To Kingdom Come
Page 16
Still floating in his parachute, Jimmy watched Yankee Raider plow heavily into an open field outside a small French village. As soon as it hit, the bomber was enveloped in a huge cloud of smoke and dust. He waited for the wreck to explode, but it didn’t. There was no gas left to ignite.
A minute later, Jimmy hit the ground. He felt a brutal jolt of pain in his right ankle and tumbled backward. While lying on his back, he unclipped his parachute harness and rolled free.
When he tried to stand up, his right leg gave way and he fell down again.
SLIPSTREAMS
Generals Arnold and Eaker (far left) inspecting an air base, September 1943.
A clearly angry Ira Eaker lets it be known, 1943.
General Robert Travis (left) with General and Mrs. Maurice Preston, England, 1943.
Olen Grant relaxes with fellow sergeants, 1943.
False identity photograph taken of Jimmy Armstrong by the French underground, 1943.
Warren Laws, 1942.
Braxton Wilken, 1942.
Ted and Braxton Wilken, 1942.
Braxton and her daughter, Kathy, 1943.
Warren Laws’s false identity papers prepared by the French underground, 1943.
Joseph Schwartzkopf’s false identity papers prepared by the French underground, 1943.
Martin Andrews while interned in Switzerland, 1944.
Demetrios Karnezis and Marie Therese Andre, France, 1943.
Robert Travis and William Calhoun shake hands after the Oschersleben mission, January 11, 1944.
James Armstrong receives the Purple Heart, 1944.
Olen Grant’s prison photograph, Stalag 17, Krems, Austria, 1944.
Remains of the Day
Monday, 6 September 1943
Grafton Underwood, England
384th Bomb Group
Colonel Budd Peaslee, Commanding
1330
All their eyes were on the eastern sky as the scheduled time approached for the 384th’s return. Colonel Budd Peaslee stood on the railed widow’s walk at the top of the control tower and anxiously scanned the horizon through his binoculars. The scheduled arrival time came and went with no sign of the group’s eighteen Fortresses.
Budd Peaslee had commanded the 384th since its arrival in England back in June, and he had led many of the group’s toughest missions himself. He had agonized over the calamitous loss of half his original crews in July and August. He had watched good pilots crack up under the strain and tension of what they had gone through, and he privately wondered how long they could go on.
He considered the Stuttgart mission to be an important milestone. For the first time in the war, more than four hundred bombers had participated in a maximum-effort raid deep into Germany. Major Ray Ketelsen had led the mission, and he was an experienced combat leader. He would bring them back.
As the minutes passed with no sign of the group, Colonel Peaslee’s level of apprehension began to mount. The fuel factor had been calculated very carefully prior to the mission, and there was little margin for error.
A voice suddenly called out. Two planes were approaching the base. They were Fortresses. With growing shock, Colonel Peaslee realized they were the entire remnants of the 384th that were able to return to the base. Two out of eighteen. He watched the two B-17s land and rumble across the field to their hardstands.
Eighth Air Force Bomber Command
High Wycombe Abbey
Brigadier General Frederick Anderson, Jr., Commanding
1400
Fred Anderson was anxiously awaiting the first reports on the Stuttgart mission.
It was Hap Arnold’s last full day in England before flying back to Washington, and Anderson’s direct superior, Ira Eaker, was eager to deliver good news about the strike to General Arnold before his departure.
Across southern England, intelligence officers in each of the sixteen bomb groups were conducting postmission interrogations of the bomber crews. After each Fortress landed, the crews were sent straight from their hardstands to the briefing huts.
The intelligence officers were responsible for compiling an accurate account of each group’s performance, including how many tons of bombs were dropped on the intended targets, how many enemy fighters had been engaged and possibly destroyed, how intense the enemy flak had been along their flight path, and how many Fortresses and crews were lost or missing.
Fresh recollections were critical to gleaning the truth. Among other things, crew members often witnessed the last moments of other B-17s, which helped the intelligence branch determine where they had gone down, and if any parachutes had been seen.
Once the debriefings were completed, the information would be collated into a preliminary group summary, a “Flash Report,” and sent by Teletype to Eighth Air Force Bomber Command at High Wycombe, where it would be incorporated into a preliminary report being compiled for the entire attacking force.
Under the meticulously planned operational orders, all the bomb groups had been projected to return to their bases by 1330. Flash Reports were to be forwarded to High Wycombe by midafternoon.
For this mission, the information-gathering process was taking longer than expected, because scores of fuel-starved bombers had landed at other airfields after reaching England. They had to be refueled before the flight crews could return to their own installations and be debriefed.
This pushed back the timetable for General Anderson to complete his comprehensive report. He wouldn’t be able to provide General Eaker with a mission summary until late that afternoon or evening.
Entrépagny, France
384th Bomb Group
Yankee Raider
1400
A truckload of German troops arrived at the crash site of Yankee Raider within fifteen minutes of it slamming into the ground. The sugar beet field where it crashed was very close to a small French airfield now occupied by the Luftwaffe.
Accompanying the first German soldiers to the site was Robert Artaud, a fifteen-year-old French youth who was employed at the local hospital and drove its ancient ambulance. Along with many other villagers, he had seen the bomber circling overhead while under attack from the German fighters.
After watching it fall, he drove straight to the scene. Smoke was still billowing out of the front cabin, but the rear section of the aircraft, including the waist and tail, looked relatively undamaged.
The Germans had already found one dead crew member lying on the ground near the plane. He was wearing a parachute, but its rip cord had not been pulled. The man wore a wedding ring and his dog tags identified him as James H. Redwing. There was a bullet wound in his chest.
One of the soldiers climbed onto the wing and opened the storage bay in the fuselage where its life rafts were stored. He quickly retrieved the cartons of American cigarettes from their waterproof containers, while other soldiers looked through the cockpit windows for the pilot who had crash-landed the B-17.
Robert Artaud approached the right side of the aircraft with great trepidation, wondering if it might still explode. Through the open hatch, he saw a man in a leather flying suit lying inside.
When the aviator suddenly moved, Robert shouted to one of the soldiers. Together, they brought the man out and laid him on the ground. His head and face were terribly mutilated, and he had obviously lost a great deal of blood, but he was still alive.
The officer in charge of the party ordered two of the soldiers to escort the wounded American to the local hospital. Robert ran to the ambulance and brought back a stretcher. He assumed the man had to be the pilot since they had found no one else inside. The plane couldn’t have landed itself.
The two Germans carried the American to the ambulance. As Robert was leaving the crash site, the rest of the soldiers were already stripping the aircraft of its machine guns and other valuable equipment.
The boy hoped that the brave American pilot wouldn’t die.
London, England
Claridge’s Hotel
General Hen
ry H. Arnold
1630
Hap Arnold was worn out.
Since arriving in England, he had maintained an arduous schedule of fifteen-hour workdays, during which he met with dozens of the Allied commanders, visited training and maintenance facilities, and inspected many of the bomber and fighter groups.
Earlier that day, Arnold had flown up to Burtonwood, where nearly ten thousand American mechanics and support personnel repaired and maintained the aircraft engines so vital to the fighter and bomber arms.
Afterward, he enjoyed a working lunch at the Savoy Hotel in London, where he was briefed by British commanders on the aerial battle against German U-boats in the North Atlantic as well as the latest intelligence on the Russian front.
He spent the remainder of the afternoon in a leisurely shopping excursion with Ira Eaker, who escorted him to several exclusive shops where he could find special gifts for his family and close friends.
By the time the two generals returned to Claridge’s, it was 1630. General Arnold went up to his suite to rest before dinner. A nervous General Eaker still waited for word from Fred Anderson on the results of the Stuttgart mission. The inordinate delay seemed ominous.
For General Arnold’s last night in England, Eaker had planned a sumptuous supper party at Claridge’s. In attendance would be thirty-six senior Allied army commanders and diplomats in the European theater, including Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal; Marshal of the RAF: the Viscount Hugh Trenchard; Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris; Lord Louis Mountbatten; Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory; Roosevelt’s emissary W. Averell Harriman; the American ambassador, John G. Winant; the diplomat Anthony Drexel Biddle, Jr.; and Lieutenant General Jacob Devers, the overall commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe.
General Eaker had made sure his staff pulled out all the stops to make the evening memorable. His dog robbers had done an extraordinary job acquiring the aged beef, fresh seafood, fruit and vegetables that would make it a memorable occasion.
In addition to a substantial array of fine wines, Kentucky bourbon, and other spirits, each guest would celebrate General Arnold’s visit with after-dinner toasts and Eaker’s favorite hand-rolled cigars.
Entrèpagny, France
Sergeant Olen “Reb” Grant
1700
He regained consciousness in what appeared to be a cellar, with low whitewashed stone walls. It was very cold. He realized he was naked and wondered what had happened to his blue heat suit and warm leather flight jacket.
He was lying on a white metal table, and there were people standing around him. They were talking to one another in loud voices, but he didn’t understand what they were saying. He faded out again.
Champigny, France
Second Lieutenant Demetrios Karnezis
1500
The Greek had hobbled through dense forest for more than an hour, his coccyx in continuous pain as he meandered slowly westward. When he came to the far edge of the forest, he paused to observe the landscape ahead of him.
It was open farmland. The crop had already been harvested. There was a single farmhouse in the distance, maybe five hundred yards away. Its roof was shining in the late afternoon sun. Next to the house was a barn and several other outbuildings, all connected by low stone walls.
He waited in the silence of the trees and watched, but no one went in or out. He saw no farm animals or vehicles. There was no activity of any sort, which finally gave him the confidence to approach the house.
It was very quiet in the packed-earth courtyard behind the stone walls. No faces appeared in the windows. He slowly walked to the nearest door. Without knocking, he turned the handle and pushed it open.
He was looking into a stone-floored kitchen. A woman of about forty was standing by the sink under the window. A girl, maybe seventeen, was sitting at the kitchen table. Apparently, they had just finished a meal. There was bread and a bowl of fruit on the table.
They both stared at him, seemingly awestruck. Finally, the woman motioned him to come inside. As soon as he closed the door, both of them began speaking to him in French. He couldn’t understand what they were saying.
The girl offered him the bowl of fruit and he took a piece and ate it. The woman poured him a glass of red wine. He shook his head and pointed at the sink. Then he saw there was no running water.
He haltingly tried to explain that he was an American pilot, but they already seemed to have figured that out. Seeing him hobble across the stone floor, the woman realized he had injured his back and found cushions for one of the kitchen chairs. After he sat down, she brought over a hand mirror.
When he looked at himself, the Greek was forced to laugh out loud. Most of his face was flash-burned and looked like it was covered with charcoal. When he rubbed his upper lip, his carefully nurtured Errol Flynn mustache fell away in flakes of black dust.
He began to wonder if she would turn him over to the Germans as soon as she had the chance. Then the woman removed a jar of ointment from one of the kitchen cupboards and began applying it to his burned hands. There was kindness and sympathy in her eyes. He decided to trust her.
A few miles away from the farmhouse, the Greek’s copilot, Jack George, was walking along a macadam country road, still dressed in his flight suit and Mae West. He was distraught at the murder of the crew’s two waist gunners by the strafing fighter, and no longer cared what happened to him. A car came up behind him, slowed down, and stopped. Two men were inside. One of them motioned him over.
Eventide
Eighth Air Force Bomber Command
High Wycombe Abbey
Brigadier General Frederick Anderson, Jr., Commanding
1830
What was he supposed to do now?
The thirty-eight-year-old Fred Anderson was career army, a graduate of West Point, and mindful of the potential missteps that could break a man’s career on the path to high command.
His immediate superior was Ira Eaker, and Anderson owed him plenty. He had been a staff colonel when Eaker asked him to join the Eighth. Anderson hadn’t even served as a group commander before being given command of an entire wing.
Now he had overall command of the Eighth’s bombers, receiving the promotion two months earlier when Arnold demanded that Eaker fire Anderson’s predecessor for failing to be aggressive enough in the bombing campaign.
Anderson had witnessed all the vitriolic cables passing back and forth between Eaker and Arnold during the period when they seemed to spend more time fighting one another than the Germans.
He had helped Ira Eaker plan the new campaign against strategic targets inside Germany. After Schweinfurt, Eaker had been reluctant to continue it without long-range fighters. Anderson agreed with him. Now they had more evidence of the rightness of their position.
But Hap Arnold ran the corporation.
In about an hour, Anderson would be joining both generals at Claridge’s for the dinner in Arnold’s honor. At some point, he knew that General Arnold would ask him for the results of the Stuttgart mission. As head of bomber command, it would be his job to provide the details.
He had already sent the preliminary summary of the results to Ira Eaker at his headquarters at Bushy Park, about fifteen miles southwest of London. After reading the report, Ira would hopefully give him some guidance on what to tell Hap Arnold.
There was no way to sugarcoat this one.
Of the ninety-one operations undertaken by the Eighth Air Force since the commencement of daylight precision bombing in 1942, Stuttgart was the worst failure of the war.
Based on the interrogation reports from all sixteen groups, not one of the bombers that attacked Stuttgart had claimed to hit one of the intended targets specified in the operational orders, principally the Robert Bosch factory complex and the SKF instrument-bearing plants.
Of the 338 Fortresses that had taken off from the sixteen air bases that morning, 44 of them, nearly 15 percent of the entire force, had aborted the mission before reaching
the French coast due to reported mechanical and instrument failures. Another 32 bombers had crossed the enemy coast but failed to reach the target due to other causes, including reported bad weather or navigation error.
Of the 262 Fortresses that had reached Stuttgart, nearly 50 were still unaccounted for. Although a handful of them had landed at airfields where they were still unable to make contact, at least 45 had been confirmed as shot down or otherwise lost.
Forty-five bombers out of 262 meant a loss of more than 17 percent, the highest of any mission yet undertaken in the war, even worse than Schweinfurt.
But they had hit the target at Schweinfurt.
Eleven B-17s had been destroyed in the 388th Bomb Group alone. Its entire low squadron of six Fortresses had been wiped out. The 92nd group had lost seven bombers, the 305th and the 384th, five each.
A dozen Fortresses had been forced to ditch in the English Channel when they ran out of gas. Fourteen had landed at small RAF fighter strips along the coast, the first fields they had found after crossing the coast. Two were wrecked in crash-landings when the pilots ran out of gas in search of an airfield. Another five Fortresses had apparently attempted landings in Switzerland.