.

“Lieutenant, would you please get out of the airplane or get out of the way?”

Peter knew it was taking too much time. Weighted down by their heavy flight jackets, boots and Mae West life preservers, the men moved in what seemed to be slow motion. Finally, there was only one man left in the almost submerged radio room—Peter Seniawsky. The water was lapping at his chin as Peter began to pull himself up. He managed to get his elbows over the rim of the hatch but the weight of his flight gear was pulling him down. Someone reached out a hand, and Peter summoned all his strength to climb to the top of the aircraft.

He could see the yellow life rafts rising and falling in the waves near the bomber’s tail section. Peter walked along the dorsal fin until he reached the tail and then he climbed onto the rear stabilizer. Jules Beck was already there, but he was making no effort to lower himself into the sea.

Peter went in feetfirst and swam toward one of the rafts. The boys had done their jobs well, inflating both life rafts and tethering them to each other and to the airplane, but for some reason the rafts had not completely inflated. It was no easy thing to climb on board, but by helping each other, soon nine of the ten-man crew were in the rafts.