Back in the States, Ferguson went to work for his father’s Chevrolet dealership in Windsor, Missouri. In the summer of 1945, he met Alice Ebing, the widow of Navy pilot Eugene Webb. Ferguson and Webb had been good friends in high school. Webb had died while attempting to land his torpedo plane on the deck of an escort carrier, leaving a wife, a four-year-old daughter and a baby son he had never seen. In January 1946, Ferguson married Ebing and adopted the two children, Carol and Dennis. Dennis graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1966 and served in Vietnam. Two more offspring were born to the Fergusons: a daughter Janice and a son Jerry, as well as two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Ferguson’s father retired in 1965, relinquishing control of the auto dealership to his son. Jack headed the company until he too retired in 1988. During their retirement years, Jack and Alice lived on the shore of a beautiful Missouri lake. William “Jack” Ferguson died in 2007.
Samuel Wheeler was sent home to the U.S. soon after his brief reunion with Lyle Pearson at Camp Lucky Strike. Wheeler liked flying, especially when no one was trying to shoot him down, and he decided to reenlist. He spent twenty years as an Air Force officer. A proud highlight of his military service was his participation in the postwar Berlin Airlift. Sam Wheeler is deceased.
Grant Dory also reenlisted and served in the Air Force for twenty years. During his military career, Dory married and the couple had a daughter. After the Air Force years, the Dorys retired to Arizona. Grant Dory died in the late 1990s.
Farrell Haney, Mitchell Vuyanovich, Charles Williams and Robert Halstein: All four of these American patriots died in the explosion and crash of their bomber. Local civilians buried the bodies of Haney, Vuyanovich, and Williams in a church cemetery on January 3, 1945. Later that year, the bodies of these three airmen were transferred to the American Military Cemetery in Mirandola, Italy, for burial. (It is possible one or more of these bodies may have eventually been returned for burial in the United States.)
For days after the B-17 crash, German soldiers searched the Austrian mountain area trying to locate the bomber’s young radioman, or at the very least, his body. Civilians living near the crash site would continue looking for years after the war. The body was never found—only a pair of dog tags bearing the name: Sergeant Robert J. Halstein.
Today a monument near the town of Brixen stands as a reminder of the terrible cost of war, dedicated by the citizens of Brixen in the summer of 1998. Inscribed on it are the names of the four young Americans who died on Rutzenberg Mountain on December 29, 1944.
Crew Reunion: The six airmen who survived the crash of their Fortress managed to maintain contact with each other after the war via telephone and occasionally in person. In 1990, Art Frechette, Lyle Pearson and Jack Ferguson were reunited at a 301st Bomb Group reunion. Charlie Lyon and Pearson returned to Brixen together in 1998, taking part in the monument dedication ceremonies. Pearson also visited Grant Dory at Dory’s home in Arizona.
The Belly Gunner and Big Ben
GEORGE AHERN
Ball Turret Gunner
351ST BOMB GROUP
509TH BOMB SQUADRON
The gunners who manned the Flying Fortresses always seemed different from any of the other fighting men of World War II. They fought differently. While the B-17 was one of the most effective offensive weapons of the war, the bomber gunner’s role was a defensive one—fighting to protect the “Fort.”
B-17 gunners even looked different. Dressed in their layers of combat gear consisting of electric suits, flak jackets, parachutes, oxygen masks, goggles and flak helmets, the bomber gunners looked more like invaders from outer space than American soldiers. Their lifestyle was certainly different from that of the infantryman or the sailor. During the day, an Eighth Air Force gunner could be flying through the hellish gauntlet of German antiaircraft fire and fighting off attacks by Luftwaffe wolf packs. In the evening, that same airman could be sharing a draft ale with a young English lovely in a cozy pub.
Like the foot soldier and the sailor, the bomber gunner just wanted to do his duty and survive, but unlike the others, the airman knew exactly how many battles he must fight in order to go home. At least he thought he knew. Twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five combat missions—the numbers kept changing. It was a very large carrot at the end of an increasingly long stick. Thousands would never reach that lucky number, and few ever expected they would. How could they not be different?
If the gunners were different, then one of their subsets was unique. Perhaps no other military specialist of the war emerged with the mystique that surrounded the ball turret gunner. Sometimes even his fellow crew gunners did not understand him, and they knew even less about the strange weapon he operated. If called upon in an emergency, a ball turret gunner could replace a waist gunner, tail gunner or top turret gunner. It was rare that anyone else on board a B-17 could replace the ball turret gunner, nor did they want to.
The ball turret, tucked beneath the belly of the aircraft, was a complicated and forbidding place. The gunner who manned the ball turret was required to have a unique combination of skills and attributes. First, he had to be somewhat small, usually the smallest man on the crew. Naturally, even the slightest tendency toward claustrophobia would disqualify someone from being a ball turret gunner. Another advantage could be youth.
Of course, most B-17 crewmen were young. Many airmen had just turned twenty by the time they flew their first missions. Even some officers, such as navigators and bombardiers, could be as young as nineteen. The pilot/commanding officer was usually the oldest member of the crew. The average age of pilots might have been twenty-four or twenty-five, but twenty-one-year-old pilots were not unheard-of. However, being a mere teenager could give a ball turret gunner a definite edge.
Endurance and flexibility became important qualities when a gunner was required to remain curled up in the ball turret during long missions deep into Germany. Sometimes he would be in the turret almost nonstop for seven to eight hours. During the last hour of a flight over enemy territory, a belly gunner’s senses and reaction time had to be as sharp as during the first hour. It also helped if he could control his urinary urges. Ball turret gunners as young as eighteen seemed especially able to meet such demands.
Sergeant George Ahern was still only eighteen years old and stood only five feet, five inches when he earned his gunner’s wings and was assigned as the ball turret gunner of Lieutenant Marvin Walker’s B-17 crew. Walker quickly demonstrated to his new crew an authoritative command style. Sergeant Philip Duke, a waist gunner, showed up for the first crew meeting without bothering to shave. Walker gave him hell for it. George suppressed a smile. For the first time in his life, he was glad he was too young to need a razor.
Walker’s airmen became quick friends. Young George was especially popular, but he was the closest with Duke and the other waist gunner, Sergeant Charles “Buddy” Armstrong. Twenty-three-year-old Duke was from the small town of Wellsville, New York, and had married the girl next door only weeks before. Armstrong, from Blytheville, Arkansas, was a kid with a solid build.
By the first week of June 1944, when the Walker crew took off from Newfoundland, Canada, bound for England, nobody on board had any doubt about their pilot’s flying ability. However, there was some concern about his all-business approach to command. That concern was about to turn to appreciation.
As Walker’s B-17 approached the coast of England, its fuel tanks were nearly empty. Thankfully, navigator Lieutenant Donald Knuepple’s plotting was perfect. Walker could see the airfield in the distance. He could also see several other bombers in the area, and when he radioed the tower for permission to land, he was told: “You’ll have to hold.” Walker tried to explain that he was flying on fumes and could not afford to hold. The airfield controller was unmoved.
“Hold on. . . . I’ve got four other planes ahead of you,” he replied.
Walker had heard enough. “Well, get them out of the way. I’m coming in!” With that, W
alker switched off his radio and brought the Fortress in for a safe landing. From that day on, Lieutenant Marvin Walker had the unwavering respect and confidence of his crew.
Soon after turning nineteen, George was flying his first combat mission with the 351st Bomb Group and the 509th Bomb Squadron out of Polebrook, an air base north of London. The rookie crew’s first mission, on July 6, was to hit German V-1 rocket launch sites in France. There was some flak but no enemy fighters to test George’s skills.
The following day came the first of many bombing missions into Germany. Now the new ball turret gunner’s specialized training came into play. George was shocked at the speed of the German Me-109s. The attacking fighters were within gun range, and seconds later they were gone. On the other hand, George found the smooth operation of the ball turret and its twin .50 caliber machine guns a thing of beauty.
The electric turret could swivel its guns 360 degrees horizontally, or point toward the tail or the front of the aircraft or straight down in a few heartbeats. A good ball turret gunner could cover the entire expansive defensive zone beneath a B-17. To do this required an amazing feat of hand, eye, and foot coordination on the part of the gunner.
Curled in the turret with the gunsight and trigger handles between his knees, the gunner tracked the incoming flights. Looking through the sight, he saw a red horizontal line and two vertical lines. The trick was to put the enemy plane on the horizontal line and then close up the two vertical lines until they reached the attacker’s wingtips. The gunner positioned the red horizontal line by using the gun handles to move the turret. At the same time, he used a foot pedal to control the vertical lines of the gunsight. If he could effectively train his crosshairs on the target, the gunsight’s mechanical computer would automatically adjust the “lead” needed to hit the rapidly moving enemy fighter. Then the ball turret gunner squeezed the trigger buttons with his thumbs and tried to stay trained on the target as long as possible. Of course, all of this had to be accomplished in a matter of two to five seconds.
The Army Air Corps’ Pilot Training Manual for the Flying Fortress described the unique nature of the gun turret operation: “The power turret gunners require many mental and physical qualities similar to what we know as inherent flying ability, since the operation of the power turret and gunsight are much like that of airplane flight operation. While the flexible gunners do not require the same delicate touch as the turret gunners, they must have a fine sense of timing and be familiar with the rudiments of exterior ballistics.”
The ball turret gunner alone faced the daunting task of trying to hit a streaking target from a fast-moving aircraft (sometimes traveling in the opposite direction), while his body was being moved independently with the guns. Despite these challenges, many of the best Luftwaffe pilots feared and respected the ball turret more than any other gun position on the B-17 bomber.
Many B-17 airmen came to believe the German fighter pilots preferred attacking a B-24 Liberator bomber when given the choice. Indeed, the B-17 was on its way to becoming one of the legendary airplanes in aviation history. Despite the heavy losses over Germany, the Flying Fortress had already gained a reputation as a tough bird to kill. Time and again, battle-damaged B-17s made it back to England when all odds said it was impossible.
They landed with gaping holes in their wings and fuselages, with huge portions of their tails ripped off, with their noses (along with bombardiers and navigators) missing. The B-17 skippers brought the bombers and crews home safely on just three and sometimes only two working engines.
Certainly there were also some miraculous returns by B-24 Liberators, but B-17 airmen were convinced of the superiority of their aircraft. If asked to compare the two airplanes, a B-17 crewman was likely to proclaim, “A B-24 is the crate a new Flying Fortress comes packed in.”
On one of his early missions, George witnessed his first fighter attack. It was not on his B-17 group but on an unfortunate group of B-24s flying low and to the front. Later at post-mission interrogation, he would describe how the Luftwaffe “went after the B-24s unmercifully.” From his perch in the ball turret, George had an unobstructed view of the lopsided air battle. One after another, the Liberators went down under the relentless guns of the fighters. George felt angry and helpless. The German planes were far out of the reach of his turret guns.
Like all the gunners aboard the bombers in his group, George readied himself for the time when the enemy fighters would turn their attention to the B-17s. It would not happen on this mission. After the German planes had destroyed or damaged many of the bombers in the B-24 group, they were gone as quickly as they had appeared. But it was not the B-17s’ reputation that had driven them away. The fighters had simply exhausted their fuel.
Throughout the war, Luftwaffe pilots proved their bravery in aggressive attacks on the heavily fortified B-17s. There was no good way to approach a bomber that boasted thirteen gun positions, especially when it was part of a tight bomber formation. Yet German pilots destroyed hundreds of the Fortresses by taking great risks and constantly revising their tactics.
The Luftwaffe used captured B-17s to train fighter pilots how to effectively attack the American bombers. Head-on attacks became a favorite early in the war. A frontal attack made the German fighter a much smaller target and protected it from most of the bomber’s guns. By attacking the B-17 head on, the fighter and the bomber were flying in opposite directions, and this meant the attack was over in seconds. There was another important benefit for the German aviators. If the fighter pilot scored a hit during a frontal assault, he could very likely kill the bombardier and/or the navigator in the nose section. Frontal attacks remained a mainstay with the Luftwaffe until the Americans introduced the twin .50 caliber chin turret.
By the summer of 1944, the Germans were more desperate than ever to stop the American bombers, and the Luftwaffe pilot corps was by then a mixture of crafty veterans and inexperienced but bold rookies. Even though long-distance fighter escorts were becoming more common, George and the other gunners on Marvin Walker’s crew were pitted against German fighters on several missions. The worst attack came on an unescorted mission, and it came not with shocking quickness but with a touch of slow intimidation.
Someone spotted Me-109s and called a warning over the interphone: “Enemy fighters! At nine o’clock!” George swiveled the ball turret to the left. A group of Messerschmitts was cruising outside the range of the American bombers’ guns. George picked one out and adjusted his gunsight’s horizonal and vertical lines on the target. He was ready, but the German flight commander was not. The 109s stayed there, just out of reach, almost as if they were escorting the American bombers to their target.
The enemy fighters were much too far away to actually see the pilots, but George knew that as he stared at them, they were staring back—young men on both sides, dreading what was about to happen but eager to get it over with.
When the first Me-109 peeled off and headed for the bombers, George quickly moved the turret gunsight to cover the lead fighter. Other fighters rolled out of their formation and came at the B-17s from various approaches. George felt a vibration from overhead. It was the left waist gunner opening fire. Keeping the gunsight on the German fighter was more difficult than George had imagined. In a few more seconds the enemy plane would sail through the bomber group. George squeezed both his thumbs down hard and felt the turret’s machine guns respond. His bullets raced through the sky, but the Messerschmitt was gone.
The speed of the German fighters amazed the belly gunner. He swung his weapons first in one direction and then in another, firing quick bursts at anything within range. The noise of the air battle was also surprising. There was the rumble of the four big Fortress engines, mixed with the sound of his machine guns and the constant rattle of the bomber’s other gun positions. On top of this was the interphone traffic: “Bandit . . . six o’clock low!” Underneath all the noise, the ball turret motor hummed reassuringly as George moved to meet any threat in the zone
below the bomber.
Small puffs of white smoke, like mini flak, popped up in the sky around his turret. George had heard some veteran airmen refer to the small explosions as popcorn: a rather innocent name for the twenty-millimeter German shells that could rip through a B-17’s thin metal shell or through the Plexiglas of a ball turret.
George shook off his apprehension about the popcorn explosions and concentrated on eliminating the source. He spotted a German fighter coming up from beneath the bombers.
“Must be a rookie pilot,” George said to himself and he rotated the turret guns toward the invader. Most experienced Luftwaffe pilots would avoid attacking a B-17 from underneath. The maneuver forced the attacking fighter to climb up to the bomber. As it climbed, the fighter’s rate of approach was slowed significantly, leaving the plane exposed to the bomber’s ball turret guns for a few extra seconds.
George used the additional time to line up his gunsight perfectly—horizontal red line across the body of the fighter, vertical lines pulled in tight on the fighter’s wingtips. The broad bottoms of the Flying Fortresses must have seemed a fat target to the young German pilot, but he never got the chance to take the killing shot.
George pressed the twin fifty triggers and saw his rounds make violent contact with the Me-109. When the bullets began to hit the fighter, the pilot reacted quickly by turning away from the bomber. The Messerschmitt’s turn proved fatal to the aircraft and perhaps to its pilot. George kept his triggers pressed down and watched the bottom of the fighter being torn apart by the turret guns.
Fire erupted from the enemy fighter, and seconds later it began its long fall to earth. George did not see a parachute, but he had little opportunity to look for one. Other Me-109s were pressing the attack and demanded his attention. Lieutenant Walker’s gunners protected their bomber well that day and then settled in for their reward—a bomb run through a flak-filled sky.
The Bomber Boys Page 20