Combat Crew

by John Comer

  September 3

  In early September our gunners began to get the foolish notion that we were a hot crew. Our slight combat experience did not justify such arrogance, but as silly as it sounds, we began to get cocky. It was like a boxer who has won his first two fights and thinks he is ready to take on the champ. So when Jim Counce found a can of red paint, Nick came up with a great idea: “Why don’t we paint the engine cowlings red? It’ll give our ship a special look.”

  The suggestion was quickly OK’d. Didn’t a hot crew need a hot airplane? Something a little different from the other crews? We borrowed a paintbrush and without checking it with the Pilot spent the afternoon changing the appearance of Aircraft 765. Standing at a distance to admire our work, we thought it looked sharp.

  September 3 — Romilly

  Aircraft 765: Nip and Tuck

  I listened to the Briefing Room noise and judged it medium tough, and decided to put aboard an extra thousand rounds of ammunition. The standard load was seven thousand rounds, and it was against regulations to add more. But we had a special friend, Vernon Chamberlain, who was the armorer for 765 (as well as a number of other aircraft). He could always get more ammunition when I wanted it, which was every time a mission sounded like it could turn out extra mean. Vernon was from a small town in Arkansas, and our relations with him were unusual, to say the least. He did extra things for us over and beyond his assigned duties.

  I listened intensely as Gleichauf spelled out the hazards for the day: “The target is Romilly, an ammunition factory, about fifty miles east of Paris. One Group of P-47s will meet us ten minutes inside the coast. Now watch your fire! Don’t let me see any of you shooting at the 47s! We need them close to us. If you fellows keep shooting at them, they are gonna stay the hell away from us. Altitude will be twenty-eight thousand, five hundred feet and the temperature will be forty-five to fifty below. Watch out for frostbite. OK, let’s go.”

  Some of the P-47 pilots had visited our base three days earlier, and we had a discussion about the difficulties in distinguishing between P-47s and German F.W. 190s. At a distance they did look alike. Sometimes the 190s painted their engine cowlings white to look more like 47s. The main distinguishing difference was a bulge of the nose of the 190s and the shape of the wings in silhouette. We told the 47 pilots they must never, never point the nose of their fighter at a Fortress unless in an obvious turn, because the Fortress gunners became extremely nervous when they saw the lethal guns of a fighter pointed directly at them.

  Purus distributed the “bailout kits” and we climbed in and closed the hatches. The kits contained a tiny compass, a rubber map of the area we would fly over on that mission, a rubber water container, and water purification tablets. There were also concentrated chocolates and benzedrine tablets to help overcome the shock of bailout and the long glide down in the chute. After each raid the kits were turned in. The thinking was that if a man did bail out and avoided capture upon landing, the kits would be helpful for the first week of flight from the area toward the nearest locations that would provide some chance to make contact with the Underground. We knew the parts of France where the population was sympathetic to underground resistance, and also the Balkans presented an opportunity to tie up with resistance forces.

  The temperature was unusually bitter and my feet were numb for hours. Most gunners wore the thin felt electrically-heated moccasins and pulled on fleece-lined flying boots over them. Then they tied their regular shoes to the parachute harness. It was a precaution in case they should have to suddenly bail out. No one wanted to land on the Continent minus shoes! That would have been a disaster, captured by the enemy or not. It was impossible for me to tie my shoes to the chute harness because there was not enough room in the turret, so I passed up the electric shoes and wore my heavy leather shoes with the flying boots on top of them. I had to suffer through many hours of agony when temperatures were extra low and often had to keep exercising my feet for extended periods to avoid freezing.

  Major Hendricks did a good job of guiding the formation around flak areas as we crossed the French coast. Soon after entering enemy territory the intercom came on.

  “Ball to Copilot — another Fort aborting! That’s three of them in the last five minutes.”

  “Dangerous this far inland, Ball.”

  Meanwhile Cahow’s crew was in trouble. This is the way Lieutenant Cahow told it: “We lost an engine at the worst possible time. We were too far into enemy territory to abort. The big worry was that we had to pull out the stops and draw full emergency power on the three engines that were left to try to stay up with the formation. All the engineering data said this kind of power could only be used for five minutes, but we had to pull that excessive power for hours. Both my copilot, Stanley Parsons, and I kept hearing all of those strange noises that straining engines make — and a lot of other noises that we imagined. We kept the bomb-bay doors up until the last minute. Even then the drag was too much but we caught up with the formation soon after bombs were away. The three remaining engines kept getting noisier and rougher. We could see the engine cowlings shaking from the strain. I didn’t know whether we would make it back to our base or not.”

  “Tail to crew — escort five o’clock high.”

  “Copilot to crew, they are stayin’ high to keep out of your range, an’ I don’t blame them.”

  “Ball to Copilot.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Can you see that Fort trailin’ us by about a thousand yards?”

  “No. Can’t see it from the cockpit.”

  “The markings look odd.”

  “Keep your eye on it. Call me if it does anything strange.”

  “Bombardier to crew — oxygen check.”

  All positions checked in except the Tail.

  “Bombardier to Tail — Bombardier to Tail — come in.”

  “Bombardier to Right Waist.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Can you see the tail gunner?”

  “Yes. Looks OK to me.”

  “Go back an’ signal him to get on intercom.”

  Three minutes later: “Tail to Bombardier, my phones got unhooked. Sorry.”

  “Navigator to crew — fighters at ten o’clock low.”

  “Bombardier to crew — they’re 109s.”

  “Waist to Copilot.”

  “Go ahead, Wilson.”

  “Two fighters flyin’ like an escort for that trailing Fort. They’re not 47s but could be Spits helpin’ us out on their way back from a sortie.”

  “Navigator to crew — get ready for the fighters — the 47s are at the end of their range.”

  “Waist to Copilot — I can see those two fighters better now — they are 109s. Hey! That Fort is shootin’ at us!” (Germany had some captured B-17s.)

  “Copilot to crew — those sonnuvabitches are throwin’ twenty-millimeter shells at us.”

  “Turret to crew, P-47s are diving on that Fort. Hope they shoot the bastards down.”

  That was the only time I watched a B-17 shot down with glee. I saw brown Jerry chutes pop out and the Fort went into one of those typical flat spins that told me it was out of control.

  “Waist to Copilot — the 109s are comin’ up to mix it with the 47s. They must feel mean today.”

  The German pilots usually waited until the escort turned back. I knew that was going to happen any time. Perhaps the enemy pilots were inexperienced and too eager for action. It was a hell of a fight. I saw two P-47s shot down for certain, and another possible. It was hard to tell when a Jerry fighter was knocked down unless it was seen to explode or the pilot bail out. I saw five that might have been knocked down, although some of them could have recovered. Most of the heaviest action took place four to eight hundred yards from us at various levels. It was some show! The 47s hung in there longer than I expected and when they finally had to break off and head for England, the German ships had used up too much of their fuel to hit us hard with direct attacks. Some parts of the formation did g
et some fighter action, but we escaped most of it.

  I kept watching Cahow and he was holding in tight. There was no sign that any of his remaining engines were developing trouble, in spite of the continuous high power he was drawing.

  “Navigator to Pilot.”

  “Navigator to Copilot — tell Paul the I.P. comin’ up in five minutes.”

  There was silence on the intercom for a few minutes. Then Purus called, “Be on the bomb run in three minutes.”

  “OK, Bombardier.”

  “Copilot to crew, flak twelve o’clock level.”

  The antiaircraft fire turned out to be mild — off just enough to miss our elevation. Did I love that! Flak, while not nearly as dangerous as fighters, scared the hell out of me. When it was bursting around us I stood in my turret and cringed and shivered. I never did get used to it. If I had been occupied with necessary activities, lining up a sight or flying the aircraft, perhaps I could have ignored it. But with nothing to do, unless we were facing attacks, I could not help watching the bursts explode, and I became somewhat of a coward. I could visualize those white-hot pieces of jagged cast iron zipping by my unprotected rear! I don’t know what thoughts the other men had during those agonizing moments, but I may not have been the only coward on board when the bursts came heavy and accurate.

  A new swarm of enemy interceptors approached from the south.

  “Bombardier to crew — Bogies at twelve o’clock high — get ready!”

  The fighters showed us some new tactics by adopting a peculiar pattern from five o’clock high. Wilson got in some excellent bursts; I saw him strike two of them hard. I had some dandy shots but at longer range. I thought I was reaching them but, if so, the fighters showed no signs of it and came roaring in. The M.E. 109 was a super-rugged airplane with ability to shrug off punishment that would down most airplanes. The attackers eventually ran low on fuel and were replaced by a fresh group. They annoyed us with pecking attacks most of the way to the coast, but were not the hot pilots we usually saw near Paris.

  “Navigator to Copilot.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Fighters coming up from below. They look like Spitfires — we’re not supposed to have any escort on the return.”

  “This is the Pilot — I don’t give a damn why they’re here — just glad to have them.”

  And so was I! Those Spits must have been on the way home from a mission and saw us up above surrounded by fighters. That finished the attacks for the day, and soon I could see the coast ahead. The formation began a slow letdown.

  “Turret to Copilot — looks like Cahow has it made now.”

  “Right! I was worried back there when he had to feather that engine so early.”

  We were halfway across the Channel: “Tail to Copilot.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “A B-17 turning back towards France.”

  “You mean we had one of those bastards in our formation?”

  “I guess we did. Where else could it come from?”

  “No wonder the fighters kept finding us so easy. Those bastards were right in the middle of us radioing our position all day.”

  “Pilot to crew. Pilot to crew. I want all of that damn red paint off of this airplane before you hit the sack tonight. It was drawin’ fighters in on us today! We don’t want anything on this airplane to attract the attention of enemy fighters.”

  Now let’s switch back to Cahow’s crew: “I thought we had it made when we approached our base, but the tower ordered us to proceed to a repair base not too far away. When I banked the plane to turn on the downward leg number-one and number-two engines both quit, either out of gas or worn out with that heavy power for so many hours. I never found out which. I kept the plane in a steep bank and landed more than one half way down a very short runway, and had to ground loop it when we ran off the end. The tower officer came screaming out to the plane, hardly before the dust had settled, wanting to know who in the hell the dumb SOB was that would make a landing like that! He really backed off and became quite nice when my crew came tumbling out, all in combat gear, looking like gorillas. Moe Tedesco, Ugo Lancia, Hubert Green, Ray Bechtal, and my bombardier, John Levrette, were all heavy weights, and over six feet tall.”

  September 6

  If someone was looking for the Gleichauf or Cahow crew, they listened for a cacophony of discordant sounds and located the noise center. If they heard no loud reverberations disturbing the airwaves, they knew that both crews were either on a pass or flying a mission. Let me describe a typical evening at ten. Lancia was blasting away on his trumpet, accompanied by another instrument handled by a man from a nearby hut. In his off-key voice, Tedesco was trying to sing the Italian song they were playing. Across the room from this bedlam, Wilson was sleeping as soundly as if at home in a quiet bedroom. Under his cot was a pile of dirty socks and underwear.

  Balmore was doing a tap dance to the rhythm of the music and looking around for an approving audience like he was a young George M. Cohan. No one paid any attention to him, because it was the only routine he knew and we had seen it before. Hubie chose this moment to leap out of bed and start penning another letter, probably the sixth or seventh of the day. Who in the hell did he write all of those letters to? Did he have that many girl friends back home?

  Rogers was trying to read but, distracted by the noise, he beat against the metal wall in protest, then gave up. In disgust he turned up the volume of the radio to attempt to compete with the sound from the other end of the hut. Bill Kettner got up and added a piece of green wood to the struggling fire in the small metal stove, wood recently purloined from the King’s forest under cover of night. An outsider strolled in and picked up one of Lancia’s idle instruments and superimposed his unwanted contribution onto the sounds already shaking the hut. The metal walls vibrated from the pulsating sound waves and in turn amplified the volume.

  Outside the weather was cold even though winter had not yet arrived. Jim stepped out to study the weather and forecast what we could expect by morning. His meteorological discourse attracted scant attention. Woodrow Pitts was absent, which meant he had not returned from his nightly scouting trip to the canteen. I was writing in my notebook, trying hard to capture on paper the feel and pulse of this odd hut and describe the assortment of characters.

  There was a loud banging on the metal wall from outside, and two men from an adjoining hut opened the door and demanded that the noise level be lowered by several decibels. They were ignored because who cared what they wanted? It was getting late, but going to bed was out of the question until the occupants wore themselves down.

  The sound of a heavy crash against the wall overpowered the music volume. Jim said to me (the only one who was close enough to hear him), “Pitts hit the hut with his bicycle. Must have tanked up pretty good.”

  “I wonder what he found out.”

  An explosion of classic profanity — not the ordinary, timeworn barracks expletives, but a flow of words with expressive character. The door opened and Pitts entered.

  “Hey, Pitts!” said Counce, “Did ya step in the big mud hole in the dark?”

  “Or did you have the crabs again?” asked Kettner.

  “Hell, no, I don’t have the crabs! I went over my boot top in the stinkin’ mud. And my bicycle has another flat.” That triggered one more outburst of colorful adjectives.

  “All right. All right. Knock off the noise. Let’s hear what Pitts found out,” said Tedesco.

  The sounds faded out and we looked at Woodrow. “Well, I talked to three armorers. They’re loadin’ thousand pounders. All the signs say go in the morning.”

  “In that case,” I said hopefully, “let’s hit the sack an’ get some sleep.”

  Such a silly suggestion was unworthy of consideration. Lancia turned to Pitts. “New Jersey raises more vegetables than your whole state of Texas.”

  “Bullshit!” Pitts roared in rebuttal. “The Rio Grande Valley grows more in a week than your two-bit New Jersey farmers grow
in a month!”

  We were off on one of the nightly arguments. Ray Bechtel said, “California grows more than Texas and New Jersey put together.”

  Pitts and Lancia turned on Bechtel, and Pitts looked to me for support of the Lone Star State. I declined to join the fray because none of us knew anything about growing statistics. Barracks arguments are won by the loudest voice.

  Wilson stirred and opened one eye. “What time is it?” he asked.

  “About midnight,” someone answered.

  “Why didn’t somebody wake me up for chow?”

  “I got an extra Hershey Bar if that will help,” I volunteered.

  Kettner interrupted, “Hold it! Hold it! It’s time for the late news.”

  He switched on the radio to B.B.C. “This is the news: Royal Air Force Lancasters are out in force over the Continent tonight. Flight Officer Leahigh-Smith, flying a Mosquito, reported he could see a huge column of fire sixty kilometers from Cologne. The sounds of heavy gunfire in the Channel could be heard today east of Southampton. … The Admiralty admitted the loss of a freighter from a convoy south of Iceland. … Air raid sirens are wailing over the Midlands tonight. … Continued mopping up actions in Italy against slight opposition. There are unconfirmed reports that the Italian Military Forces are on the verge of surrender. … The Prime Minister said in Parliament today that we will drive the Hun from France and the soil of Belgium and Holland, but let the Hun guess when and where our forces will strike.”

  Chapter VIII

  Mission to Stuttgart

  September 6, 1943 — Stuttgart, Germany

  Aircraft: Tinker Toy

  The noise of the Jeep outside woke me up. I flipped on a flashlight and looked at my watch: It was 0230 hours … an early start! What did that mean — an extra-long mission? As I heard the familiar footsteps on the gravel walk, going from hut to hut, I was halfway hoping it wasn’t my morning to go. When I heard the steps go on past our door, however, I became resentful that they were passing me up. Now what did I really want? That sound of crunching feet on gravel put me in an ambivalent mental state: the dread of going versus the prospect of excitement. The door opened, and I listened with little enthusiasm to the reading of the battle roster.