The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany 1944-1945 (27 page)

Cooper looked at his map, did his calculations, and replied, “Eight thousand feet, George. Eight thousand feet.” In an interview, he admitted, “Actually it was only 7,000 feet, but I added another 1,000 feet because I was engaged to get married.” Cooper grinned, then added, “As George was expecting his first child, he added another 1,000 feet on top of that.”13 Back at Cerignola, it was an easy landing. There had been no flak on the milk run over Wiener Neustadt. There was not even a scratch on theDakota Queen. No one had been hurt. McGovern jumped into a truck and rode over to the debriefing area, where the Red Cross women gave him coffee and a doughnut. An intelligence officer came running up to him - the same officer who had handed him a cable back in December that told him his father had died. This time, however, the officer was grinning from ear to ear. As he handed a cable to McGovern, he said, “Congratulations, Daddy, you now have a baby daughter.” The cable was from Eleanor. Their first baby, whom she named Ann Marion, had been born four days before, on March 10, in the Mitchell Methodist Hospital.  Eleanor concluded the cable, “Child doing well. Love, Eleanor.” “I was just ecstatic,” McGovern said. “Jubilant.” But then he thought, Eleanor and I have brought a new child into the world today - at least I learned about it today - and I probably killed somebody else’s kids right at lunchtime. Hell, why did that bomb have to hit there?

He went over to the officers club and had a drink - cheap red wine. He was toasted and cheered. But, he later said, “It really did make me feel different for the rest of the war. Now I was a father, I had not only a wife back home but a little girl, all the more reason why I wanted to get home and see that child.” He returned to his tent and wrote Eleanor a long letter. He did not mention the farmhouse, but he couldn’t get it out of his mind. “That thing stayed with me for years and years. If I thought about the war almost invariably I would think about that farm.”14 Two days after the mission to Wiener Neustadt, theDakota Queen flew again with the 455th, accompanied by the 454th. The primary target was weathered in so the Liberators dropped their bombs on the marshaling yards at Amstetten, Austria.  The lead bomber, using its radar and flying out in front and a bit above theDakota Queen, dropped its bombs. Cooper, acting as bombardier as well as navigator, tried to toggle his bombs so that they would strike in the same place. But the bombs were stuck. Cooper went to work and managed to free them, but by the time he toggled the eggs on theDakota Queen it had flown over the river. The bombs landed on the other side. At the debriefing, Cooper told what had happened and why. He was informed that the bombs had dropped on a prisoner of war camp. Cooper and McGovern were devastated. There were American soldiers in the camp. For some months thereafter just thinking about it brought tears to Cooper’s eyes. But in 1946, when Cooper was going to graduate school at Texas A&M, he met an Army Air Forces officer who had been a prisoner in the camp. They got to talking about the incident, and the former POW said, “I was there, and when you dropped those bombs one hit the fence, it opened it up and in all the confusion some of us got away and managed to join the Russians.”15 Three days later McGovern and his crew flew again. The target was the marshaling yards at Mühldorf, Germany. The group dropped over 116 tons of bombs, with good results - over 55 percent fell within 1,000 feet of the aiming point. There was no flak. On March 21 it was back up into the sky - the third day in a row for the group, McGovern’s second mission in three days. Some ninety-four tons of bombs were dropped, with outstanding accuracy-over 87 percent fell within 1,000 feet of the aiming point.

The following day, March 22, it was up again, target the oil refinery at Kralupy, Czechoslovakia - the group being escorted by P-51s. The formation got to within 125 miles of Berlin. The next day Cooper described what had happened in a note home. It had been a long mission, he said, altogether taking eight hours and twenty minutes after spending an hour forming up. “When we got back to the place we could come down from altitude,” he wrote, “we had been on oxygen for four and a half hours and our supply was almost exhausted. There wasn’t any real danger because any time Mac wants to come down from altitude, I know the area well enough I can bring him around all the flak. Funny - he doesn’t worry when I’m navigating and I never worry when he’s the pilot. Several times he’s proved what a cool-headed and superior pilot he is.”16 On March 25 the group took off for its seventh straight day of flying missions - theDakota Queen was there, McGovern’s fifth flight since March 16. It was his twenty-sixth mission, five ahead of the crew. The target was a tank factory in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Thirty-six Liberators dropped ninety-six tons of bombs, with good results. Flak was moderate but accurate - three aircraft were hit but managed to get back to Cerignola. Cooper wrote, “After yesterday’s mission, Mac said he was lucky he got me and trusts me - doesn’t worry when I’m with him. I feel the same way about him so we make a good team. I put him in for the DFC [Distinguished Flying Cross] for a couple of planes he’s brought back safe.”

That didn’t work, as McGovern already had a DFC.17

On March 31, Cooper was relaxing in the officers club, sitting in an easy chair, daydreaming. Another officer came in and told him, “Congratulations.” He had just won a $500 war bond. He explained to his mother that it came as a result of an Easter drive drawing: “Each member of the squadron selected a number between 1 and 375 and paid a dollar. I selected the number of the plane that has been damaged a couple of times and brought Mac and Crew home safely.” It was the last three numbers of the serial number of the bomber, 279. “I hope the luck holds as well in the air as it did on the ground.”18 March was over. The group had flown twenty-six missions, putting 719 aircraft over the target areas, and dropped 1,376 tons of bombs. No enemy fighters had been seen, but two aircraft had been shot down by flak. In addition, six crew members had been severely wounded while three others had minor wounds. The group’s history commented, “The concentration of flak around the major targets seemed to be increasing as the Germans appeared to be ‘circling their wagons’ for the final attacks.”19 *A few decades later, McGovern was in Vienna and visited St. Steven’s. It had taken some damage from high explosives. But he was certain that no American bombs had hit it and was relieved when he discovered that it had been hit by Russian artillery.

CHAPTER ELEVEN - Linz: The Last Mission

April 1945

ON APRIL 1, APRIL FOOL’S DAY, theDakota Queen flew a mission to Kreglach, Austria, to bomb the railroad bridge there. Some twenty-seven B-24s dropped seventy-eight tons of bombs, but could not see the results because of smoke in the target area. It was a milk run - no flak, no jets, no other enemy fighters.  All planes returned safely. McGovern and his crew stood down for the next ten days. On April 11 they flew again. The target was the railroad bridge at Ponte Gardena, Italy, but the 741st Squadron, plus two others, turned away because of cloud cover and instead went after the alternate target, the fuel depot at Goito, Italy. Flak was moderate, although one Liberator got hit badly enough that the controls were damaged to such an extent that the pilot took the plane to Switzerland. McGovern and the others got back to Cerignola.  The 455th flew eleven missions in the first twelve days of April, but none on April 13. McGovern was at the officers club that day. He recalled that the deputy squadron commander, Capt. Andrew Gramm, came into the club to announce, “Damn, you’re not going to believe what just happened - the big guy died - Franklin Roosevelt, our commander in chief died. The war is over. The war is lost.”

The other officers, although they were shocked, thought Gramm was overreacting in saying the war was lost. They consoled him and finally convinced him that the war was not lost. Gramm, who was a heavy drinker anyway, took a few good belts to ease the pain of Roosevelt’s death.

After the liquor had begun to do its work, Gramm climbed up on the bar, which was about four feet high. He was a big man, weighed about 225 pounds. Standing on the bar, he said, “Now you guys catch me.” He closed his eyes and fell forward. “He didn’t know if the others were going to catch him or not but he didn’t seem to care,” McGovern said. “But they did - three or four guys did - practically broke their backs trying to. He repeated that four or five times.  Finally a guy says, ‘Look we’re not going to do that again. We’ve had enough of this. You may not have to fly tomorrow but we do.’” McGovern added that he remembered the incident vividly “because it just struck me about how close we really were. Here we were 3,000 miles from home and yet the death of Roosevelt hit that group of men awfully hard. They weren’t particularly political - it’s just that they hadn’t known any other president.”1 McGovern flew again on April 15, then again on April 16, 17, and 18 - four missions in four days. By this time the marshaling yards and oil refineries had been hit so often, and so effectively, that they were no longer the primary targets. Instead the Liberators participated in the drive up the Italian peninsula by engaging in tactical bombing, that is, giving direct and indirect support to the ground troops. The technique was to drop the bombs just ahead of the American troop lines, or to hit bridges to stop enemy ground transportation.  Rather than the usual 500- or 1,000-pound bombs, the planes carried 250-pound general purpose bombs.

At the briefings, McGovern said, the officer in command would tell them that the campaign was being coordinated with the American ground forces. “We were told to fly until we were directly over the cutting edge of the American forces and were told that there would be smoke signals there, and there were. The Americans would set off the signals along the front of their line, and we were to drop right on that, so the forward motion of the bombs would carry them well ahead of the American forces.” Another technique was to use white markers set along the front lines, 100 yards in length and 1,000 yards apart, to mark the location of the American troops. The bomber stream flew perpendicular to the line of troops.  Dropping the bombs when they saw the smoke and/or the white lines, the Liberators put them down right on top of the Germans dug in on the other side.  At the briefing the following morning, the officer in charge would congratulate the crews. “Well, men, we did okay yesterday. We put those eggs right where we wanted them, and we’re going to go back today and do it some more. The guys on the ground are indebted to us, and we want to be careful not to hit any of them.  But we’re going to try to make their way easier.” They did. McGovern later talked to some of the infantry officers, who told him that the B-24s provided great assistance.

The Liberators came in perpendicular to avoid flak. Ground commanders wanted them to fly parallel to the lines, but the AAF refused, on the grounds that if they did every German gunner along the line would be firing at the bombers. By coming in perpendicular, the B-24s were over the line for just a second or two, depriving the Germans of a chance to fix their radar, aim, and fire.  Nevertheless, these were no milk runs. They were flying over the high Alps, near the Brenner Pass, and to ensure accuracy they were flying at 15,000 feet, low for the Liberators. The Germans had their 88s placed close to the mountaintops, at 12,000 or more feet. As this was so close to the front lines, the Germans had heavier artillery, 105 and 150 mms, firing at the planes. The German gunners, in McGovern’s memory, “were shooting crossfire at us instead of shooting at us from ground zero to our usual altitude of 25,000 feet.” When the planes were at 15,000 feet and the flak gunners were nearly that high, McGovern said, “that’s a pretty good shot. They can really home in on you. And they did.” He saw at least two planes get hit.2 From April 19 to April 22, McGovern stood down. On the twenty-third he flew theDakota Queen again, against road bridges in the Alps. This time, there was no flak - a milk run. On the twenty-fourth, the 455th turned away from the primary target and went after the alternate, marshaling yards and an ammunition dump at Ossopo, Italy. Results were good, the flak was slight and inaccurate. All planes got home safely. It was McGovern’s thirty-fourth mission.  “I hated Linz as a target,” McGovern declared. To begin with, it was heavily defended because it was an important rail hub for the Germans. Through Linz, German troops moved back and forth from the eastern to the western front - boxcars, passenger cars, everything. Linz was Hitler’s hometown. The 455th Group had hit it often. “I don’t know how they could ever get a train in or out of that place,” McGovern said, “but apparently they did, because we kept hitting it.” He had been on the December 15, 1944, mission to Linz. It was his seventh mission, his second as pilot. “It was just deadly fear with me from that day on.  I never talked about it much but I was scared to death with those shells going off. There was nothing you could do. Couldn’t take evasive action, couldn’t dodge them.” It was on that mission that a piece of shrapnel had burst through the cockpit window and come within inches of killing him.  Now, on April 25, 1945, they were to go back. Before the men climbed into theDakota Queen, McGovern spoke to them. He said it was usual to allow a pilot to go on a milk run for his last mission because the commanders did not want a pilot shot down on that one. But the target was Linz. Although he wanted to fly the mission, he said he did not want to endanger the crew just because he chose to fly it. He put it up to a vote. If the vote was negative, McGovern said no one would ever fault them, including him, and the commanders would excuse them.  Ashlock remembered, “We voted to fly the mission.” So they were off.3 All four squadrons of the 455th Group flew to Linz. Cooper recalled, “We had every plane that we could get airborne up there.” Picture them at takeoff: one B-24 breaking ground, one halfway down the runway, picking up speed, a third releasing brakes after applying power. The men had been told at the briefing to expect heavy flak, as the Germans were bringing all their 88s back to protect their priority targets. The briefing officer said, “Our estimates are that there are 380 antiaircraft guns in Linz, and they’re heavily concentrated.” The weather was clear. After forming up, the group set off over the Alps to the target. To McGovern, “It was exciting going across the mountains. Those enormous snow-peaked mountains - and the endless meadows and fields, the trees and rivers and streams.” Thinking back, he commented, “Europe is beautiful - except over the damn targets. It was our worst mission of the war.” According to the 455th’s history, the flak over the target was “extremely intense.” The Germans were using their box system - firing the 88s’ shells into an area 2,000 feet on each of the four sides and 2,000 feet deep, just in front of the formation so that the planes would fly into it. “The sky just became solid black. Then in that solid black you’d see these huge, angry flashes of red, which was another shell exploding. How we avoided it, I’ll never know.” TheDakota Queen didn’t avoid it all. McGovern said he could hear the shrapnel “smacking the side of the plane.”