Tumult in the Clouds

by James Goodson

  Next morning I went up flying with him. We had only recently switched from our neat little Spitfires which we loved so much, to the massive P-47, ‘Thunderbolts’, and we treated them with great respect. I didn’t waste any time starting up and taking off, but I hadn’t got my wheels up before he was formating on me with his wing-tip stuck inside mine and his prop churning away a few inches from my wing tip. We climbed up through 2,000 feet of overcast, and broke out into the sunshine above. I racked up into a tight turn, but when I looked up there he was, right on my wing tip, and all the time grinning and looking around like a kid. I put him line astern, flipped over on my back, and split-essed down to the undercast. I hauled her back, just about blacking out, shot up and racked it into a tight Immelmann. When I got through I figured I’d lost him, I couldn’t see another plane in the sky. I punched the button and asked if he could see me.

  ‘Hell, yes, I’m still around. Six o’clock on you.’

  I cocked up a wing, and stomped rudder to slew myself around a bit, and there he was behind and below me, with his prop chewing right under my tail.

  After we’d landed I looked up the Swede’s flying record and found he’d rolled up over 1,000 hours partly as an instructor, but mostly long before, flying people to Reno for quick divorces.

  ‘How come you don’t tell me about your flying time?’ I wanted to know.

  He just kind of grinned. ‘Hell, it doesn’t mean anything; it’s combat that counts, and I don’t know from nothing about that.’

  ‘You will,’ I said.

  He did. The next day we went to Paris. Back in those days, early in 1943, a raid to Paris was something big. We’d used our long range drop tanks before, but we’d never used them to escort the bombers all the way to a No 1 target like Paris. This was long before we’d shoved the Jerry fighters back into Germany, so we were looking for plenty of fun.

  The Swede was on my wing, and after we’d got formed up and set course I could look across at him grinning like a cat. That grin wasn’t just for his own benefit, it was for mine too. This was the first time I’d led a section, and that grin was just to let me know that I had a backer.

  I was kept pretty busy on the climb out just keeping my section in position on the rest of the squadron – and scanning up, down and around. Round about 27,000 feet we levelled off and slid out into combat formation. The weather was perfect – visibility unlimited. When we crossed in over the French coast we could see the Seine wriggling down past Rouen towards Paris. It looked real pretty and peaceful, and it didn’t seem possible there were Germans running around down there.

  They tossed up quite a mess of flak when we crossed in. It was low and in front of our outfit, and the little black clouds slid by underneath, but one of the planes in the squadron below peeled off and headed for home, losing altitude and smoking a little.

  Everyone was spread out now, weaving and dropping their wings, searching the skies above, below, in front, and behind. I was doing plenty of rubbernecking myself. We still had our belly tanks, and it’s embarrassing to get caught with those things still slung underneath. When the leader gave the word and we dropped them, it was like a big load rolling off my back.

  Then I saw the bombers. They were hard to pick out, with no cloud background, but you could see the flak bursts around them. It was as if the massed formation was standing still, and the black puffs were floating through them, like when a swarm of minnows heads upstream and stays put, while the stream flows by. That’s the way flying at altitude is – like staying very still, while the rest of the universe swings past.

  By now we could see a hazy blotch ahead which was Paris, and I figured our timing was perfect. We’d converge on the bombers right on the bomb run, the way we were supposed to. They made their final turn on the target, and we came swinging in over the top of them and started our weaving. The flak was getting heavier now. There was a big round sudden flash down in the lead box of bombers, and where there had been a bomber there was a big smoke ring. The others didn’t waver, just ploughed on toward the target.

  So far, no enemy fighters had been reported. I couldn’t figure that out, but I didn’t like it. The Swede was the first to report them, but we all saw them about the same time. First they were little specks like flies. The next minute they were swinging in from dead ahead. About a hundred yellow-nosed FW190’s. Someone yelled, ‘Jesus – millions of ’em’. I rammed the throttle against the stop and held it there, and the first five 190’s peeled off, and plummeted down in a head-on attack on the lead box of bombers. They drove in line abreast, all firing. The leading edge of their wings were winking and flashing. The tracers from the bombers were sailing out into them. Three streams of tracers converged into the leader. After the flash there were just pieces floating and tumbling into the air. The others kept coming.

  Our low squadron had been able to turn in to cut them off. They were able to close on the last two. One rolled on his back slowly and fell away downwards, smoking. The other went into a spin and a wing fluttered off.

  The three others had too much speed for our boys. They drove on through, head on at the bombers, closing with a combined speed of 700 mph. At the last minute they rolled on their backs, still firing, and flashed down through the bomber formation. The third one left it a split second too late. He started to roll, but the bomber was already on him. His wing hit the bomber in No 3 engine. The tangled, blazing mass went tumbling down through the formation.

  Now our top squadron had piled into the main bunch, and there was one big dog-fight up there. Still gaggles of them were slipping through. A flight of ten followed after the first. In a vague kind of way I realised I could intercept them. I remember how big and dry my tongue was when I said, ‘Red Section going down.’ I remember the Swede saying, ‘I’m with you.’

  I felt the air-speed build up as I dove down. The plane bounced around when I jerked at the controls in my nervousness. All I did was stare at the Huns; everything else was automatic. It seemed like I was doing everything slow and lazy, other things were happening so fast. Then I was on the tail of a 190 and firing. My left foot on the rudder pedal was trembling and shaking. My sights were on, but still there were no strikes. I was closing fast.

  Then there were flashes and something came tumbling past me. He fell away and as I swung past him I saw flame licking along the grey fuselage and over the black cross. The fire grew until there was just a long flame streaking down.

  But as I watched the red and yellow flame against the grey and black fuselage, they were suddenly on me – the bombers: I threw the stick into one corner of the cockpit and tramped rudder and slid under the first bomber. Then ship after ship, element after element flashed past me, as I hurtled through the formation.

  Suddenly I was clear, and pulled up. All I wanted was to get back up where I belonged. I screwed my head around to clear my tail. There was a radial-engined plane behind me. It looked like one of ours, but I couldn’t believe that anyone could still be with me. I punched my radio-transmitter. ‘Pin-up Red Leader here. I’m waggling my wings. Is anyone with me?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m still around – right behind you.’ It was the Swede.

  We were climbing back up, past the bombers, when we spotted the straggler, one lone bomber, with one engine smoking, falling behind and losing altitude; and the Jerries were buzzing around him like flies.

  He was dishing it out as well as taking it, but by the time we got there it was too late to help much. He had started into a dive and two white chutes had blossomed out. Still the tracers coming out from the tail position showed that the rear gunner was in there fighting. The Huns followed the bomber down, and we followed the Huns.

  The big ship began to spin, but the rear gunner was still pumping lead into the Jerries. One of them spiralled away trailing smoke. That tailgunner’s tracers kept coming until the bomber spun into the woods. Then there was a flash, and a tall, still column of smoke.

  The Jerry started circling the crash, and I was ab
le to close. He wouldn’t be expecting any of us to be so low, so I waited until I got close, and then clobbered him well. I was watching him crash, when I heard the Swede yell, ‘Break! Break left!’

  I hauled back on the stick, and my head went down, and my eyes dimmed as I started to black out. I heard a ‘crump’. The plane shuddered and started to stall. I eased up on the stick and looked back. He was close behind me. I could see the round yellow nose and the grey body with the black crosses, but most of all I could see the flashes that lit up the leading edge of his wing. He wasn’t allowing enough deflection, and his shots were sailing past under my tail. But his nose was creeping up, as he out-turned me. Soon his shots would be thudding into my fuselage.

  I tightened my turn, and fought the plane with stick and rudder as it shuddered and bucked on the point of the stall. My mouth was so dry that it burned. My oxygen mask was soaking wet as I swore and gasped and spat into it. It had fallen down my nose with the force of my break. My head and neck ached as I screwed around to watch the Hun. And still he was out-turning me.

  Then I felt the ‘crump’ again. He was starting to hit me. I was too low to try to dive away. I reached down to release my harness to try to bale out. Then I heard the Swede: ‘OK, I’ll have him off you in a jiffy,’ he said.

  I looked back. The Jerry’s grey fuselage was covered with flashes. He flicked over and dived down. He went into a field on his back, leaving a trail of fire behind him.

  Then suddenly – the way it often happens – there weren’t any other planes in the sky. Just me and the Swede formating on me and grinning.

  There was something wrong with the feel of the plane. I checked the instruments but everything was OK, and the engine was running smoothly. Then I looked out at the wings and saw the hole. It was a foot across, in the middle of the left wing, right where the star was. The metal around the edges was curled up where the slug had exploded. There were other holes behind me, but it was the one in the wing that was holding me back. Even pulling 40° I couldn’t clock more than 130 mph straight and level. Even the bombers were well on the way out by now, so I called the Swede and told him to go on home. There was a good chance I wouldn’t make it, and there was no reason for him to fritter away his gas, lagging behind with me.

  He didn’t answer me, and when I repeated, he said: ‘Oh, I reckon I’ll stick around for a while.’

  He stuck around all right. It seemed like we’d never see that coast-line, and by the time we did finally cross out, we could hear the rest of the outfit asking for landing instructions. But the Swede kept on weaving around me. We crept out over the Channel, and it had never seemed so wide. Before we saw the white cliffs, I was sweating the gas out plenty.

  We landed at a base on the south coast with the gas gauge kicking the bottom. The Swede landed right behind me, and when he walked over to my plane he was grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘Nice going,’ he said.

  Like I said, the Swede wasn’t rated among the top aces, but he was usually around when you wanted him. If they sprang a dawn mission on us the morning after a party, the Swede was always on the spot. Maybe he had to be poured into the cockpit, and maybe he swooshed around in the air more than somewhat, but he was always there.

  He stuck around for quite a while for those days, but when he ended his combat career, he went out in style.

  I was already in the bag, a guest of the Third Reich; but the day after it happened, the story was all over the big Prisoner of War camps of Barth on the Baltic and Sagan on the Oder, where the Allied air force officers paced around their barren compounds behind the rows of barbed wire fences, under the constant threat of the guards and their machine-guns in the wooden watch-towers.

  The Swede got it strafing an aerodrome, the way all the best ones did. Some say strafing’s fun, and it’s the fastest and most effective way to knock out an enemy air force, but for those who try it, no amount of skill does you any good. We used to say it was non-habit forming; definitely no future in it!

  When the Swede’s time came, he slipped and slid his dying Mustang onto the aerodrome they were strafing. They figured they’d heard the last of the Swede, but then they started getting orders on how to direct their attacks. Pierce McKennon was leading the group and yelled: ‘Hey, Swede, where the hell are you? What’s your altitude?’

  ‘My altitude is nil, Mac, I’m on the ground, but my radio’s still working.’

  And so he conducted the show until there wasn’t much left to strafe. But just as the last squadron had turned for home, the Swede called them back: ‘Hey, Mac, there’s two 190’s coming in to land, come back and get ’em!’

  Through the smoke and haze the pilots in the air couldn’t see them, but Carlson guided them right onto them. The kills were accredited to Morgan and Brooker, but, as usual, the Swede had played his humble part.

  The mass of armed Germans converging on Carlson’s plane were furious. Not only did they know he’d been conducting the operations which had destroyed their base, but the last 190 which had crashed in flames had been piloted by Hauptmann Hoffmann, their commanding officer. Maybe one reason he didn’t get torn limb from limb is I’m sure, when they got to him, the Swede was grinning from ear to ear.

  No, he was no big-time hero, and you probably never heard of him. But there were a lot of guys like him, and when you need someone to loan you a buck, or fly on your wing – or help win a war – they’re nice guys to have around – if you know what I mean.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Kid

  And the Kid! What else could you call him? The Kid! With that round beautiful baby-face, the wide, laughing blue eyes, the long, full, wavy hair falling across his eyes, you couldn’t call him anything else. He first picked up the name as an amateur boxer, and in 1940 he won a trophy in the Golden Gloves Tournament. But his trainer always told him he wouldn’t make the big time. ‘You’re too nice a guy!’ And he was right. The Kid didn’t like the dirty part, so when he was in Detroit to pick up a car to hit the boxing trail to California, he just crossed over to Windsor and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force.

  He arrived in England as Sergeant Pilot Ralph K. Hofer. I never met anyone who could explain how the RAF and RCAF decided which pilots should graduate as pilot officers and which as sergeant pilots. If it was on the basis of flying ability and aggressive leadership, the outstanding success of pilots who started out as sergeants should have made it obvious that there was something wrong with the system. But the fact that sergeant pilots like the brilliant Canadian ‘Buzz’ Buerling were often leading flights with officers under their command, never seems to have caused any re-thinking on the part of the top brass.

  Usually, of course, the mistake was corrected, and the sergeant duly got his officer’s commission, but he never quite caught up with his colleagues. No matter how brilliant his career, he usually ended it with a lower rank than the less successful officers who had had the luck to be commissioned when they got their wings.

  And so it was with Kid Hofer. Not only was he a sergeant pilot in the RAF, but the US Army Air Force continued the farce when he transferred by giving him the grade of Flight Officer, which, in spite of its sound, was still a non-commissioned rank under that of second lieutenant.

  Knowing the Kid, I don’t imagine he gave a damn about rank, but he made his point, anyway, on his first combat mission. I remember meeting Jim Clark, who was leading 334 Squadron, as I went into the mess after a rather routine show escorting bombers over France. It was an early mission in our relatively new P-47 Thunderbolts and we didn’t have the range the droppable extra wing tanks gave us later.

  ‘Did you do any good today?’ I asked Jim.

  Jim shook his head. ‘Some kid on his first mission is claiming a 190, but nobody saw him, and I won’t believe it before I see his combat film.’

  ‘Yeah. That one I want to see too,’ I said. I suppose there have been pilots who have shot down enemy planes on their first ‘do’, but it would be close to a miracle
. Usually the only victory they could hope for was to get back in one piece. All too often they never saw the one that shot them down.

  I remember taking Swede Carlson on his first mission as my wingman, and telling him to stick to me like glue. It was an exciting sweep taking Boston bombers to hit the hornets’ nest of Abbeville, home of the yellow-nosed Me 109’s of Galland’s Jagdgeschwader 26. They gave us all the action we wanted, but when the Swede and I straggled back to base and landed I said:

  ‘I’m claiming one destroyed and one probable. Can you confirm them for me?’ and the Swede grinned sheepishly and said: ‘Goody, all I saw was the tail-wheel of your Spitfire!’

  So I went along with Jim Clark to see the combat film of the young upstart who not only pretended to have seen enemy planes when no one else had, but even claimed to have shot one down. As we went into the small room by the photographic section, Jim asked Grover Hall, the public relations officer, and later historian of the Fourth: ‘Anything on it?’

  ‘I don’t want to spoil it for you’, said Grover. ‘Roll it, Izzy.’

  Combat films were flickering, jumpy things at the best of times. The camera in the wing was activated by the trigger and, even though there was a slight over-run, the flashes of pictures followed the spasmodic bursts of the guns firing, and were all over in seconds.

  When Hofer’s brief film was finished, Grover said: ‘It ain’t Gone with the Wind but it ain’t bad!’

  Jim said: ‘I’ll be damned!’

  Although the film had flickered and jerked and although the 190 was hard to distinguish as it swam and danced across the screen, all of us knew it was a kill, and we looked at the ‘frozen’ frames, not so much for confirmation as for artistic appreciation. ‘Still slightly out of range, but definite hits in the right wing root’ … ‘That burst got the cockpit and probably the engine.’

  ‘Maybe a fluke … but it’s a kill.’

  But the Kid went on to prove it wasn’t a fluke. In a couple of months he became an official ‘ace’ with five neat swastikas on his P-47 just above his insignia. He was proud of his home town, Salem, Missouri, so his emblem was a rampant Missouri Mule in boxing shorts and Golden boxing-gloves, with an incongruous pair of wings on his back; the whole was dominated by a large-lettered inscription: ‘Salem Representative.’