Frequently the critique of one mission had to be held the morning after, while the next mission was in progress. And so it can be seen that the work at the wing was continuous. Mission overlapped mission, so that for us it was a life with no clearcut periods of time. Day merged into day to a degree that sometimes, for weeks at a time, I wouldn't know what day of the week it was. I would sleep in the daytime for several days in a row, and then maybe sleep at night for one or two, only to get up at 1:00 or 2:00 A.M. There was work to be done at all hours of the day or night, and someone had always to be on duty in operations. Somehow the general managed to get the whole story of all details which happened in the endless flood of events. I worked to the limit of my capacity and thoroughly enjoyed it.
From my position in the wing I had a perfect chance to observe the men in the groups under us who were then going through the same difficulties I had encountered months before. One of these was Major Jimmy Stewart. Jim had come over as a squadron commander in one of our groups and later had been taken out of that group to take the job of group operations officer in another group of the wing. During most of the time that I was the wing operations officer he was the group operations officer of the other unit. I heard the famous voice of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington over the conference telephone countless numbers of times at 1:00 or 2:00 A.M. Jim was an excellent combat officer by any standards. He was modest, quiet, and so deadly serious it sometimes almost made me ache to see him grieve over situations for which he felt responsible but about which he could do nothing. He led many excellent missions and some difficult ones. He led some heartbreakers that failed because of conditions beyond his control.
Particularly I recall one long mission he led that was destined for a target deep into Germany. The weather—the bugaboo of every command pilot in the theater—had done him the same trick at one time or another that it did to all of us who had been fighting the air war. He failed to hit the target; the formation flown was poor, and that, too, was because his planes had been unable to effect any proper assembly before going out. There were losses that were undeniably due either directly or indirectly to weather. I had taken one of our staff cars, the sad old British Humber, to drive down to Jim's field when I heard the ships were returning early. I got to the tower in time to see his ship land, and I drove out to the hard stand where it was taxied for parking. As the airplane stopped and the engines killed, the bomb bay doors slid open and Mr. Smith, wrapped in his high-altitude paraphernalia, got out. He was trailing his umbilical cord and his disconnected oxygen line. I never saw a sadder face than his—dirty and ringed from long wearing of his oxygen mask.
“Cheer up, Jim,” I said. “If you'd led some of the missions I've led, you'd be proud of this one today. What can you expect when the weather is like it is?”
“I know,” he drawled. “Wouldn't be so bad if this weren't about the third one in a row. If I get one more like this they're going to arrest me as a German spy.”
The days at the wing were not 100 percent work, though when I look back on them, they seem to have been almost that. Through my friend Mike Phipps I had the opportunity of meeting an Englishman who lived near our headquarters; that acquaintance did a lot to afford relaxation and also build up my esteem for the English. I needed such an acquaintance, for I had been annoyed on occasions by hearing various uncomplimentary British opinions about Americans. One, I recall as an example, was an opinion that the American foot soldier did not compare well with foot soldiers of other countries. The time was a month or so before the landing at Normandy. The case in point was the breakthrough at Kasserine Pass during the Battle of Africa. I knew little about the battle, but I believe the breakthrough was a reflection of many things other than the basic quality of our ground troops. I heard from some sources that at that time our troops were relying on British Intelligence, which had given them to expect a breakthrough in another sector. Our troops, according to that report, had regrouped to meet an expected thrust that never came, and consequently they were unprepared to meet the attack in the location where it was actually launched. Another consideration, of course, was the matter of the greenness of our troops. They simply hadn't had time to learn the ropes. That comment about the American foot soldier tended to draw me away from the British. Doubtless it was made to me as an American airman in an effort to flatter the Air Corps, since it was coupled with high praise of American fliers.
I found in Mike's friend the proof that to jump from particulars to generalities about people is a serious mistake. Vivian Lockett was a colonel of the home guard, and in some ways almost a typical member of the British upper class. He would not have made such comments as the one about our ground troops. In one way he was not typical, for he was completely indifferent to politics, or at least seemed so. So far as I knew he was not and had not been “in government,” and I couldn't picture his caring to be. He loved good horses and in years past had been captain of Britain's International Polo Team. He enjoyed shooting; he liked to putter around in his garden. He had a friendly outlook on life and a spirit which neither gave nor took offense. On several occasions I was present in his home for dinner, and I always found him charming.
A few days before the Derby I got a call from him. Knowing I came from the heart of the Bluegrass country in Kentucky, the colonel said he thought I might enjoy going to the “Daahby” with him. He had arranged “transport,” and if I could go he would be delighted. I was pleased to accept. Colonel Lockett had had to put his big car in storage because of the “petrol shortage,” but he had a friend who ran a van line to London. He had asked this friend to delay the regular run past Newmarket several days until Derby day so that we might ride in the truck. The friend had obliged. And so on Derby day he and I found ourselves rocking along the road to Newmarket in a furniture van. The weather was beautiful and the thrill of racing was in the air. I marveled at how, in spite of anything, the English always seem to manage to keep open avenues of escape from war.
I had a great day observing how different racing in England is from racing in the States. The track was a rolling stretch of ground with heavy green turf. It was not the regular track normally used in racing at Newmarket but a substitute course; the main course had been converted into an airstrip. On the track used this day the horses started from a little offshoot, ran about a quarter of a mile, and then made a right turn to run the remaining distance straightaway up and down several little hills. One of the stands was built looking towards the starting barrier, which made it very difficult from that position to tell which horse was leading as the whole pack thundered directly at you.
Not only did I find the layout of the track peculiar, but I met many racing figures who, to put it mildly, were not like my cronies at home. I met Lord Rosebery, owner of the winner, Ocean Swell. I also was introduced to Lord Derby and the Maharajah of Kashmir. The latter, a dark man with a flamboyant uniform, I had spotted and wondered about for some time. I thought he might be in His Majesty's fire service because of the amount of red he wore.
At least it was not a day of racing such as I used to enjoy as a kid—like the days when I used to climb over the fence at Churchill Downs, run across the infield, and jump the barrier into the Club House. Here I didn't need constantly to take care of guards with clubs seeking to do me in.
After the day's racing on the way home the colonel and I chatted about the horses. I reflected that the horses seemed of finer build than those at home, but many of them appeared to be little more than pretty. I didn't see anything like the number of rough looking horses I might see in a day of racing in the States, and the time turned in by the winners was not impressive. Maybe it was the result of their running on turf and starting from an old-fashioned spring barrier instead of a modern starting gate.
As the spring came on in 1944 our imaginations hung hair-triggered, guessing when the invasion of France would start. We knew the big show was imminent. Our aircrews felt they had borne the whole war in Western Europe for a long time, and the
y longed for assistance on the ground to speed things up. They had come home—those who survived—to almost empty barracks on occasions when the raids were rough, to mourn their late comrades, and to wonder whether the next foggy dawn would mark their last takeoff. Misery does love company, and the tragedy of our airmen at that time lay in their aloneness. They read in the papers stories of prophets who voiced the wish that there might not be any second front, so that there might be a chance to prove that Germany could be broken by strategic air power alone. The bomber crews were interested in winning the war and winning it as quickly as possible. They were not interested in proving the possibility of “victory through air power.”
In May we began to construct plans about how to form up a maximum number of heavy bombers in darkness. It had been demonstrated time and time again that large units of bombers could not fly close formation at night. The British, for example, in all their night flying had never tried to fly close formation. But we knew the invasion would force us to fly our type of formation at night.
We were intensely worried lest we send the boys out to attempt a type of night flying that would be more hazardous than the effect of enemy action. Each time we sent the groups out in extremely heavy weather we could normally expect a few losses of crews from midair collisions of our own bombers. These losses sorely tried the morale of the men, because they were not encountered as a direct result of enemy action. Though they were unavoidable, they seemed quite purposeless.
In planning a night formation we were concerned about a sad experience which had occurred a few months earlier when our ships were late coming home. They came in well after dark and the Jerries sent a fighter or two in with the formation. In the cover of darkness several of our bombers had been shot down in the traffic pattern of the home airdromes. Our staunch little General Jimmy Hodges had almost been killed standing on our control tower trying to supervise the landing of a stricken plane. Why, then, might we not expect intruder action almost anytime we put such formations in the air in darkness?
And so for days and weeks on end we planned and argued, proved and disproved, how to get the units up in the dark with minimum hazard. Only a few in the wing knew enough of the invasion plan to know that our ground troops would be getting out of their boats to walk up those starkly forbidding beaches at the first break of day. It was absolutely necessary that we be formed up enough to hit our assigned targets just a minute or two ahead of the landing. Thus all the forming up procedure and the trip to the targets had to be done in the dark. This would have been easy had we been able to fly the same sort of easy patchwork formation the British use for night operations. But we were doing pattern precision bombing—not area bombing— and in such operations we used our special crews to lead closely grouped units, so that many crews could drop bombs with the perfection of the best. There was no alternative.
One governing point was that we had to anticipate cloud cover of the targets. It might be clear, but we could take no chances. We had at that time an increasing number of ships equipped to bomb on instruments with personnel specially trained to operate them. These ships would have to lead each formation so that, regardless of whether the targets were overcast, we could hit them. If we threw our bombs short they would get the men in the boats—our men. If they went long they wouldn't help any to soften up the beaches. They had to be on the nose regardless of the weather. Of course it would be the effort of those concerned to select proper weather, but who can predict the weather in England or France?
At length we had the plan we thought the most practicable. It fit our need of getting the groups formed into the number of units which our limited numbers of instrument-bombing lead ships and crews permitted. It also took into account the narrow confines within which we were limited by consideration of the operation simultaneously of combat wings of all of the three divisions of the Eighth Air Force. In other words, in a rather narrow part of a small island we had to count on every available aircraft being in the air at night, possibly in bad weather.
While we were selecting the plan we finally proposed to our division headquarters, General Ted would argue first for one plan and then for another. I gave vigorous support to the plan I liked; and Colonel Thomas, to one of his choosing. Variations were offered by McClain and Fino. It was evident the general was trying to get a thorough testing by argument of all the plans proposed. Sometimes at the thought of it all I would put my head in my hands and moan. I imagined the episode starting with a series of bright explosions of the first few planes blowing up in midair collisions. After that it seemed to me the whole sky might be covered by flame and smoke and combed by falling bits of bombers.
When I became depressed the general would laugh and say, “calm down, Phil. We'll make it all right. All you are supposed to do is to give a little aid in setting up a plan. If we had to we would take any plan and make it work.” My theory that many British civilians and American ground soldiers would be killed by falling debris from disintegrated bombers was discarded in view of the necessity to get something worked out.
The group commanders were at length called in and presented the plan we chose as the most nearly possible of a number of nearly impossible ones open to us. They met the plan with admirable calm and suggested only a few minor changes.
The big day came on. We didn't know which day it would be until a comparatively few hours before the plan was to be put into effect. For some time I had already been worrying about who was going to lead our wing on the mission. I hadn't flown operationally for about two months. I had taken a rest after my tour was complete, but I hadn't intended permanently to quit flying combat. I don't think General Ted ever considered any of his flying personnel nonoperational. He was certainly very operational himself, with many hard missions to his credit. I knew he would be flying combat as long as the war lasted, and so would the pilots on his staff.
In short, my conscience began working on me. I didn't think there would be any enemy opposition to make the mission hard, but I was definitely worried about how the forming up procedure would go. I knew those in the groups who might be called upon to lead would also be worried about it. If the whole thing messed up royally, as well it might, it wouldn't be too unlikely for a scapegoat to be found. That person would most likely be the lead command pilot. Since I had played a part in drawing up the plan for the wing, it seemed right that I have the responsibility of putting it into effect.
My old group had been selected to lead the wing. Colonel Arnold had moved up to division headquarters as a member of General Hodges's staff, and Colonel Miller had taken over the group. In the morning before D day, when we were first alerted for the invasion, I went down to Colonel Millers office. I volunteered my services to lead. I almost hoped that I would be turned down, but I was taken up on the spot. After all, the pilots of the group were pretty weary from heavy, sustained action, and I hadn't had any for a long time.
We went over the plan carefully with key flying personnel several times. The lead crews had flown a simulated assembly plan, but the groups as a whole had not. We were briefed about eleven that night for takeoff at 1:30 A.M. At that briefing I saw the first reaction of the crews—a show of genuine enthusiasm. When it was announced that at last the invasion was beginning, a cheer stopped the briefing officer for almost a minute. The crews were cheering as they might have cheered the end of the war. As a matter of fact, this was the end of the purely strategic air war of Western Europe, and they knew it.
The pilot of the ship I was set up to fly in was the highly qualified “Temp” Cumiskey. The squadron I used to have had been completely converted to instrument bombing, and “Temp's” crew was now in it. They were a good bunch of fellows and a team in which I had complete confidence. Before I quite realized it, I was waiting in my ship at the end of the runway. At the appointed moment I saw a signal light from the tower, and in another instant my ship was roaring down the strip into the night. The sky above was overcast, as we were told it would be. We expected to fly a
very precise pattern on instruments so that the other ships could take off behind at intervals of one minute and, flying the same pattern as we flew, be in minimum danger of collision. Then we were supposed to turn and come back over the field at 12,000 feet. According to what we expected of the weather, we thought that would put us on top of the overcast.
As we flew out I noticed the cloud was heavier than I had thought it would be. At about eight thousand feet I saw by the free air temperature gauge on the instrument panel that the air in which we were flying was below freezing. I took a flashlight I carried and shined it out the window by my seat and onto the engine nacelles. Just as I thought, there was a coating of ice forming over the nacelles and frosting up the propeller hubs. We were pretty heavily loaded with bombs. I hoped we wouldn't pick up much ice before we broke cloud because I knew the ship was carrying near its load limit at takeoff.
As we came back over the field we were beginning to break out. There were scattered bits of cloud which we flew into occasionally, but we could see the stars above. Our radio compass needle indicated we were directly over the field, and our waist gunners reported they could see the navigation lights of two other ships pulling up on our wings. That was encouraging. All the boys were making a superhuman effort because they knew this was as important as any operation they would ever be called on to perform. In a moment I could look out and see the dull red, left wing light of the ship on my right and the dull green, right wing light of the ship on my left. I was pleased.
Then we turned out on course to effect the next phase of the complicated assembly plan. We had to climb higher to keep out of the cloud. We were then over an area that another wing was using for takeoffs, and once when we dipped a little into the undercast below I saw the navigation lights of a bomber flash by only a few feet below our flight level. If we didn't want to smash into someone we knew we'd better climb and keep out of that bomber-filled undercast. And so we climbed.
Bomber Pilot Page 24