Tumult in the Clouds

by James Goodson

  To them it looked like a perfect precision exercise; but in those planes we were sweating, swearing and working as we’d never worked before; straining desperately to fly as close formation as possible without colliding with the next plane, or crashing into the ground.

  The formation was even better when we came back over the base at Debden, peeled off and landed at Great Sampford. It was when we climbed out of the planes that I understood. There was excitement, enthusiasm, boasting, and pride. Everyone was babbling about how, against all odds, they faced and overcame catastrophe and gave a show fit for heroes. That evening Blakeslee wasn’t the only 133 pilot with the belligerent swagger as we arrived in the officers’ mess at Debden. It had become a squadron characteristic, and the other squadrons accepted it. Next day we left Great Sampford and moved into the main base at Debden.

  It was about this time that King George VI came to Debden. He probably knew that we were going to be transferred to the US Army Air Force, and wanted to express Britain’s appreciation to its adopted ‘Yanks’. He presented British decorations to some of us, and in simple sincere words, told us our being there was appreciated. He made one mistake. I think it was Snuffy Smith he asked if everything was all right. Snuffy was a Texan, and shocked all of us by asking if it couldn’t be made official for Texans to wear Texas boots with the RAF uniform. Politely the King agreed. Everyone thought that was the end of it, until, some weeks later, King’s Rules and Regulations officially approved the wearing of Texas boots with RAF officers’ uniform by Texan pilots, providing they were black and without decoration.

  But it came a little late. By now we were being transferred to the US Army Air Force. 71, 121 and 133 Eagle Squadrons were to become 334, 335 and 336 Squadrons of the US Eighth Army Air Force, forming the Fourth Fighter Group. The Eagle Squadrons had shot down seventy-three German aircraft. As the Fourth, they would shoot down over 1,000 more making them the leading Allied fighter group of the war.

  The US Army Air Force and the American Government needed ready-made pilots already in combat, and we were proud and happy to be able to fight in the uniform of our own country. But we had been through too much with England not to have a split loyalty. We loved and respected the country, its people, the RAF and, strangely enough, its Royal Family. We couldn’t give up everything; so we had the impertinence to make our demands: we had earned our RAF wings, and we wanted to wear them on our US Air Force uniform. To our great surprise, and to the everlasting credit of the US Army Air Force and its top brass, they agreed, providing they were miniature RAF wings worn over the right breast pocket, while the US full-sized wings were to be worn over the left breast pocket over our ribbons, including our foreign decorations. If the double wings were more highly respected by the British, and, incidentally by the Germans, than by the Americans, that was OK by us. The main thing was, we were proud of them.

  We never stopped flying. We went to London by ones and twos during our precious 24-hour passes to transfer, and pick up US uniforms. We had no American planes, so the RAF turned the Spitfires over to us, and we painted US Air Force stars over the red, white and blue roundels of the RAF.

  The first two Spits to be repainted belonged to Dixie Alexander and myself. We started badgering Blakeslee to let us go on a mission – a US mission – the first US fighter mission. Don liked the idea, and was able to sell it to General Monk Hunter, who understood Blakeslee and the spirit of the Fourth.

  What I had in mind was what we called a ‘Rhubarb’ in the RAF. When the weather was too bad for normal ‘Ops’, two or four fighters were sometimes authorised to make sneak strafing raids over France and Belgium, very low level, to avoid being picked up by radar or hit by flak. Presumably the code-name Rhubarb was meant to indicate that they flew so low the propellers clipped the rhubarb. Their targets were shipping, rail transport, and any other strategic ground targets. Apart from the destruction of transportation and shipping, it was felt that it would be discouraging for the Germans, and a morale-booster for the occupied French and Belgians. It certainly did wonders for the fighter pilots, frustrated by inactivity, when bad weather kept them grounded.

  We went out on the deck under the low, grey clouds, skimming the waves; Dixie leading and I keeping a few lengths out to the side and slightly behind. We made a perfect landfall as planned where the canal goes straight in from the coast to the town of Gravelines. As we flashed over the sand dunes, the flak opened up; bright tracer like fiery golf-balls, deceptively slow and harmless-looking, as it lobbed up at us, but blindingly fast when it passed near. But we had surprised them, and the shots were arcing over us and behind us. We hit a few boats on the way up the canal and more where it opened up into a small port on the west side of the town. The wrecks of the boats we hit could be seen in Gravelines harbour for many years after the war.

  Behind Gravelines, we turned east, and were almost immediately over Dunkirk. We hurtled down the big canal, firing on a large barge which we knew would be carrying coal or oil.

  Then we saw Ostende on our left, but kept going until we saw the distinctive outline of Bruges. Like Gravelines, it had its canal coming into the town from Zeebrugge on the coast; but it also had a large railway marshalling yard on the south side of the town. The historic and picturesque city of Bruges was ringed in red on our maps as off-limits for bombing, but low-flying fighter planes could pick out individual targets for strafing with deadly accuracy, and it was the locomotives in the marshalling yards which were our targets.

  We each picked out an engine with steam up. The flak was more accurate now and we did a lot of jinking and stomping of rudder as we lined up on our targets. They were both belching steam, as we flashed over them. We didn’t pull up, but hugged the ground, as the flak arched over us, behind us, and all around us.

  Suddenly, we were out in the country and there was no more flak. We turned north, to hit the coast of Knokke. As we roared over the coast road, a lone cyclist was directly in front of me. I had to pull up a bit to be sure the prop didn’t hit him. As I flashed over, only a few feet above him, I was surprised to see he was bent over the handlebars not even looking up. I’m sure he hadn’t seen me. I kicked rudder to dodge the flak coming up from the defences on the coast, and caught sight of the look of amazement on his upturned face, just as the bike swerved and fell, probably hit by the blast of air from my propeller.

  In a flash we were over the sea, setting course for home. The total time over enemy territory had been about fifteen minutes. We had accomplished our mission as planned, but had no illusions about its importance. We considered it more of a training exercise, and our report to the Intelligence officer was duly modest, if not laconic.

  But we overlooked the fact that this was probably the first purely US fighter mission over France and Belgium and the newly arrived public relations corps were hungry for news. It only took about twenty-four hours for it to hit the fan. The Stars and Stripes army newspaper led the parade, with the others sounding the same clarion call. It read as if thousands of planes had spread destruction and fear throughout northern Europe, leaving the transportation system in disarray, and Hitler himself chewing the carpet. Dixie and I destroyed all the news items we could find, so I can’t be sure of the exact wording, but one of them went something like this: ‘At dawn today fighter planes of the US Eighth Army Air Force carried out daring low-level attacks on rail, road, and water transport in Northern France and Belgium, leaving behind them a trail of destruction …’.

  That evening, I heard Blakeslee bellowing long before he burst into the mess. We had been steeped in the RAF tradition that any exaggeration or line-shooting was intolerable, and, worse still, ‘bad form’; so I knew what was coming. As he bore down on me he bellowed, ‘All right! Where’s the other half of the Eighth Air Force?’

  ‘He’s taking a pee,’ I said.

  When Dixie reappeared, he held up his hand and said: ‘Let me show you what happened.’

  He peeled off his tunic, his shirt and his undershirt
, and turned around. There was a gasp. In the middle of his back was a lurid red bleeding gash, from which protruded the blue handle of a dagger. It was so perfectly done, it was only when we moved closer that we saw that it was a beautifully executed tattoo.

  ‘I was stabbed in the back!’ he said.

  Blakeslee turned to me. ‘What’s your excuse?’

  ‘All I claimed was one bicycle damaged. I blew the guy off on the way out!’

  Blakeslee was calming down. He saw from the reaction of the others that, if it had done nothing else, the mission had helped build up squadron morale and pride, and that was desperately needed at that time. ‘Well,’ he said grudgingly, ‘I’ve just seen your combat film, so I’ll buy you a drink. From then on, the drinks are on you!’

  The first commanding officer of the newly formed Fourth Group was loaned by the RAF. Wing Commander Duke-Woolley turned up in a midget green, open MG sports car. We marvelled at the leather belt around the engine, the gas-tank perched on the rear, and especially its minute size. To us it was like a toy. Forty years later I met Duke-Woolley and reminded him of his car. ‘Yes,’ he said in his matter-of-fact way, ‘I’m still driving it.’

  Duke-Woolley was soon succeeded by Chesley Peterson, the most experienced and respected pilot in the Eagle squadrons. Like many of the most successful fighter pilots of the Fourth, he had been washed out of training in the USAAF for lack of inherent flying ability. He was one of the few CO’s of whom I have never heard anything but praise and affection.

  As soon as we had transferred, we knew that sooner or later we would lose our beloved Spitfires and be equipped with the new long-range P-47 Thunderbolt, but we put the thought out of our minds, and flew our Spitfires as often and as hard as we could. This meant joining the RAF on fighter sweeps sometimes escorting medium bombers, or escorting heavy US bombers on the first leg of their mission, or picking them up again as they came out. It was a continuation of what we had been doing in the RAF, with the same restriction of range which limited us to Northern France and Belgium. Paris and Brussels were at the extreme limit of our range. Of course, it never became boring. We gained more knowledge and respect for the yellow-nosed 109’s which came up from St Omer and Abbeville. We called them the ‘Abbeville Boys’. Not many of us knew that this was Jagdgeschwader 26, which had produced most of the great German fighter pilots, including Adolf Galland himself. JG52 had more victories, but the Luftwaffe made a very clear distinction between the Russian front and the Western front. ‘Macky’ Steinhoff said of fighting the Russians: ‘It was like shooting ducks.’ Our pilots confused JG26 ‘Schlageter’ Squadron with the ‘Richthofen’ Squadron, JG2 in which both the Red Baron and Hermann Göring had fought in World War I. They were in Northern France too, but it was JG26, first under Galland, then under Schoepfel and then under ‘Pips’ Priller, that defended the Western front from the beginning to the end of the war, and even the aces of the Russian front rated Galland’s 103 victories and Priller’s 101 in the same category as ‘Bubi’ Hartmann’s 352 and Barkhom’s 301 on the Russian front.

  Personally, I felt frustrated at our inability to protect our bombers into Germany, and, almost alone among the pilots, looked forward to getting longer range fighters. The valiant Spitfire which had performed so well in the defence of Britain had been overtaken by events. It was now time for us to go over to the offensive. A new chapter in aviation and in warfare was starting.

  If most of the pilots of the Fourth didn’t welcome the prospect of long-range fighters, there was one group of pilots who did. These were the US Army Air Force generals, Toohey Spaatz, Jimmy Doolittle, Monk Hunter, Ira Eaker, Jesse Auton, Bill Kepner and others. They had foreseen the way air warfare would develop back in the 1920’s when they backed Billy Mitchell in his battle for recognition of the potential of future air power. They had shared Mitchell’s frustration when he was court-martialled and dismissed from the service, but they had battled on and won. Now they had learned that their long-range bombing offensive could only be continued if the bombers had fighter escort all the way, and they were determined that they would have it.

  When the first Thunderbolts turned up in England, they asked for volunteers from the Fourth to check them out, and then introduce them to the rest of the Group. They only got three, one from each squadron, ‘Hoppy’ Hopson, Snuffy Smith and myself. We joined Cass Hough in the Air Technical Service, a small but highly effective unit which was already working on the development of droppable external fuel tanks, which would, within a year, stretch the combat radius of the Thunderbolt from 280 miles to 575 miles, and that of the Mustang from its original formidable 350 miles to a staggering 750 miles.

  Back at Debden, I checked Blakeslee out on the P-47. Of course he didn’t like it. It was daunting to haul seven tons of plane around the sky after the finger-tip touch needed for the Spit. I tried to sell Blakeslee on the opportunities this plane could open up for us.

  ‘For one thing,’ I said, ‘they’ll never be able to dive away from us again.’

  He must have been listening. On 15th April 1943, Blakeslee was leading us over Belgium when we spotted a couple of FW190’s. We attacked: as usual they dived away, and we followed. Admittedly it took a while. We jumped them at a little over 20,000 feet and Blakeslee was at 500 feet before he finally blew his victim out of the sky and into a suburb of Ostend. It was the first victory for a P-47.

  Back at Debden, I caught up with Blakeslee at debriefing. ‘I told you the jug could out-dive them!’

  Grudgingly he conceded, ‘Well it damn well ought to be able to dive; it sure as hell can’t climb!’

  It was unfair. The P-47, in spite of its weight and size, was an amazing aircraft, and we continued to build up our score, almost in spite of ourselves. If we’d had as much fanatical loyalty and faith in the P-47 as the 56th Group under Hub Zemke, we would have kept our lead over them; as it was, the 56th probably flew more aggressively and were rivalling our scores, but then, as we used to say in the Fourth: ‘They don’t know any better; the poor bastards never flew Spits.’

  In the meantime, Pete Peterson had been taken off combat for a rest. Blakeslee had more experience than any other pilot in the group, if not more rank. Don was still a captain, although some less experienced pilots were majors. A little diplomacy would probably have corrected the injustice sooner, but diplomacy was one thing Don Blakeslee could never be accused of.

  Peterson was succeeded by a regular career officer, Colonel Anderson, who won our respect by allowing others to lead missions while he would lead one of the sections; but, above all, by flying missions at all at his advanced age. He was thirty-nine.

  Nevertheless, in spite of everything, finally, to the delight of the pilots, and to the everlasting credit of the commanding generals, Blakeslee took over as CO of the Fourth.

  Major General Monk Hunter, Commanding General of the Eighth Fighter Command was very much a fighter pilot’s general, and must have understood the spirit of the Fourth, and what Blakeslee could do for it. In August 1943, Hunter turned the Eighth Fighter Command over to Major General William Kepner. Hunter said to us: ‘… I came here when the first group of you were transferred to Eighth Fighter Command. You will never know what it meant to us to receive a group of fully trained operational pilots. It has formed a nucleus around which we have built our fighting machine.’

  Kepner added, ‘The Fourth Fighter Group has been the stem whence fighter command doctrine has sprung.’

  Yet on 16th August 1943 the Eighth Fighter Command came within a hairsbreadth of losing their most promising group leader. It was a short mission for those days. 170 B-17’s were to hit the aircraft repair depot at Le Bourget, the main Paris airfield. The target was within our range even without external belly tanks, so with the 4th, 56th, 78th and 353rd P-47 Groups covering the bombers at 23,000 feet and Spitfires sweeping the area at about 15,000, the Fortresses would have strong fighter cover all the way in and all the way back.

  At morning briefing, Blake
slee explained that 334 would fly top cover, 335 would fly below them and Blakeslee would lead with 336 from the lowest position. I therefore moved over to lead the second section just behind and to the left of Blakeslee’s lead section. Coming out of the briefing I said to Don, ‘With all that mob around the bombers, we should be able to do a little free hunting on our own.’

  I knew he was as frustrated as I was at having to let German fighters dive away to safety because we had to return to our main task of escorting the bombers.

  ‘Right!’ he said, ‘That’s why I’m flying where I am, and that’s why you’re flying where you are; to give me cover!’

  The weather was perfectly clear, and on the climb out, the south coast of England and the north coast of France spread out below us like a map.

  I looked across at my wingman. It was Lieutenant Bob Wehrmann’s first mission. I figured it was an easy, short mission to break him in on. I had told him it was a milk-run, and all he had to do was stick with me like glue. I gave him a thumbs up gesture and waved him to spread out; we were crossing in over the French coast just east of Dieppe and I flicked on my gunsight and fire button. I was looking all around, but my gaze was constantly drawn down to our left where I could see the river Somme winding out to the Channel. A few miles up the river was Abbeville, and, a little further east, St Omer, and, to the south, Poix, near Amiens. These were the home bases of the ‘Richthofen’ Geschwader, JG2 led by Egon Mayer, and the yellow-nosed JG26, ‘Schlageter’ Geschwader, made famous by Adolf Galland, now led by Gerd Schoepfel. Both Geschwader had produced most of the leading aces of the Luftwaffe. These two Geschwader were responsible for the defence of the Western front after most of the other Geschwader had been transferred to the Russian front.

  It should be remembered that Luftwaffe Geschwader were composed of three or more Gruppen, and it was the Gruppen which corresponded to the US fighter squadron, while the Geschwader was more like a large American fighter group.