To Kingdom Come

by Robert J. Mrazek

  The account of Mr. Andrews’s actions after one of his bomber’s engines was shot out in the first wave of fighter attacks was drawn from his written narrative of the mission, as well as his interviews with the author.

  The Blind Leading the Blind

  The ferocity of the attacks by German fighters on the low squadron of the 388th was documented in the crew interrogation reports of the men who returned from the mission, and in the Missing Air Crew Reports (MACRs) of those planes that were lost. The MACRs were continually updated during the war as new information became available. Mr. Laws also wrote in detail about these attacks in his postwar account. In addition, the author found valuable information in the Escape and Evasion Reports written by the men who survived and then escaped occupied Europe after their Fortresses were shot down. The Escape and Evasion Reports were particularly useful in determining what happened aboard each lost plane in its last moments. The author also utilized this material in attempting to establish the order in which the eleven Fortresses in the 388th were lost that day.

  The section of this chapter dealing with the insurmountable challenges that faced First Lieutenant Henry Dick, the lead bombardier of the 388th Bomb Group, in trying to get a fix on the primary target over Stuttgart was evoked in detail in the lengthy postmission report that he filed on September 8, 1943. The subsequent movements of the 388th in maintaining formation with the 96th Bomb Group can also be found in Dick’s report, as well as the postmission report filed by Major R. B. Satterwhite, the group leader of the 388th.

  A Ride in the Whirlwind

  The author’s account of the events that transpired after the First Bombardment Wing arrived over Stuttgart at 0949 on the morning of September 6, 1943, were reconstructed from the postmission reports filed by the nine groups within the First Bombardment Wing. In addition to the reports filed by the group leaders, the author reviewed the reports filed by the nine lead navigators and the nine lead bombardiers.

  For the events that transpired inside Satan’s Workshop, the lead plane in which General Travis was flying, the author relied on the postmission reports filed by Major Lyle, the group leader, First Lieutenant Norman Jacobsen, the lead navigator, and First Lieutenant Jack Fawcett, the lead bombardier. The report filed by Lieutenant Fawcett was particularly valuable. He wrote at length about what occurred aboard the plane while he tried to acquire the primary target with his bombsight.

  To the author’s knowledge, General Travis never explained his decision to circle over Stuttgart three times before the bomb load in Satan’s Workshop was accidentally toggled by Lieutenant Fawcett, thus signaling the other bombardiers to release their own payloads. The author drew his conclusions on the decision based on the general’s actions and decisions on the missions he led after Stuttgart, and the testimony of other pilots he flew with, including Don Stoulil and Bill Eisenhart, both of whom were interviewed by the author. The appendix in this book provides some insight into the general’s determination to complete a mission as it was ordered.

  The impact of the general’s decision was felt by most of the pilots and crewmen the author interviewed, including Bud Klint, Jimmy Armstrong, and Andy Andrews, all of whom vividly remembered the challenge of attempting to stay in a tight formation as they flew three times over the flak batteries surrounding Stuttgart. For those on the outer rim of the formation, it was particularly difficult. Mr. Armstrong likened it to the child’s game of crack the whip, but it had deadly consequences. After draining gas at an accelerated rate, many of those Fortresses without Tokyo tanks could not make it back to England. In addition, the tight combat boxes soon lost their integrity, and the ragged formations that headed homeward were easier targets for the German fighters.

  Another description of the confused maelstrom of Fortresses over Stuttgart can be found in Brian D. O’Neill’s Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer: B-17s Over Germany, a book in which he closely tracked the combat careers of many of the flight crews in the 303rd Bomb Group as they attempted against the odds to complete their combat tours in 1943 and 1944.

  The paragraphs in To Kingdom Come that describe the increasing frustration and anger of pilot David Shelhamer, eventually leading him to order the salvoing of his plane’s bomb load through the clouds, was drawn from Mr. Shelhamer’s account to Brian O’Neill.

  The accidental release of the bomb load in Satan’s Workshop was described by the chagrined Lieutenant Fawcett in his postmission report, along with his honest admission that he had no idea where the bombs had landed.

  The experiences of Andy Andrews, Jimmy Armstrong, Olen Grant, and Bud Klint as they continued to circle the target were drawn from the author’s interviews with them, along with Mr. Armstrong’s book, Escape!

  And the Sky Rained Heroes

  The description of the events leading up to the Fourth Bomb Wing’s attack of its secondary target at Strasburg, including the specific movements of the 388th and 96th Bomb Groups, were drawn from the postmission reports of lead bombardiers Henry Dick and Thomas Hines.

  Mr. Karnezis described the resumption of German fighter attacks on the 388th Bomb Group, and the loss of his friend Earl Melville’s plane, Shedonwanna?, in an author interview. The details of what happened aboard Shedonwanna? in its last moments were drawn from surviving crew members’ accounts in the plane’s Missing Air Crew Report. MACRs also provided valuable information in helping the author describe the destruction of Impatient Virgin and Shack Up. Additional details were supplied by Major Jarrendt’s crew, among others, in their crew interrogation reports after returning to Knettishall.

  The events leading to the loss of three more Fortresses in the 388th’s low squadron, including Lew Miller’s unnamed bomber, Lone Wolf, and In God We Trust, were drawn from the Missing Air Crew Reports for each bomber, the Escape and Evasion Reports filed later in the war by survivors of the doomed planes, the Escape and Evasion Reports submitted by Warren Laws and Joe Schwartzkopf, and the written account of the mission by Mr. Laws.

  Est Nulla Via Invia Virtuti

  The description of the actions taken by Mr. Andrews in attempting to save his plane and crew after losing an engine on their approach to Stuttgart, and then losing a second one after leaving Stuttgart, followed by the attacks of four German fighters and the subsequent landing of Est Nulla Via Invia Virtuti in Switzerland after being intercepted by a Swiss fighter plane, was drawn largely from the account of Mr. Andrews’s combat experiences that he wrote after the war. Additional details were drawn from author interviews with Mr. Andrews.

  Another source of information about these events from the Swiss perspective, including information about the Swiss pilot who intercepted Mr. Andrews’s bomber, as well as the actions of Allen Dulles, the head of the American spy network in Europe, can be found in an account by the American Swiss Foundation at the Web site www.americanswiss.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=78.

  Theirs Not to Reason Why

  The descriptions of the incidents that occurred in the final minutes before Slightly Dangerous II crashed into the French countryside, including the ultimately successful attacks by German fighters, the scene of copilot Jack George firing his .45-caliber pistol at one of the Fw 190s, the struggle in the cockpit after the steering cables were shot out, and Mr. Karnezis’s signaling the rest of the crew to bail out, were based on interviews with Mr. Karnezis at his home in California, along with the Escape and Evasion Reports filed by Mr. Karnezis and Mr. George after they reached freedom.

  The subsequent account of Mr. Karnezis’s exiting the plane with the slashed parachute, his injuries after hitting the ground, his escape from the German search party, and his rumination on the famous line from “The Charge of the Light Brigade” while he struggled to escape across the forest was drawn from author interviews.

  To the Last Beat of the Heart

  The source for confirming Egon Mayer’s first aerial victory of the day, the destruction of a Flying Fortress ten miles northeast of Troyes, France,
was Kacha’s Luftwaffe Page.

  The final moments aboard Ted Wilken’s plane before it went down, including the description of the frontal attacks that set the nose on fire while killing the bombardier, navigator, and top turret gunner, and wounding Ted Wilken, Warren Laws, and John Eicholtz, were drawn from Mr. Laws’s written account of the Stuttgart mission. The author also relied on the Escape and Evasion Reports of Mr. Laws and Mr. Schwartzkopf, both of which provide descriptions of the plane’s last minutes, culminating in their bailing out of the stricken bomber.

  The account of Ted Wilken’s death following his attempt to keep the plane in the air until the rest of his crew was clear was provided by Olivier Mauchamp, a young French farmworker at the time of the crash. Mr. Mauchamp’s full statement, which includes the description of how Lieutenant Wilken’s parachute was snagged by the spinning bomber as it plunged to earth, can be found at the 388th Bomb Group Database.

  The author is firmly convinced that Patricia was shot down by Egon “Connie” Mayer, who claimed a victory over a Flying Fortress at 12:17 p.m. on September 6, approximating the location it crashed as “six kilometers west of Troyes.” The crash site of Patricia was seven kilometers from the western edge of Troyes. Radio operator Joe Schwartzkopf reported that Patricia was shot down at twenty minutes past the hour, only a three-minute discrepancy. Warren Laws reported that he landed in his parachute at thirty minutes past the hour. No other Fortresses went down that day in proximity to Patricia.

  The events that occurred after Warren Laws and Joe Schwartzkopf safely parachuted out of the stricken Patricia were drawn from the Escape and Evasion Reports filed by the two men, as well as the written account of the mission and its aftermath by Warren Laws.

  Hard Landings

  In relating the events leading up to the ditching of Old Squaw in the English Channel, copilot Bud Klint provided the author with an account of the mission in his interviews. Another account of these events from the perspective of the entire crew can be found in Brian D. O’Neill’s Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer: B-17s Over Germany.

  The description of the return of General Robert Travis in Satan’s Workshop to the 303rd Bomb Group’s air base at Molesworth accompanied by four other aircraft was drawn from the postmission reports filed by Major Lewis Lyle, and squadron leaders Captain George Stallings and First Lieutenant Donald Gamble. The quoted statements made by General Travis and Major Lyle after the mission can be found on the Web site of the 303rd Bomb Group (303rd BG [H] Combat Mission No. 67).

  The Last One Left

  Yankee Raider may well have been the last Fortress in the original bomber train of 338 planes still heading for England at the time it was shot down. It was certainly one of the last stragglers still airborne.

  In describing Yankee Raider’s last minutes in the air, the author drew on his interviews with crew members James Armstrong, Olen Grant, Clifford Hammock, and Wilbert Yee. In particular, Mr. Grant had indelible recollections of Yankee Raider heading toward earth with him being the last man still aboard.

  In the course of writing his own book, Escape!, Mr. Armstrong recorded his own interviews with many of the surviving crew members, including Olen Grant, Eldore Daudelin, Creighton Carlin, Walter House, and Wilbert Yee, garnering their own impressions of the mission. These were also helpful to the author in reconstructing the minute-by-minute narrative.

  Slipstreams

  Remains of the Day

  The opening scene of this chapter, in which Colonel Budd Peaslee, the 384th’s ’s group commander, witnessed the return of his group from the mission, including his shock at realizing that only two out of the eighteen bombers that had been dispatched that morning were returning to the base, is drawn from Colonel Peaslee’s narrative of this event in his book, Heritage of Valor: The Eighth Air Force in World War II.

  The growing anxiety of General Frederick Anderson, head of Eighth Air Force Bomber Command, as he waited for the first Flash Reports to arrive during the afternoon of September 6 is documented in General Anderson’s confidential diary for that day, which is in his collected papers at the Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, California (Box 2, Folder 8).

  The account of Robert Artaud, the young French ambulance driver who rescued Mr. Grant from his crashed bomber and drove him to the local hospital, was provided to the author by Mr. Grant’s daughter, who visited Mr. Artaud in his French village long after the war to thank him for saving her father’s life.

  The description of how General Arnold spent the daylight hours of September 6 was drawn from his diary entries, which detailed his activities from early that morning until his return from the shopping expedition with General Eaker in the late afternoon.

  The formal dinner at Claridge’s Hotel in General Arnold’s honor on the evening of September 6 required substantial planning. There were more than sixty invited guests, including every senior British and American war leader in England at that time. A complete file folder on preparations for the dinner, including copies of the invitations, acceptances, declinations, the menu, the seating arrangements around the fifty-foot-long table, and follow-up correspondence from the guests after the dinner, is archived in the Eaker papers at the Library of Congress.

  In describing the events leading to Mr. Karnezis’s decision to seek help at the farm of Marcelle Andre, and her subsequent tending of his injuries along with her daughter, Marie Therese, the author relied on his interviews with Mr. Karnezis.

  Eventide

  The reference to General Anderson’s ascension to Eighth Air Force Bomber Command was drawn from James Parton’s Air Force Spoken Here. The accounting of the disastrous Stuttgart mission results, including the stark fact that not one of the 262 bombers that reached Stuttgart hit one of the principal targets while sustaining a loss of 45 Fortresses, was compiled at Eighth Air Force Bomber Command headquarters in High Wycombe from the Flash Reports submitted by each group after the collation of the individual crew interrogation reports. A preliminary narrative of the complete operation was provided to General Eaker on the evening of September 6.

  The account of Mr. Armstrong’s first night as an escapee in France was provided to the author in an interview. It was supplemented by additional details included by Mr. Armstrong in his own book, Escape!

  There were numerous sources for the author’s recounting of the dinner held in General Arnold’s honor at Claridge’s Hotel on the night of September 6. General Arnold’s diary provided many details, and he also wrote about the evening expansively in his book, Global Mission. Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory recorded his own observations in a letter to General Eaker after the dinner, including his admiration of General Arnold’s personality and the high quality of General Eaker’s cigars, among other details. This letter is archived in the Eaker papers, along with the correspondence received from other guests. The seating details were extracted from a commemorative folio that was signed by every guest at the dinner. Their signatures appear next to their places at the table.

  General Anderson’s trepidation at what he would tell Arnold if asked about the success of the Stuttgart mission is fully documented in his confidential diary entries for September 6, which were drafted by his closest aide. Excerpts include, “Today’s mission was hell.... The bombs were scattered all over hell’s half acre.... The target was not destroyed and probably the only gains we could claim are some destruction of unimportant buildings in cities and towns.... The general was placed in a particularly tough spot in attending this dinner party tonight. It wasn’t easy for him to have to face the questioning of General Arnold . . . on a day when he had just lost 46 bombers and crews without any tangible gains. The general feels badly enough without having to make an accounting at the moment to any higher-ups.”

  According to General Arnold in his book, Global Mission, General Anderson informed him at the Claridge’s dinner that “the bombing results on Stuttgart ‘had been excellent.’ ” This would explain Arnold’s anger when h
e learned differently a few days later, resulting in his branding the mission “a complete failure” after receiving Eaker’s subsequent report.

  As of September 8, General Anderson still hadn’t recovered from the subterfuge of two days earlier. In the general’s daily diary, his aide recorded, “General Anderson seemed pretty much whipped today, the strain of the past few days seeming to catch up with him.”

  The Day After

  The meeting between Andy Andrews and Allen Dulles was recounted by Mr. Andrews to the author. It is also detailed in his written narrative of the Stuttgart mission. Another version of their first meeting appears in an account written by the American Swiss Foundation.

  The first series of misadventures of Jimmy Armstrong, from the morning he woke up on September 7 in a French briar patch to his arrival in Paris on September 20, were told to the author by Mr. Armstrong. After the war, he fulfilled his promise to return to France to thank the people who had protected him from arrest by the Gestapo, and the accounts of those who survived the war are included in his book, Escape!

  The Back of the Tiger

  The September 10 confidential memorandum sent by General Eaker to General Arnold in response to Arnold’s insistence on a personal report from Eaker on the Stuttgart mission, entitled Further information on Stuttgart mission as requested your A3517 September 9th, is archived in the Eaker papers at the Library of Congress.