Tumult in the Clouds

by James Goodson

  ‘Black Snake’ Peterson got his nickname from his dark lean features, wiry frame and his pride in his Indian blood. He’d been around since the RAF days, not building up a big score, but always there when needed, doing a steady, reliable job; but to Staff Sergeant Ed Johnson of the 306th Bombardment Group, he’s one of the war’s greatest heroes. After over a year in prison camp, he insisted on writing this official combat report:

  On 29th March 1944 I was flying as left waist gunner on a 1st Division B-17 raid to Brunswick. Between Brunswick and Hanover, our formation was attacked by about 60 Focke-Wulf 190’s and Me109’s. All members of the crew up forward were killed. We went into a dive and dropped out of formation.

  Twelve 190’s were continuing their attacks as I baled out. I opened my chute too soon, at 20,000 feet, and saw the ensuing action. The 190’s were still firing at our plane when I saw a red-nosed P-51 (Peterson) dive over the tail of the Fort, close to point blank range on a 190 and cause it to blow up immediately. The plane caught fire and the left wing came off. The 190 pilot did not get out. At this time there were still several members of my crew trying to bale out. They owe their lives to the fierceness of Captain Peterson’s attack.

  Immediately after Captain Peterson shot down his second 190, I saw a third 190 fire at him at a range of 100 yards. This lucky shot must have put out the controls, for I saw the P-51 shudder and wallow badly … Captain Peterson baled out … That night I was put in jail in Hildesheim along with Captain Peterson …

  Captain Peterson’s action saved the three men besides myself who baled out successfully … He attacked 12 enemy aircraft alone, with full knowledge that his chance of survival was very small.

  Yes, Pete probably knew his chances were slim. Two fighter planes together had a fighting chance against overwhelming odds; but one on his own needed more than just skill, he needed a hell of a lot of luck.

  One who had it was ‘Cowboy’ Megura. On three Berlin missions, the Cowboy had found himself alone, and come back every time with two destroyed in the air, and more on the ground, with a few trains thrown in for good measure. The third Berlin do on 8th March was typical for Megura. Clark took 334 Squadron to help a bomber group under attack. Right away they were in the thick of it. Jim Clark shot down one 109 and the Cowboy got another, but he had to chase him from 33,000 feet down to 8,000. He shook another 109 off his tail in a tight skidding turn.

  He then shot down one of a gaggle of 190’s attacking a lone Fort straggler. The pilot baled out right over Berlin. Megura then spotted a group of 190’s preparing to land on an airfield on the outskirts of Berlin. He simply joined them in the circuit and lined up on one of the unsuspecting Germans coming in to land. Before he could fire, he was bounced by two 190’s who had recognised the Mustang. The Cowboy broke into them and came on around to hit the 109 again just as it was landing. But the two 190’s came around again, and he had to break off to confront them. They chased him eastwards but he finally gave them the slip by twisting and turning among the buildings of Berlin. He turned back and headed west, taking out a train as he left the outskirts of the sprawling city. On the way home, he was jumped by six Germans, and again got away by dodging among the hills and forests. He attacked a Ju88, but ran out of ammo before it went down. He zoomed past the bomber, saw that one engine had been shot out, thumbed his nose at the pilot, dodged and jinked his way through the murderous flak, and somehow got home. Jim Clark, like most squadron leaders, discouraged maverick loners, but it was typical of him that he put the Cowboy in for the Distinguished Service Cross.

  Megura’s luck still held, particularly on one of his last missions. At 30,000 feet north-east of Berlin he was attacked and badly hit by an American P-38 Lightning which mistook the Mustang for a 109. The Cowboy tried to bale out, but couldn’t release his cockpit canopy. Even this turned out to be lucky. His engine was shot out, but he had enough altitude to glide to neutral Sweden. A few months later he was back at Debden, giving his crew-chief hell for the jammed canopy, and clamouring to be put on the next mission.

  I remember 21st March 1944. On that day the Group destroyed twenty-one enemy aircraft, and Jim Clark was awarded a well-deserved Silver Star. It was also my 23rd birthday.

  Jim Clark and I were convinced, that although strafing planes on the ground was far more dangerous than attacking them in the air, it was far more effective, and was indeed essential if we were to knock out the Luftwaffe before the invasion. In particular, they had to be driven from their bases in France.

  Jim was a quiet, handsome giant from New York. At that time, he was not only commanding officer of 334 Squadron, he was also Deputy Group Commander under Blakeslee. It was therefore natural that he should plan and lead the first, destructive, long range, low level mass attack.

  The Group flew into France skimming the roof-tops, spread out to cover an area at least 100 miles wide. We swept down from the Channel coast all the way to the Pyrenees and the Spanish border, turning to streak across Southern and Central France, coming out by way of Paris and Northern France. In addition to the twenty-one planes destroyed, countless other planes, trains and airfields were damaged.

  Seven of our planes were shot down. Godfrey’s plane was hit, Jim Dye was severely wounded, and ‘Georgia’ Wynn, whose first three kills had been with the RAF in Malta, had the belly of his plane ripped open by scraping it on a flag-pole, but they made it back.

  Jim’s citation read:

  … For gallantry in action over enemy occupied Europe on 21st March 1944. Knowing of a concentration of enemy aircraft deep in occupied France, Col. Clark asked for and received permission to lead a fighter group against this heavily defended military installation. He personally planned the entire mission and selected the routes and targets on the longest sweep into enemy territory yet made by American fighter aircraft from bases in England. …

  The importance of the raid was that it was the first of many strafing missions, including one in which we destroyed over 100 planes on the ground; and the result was seen on the morning of 6th June when the Luftwaffe could only put two planes up to attack the invasion landings: ‘Pips’ Priller, CO of JG26 and his wingman.

  Jim Clark was a worthy deputy to Blakeslee, although in many ways they were complete opposites. Blakeslee was rough and tough, often lost his temper, drank heavily and swore frequently. Jim was every inch the gentleman, so quiet I never saw him lose his cool; so modest he protested that he was unworthy of the Distinguished Service Cross. But they had one thing in common: they had the respect and even devotion, of every man in their command, all of whom were not only willing, but eager, to follow them to hell and back.

  This was true of the other squadron commanders as well. They inspired their men by their experience, professionalism and sense of duty. They led them, not by preaching or directives, but by example. They never pulled rank: they didn’t need to. In fact, only the new pilots ever addressed us as ‘Major’ or ‘Colonel’. The rest of us had been through too much together. When someone’s screaming for you to get a swarm of 109’s off his tail, you don’t say, ‘Call me Sir!’

  Freddy Glover had been a problem to his superiors as a ferry pilot in the RCAF. To get rid of him they acceded to his persistent request to be transferred to the Fourth Group. When he met Blakeslee in the bar, the Colonel raised his eyebrows when he heard that Glover had no experience on single-engined fighters.

  ‘I think I can fly a plane as good as anyone I can see around here!’

  It was blasphemy! This unblooded lieutenant was surrounded by most of the leading aces of the US Air Force.

  There was an electric silence.

  Blakeslee and Glover glared at one another.

  ‘Have a drink!’ said Blakeslee.

  ‘I’ve had a drink!’ said Glover.

  In any other group, with any other CO, Glover’s flying career would have been over. In the Fourth, Glover survived to become Blakeslee’s closest friend, an aggressive fighter pilot with twenty-four victories, and even
tually my successor as commanding officer of 336 Squadron.

  Glover’s other close friend was ‘Red Dog’ Norley. Although he had a shock of red hair, his nickname came from his addiction to that form of poker. He started off as the Group jester with an inexhaustible sense of humour, but in the air he became more and more serious. Eventually he became CO of 334 Squadron with sixteen victories.

  Douane ‘Bee’ Beeson was the opposite. To look at this slight boyish-looking youngster, you’d think he was one of those naive innocents who would never survive the first few missions, and indeed, when he first joined 71 Eagle Squadron in the summer of 1942, they dismissed him as an eager beaver and a pest.

  In fact, he had a steely determination to destroy more Huns than anyone else, and, like Millikan and Garrison, schooled himself night and day in tactics and deflection shooting. He was one of the few who had a vicious hatred of the Germans, and soon had a score of twenty-five destroyed, rivalling Gentile.

  If he hadn’t been shot down by flak while strafing an airfield on 5th April 1944, he would probably have achieved his goal of becoming America’s leading ace – but then, I suppose you could have said that a dozen of us who would probably never have been shot down by a German fighter, but lost the gamble with flak.

  That 5th April was a sweet and sour day for the Group. Once again we showed that we had gained air supremacy over Germany; once again we proved the terrible effectiveness of ground strafing by fighter aircraft; but once again, we saw the price we had to pay. The Group destroyed fifty planes on the ground and seriously damaged thirty-eight more. That was a substantial part of the Luftwaffe’s strength in the West at that time.

  The price was the loss of Beeson and four others. One was Allen Bunte from Eustis, Florida, who always reminded me of the actor Ray Bolger when he played the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. Bunte narrowly escaped being blown apart by flak, burned to death in his plane, killed by crashing into a lake, and finally drowning, all in the space of a few seconds. While strafing an airfield, his plane was hit by heavy flak, and burst into flames. He was too low to bail out, but just as the heat was getting unbearable, he spotted a lake and made a dive for it. The crash on the water knocked him out, but the shock of the cold water as the plane sank revived him. The oxygen mask may have helped him to avoid drowning while he struggled out of the cockpit. He managed to inflate his life-jacket before collapsing.

  Bob Hobert wasn’t so lucky. I had led the squadron down on an airfield near Berlin, and continued to zig-zag between the smoke of the burning planes until I was sure we had destroyed them all. Before leaving, I counted twenty-five burning wrecks, of which Gentile had got five and I six; but Hobert reported being hit by flak. I looked over his plane but couldn’t see much damage. Indeed he kept up pretty well with us on the way home. At the Dutch coast I asked him if he wanted to risk the long hop over the North Sea. He didn’t hesitate.

  ‘Temperature’s going up a bit, and I can’t get full power, but I think I can make it.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll stay with you.’

  About half-way across, things took a sudden turn for the worse, and finally the temperature went over the top, and his engine seized. He bailed out. I made sure the Air-Sea Rescue people had a good fix on him, and headed for home. Even if it took a while for him to be picked up, it was April, and not all that cold. I figured he’d be OK, but as soon as I landed, I cut my way through the excitement of the ground personnel’s urgent questioning, and the pilot’s flustered, disjointed replies, and made for the telephone. The Air-Sea Rescue launch hadn’t picked him up yet, and a sea was running. I knew that meant they’d have trouble finding Hobert in his little inflatable dinghy. As I ran through the dispersal hut the Intelligence Officers, Benjamin and MacCarteney wanted my combat report.

  ‘I’m going to look for Bob Hobert!’ Some of the pilots were so exhausted, their ground crews had had to lift them out of the cockpit, stretch them out on the grass, and massage them before they could trust themselves to walk. Dick Braley, who was prone to back trouble struggled to his feet and tried to crawl back into his plane. Benjie Benjamin climbed onto the wing of my plane as I was strapping myself in.

  ‘You’ll kill yourself!’ He looked at me so earnestly, I had to laugh.

  ‘Probably’, I said, ‘but not right now. I’ve got something to do – and before it gets dark.’

  The blast from my propeller blew Benjie sliding down the wing.

  I think if all the planes had already been refuelled, the whole squadron would have followed me. As it was, I had a section of four. I had noted my compass heading when I had left Hobert, and I knew exactly where I had crossed in over the English coast, so it was easy for me to fly back.

  After spiralling down to about 2,000 feet, I spotted the yellow speck surrounded by the colouring which could be released to help an aerial search. We circled until the Air-Sea Rescue launch picked him up.

  It was a little after midnight when I walked into the bar. There were still some diehards rehashing the events of the day. Grover Hall, the Public Relations Officer, and some of the Intelligence Officers, including Benjie were hanging on hoping to pick up more information.

  ‘Benjie,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry I left you a little abruptly this evening.’

  ‘No, it was my fault; I shouldn’t have interfered, I was just worried about you.’

  ‘I seem to be able to take care of myself,’ I said. ‘It’s the others I can’t take care of.’

  They loyally protested. ‘You’re the most conscientious CO there is. You’re always putting your pilots first. Look at what you did for Hobert today!’

  ‘That’s what I am looking at. I’ve just been on the phone. He was suffering badly from exposure when they picked him up. He never regained consciousness. He died half an hour ago.’

  Finally, after all the rumours and false alarms, it began to look as if the invasion was really going to happen. We had a meeting at Debden with Eisenhower, Doolittle, Spaatz, Kepner and all the brass to discuss our role on D-Day. It was an eye-opener to me. I realised why Ike had been chosen to be supreme commander over more senior generals. It was a lesson in leadership and motivation. He went around the table and asked for everyone’s input. No officer was too junior, no comments were too inappropriate not to be listened to. Only once did Eisenhower cut anyone off. When someone said: ‘Ike, I’ve got a great idea,’ he replied, ‘It’s too late for great ideas. We now have to make sure that the plans we have work.’

  After the meeting, Ike asked me to accompany them back to HQ, I found myself sharing the back seat of a command car with the great man himself. Having led the squadron on a number of successful strafing missions, and having destroyed fifteen enemy aircraft on the ground myself, I was considered to be somewhat of an expert on the effectiveness of fighters attacking specific ground targets deep in enemy territory by strafing or low-level pinpoint bombing. It was the theory of the Stuka, but without its lack of speed and vulnerability. He was intrigued by the possibilities. He also asked who it was that had developed the close cooperation between land forces and air forces that had given Germany its early victories. I reminded him that it was Ernst Udet, the World War I ace, but that he had learned most of it when he visited the United States in the thirties, and had even been allowed to purchase a Curtiss dive bomber which went to Germany to become the inspiration for the Ju87 ‘Stuka’.

  My main interest was to take advantage of this unique opportunity to find out from the one man who had all the plans and strategy in his head, just when the war would be over. A lull came in the conversation, but I hesitated. It would be stupid and naive simply to blurt out, ‘General, when is the war going to be over.’

  But he beat me to it. He rubbed his bald head wearily and said: ‘Major, you’ve been close to things here for some time, when do you think this damned war will be over?’

  Mac allowed the boogie-woogie to die out, finished his beer and closed the piano. As a youngster, Pierce McKennon couldn’t
make up his mind whether to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor, or follow his mother’s advice and become a classical concert pianist. He won a music scholarship to the University of Arkansas.

  But there must have been another side to Mac’s character. He dropped Mendelssohn and Bach to enlist in the US Air Force, and, when they turned him down as unfit, went to Canada to join the RCAF. When he arrived at Debden, he endeared himself to one and all by playing the fool to Deacon Hively’s brilliantly solemn, and howlingly funny ‘sermons’. He was always ready to play the piano into the small hours of the morning; but here too there had been a change: Beethoven and Mozart had been dethroned by Cab Calloway and the current leaders of jazz and swing. Mac could transpose any melody into a rolling, rumbling Boogie-woogie. He could always transform gloom, fear and grief into relaxation, happiness and hope. Our warmest memories of Debden were those precious evenings, each one of which could have been our last, with Mac, a cigarette dangling from his lower lip, pounding away till the beer in his mug perched on the piano was slopping over the top.

  The serious side of Mac’s character gradually made itself felt. After many narrow escapes, including being shot down over occupied France, and getting back to England, Mac took over as CO of 335 Squadron. He had nineteen destroyed, and more experience than anyone still left in the squadron, with the exception of Red Dog Norley. He also had a problem pilot in his outfit. George Green had been grounded time and again for misdemeanours both on the ground and in the air. His final crime was committed while flying number two to Red Dog Norley. They bounced two 109’s. Norley ordered Green to stick with him and give cover while they took one after the other, but when Red Dog had shot his down, he found himself alone. Then he spotted Green way down on the clouds, having goofed off after Jerry number 2, and lost him. The 109 was positioning himself for an attack on Green, and it took all Norley’s experience and skill to chase him off, and join up with Green.