It is impossible to know if General Eaker would have ordered the Stuttgart raid if Hap Arnold had not been in England pressuring him to resume the air offensive. Some military historians doubt it.
In a June 25, 2009, article for the Air Force Research Institute at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, retired USAF Brigadier General Richard Baughn asserted that the first Schweinfurt-Regensburg raid in August 1943 was planned without Eaker’s knowledge, and that he “protested it bitterly” upon learning that it was to be undertaken. Eaker’s opposition was ostensibly based on his strongly held view that the losses going deep into Germany without fighter escort would be unsustainable. At the same time, Eaker knew that failure to comply with Arnold’s demands to resume the deep-penetration raids would lead to his removal as commander of the Eighth Air Force.
In relating the events that transpired on General Arnold’s inspection tour on September 3, 4, and 5, the author relied on his diary entries, along with his detailed account of those three days in Global Mission. The odd movie-screening incident was recounted by General Arnold in one of his diary entries.
The Warriors
Reb
The primary source for the events in this chapter can be found in the author’s taped interviews with Olen “Reb” Grant. His recollections of his relationship with Estella, the story of his early life in Arkansas, the account of his being picked up by military police on the morning of the Stuttgart mission, his experiences with the 384th Bomb Group during its training phase at Wendover, Utah, including the machine-gun incident that led to his being demoted, and his belated introduction to Jimmy Armstrong shortly before the takeoff to Stuttgart were all recounted over the course of more than fifteen hours of interviews.
Olen Grant also provided the author with a lengthy reminiscence of his experiences in the war entitled For You the War Is Over, and the author used it to fill in many of the details of the story. Also of value in describing the 384th Bomb Group’s training phase at Wendover Air Force Base was the book Heritage of Valor: The Eighth Air Force in World War II. It was written by Colonel Budd Peaslee, who commanded the group during the time that Olen Grant served in it.
The Greek
The principal sources for the incidents and anecdotes in this chapter were the author’s interviews with Demetrios “Jim” Karnezis. In these interviews, Colonel Karnezis described the morale of the pilots after the group’s heavy combat losses in the previous weeks, and vividly recalled the ways that flight officers dealt with their fears through alcohol and gallows humor, including the amusing anecdote he witnessed involving bombardier Sid Alford.
The physical descriptions of the air base at Knettishall in September 1943 were provided by Mr. Karnezis, although the author also drew valuable assistance from the photographs in the outstanding book The 388th at War, written by Edward J. Huntzinger. The preflight rituals performed by Colonel Karnezis, including his carrying of the icon of his patron saint, Demetrios, in his flight suit, also came from author interviews.
The details of the premission briefing to the 388th’s flight crews came from the operation staff’s actual briefing notes and sketches, all of which were copied from the originals at the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland.
Andy
The material in this chapter was drawn from the author’s interviews with Mr. Andrews, as well as from a detailed account he wrote about the Stuttgart mission after the war. The written account provided the author with many of the premission details, including the 306th’s briefing and Mr. Andrews’s concern about the lack of Tokyo tanks in his Fortress for what would be the longest mission up to that point in the war.
Mr. Andrews’s accounts of his earlier missions, including the July 4 raid on Nantes, France, that precipitated his nightmares, as well as the recollections of his boyhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, were drawn from interviews.
Mr. Andrews also gave the author a copy of an oral history that he taped in 1990, describing all the aircraft he flew throughout the war, including their respective flying characteristics. The oral history supplied valuable details that were incorporated into the segment dealing with his flight training, as well as his months as a flight instructor before joining the Eighth Air Force.
The interviews also provided the author with the story of Mr. Andrews’s romantic relationship, the naming of his Fortress Est Nulla Via Invia Virtuti, and the peace of mind he derived from reading the “Choric Song” from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s melancholy poem The Lotos-Eaters.
Bob
For the opening section of this chapter, in which Brigadier General Robert F. Travis was introduced to the flight crews of the 303rd Bomb Group at the predawn briefing for the Stuttgart mission, the source was Wilbur “Bud” Klint, who flew the mission that day as the copilot of Old Squaw.
Bud Klint was also the source for the statement made by Lieutenant Colonel Kermit Stevens, the 303rd’s commander, prior to the Schweinfurt mission on August 17, in which Stevens told his pilots that if they dove their planes with full bomb loads into the center of the Schweinfurt target area, he would consider the mission a success. This briefing scene was also re-created in Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer: B-17s Over Germany, an outstanding book about the 303rd Bomb Group written by Brian D. O’Neill.
Over the course of numerous interviews with the author, Bud Klint displayed vivid memories of General Travis at the briefing, including the physical impression he made that morning, the way he presented himself in his brief talk, and the substance of his remarks.
In describing the personality of General Robert Travis, the author relied on a number of different sources, including Don Stoulil and William Eisenhart, themselves veteran pilots of the 303rd Bomb Group, who flew with the general over the course of their combat tours. In addition, the author was able to find useful insights into his personality in the general’s personal correspondence, which is archived in the Robert Jesse Travis Collection at the Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, along with many other family letters that shed light on his life before the war.
The general’s burning desire to succeed in the army is revealed in the letters he wrote to his father, retired Major General R. J. Travis, both during and after World War II, in some of which he did not hesitate to disparage the lackluster performance of his peers when he felt he deserved promotion ahead of them.
That General Travis was a stickler for regulations is revealed in his letters to his father. The source for the anecdote in which the general walked the flight line with a tape measure looking for men smoking within fifty feet of an aircraft was found in an account of his life on the Arlington National Cemetery Web site.
Two different sources confirmed the general’s love of poker, and his predilection to play with junior officers, both sources being officers who played poker with the general on several occasions at Gowen Field in Boise, Idaho, before leaving to join the Eighth Air Force. One was Andy Andrews, who recalled the general taking more than five minutes to call one hand in their game, which irritated the other players, all of whom were lieutenants, and none of whom said anything as they waited. Creighton Carlin, the navigator in Jimmy Armstrong’s crew, also recalled playing poker with the general, and claimed in an interview that he won $2,000 from him in a single game.
The details about General Travis’s extraordinary father, Major General Robert Jesse Travis, were found in the Travis collection at Emory University. The younger general’s admiration for his father is evident in all his letters to him. The letters between father and son also reveal that the younger Travis hesitated to call on his father for help when dealing with issues that impacted his future in the army. The letters reflect the elder Travis’s great pride in his son’s accomplishments.
General Travis’s caustic observations about fellow Brigadiers Kissner and Thatcher, among others, can be found in a letter to his father. The letter to Pop Arnold is part of the file related to Ira Eaker’s offi
cial reprimand of Travis, and it is in the Carl A. Spaatz papers at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The source for the description of Major Lewis Lyle, who flew with General Travis on the Stuttgart mission, was Brian D. O’Neill’s Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer: B-17s Over Germany.
Ted
The principal source of information for this chapter was Braxton Wilken Robinson, the widow of Ted Wilken. Ted wrote v-mail letters to her almost every day after his crew arrived in England. Within censorship guidelines, he would update her on his personal activities, as well as those of the men whom he had trained with and whom Braxton knew well.
The information about Ted Wilken’s life before the war was culled from a number of sources, including family scrapbooks that were provided to the author, along with letters and newspaper articles about his early achievements. The author was also given copies of award citations and other documents that underscore his extraordinary athletic achievements at Choate School.
The story of how Ted met Braxton, as well as the narrative describing their falling in love, was provided to the author by Braxton Wilken Robinson in a series of interviews at her home in Oregon in 2009. She also described the events related to Ted’s training courses, and what it was like to be newly married and following her husband from base to base across the country. The letter in the middle of the chapter from Braxton to Ted’s mother, in which she eloquently sums up the “live for the moment” nature of wartime marriages, was provided to the author by Braxton.
The sources for the events and incidents that took place in Spokane, Washington, after Ted’s crew first came together for their final training exercises before going overseas were Braxton Wilken Robinson and Warren P. Laws, Ted’s copilot, who shared these stories with his fiancée, Elizabeth.
Jimmy
The primary source for the events that unfolded in this chapter was retired Lieutenant Colonel James E. Armstrong, who granted interviews to the author at his home in Georgia. Mr. Armstrong also provided most of the background on the men who served in his crew.
The accounts of the missions flown in Sad Sack II were drawn from the interviews with Mr. Armstrong, along with the records of the missions flown by the 384th Bomb Group, and Mr. Armstrong’s wonderful book, Escape!, which is an account of his participation in the Stuttgart mission, and his subsequent adventures trying to escape from occupied Europe and reach England.
The description of the Schweinfurt mission and its impact on the morale of his crew came from author interviews. The description of the Yankee Raider was drawn from interviews with Mr. Armstrong and Olen Grant. Its maintenance history was found on the 384th Bomb Group Web site.
The events surrounding the first meeting between Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Grant, when Mr. Grant arrived to join the crew in a military police vehicle, and their subsequent activities as they prepared to take off for Stuttgart were drawn from author interviews with both men, as well as the unpublished written account of the mission by Mr. Grant.
The Mission
Juggernaut
The incident in which two members of Andy Andrews’s crew were involved in a vehicular accident prior to takeoff, necessitating their last-minute replacement, was drawn from an interview with Mr. Andrews, and was supplemented with his written account of the premission events at Thurleigh.
In describing the vast and complex two-hour assemblage of the 338-plane air armada on the morning of September 6, the author relied on official records, including the Frag orders for each group and the postmission group reports that documented what actually occurred.
The description of the combat box formation, including its origins and development under the leadership of General Curtis LeMay, was drawn from Wilbur H. Morrison’s The Incredible 305th: The “Can Do” Bombers of World War II, and Martin Bowman’s USAAF Handbook 1939-1945.
To demonstrate how the sixteen bomb groups that flew the mission were each choreographed into their positions within the bomber train, the author utilized the Frag order to the 388th group.
The sections of this chapter that revealed the relationship between Ted Wilken and Warren Laws, as well as the details of Mr. Laws’s personal background, were drawn from Mr. Laws’s written account of the mission and author interviews with Mr. Laws’s widow, Elizabeth Laws, and Mr. Laws’s son, Warren P. Laws, Jr.
The order of takeoff, takeoff times, and order of formation in the 388th Bomb Group was taken directly from the takeoff plan and formation sketch found in the 388th’s mission report. The events that transpired aboard the Patricia as it formed up with the rest of the 388th over southern England were recorded in Mr. Laws’s written account of the mission.
The actual times that the groups finally came together in the sky over England, culminating in the final formation of the bomber train before heading for the enemy coast, were taken from the postmission group reports.
The exodus of aborting aircraft from the Fourth and First Bombardment Wings as the bomber train neared France was observed by Mr. Andrews, Mr. Karnezis, and Mr. Armstrong. The specific numbers of Fortresses that were forced to abort the mission from each group, as well as the individual aircraft, were found in the postmission group reports, along with the stated reasons for their departure.
According to the Eighth Bomber Command’s final narrative of the operation, forty-four Fortresses aborted the mission prior to reaching the French coast. Another thirty-two turned back prior to reaching Germany due to bad weather, mechanical problems, or navigation error. They represented 22 percent of the original attacking force.
The Golden Eagle
The author relied on a number of sources in describing the events in this chapter. Most of the information about Jagdgeschwader 2 was drawn from John Weal’s fine book, Jagdgeschwader 2 “Richthofen.”
Egon Mayer’s combat record, including a list of his victories in the air, was found at Kacha’s Luftwaffe Page (www.luftwaffe.cz/index.html). Additional information about his background and personality was gleaned from the Luftwaffe Archives & Records Reference Group (www.lwag.org/forums/index.php).
Mayer’s role in conceiving the frontal attack strategy against the Flying Fortress that changed the course of the air war was documented in Robert Forsyth’s Fw 190 Sturmbocke vs B-17 Flying Fortress, as well as The Luftwaffe Over Germany: Defense of the Reich by Donald Caldwell and Richard Muller, and Donald Miller’s Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany. A copy of the circular in which General Adolf Galland, commander of all fighter forces in the Luftwaffe, embraced Mayer’s frontal attack strategy can be found in Mr. Forsyth’s book.
Egon Mayer’s fighting prowess was already legendary among the air warriors in the Luftwaffe, and he was becoming well known by reputation to the Eighth Air Force. Caldwell and Muller described one of Mayer’s sorties in The Luftwaffe Over Germany that astonished the American bomber crews who witnessed it. On July 14, the 305th Bomb Group had been returning from a bombing run near Paris when two Fw 190s appeared ahead of them. Ed Burford, one of the B-17 navigators, recalled what happened next in an interview with Mr. Caldwell. “Whoever it was gave a riveting display of aerobatics in front of our entire 102nd Combat Wing before slashing in to fatally damage the leading ship of the 422nd Squadron in the low slot.... I had never seen such a tremendous volume of tracer go after that one plane with a wingman in tow. Downright discouraging to hit nothing but air.”
The Fw 190 pilot was Egon Mayer.
The deployment strategy by the Luftwaffe of the fighter staffeln in France and Germany in September 1943, as well as the Luftwaffe’s tactics in attempting to destroy the B-17 bomber trains, is covered in depth in Caldwell and Muller’s The Luftwaffe Over Germany. The author also found useful information in Cajus Bekker’s The Luftwaffe War Diaries.
In describing the deployment of the staffeln of Jagdgeschwader 2 to meet the threat of the diversionary raids mounted by the Eighth Air Force along the Dutch coast and at Rouen northwest o
f Paris, among other sorties, the author relied on the German air force defensive activity report for September 6, 1943, which chronologically detailed all fighter movement in France on the morning of September 6, and the “Y” Service Report, which was a compilation of all enemy radio transmissions, including the German fighter staffeln, monitored minute by minute by tracking stations in southern England.
Into the Valley
The report of the early loss of two Fortresses to flak shortly after the combat box formation that included the 306th, the 92nd, and the 305th groups crossed into French airspace was found by the author in the postmission group reports, as well as a crew interrogation report.
The surprisingly few, desultory attacks by enemy fighters while the Stuttgart bomber stream was crossing France were noted in the crew interrogation reports from most of the groups. All the developments within individual B-17s came from interviews with the pilots mentioned or crew interrogation reports.
In depicting the first attacks by the scores of enemy fighters that broke through the cloud cover as the combat wings were approaching southern Germany, the author relied on the descriptions contributed by Mr. Karnezis, Mr. Andrews, Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Laws, and Major Ralph Jarrendt in his crew interrogation report.
The author’s account detailing the level and intensity of the Luftwaffe attacks on the American bomber train was drawn from the crew interrogation reports, the postmission group reports, the Luftwaffe Archives, the Eighth Air Force’s narrative of the mission, and the confidential report sent by Ira Eaker to Hap Arnold on September 10, 1943.
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