Forgotten Fifteenth

by Barrett Tillman

  After the “gooney” birds and gliders had landed, our group proceeded west, to an island to land for refueling. [The island was Vis, forty miles off the Croatian coast, a sometime Tito headquarters.] Now, knowing of this refueling stop, I had placed all my ration cigarettes on the right side of the cockpit. They covered the emergency hydraulic pump and valve. On landing each P-38 was positioned next to several 55 gallon drums, which contained gasoline. The pilot was to fill the tanks while a man hand pumped from the drums. This man wore an open shirt and shorts made from burlap! His shoes were in shreds. With no place to trade my cigarettes, I gave them to the man. The British officer in charge of the refueling “chewed” me out, something fierce! He said, “I made this man rich!” After refueling, we flew back to Vincencio, our home base.15

  A LONG WAY TO DEFECT

  There was another “joint operation” at about the same time, though certainly unsanctioned. It involved the only American pilot to defect to the enemy in World War II, and he took the long way round the world to do it.

  First Lieutenant Martin J. Monti, age twenty-three, was raised in a large Catholic family in St. Louis by an Italian father and German mother. Before the war he was heavily influenced by Father Charles Coughlin, the “radio priest,” who developed a large isolationist, anti-Communist audience.

  After receiving his army wings as a flight officer, Monti was commissioned and sent to the China-Burma-India Theater. But he deserted from Karachi, hitchhiked to Egypt, and arrived at the Foggia complex in October 1944. From there he got to Pomigliano north of Naples, where he passed himself off as an Eighty-second Group pilot. He cadged a photo-recon Lightning from a service squadron and flew north to a small field near Milan, under Fascist Italian control. He landed and announced his intention of joining the Wehrmacht to fight the Soviets. At first the Germans were understandably skeptical of the defector. But he convinced his new allies of his desire to join the crusade against communism and became a propaganda broadcaster known as “Martin Wiethaupt.” Furthermore, he enrolled in the SS as an Untersturmführer, equivalent to second lieutenant.

  After V-E Day Monti surrendered in his black SS uniform. Tried for desertion in 1946, he received a sentence of fifteen years at hard labor but gained a parole in just one year with the peculiar condition that he re-enlist. He had worked his way up to sergeant in 1948 when the FBI learned of his collaboration in disseminating Nazi propaganda. He stood trial for treason and was sentenced to twenty-five years. Like most wartime criminals, he was released early and gained a parole in 1960. He died in 2000, not quite eighty.16

  THE SECOND WINTER AT WAR

  The Foggia rainy season began in mid-September, but the next month brought serious problems. Veterans of the winter of 1943–1944 knew what to expect. Heavy, persistent rain canceled many missions, and on others the pilots struggled up through low cloud decks, seeking clear air between layers. All too often the fliers encountered solid clouds, sometimes extending above the operational ceiling of their aircraft.

  In October the Fifteenth Air Force issued minimum requirements for the winterization of tents. Each tent floor was to be covered with brick, tile, lumber, or gravel, with walls of adobe-like “tufti,” or lumber, at least eighteen inches above ground level. Wing commanders had discretion over uniforms, and most, like Colonel William L. Lee of the Forty-ninth Wing, issued woolens to replace khakis. Supply ran behind demand, however, and weeks passed before all enlisted men received the heavier uniforms.17

  Though the Fifteenth had been operating at full strength since May, some adjustments were made that fall. In October, Brigadier General Charles Born, formerly Twining’s operations officer, became deputy commander of the Fifteenth. Simultaneously, Brigadier General James A. Mollison took over XV Air Service Command.

  Also in October, Brigadier General Dean Strother established XV Fighter Command, an arrangement similar to the Eighth’s. He turned over the 306th Wing to Brigadier General Yantis H. Taylor, who now ran the four Mustang groups, while Colonel William R. Morgan took the three Lightning groups in the new, subordinate 305th Wing at Torremaggiore. It made sense. With different logistic and maintenance requirements, the Mustang and Lightning groups benefited from having their own administrative echelons. The new command structure lasted until war’s end.

  FIGHTERS IN THE FALL

  The hunting thinned out for Mediterranean fighter groups, which officially claimed 151 aerial kills in August. The next four months produced a total of only 150.18 The era of the ace was ending. The Fifteenth never developed the kind of “ace race” that characterized the Eighth, but the top guns kept score nevertheless. The Checkertail Clan’s Major Herky Green held the lead with eighteen victories (three before joining the Fifteenth) when he rotated to Bari headquarters in September. Close behind was the Fifty-second Group’s best shooter, Captain John Varnell, with seventeen victories in nine weeks from late May to early August. He was hot, scoring twelve of his kills in just five encounters. Twenty-two years old, he jumped from second lieutenant to captain in about six weeks. He also ended his tour in September. Among those left in combat, the leader was Captain John Voll of the Thirty-first, with thirteen black crosses on his Mustang. He still had combat time remaining.

  Losses to Axis fighters nearly dropped off the chart: some groups flew fifteen missions or more during October without sighting a single enemy aircraft. But flak remained potent. On the October 4 mission to Munich, for instance, the sixteen attacking bomb groups lost fifteen planes. Hardest hit was the 461st, which put twenty-six Liberators over the marshalling yard at 23,700 feet. During the bomb run, Munich’s practiced flak gunners shot seven planes out of formation, but the remainder performed superbly, dropping 70 percent of their bombs within a thousand feet of the aim point. It was one of the finest performances ever recorded in the Mediterranean Theater. Lieutenant Colonel Philip R. “Spike” Hawes led the survivors back to Toretta, where ground crews noted damage to all nineteen planes.

  Despite the general disappearance of Axis fighters, the skies could still hold surprises. Escorting bombers to Munich on October 29, the Eighty-second Group’s Ninety-fifth Squadron picked up an apparent straggler, a single P-51B. The olive-drab Mustang sidled up to the Lightnings, whose pilots were unconcerned, as sometimes P-51s flew a roving escort, though almost never solo. “He appeared to be just a friendly P-51 pilot, rather lonely,”19 reported one of the pilots.

  After breaking escort the Lightning pilots descended to ground level to expend their ammunition in strafing. One P-38 had taken hits and was limping outbound on one engine, accompanied by five others. First Lieutenant Eldon Coulson and his wingman assumed high cover, protecting the other four from a “bounce” from above. The mystery Mustang suddenly reappeared, southeast of Linz, but it was no longer passive. It approached as if making a gunnery pass, so Coulson and his partner turned into the stranger. The P-51 broke off but returned for more runs. Each time the P-38s met the apparent threat.

  Finally the Mustang emerged from low clouds, tracking toward the damaged Lightning. Coulson called, “Here comes that Mustang again!” The interloper was closer than before, pressing its run. Then it opened fire from ridiculously long range—perhaps four thousand feet. Coulson reacted immediately. He tracked the offender in his sight and pressed the button for all four machine guns and the 20mm cannon. In a beautiful full deflection shot, the armor-piercing incendiary rounds flickered and flashed the length of the Mustang’s fuselage, knocking it into a spin. The P-51 crashed, inverted, in a fireball on a mountainside.

  Back at base, Coulson was closely questioned over a couple of rough days. Headquarters finally confirmed that there were no friendly losses for the time and place of his encounter with the mystery Mustang, and he was awarded an official victory. “Also, intelligence reported there may be two or three more P-51s the Germans might be using, and for us to keep on guard.”20

  Fighting enemy-flown American aircraft was one thing. But the unpredictability of war could take event
s in another direction entirely.

  A NOVEMBER TO REMEMBER

  Unlike the Eighth Air Force, which allotted two Mickey aircraft to each B-24 group, the Fifteenth adopted an “all or nothing” approach in 1944. “Red Force” units received four radar pathfinders and flew most missions against major industrial targets. “Blue Force” units generally bombed visually, attacking targets closer to home. By one analysis, Twining’s crews did better radar bombing than their RAF counterparts, recording an average miss distance of two miles. Thus, the Fifteenth B-24s were doing “twice as well or half as poor.”21

  That fall Twining also began sending as few as three Liberators to precision targets in poor weather. For instance, selected crews from each squadron of the 464th Group were trained at night, employing “Mickey” gear in preparation for daylight blind bombing. Standing orders prohibited the Mickeys from bombing in clear skies, to preserve valuable assets.

  The group’s first such operation was flown November 3, despite heavy rain, against a rail yard in Munich. First Lieutenant August Lechner’s crew was first off that morning, with two others departing at ten-minute intervals. Climbing into a frigid sky, Lechner’s B-24 acquired a coating of ice while penetrating two fronts before getting “on top” at twenty-two thousand feet. Upon reaching the initial point, the fliers nervously looked for the Luftwaffe. Munich inevitably put up a strong defense, but not so much as a flak burst marred the air. Copilot Donald Baker even wondered if the navigator’s dead reckoning was accurate. The radar bombardier toggled his load in unaccustomed serenity. Then the rear gunner opened up on the intercom. The second Liberator, a mile or so astern, was flogging its way through a maelstrom of flak. Lechner and Baker realized that, being first over the target in uncommonly bad weather, they had surprised the defenders. The 464th logged two more Mickey special missions that month, and several more before V-E Day.22

  Around the same time, a respected opponent left the scene. One of the Fifteenth’s last encounters with Hungarians occurred on November 5, when some 720 bombers screened by 335 fighters converged on the Florisdorf refinery in northern Vienna—the greatest effort the Fifteenth had yet launched against a single target. Elements of six Luftwaffe fighter groups scrambled, but many were too late to intercept, leaving the defense to seven German and four Hungarian squadrons. The planes that could attain a favorable position tried to dent the massive force of some five hundred Liberators.

  Three Hungarian Messerschmitt pilots claimed one B-24 each, while another collided with a Mustang. The raiders lost a total of five bombers and two fighters. But the Puma wing buried four Bf 109 pilots, the last casualties against “the Italians” from Foggia.

  The American fighters notched ten kills, six by the Checkertails. On the withdrawal First Lieutenant Oscar Rau’s flight leader jumped several 109s over Lake Balaton. In a prolonged rat race, “Ockie” Rau shot one bandit off his leader’s tail then performed the same service for his wingman. Over the next twenty minutes he added two more to earn a Distinguished Service Cross in his only combat.

  THE LEGEND OF CURLY EDWINSON

  Colonel Clarence T. Edwinson commanded the Eighty-second, one of three P-38 Lighting fighter groups in the Fifteenth Air Force. The thirty-two-year-old flier had been a standout athlete at Washburn College in Kansas, where he was compared to the legendary Red Grange as a running back. Winged in 1936, Edwinson became an instructor and later served as an observer in England during the Battle of Britain. He flew in Alaska before assuming command of the Eighty-second in August 1944, unusually experienced with nearly four thousand flying hours.

  On November 6 the group supported a Soviet advance in eastern Yugoslavia. The first day’s mission went well, and the Russians asked for a repeat performance the next day. The Eighty-second teamed with the First—124 Lightnings strafing briefed objectives and targets of opportunity around Yugoslavia. In the target area, one squadron of the Eighty-second jumped on a motor convoy, destroying several vehicles, and though a P-38 fell to flak, the badly injured pilot was rescued by Partisans.

  Leading his twenty-seventh mission, Edwinson then took most of two squadrons to shoot up some locomotives and another truck column. Almost immediately the top-cover pilots spotted unidentified aircraft taking off from Nis, about sixty miles from the Romanian border. The erstwhile strafers crammed on full power, clawing for altitude. So did the single-engine fighters from Nis, variously identified as 109s, 190s, or Spitfires. One of them abruptly pulled up and fired at the trailing P-38. The Lightning crashed and exploded, killing Lieutenant Phil Brewer. Lieutenant Kenneth Katschke rolled in, drew a bead on the assailant, and fired. His aim was good: the hostile fighter went down spinning. Just before it crashed Katschke glimpsed the insignia—a red star.

  The Eighty-second Group was fighting Russians.

  Other P-38 pilots also recognized their opponents as Yakovlev fighters and hollered a radio warning. But some of the Soviets remained aggressive, and when one shot at a Lightning, Lieutenant John Blumer flamed it. The fight continued unabated, two more Yaks dropping away. Another Lighting pilot was killed—Lieutenant Sid Coulson, who had downed a German-flown Mustang barely a week before.

  Lieutenant Tom Urton got a Russian’s attention by wagging his wings in a don’t-shoot gesture. Some of the Yaks repeated the motion. Meanwhile, Curly Edwinson’s flight had its own set-to, sparring with an aggressive Russian. Following some spirited maneuvering, a Lighting pilot gained position and hosed the Yak with machine gun and cannon fire. It made off trailing smoke. Finally Edwinson and the Soviet leader sidled up to each other, wagging wings. The Russian was Captain Aleksandr Koldunov, a twenty-one-year old Hero of the Soviet Union. The fight had ended.

  Back home at Vincenzo, pandemonium reigned. An international incident had to be explained. Soon an explanation emerged: the Lightnings had attacked some fifty miles from the briefed target, mistaking one valley for another. After shooting up the first convoy, the P-38s had attacked a second. They destroyed some twenty vehicles and killed several Russians, including a general.

  Three Lightnings had been lost—one to flak—and three Yaks had gone down with two pilots dead. The loss of a Russian corps commander drew a furious response from Moscow. The Soviets demanded that the U.S. chiefs of staff “severely punish those responsible.” A rumor circulated that the American flight leader was to be executed.23 The geopolitical fallout was predictable. A secret report issued by Mediterranean Allied Force Headquarters on November 25 quoted Eaker’s preliminary investigation, which went to the Joint Chiefs in Washington and to Major General John R. Deane, head of the U.S. Military Mission to Moscow. The summary stated in part, “The request for the strafing came through Balkan Air Force, based on the needs for air effort to trap and destroy the Germans trying to move north through Yugoslavia. Two groups of P-38s of the 15th AAF were assigned to the strafing; all squadrons except one strafed the assigned area.”24

  The summary stated that between August 18 and November 7, the Fifteenth had flown thirty-seven missions supporting Soviet units and guerrilla forces in Yugoslavia and Hungary without untoward incidents. Eaker’s report, clearly sympathetic to Edwinson, noted the colonel’s extensive flying experience while emphasizing the difficulty of low-level navigation at high speed over numerous valleys. The Soviet column was only ten or twelve minutes, for a P-38, from the intended target. “There is a startling similarity,” the report noted,

  between the map appearance of the briefed target and the actual target strafed. (Map used was British 1 to 500000 Europe Air Shkedra (Scutari) sheet corrected through January 1942.)

  Upon return to base the top cover leader was equally as positive as to the identification of the point where strafing began and only when gun camera film was developed did it become established that the wrong road had been attacked. The respective roads are roughly 55 miles apart.

  All pilots will readily understand how even one as experienced as Colonel Edwinson, flying on the deck in such rugged country, under frequ
ent flak attack as he was, could make a mistake of 10 minutes in navigation.25

  After three months in command, Curly Edwinson was hastily transferred stateside, where his career proceeded unimpeded.

  On November 16 the Thirty-first Group’s John Voll was a twenty-two-year-old captain. He had tied Sully Varnell’s seventeen-victory record and was one behind the 325th’s Herky Green, who had been transferred to Twining’s operations staff.

  The red-striped Mustangs found little opposition during the escort to Munich, and Voll turned back with radio trouble. Alone ten miles southeast of Aviano, he spotted a Ju 88 on a reciprocal heading, dived, and gave chase. The Junkers was fast, but the Mustang was faster, and Voll reeled it in. But before it splashed, the bomber obviously hollered for help. When he glanced up, Voll saw a mixed formation of black-crossed fighters, 109s and 190s. The fight was on.

  For the next five minutes John Voll fought for his life. He had three things going for him: his cool head, his hot hands, and a Mustang named American Beauty. The Germans outnumbered him twelve to one, but they got in each other’s way, offering the Ohio triple ace repeated opportunities. In a hard-fought, gut-wrenching combat, he hit eight, being certain of two Focke-Wulfs and a Messerschmitt.

  When he landed at San Severo, the young veteran threw up from the delayed release of tension. Then he slid off the wing, dropping to his hands and knees, wracked by dry heaves. Voll was credited with four destroyed, two probables, and two damaged, the last time he scored. He flew American Beauty the last time in December and rotated home, the Mediterranean Theater’s ace of aces with twenty-one kills.

  That month the Thirty-first’s new commanding officer was Lieutenant Colonel William A. Daniel, a thirty-year-old Tennessee flier. In an accelerated rise typical of wartime, he had been promoted from captain to major to lieutenant colonel in barely a year. A career fighter pilot, he had arrived in April with an exceptional 2,900 hours flight time. After eight months with the group staff he moved into the top slot. His subordinates were nevertheless well disposed: pilots valued up-front leaders, nurturing the good ones and sometimes ignoring the others.