Chapter 6
After a few days at Camp Kilmer we were moved out to board ship in the middle of the night. All I can remember is going up a very wide gangplank into a big black opening about 20 foot square in the side of the ship. The U.S.O. girls were there passing out coffee and doughnuts and I think there was a band playing. The ship was the Queen Elizabeth, owned and operated by the English, and there were thousands of us on this trip. I believe there were about 12,000 troops and a crew of 1,700 on the ship, but am not certain of the figure. We sailed at night and by daylight we were at sea. I will note that we never did set the Statue of Liberty then or when we returned.
The entire ship had been altered to carry troops and the staterooms that originally were for two people now held twelve of us. there were four bunks with just a narrow aisle in the middle and one small shower. We didn't take many showers as it was salt water and left you so sticky. As I recall we had Just a little fresh water to rinse off with. The only open areas were the lounges and the large ballrooms of peace time. In these the almost continuous poker games took place. I spent very little time on dock except for the abandon ship drills. It was December and the weather was not very good. On the few good days we could go up on the stern and shoot skeet. The shells were free and we could shoot all we wanted. We usually found an enlisted man to run the machine to shoot the clay targets. It gave us a little more practice in 1eading a moving target.
I didn't get seasick, but in the morning when I went to the dining room and saw the fish for breakfast I did not feel so well. I took a couple of rolls and bacon for sandwiches and went back to my room to eat them in my bunk. This being an all English crew we got very English food. About half way across the Atlantic the ship began to take a zigzag course and the direction was changed every three minutes. It took longer this way but was the only protection against the German submarines as we were alone with no escort ships. When walking down the corridors we would feel the ship 1ean one way and then the other. We soon got used to that and the thing which bothered us the most was at meal time. The tables had a board along the edge and all the plates would slide from one side to the other. When you wanted salt, pepper, etc. you would grab it when it came to your side of the table. We had to hang onto our plates as we ate, but that didn't seem to hurt our appetites. As it was such a large ship the movement was slow and not violent unlike the small ship I came home in.
The normal four day crossing took us seven days and we landed at Gloucester, Scotland, harbor in the middle of December. As we disembarked we looked back at the ship and that was the first time we saw the Queen in its entirety. It was huge in the brilliant sunlight. We next had our first experience with an English train. The aisle runs down the side of the car with small compartments on the side. We were packed in so tightly with all our luggage that the aisle was full and prohibited any walking around. We made part of the trip in the daytime so we saw some of the Scottish and English country side.
On December 23 we arrived it Keevil, England in the southwest not far from Bath. This was not an airfield, just a place to stay until we got a base and planes. Keevil was horrible and the worst of places to spend your second Christmas away from home. We lived in board shacks covered with tar paper and the weather was cold and damp. We had little stoves in our shacks but nothing to burn in them. The only tools we had were knives so we used them to cut branches of trees and bushes. It was green wood so we would coat the twigs with shoe polish to make them burn. We had one large building for a mess hall with one stove in the middle of it. Here we were served powered eggs for breakfast every morning and they were terrible... tasteless, smelly and a sickly green color. Instead of the eggs we would get a couple of slices of bread and toast them on a stick in the one stove in the middle of the room.
Neill and I made one trip to Bath where we went through the old Roman baths and walked through the rest of the city. We made one trip to London by train and walked around the city. Trafalger Square remains in my memory. It was a long trip by train from Keevil so we only went once while stationed there. Later we were closer to London and went more often. I remember once getting a cup of coffee while waiting for a train back to base. The English were unfamiliar with coffee making and it was so hot and strong that the train arrived before it was cool enough to drink. One of the interesting things at Keevil was how we would take a bath. The bath house was a long narrow building with openings at either end and had a cement floor. Partitions separated bathtubs set up on higher concrete slabs in each stall. It was winter and there was no heat in the building but the water was always hot. We would hang all our clothes, including our shoes up high, fill the tub with water, jump in and leave the water running the entire time. The tubs would run over and the water would run down the aisle and out the doorways at either and. The building would fill with steam and we would lay in the tubs for one to three hours as it was the only place we could get warm. I have no idea how they heated the water, but it was always hot. I was in the same shack as Ullo and Bruce so we all suffered that place together. While we were overseas we asked Lettie and Ullo's girl friend Dolores, who lived in Oakland to get together and they became friends.
After a couple of weeks we moved to Riverhall, near Colchester. Here we lived in metal nissan huts and conditions were a little better. We still didn't know what kinds of planes we would get, P-51 or P-47s and were very happy when we got the P-51s. it was January, still cold and we had one small stove in the center of the metal building and we were still trying to burn green wood. The mess building used soft coal to cook and it came in big blocks some chunks over a foot square. We would go down there and steal a chunk when the cooks were not looking and run like hell. We broke it up for burning, and would keep warm for awhile. I had about ten Army blankets on my cot. First I covered the cot with a thick layer of newspapers and then put all the blankets on, tied a rope around to hold everything on and never made my bed the entire time I was there. I crawled in Just like it was a sleeping bag. You had to watch out lest someone from another hut come in and put a hand full of shells from our 45 caliber revolvers into the stove when no one was looking. They made quite a noise, but would Just rattle the stove and not really hurt anyone.
Ullo had an electric razor that ran on 110 volts but of course the English power was all 220 volts. Ullo was an electrician by trade so we went to Colchester to the "sparkmonqer" (hardware) and bought a lot of wire, bulbs, ect. and Ullo put up about ten foot wire over our bunks with a lightbulb connected about every foot. When they were all lit it cut the voltage down so the razor would run. If your beard was tough you could just unscrew another bulb and the razor would run faster. Real handy, it worked fine and we both used it.
I still had a camera and started using it again. I can't remember why I didn't take any pictures during flight training but Bill Haynes, from Chicago, and I took a lot around the base, of the planes, gun emplacements, etc. I had about ten rolls taken and kept them in my locker. Due to security reasons I didn't get them developed, but I should have sent them home undeveloped and taken the chance. When I was shot down they were all in my locker and I never saw it, or them again. After the war I tried to contact Bill Haynes to see if he had any, but was not able to find his correct address. It would be wonderful to see them.
We were Just north of London and were now experiencing air raids by the Germans at night. By this time we had been through enough that we didn't have any fear so we would go outside during the raid to watch the searchlights pick out the German bombers and listen to the anti-aircraft guns. We were out in the country so there were no close targets and we felt safe.
At Rivenhall it was a long way to the mess hall from our barracks so in the morning we would come outside to smell the air to determine if they were serving powdered eggs. If they were, we would just skip breakfast. Real eggs were very scarce in England at the time and once every week or two we were issued two real eggs. We kept them in our lockers and on the mornings when we would smell the powdered eggs at their worst we would carry our hoarded eggs down to the mess hall. We carried them in our jacket pockets and it was difficult to make it there without someone breaking them. If someone thought you were carrying eggs, they would chase you all the way to the mess hall. They got me once and it made a mess in your pocket! Anyway, our aim was to get the eggs to the cook who would fix them any way you wanted while you waited. We were still having classes in aircraft identification and a lot of map study so that we would recognize all the coastline of Europe and England. The boys were still playing poker and Al Johnson was still borrowing money and paying me back every payday. He owed me money most of the time. We went to London several times and stayed at the Palace Hotel. It was near the center of London and one of the best hotels. It made the English angry as we got the hotel room and would fill the little gas heater up with shillings then would go out to eat while it was running to heat the room up. The heater would run about twenty minutes for a shilling, but the English would never run the heater unless they were in the room as gas was in short supply. We had the money and felt that we needed heat more than they did. One night we were there during an air raid and didn't oven bother to get out of bed to look for a shelter. The hotel shook a lot and it was noisy, but we survived. We ate some of our meals at the Grovesner House which was a huge place. The serving was cafeteria style and 2,000 could be seated at a time. The food was good and there was a bar there too. One night in the blackout and the fog we found a little bar where they served warm beer in big pitchers which we tried to cool by adding ice. It was so dark and foggy outside that you kept bumping into people and all you could see were taxis with little slits of light for headlights. They still drove them in the total darkness. While in London we also visited several art museums and saw one stage show.
The English prostitutes were really a problem to some of us. One night Ullo and I were staying at the Palace Hotel and when we opened the door to leave, there were six or more of them who pushed into the room. We had quite a time getting them to leave, and they followed us all the way out to the main entrance onto the sidewalk. With all the people around it was embarrassing as they were swearing at us. We lost ourselves in the crowd as fast as we could. There were a large number of prostitutes in London and I suppose they made a good living off the Americans. The English soldiers had no money and the Americans were loaded with it. I never did understand the English system of money and when Paying for food or a bus ride would usually Just hold out a handful of change and let them take the right amount. I guess most people were honest because I know enough about it to suspect if they were Cheating.
I enjoyed walking around the little narrow back streets and stopping in the tea shops for tea and biscuits. I remember one little place because when you were ready to leave you had to bend over to turn the doorknob which was only about a foot and a half off the floor. One time several of us went to Colchester for the weekend and stayed at the Red Lion Inn. There were inns of that name all over England. They all had the high beamed ceiling, a the dark woodwork, with a small bar and a place for eating. For breakfast they served eggs and bacon with toast and coffee. We couldn't figure out how they fed us like that when the English people were going without due to shortages. Probably they did it for the money although it seemed a reasonable price to us.
Lenny Pierce was at an airbase in central England about thirty miles from where I was stationed and he was already flying missions. I contacted him and made arrangements to go up to visit I made the trip by ambulance as that was a cheap and good way to get around. They were headed in every direction so I would catch one going one way and when they stopped at a base I would catch another going in the next direction. At one base I was waiting when they wheeled in a stretcher with the remains of an Englishman who had been trying to defuse a bomb. He was still alive, but not much was left of him. I finally made it to Len's field and spent the night there. He was living in a beautiful brick home that was probably the residence of a British officer before the war. At night he would set his shoes out in the hall and in the morning they would be returned polished. Something different from the conditions in which we found ourselves! We were able to travel around like this when the weather was bad and there was no chance of flying. After we began flying missions we had to be more careful to stay near our base. Len Pierce was also flying P-51s and was with one of the best outfits. He entered the service a couple of months ahead of me and was Just that much further ahead.
We received a base pay each month and a flying pay for each month when we flew at least four hours. During the first two months we received no flying pay as we had no planes. Just before I left the States, I arranged to have $100 a mouth from my pay go to Lettei in California.
Finally our new planes arrived and this was the first time we were sure we were really getting P-51s. A lot of the other squadrons were getting P-47s and P-38s so we considered ourselves lucky to be getting the planes we wanted most. It was near the end of February and everyone was anxious to begin flying after two months. These were the best fighter planes in the war and thousands of them had been built. Until this time there had been no fighters with long enough range to escort the bombers deep into Germany and our effort was taking a real beating from the German fighters. On February third I flew the P-51 for the first time and it was a thrill. It had so much more power than anything we had flown before and was a pleasure to fly. In it you truly felt part of the plane. That was what they called a "Pilot's Plane". For several days we just took the planes up to get their feel. On clear days you could see France and Belgium across the Channel but in general we flew near the base. Some pilots wore crazy and one even slipped across the Channel and shot all his ammunition at a train. This aggressive type of pilot usually proved to be the best in combat, so he was only reprimanded and grounded for three days. Due to the English weather, we were probably al1 grounded anyway.
We had a softball diamond for use when we were not flying. You had to watch it all the time because some one would fly across the field just above the ground when they could. They were so low that you would be forced down into the dirt. All fighter pilots were a little crazy, but mostly the nicest guys you'd ever meet. Several times I went up to 33,000 feet which was the highest the plane would go before the controls got sluggish due to the thin air. When you started the plane you could not take too much time getting into the air the air. You needed to taxi out and take off as soon as possible as it was a liquid cooled engine and the liquid would overheat and boil out al1 over the plane. That would make your maintenance crew real unhappy as they would have to clean the sticky material off the whole plane. This happened to me just once as I was getting ready to take off and it was the only mission when my flight had to go without me. The P-51 landed at about 90 mph and took off at 100 to 110 mph.
One day Bruce, Tilson and I were flying together and landed at another field where they had P-47s and we had the opportunity to look them over closely. We didn't think much of them as they were big and clumsy next to our sleek planes. The fog started to close in and we headed home in a hurry. By the time we got back to the field we were on instruments only as we couldn't see a thing. The base put us at different altitudes 500 feet apart and brought us down one at a time by radar. It was a good thing we had all the instrument training and by following the radio instructions we were brought right to the end of the runway before we even saw the ground.
We were in the Ninth Air Force, the 363 Fighter Group, and the 380 th squadron. Each field had three squadrons at different locations around the field. We had the 380th 381 and 382 squadrons. Our squadrons consisted of 25 pilots and a lot of the guys I flew with in the States were in the other squadrons, but we didn't get together much. We were all second Lieutenants except for one first lieutenant, Martin DoLong from Dansville, N.Y. and our commanding officer, Captain McCall. Our commander was a very poor leader and was scared to death to fly a mission. Most of the other groups in England were led by majors or colonels and sometimes even by a general. Good leaders made all the difference, and the squadrons had much better combat records than we did because of this. Those squadrons with good records were sent to the areas where most of the fighting was taking place. Most of our missions were led by the first Lieutenant Martin DeLong. Years after the War I heard that he was a colleqe professor down in Dansville But never got down there to see him.
When we flew missions, our squadron flew four flights of four planes in each flight and the other two squadrons the same. On occasions we were down a few planes due to damage. Our flight was usually Tilsen leading with his wingman and I with my wingman. 0n one mission I led our flight. Most often Bruce flew as my wingman. When you were flying, your wingman was supposed to protect you from an attack from behind. It was good to have a friend there.
We had our own doctor at the field and he was a nice fellow a Michael DeMaio MD. He was always checking us as he certified us for flying duty and could ground anyone for sickness or flying fatigue. We also had a dentist, Dr. Axelrod, to whom I went a couple of times. The office was a tent with a dirt floor and the drill was run by a foot pedal. He had an enlisted man who sat in front of you and pumped the pedal when the doctor told him. The faster he pumped, the faster the drill went. I did not notice the equipment was from Ritter in Rochester, so I felt right at home. Dr. Axelrod was big man, 6 foot tall and over 200 pounds.
Mr. Woods was a baldheaded man of at least 60 years who taught us map reading and aircraft identification. We now had to be able to recognize all the English, American and enemy planes which made a large number to identify quickly. In one class this gentle man was showing us the location of different cities in Germany and we asked him where Blutengluten was. We sat there giggling for 15 minutes while he tried to find it. We had Just made up the name and after a while he caught on.
Mr. Fagan was also an older man who gave us the weather conditions and other information. I think it was remarkable how those older men were serving their country doing whatever they were qualified for. They were necessary for each outfit and at their time of life it must have been even harder for them to be away from home and living under such hard conditions. At age twenty six I was older than most of the other pilots myself.
After six hours of flying in England to get used to the planes and practice landings, we were about ready to fly missions. Now we were to get our own planes. I understood that each plane cost about $45,000 which seemed like a lot then, but is nothing compared to the price of a plane today. We had our own crew which consisted of a crew chief armorer and mechanics. They were proud of their plane and kept it in excellent condition. They would wash the plane with gasoline and then wax and polish it so there would be less air resistance and it could go a couple of miles an hour faster. My crew chief was Alvin Wolfe from Buffalo New York. Each squadron had their own identification number and mine was A9-R which was on the side of the plane in large letters. This was the only way we could identify the squadrons that we might get mixed up with over Germany.
I should mention here that Ullo was always playing cribbage, and he and Snyder would often be playing on the wing of a plane right up to takeoff time. Neill Ullo and I had been to London and decided to take piano lessons. What a time and situation to start something like that! We walked all around the little back streets of London until we found an old man who gave lessons. We made a down payment and set a date for our first lesson, but due to what was to happen to us, we never made it back again.
Our first mission was on February 25, 1944. After breakfast (if you were not too nervous to eat) we would report to the Ready Room which was similar to a school classroom with chairs, a platform up front, and a large map showing England and Germany was covered with a drape and we would sit there buzzing with talk and nervous about where we might be going. When they pulled back the drape there was a red ribbon from our base to the target and back. If it was a short ribbon everyone would cheer and a long ribbon would fill the room with groans. Our first mission was across the Channel to France to see if any German planes would come up. We ran into no opposition and it was an easy time. It is not too clear after all these years, but I remember that first mission we were short of equipment and I flew without either a parachute or a life raft. I believe it was a parachute I was missing because that usually fit into the bucket seat to raise you up and I filled mine with a jacket and rags. It was on my mind the whole mission that if anything happened I would have to land the plane and not bail out. We were ordered to fly ... and we had to go, but that never happened again.
I will not be able to describe the missions in order, so I will simply describe experiences as I recall them. We had a nice concrete runway at this base but Captain McCall only flew a couple of missions as our squadron leader. lieutenant DeLong led most of the early missions and McCalls record was so bad he was soon replaced. We got a West Point grad who wasn't much better, but he was big on discipline. This was completely lost on a bunch of fighter pilots. When you go through long missions and lose a lot of your best friends, you are not about to spend time worrying about West Point rules and regulations. He even tried to give bed and equipment inspection and had us line up for full uniform inspection on the runway. I can't remember what finally happened to him, but on one mission were led by a Colonel who came from another base and was an experienced combat pilot. I think he was sent to check out what kind of an outfit we were.
Of the 23 missions I flew, most were bomber escorts and a few were bombing runs to targets in France and not too deep into Germany. The P-51 had two tanks that hung one from each wing and they hold 150 gallons of gasoline each. On bombing runs these two racks held a 500 pound bomb each. If we were called back from a mission due to a change in the weather, we would drop them in the Channel as it was too dangerous to land with them still attached as they might Jar loose on the runway. We thought about all the gas Rationing at home while we were dumping all that fuel. These tanks and the 50 gallon tank that was located right behind the pilot plus the tanks in the wings were the reason the P-51 could stay in the air about six hours and was able to escort the bombers all the way to Berlin and back. The English Spitfires could only go as far as Belgium and France with the bombers and the bombers suffered heavy losses until we were there to intercept them. We would also be there to guard the bombers coming home slowly after being damaged and losing engines. The Spitfire planes would escort them as far as Belgium where we would pick them up, then the Spitfires would meet them there again coming home. The other American fighters like the P-47 and the P-38 could go a ways into Germany, but not all the way to Berlin until their range was increased later in the war. During flight the wing tanks had to be used first as they were dropped at the first sighting of enemy aircraft. They created drag and affected the maneuverability of the plane. You had to remember, even in combat, to keep switching the tanks to keep the plane's weight distributed equally and also to keep the tank From running dry, causing the engine to quit. You could start it again by switching tanks and putting the nose down, but you couldn't afford to have that happen in combat.
You can see why our training was so extensive as the fighter pilot was his own, pilot, gunner, bombardier, and navigator. He had to be trained in all areas. on our second mission, which was the first one for Ullo, he failed to return. Even though no one actually saw what happened, we figured he had gone down. Remember that he was the one who had gone to Texas to advanced gunnery school and came back to California to teach us all he had learned He went down on his first mission and probably never got to fire his guns. His bad luck spelled the end of our piano lessons in London. His story is interesting and you will Learn of it 1ater, After we got together again.
We had another pilot, James Barlow from Klamath Falls, Oregon, who during training was always on the radio singing on the radio "here I sit, fat, dumb and happy". He was shot down on one of our early missions and we heard him call on his radio "So long guys here goes fat, dumb, and happy bailing out. We were beginning to lose pilots now and were getting replacements from the States. I'm glad I never had to Join a group like that, not knowing anyone. We had been together so long by then that we knew each other and were good friends. We did not dwell much on the friends we had begun losing. Each of us had accepted the probability that it could happen to us any day, so had conditioned ourselves to the situation. Some of the missions made us nervous but I wouldn't say that we were inordinately bothered by fear. We were so occupied and it was a thrilling experience to actually be a part of combat over enemy territory. However we did look forward to the days that the weather was bad and no missions were flown. We would sit around the "Ready Room" playing cards and discussing past missions. I should mention that my Flight Leader T.J. Tilson or Bruce had given me the nickname of "Buck" Benson when we were in training in California and that is what I was called from then on. I don't remember anyone ever calling me Bunny.
One of our missions was a dive bombing run on some factories in France. We flew in formation to the target and peeled off one at a time diving down at a large building and releasing our bombs. I saw some of them go right into a large door at one end of the building. We were down to about 500 feet and when we pulled up I saw the plane in front of me blow up and I flew right through the pieces. I don't remember the pilots name, but recall seeing something yellow go by me and thinking it was the yellow "Mae West" life vast we all wore. Anti-aircraft fire must have hit his tanks. I was flying with Bruce and when we got back to the field he found several bullet holes in his plane. Several times when we flew together he got bullet holes, but I never did get hit. When going on a mission we would start our planes and taxi out onto the runway. You taxied by zigzagging because the nose of the plane was up while on the ground and you couldn't see directly in front of you. We took off by twos with the second plane at the side and slightly behind the other. The second plane watched the lead plane only and kept the same distance from him. You didn't look at the instruments on the runway, just the other plane. Sounds hard now, but it was easy once you got used to it. We would then climb by twos until reaching a specific altitude, circle until everyone was in formation, then we would head for Europe. Sometimes when it was cloudy you were forced to climb on instruments only until getting above the clouds, anywhere up to 30,000 feet. The sun would be shining there and the clouds as white as new snow. It gave one the feeling that you were just above the earth and could step out and walk on top of the clouds. The other planes would pop up out of the clouds. It was quite a sight.
One time we had a Lieutenant Colonel leading our squadron and when he got up on the runway the pilot who was taking off with him either misjudged or didn't use his brakes and he ran into the back of the Colonels plane, chewing off the entire tail section. The pilot probably wished he could have died right there, but nobody was hurt. Another time a boy by the name of Snyder came back from a mission with a damaged plane and he ran off the end of the runway and crashed. The emergency trucks went out and covered the plane with foam to prevent a fire and he got out okay. He was not injured but during the next few weeks his hair turned completely white. I wouldn't have believed that could happen if I hadn't seen it myself.
The weather at this time of year was not very good in England, with fog and a lot of cloudy days. If the weather was good over the target we would usually fly anyway. Coming back from missions we were usually at about 15OOO feet and when we got to where we thought the field was, we would dive down and pull out just above the ground. We could get up to 550 mph in those dives and the the wings would start to vibrate and the plane would shake, but that didn't stop us from doing it. At times we would come down through a thick overcast sky and wouldn't see the ground until we came out from beneath the clouds... sometimes pretty close to the ground.
After we took off and headed for Europe across the Channel there would usually be someone who would abort the mission. This was the term for dropping out and going back to the field. Usually this was due to engine trouble or knowing that something didn't feel Just right with the plane, but we had a few pilots who were "chicken" and just made up an excuse, particularly if the mission was to be a long one. They didn't stand very high on the popularity list with the other pilots. I had my ground crew to thank for keeping my plane in excellent condition so I never had to "abort".
There are a few facts about the P-51 which I will mention here. There was a lever that controlled openings that kept the coolant from boiling over while waiting to take off and it closed as soon as you were in the air. The wheels were pulled up as soon as you left the ground so you had to remember to put them down again before landing. The four bladed propeller was a variable pitch and had to be set so it would bite more air, getting you into the air faster, climbing steep, then set back to the right angle. A small tube at the and of the wing ran the wind indicator so you know how fast you're going. The plane had a cockpit heater that didn't always work too well and that was a primary complaint of the pilots. At 30,000 feet the temperature could be anywhere from zero to minus 60 degrees so you needed all the heat you could get. The guns were fired by pressing a button on the top of the stick and we would test them on the way across the Channel to be sure they were working. There was a camera mounted on the wing which worked from the same button and it took pictures every time the gun fired. This verified the enemy planes the pilots claimed to have destroyed.
One pilot in our squadron had the cutest little puppy. It was a little brown fat thing with fur soft as cotton. It would sleep on' the back of his neck and he took it everywhere but on the missions. Another incident I remember took place when I was walking in London. There were so many Americans around, I started looking for someone I might have known in the States. I finally saw someone who looked familiar standing across the street, so I dashed over and asked his name. You can imagine my embarrassment when he said: "Yes, sir, I am the armorer on your plane."
On the days that we were to fly escort for the bombers we would get up about 6:00 am as we heard the bombers taking off. We went to breakfast and then the Ready Room for briefing. When the curtain was pulled back and the ribbon went all the way to Berlin you knew you would have a tough mission. The weather man would give us the weather over the target and what to expect when we returned to England. All of our compass headings depended on the weather, our point of rendezvous with the bombers, heading to the target, and the compass heading home. The map man would describe the coast of Europe at the entry point and additional points of identification along the way so we would be certain of our location. He explained where we would be likely to encounter flak (the big German guns) and where we could anticipate the most enemy fighters. We wrote down all of this information on a pad fastened just above our knee so we could refer to it in a hurry.
All this time you could hear the steady roar of the bombers taking off. When there were about a 1,000 four engine bombers taking off you could hear it all over southeastern England. It took a good hour for all the bombers in a squadron to get into the air and another half hour for them to get to the right altitude where they would circle until in formation and ready to head for the target in Europe. They used a lot of gasoline and time just getting ready to go. After our briefing we would all make our trip to the bathroom and then to the equipment room to get our parachutes and other equipment. We didn't have to leave the field until about two hours after the bombers because we were so much faster. We would catch up with them soon after they crossed the coastline of Europe and it was a very pretty sight to see the formations of B-17s in the sky for miles ahead, especially on a sunny day. Some days there would be big white clouds and the B-17s would create their own clouds from vapor trails. The bomber vapor trails would be straight and the fighter trails would be above them back and forth across the blue sky.
When escorting the bombers we had to fly as slowly as we could and weave back and forth so as to not outdistance them. The closer to the target the heavier the flak and we would see the black bursts all around the bombers and once in a while one would go down. The bombers had to fly straight and level with no chance of taking evasive action and we would think how brave they were all the time never considering changing places with them. We were above them and when we saw the flak bursts could go up or down 500 feet, flying safely there for several minutes until the German guns could correct for our altitude. We never worried about the flak much because we could normally avoid it. Once in awhile we lost a fighter plane to flak, but usually it was to enemy fighters. After the bombers had dropped their loads they could take some evasive action.
On one of the Berlin raids it was a clear day and we watched the bombers drop their load and could see the bombs fall and the big explosions go up right down the middle of a wide main street in Berlin. After the bombs were dropped we would fly with the B-17s until they reached the Channel. I went on several Berlin raids and on other occasions we would be diverted to closer targets as the weather had turned bad before we got to Berlin. The P-51 could stay in the air about six hours which was the amount of time it took to go to Berlin and back. Our missions took anywhere from one to six hours. After being tightly strapped in and unable to move around in that small cockpit for six hours, it was difficult to even stand up when getting out of the plane. Some guys would step out of the cockpit onto the wing and fall off onto the ground. We used to tease one fellow because he opened his parachute when he fell off the wing. Being so tired (and the strain of combat really was exhausting) the shot of whiskey we got at the debriefing after a mission was welcome.
On each mission we had one pilot who flew up and down the coast of England at 30,000 feet. This was the "relay plane" used to relay any massages to the planes over Germany. Due to the curvature of the earth and communication equipment at that time, radio messages could not be sent directly. If the wind direction changed while the planes were over Germany it would affect the compass heading we were given to return to England and if it was overcast we could have blown off course, missed England entirely and gone out to sea. If your home field was fogged in you were directed to another field. I flew the relay plane just once and it was very monotonous sitting up there for hours. You could throttle the engine down so it would Just keep you from stalling out and save gas that way. One pilot stayed up seven hours and we thought he'd gone down as six hours was the limit. He had just seen how long he could possibly stay aloft by using the technique and came happily back to base long after the mission was over.
They were very strict about talking on the radio from the time you took off until you were over Germany and even then it was used only for necessary messages and warning each other when in combat. Any unnecessary talk might have given away information to the Germans (even though they had probably picked us up on their radar). The English bombers always bombed the enemy at night and they continued to do this throughout the War. They thought that the Americans were crazy to bomb in broad daylight. The B-17 bombers, however, were heavily armed and could defend themselves fairly well. The English bombers, on the other hand, had few guns. When the B-17s first began flying, the Germans had so many fighter planes that the losses were terrible. With ten men in each bomber, sometimes five or six hundred men would be lost in a single mission. The situation reversed itself when the fighter planes had range enough to escort the bombers all the way to the target. At the time I was flying, the American fighters were beginning to outnumber the enemy. Their losses were so heavy that on some of, our missions we did not see a single enemy plane.
One time, before we started flying missions we had the opportunity to visit an English radar station in southern England. It was a large curved glass about six feet across at table top level with a map of England and Europe on the glass. The room in which it was placed was dark and there was a light under the glass. The planes returning from a mission were little blips on the glass. A couple of the blips were over the ocean way south of England and they were trying to contact them by radio to reorient them. they were far off course and expected to run out of fuel over the Atlantic. I imagine there were more than a few who ended up missing England due to wind changes or bad weather during the war.
When we did use our radio we had a code for each mission and the four flights of each squadron were: red, blue, green, etc. We used these codes when talking to each other so we knew who we were talking to without using any given names. We looked forward to short missions to France or Belgium and these were called "milk runs". The long missions with flak and enemy fighters were the ones we dreaded. I should mention that we had a certain amount of fear on these missions. It has been said that anyone who doesn't experience fear in combat is lying. It affected some more than others, however, and we were constantly being observed by our doctor for any signs of battle fatigue. The strain would begin to tell after you had flown a lot of missions.
When we began to lose friends, I guess one just developed an attitude that it wasn't going to happen to you. If you were shot down there was still a good chance of surviving if you bailed out safely. The only instruction we ever had about parachutes took about five minutes. "You put the chute on this way and this is what you pull", and that was about it. One time I visited a building on the base where they were packing parachutes and I learned how they folded them, but I would never have had the nerve to do my own. When talking to some of the bomber crews that were in prison camp with us, we learned-much about their experiences having to bail out. They did not wear their parachutes and had to put them on before Jumping. They told about some airmen who were wounded or unconscious and they would put parachutes on them and push them out. Even the unconscious ones turned up In prison camp so it seems a fact that oven the unconscious mind reacts, telling the body what to do. They must have pulled their own rip cords to open their chutes.
One of the missions most memorable to me was to a target in northern Germany where we were providing escort for bombers. When we got over Denmark the weather turned very bad and we couldn't avoid the overcast so were forced to fly on instruments. We never did find the bombers. If it had been clear weather we could have seen Norway and Sweden as we were close enough. The relay plane broadcast the message to return to England and by this time we were all separated and lost in the storm. I headed for home alone and decided to try to get under the clouds as I couldn't get above them. When I came down out of the clouds I was about twenty feet above the waves of the North Sea. The waves appeared to be about fifty feet high and I was flying Just above them. Suddenly a big bomber went across in front of me in the mist and clouds. I don't know if it was enemy or friendly but I couldn't have found it again anyway. I was having enough trouble just flying my own plane. I was tense, my heart was in my throat and really pounding I flew across water all the way to England so it didn't much matter that I wasn't crossing the Channel at the narrowest point (my usual effort). I gained altitude when I thought England was near, went back on instruments in the overcast and called the base for a heading. The base would give you a heading to fly for couple of minutes then change to another heading so they could pick you out of the other planes on the radar screen. They could then determine your position and give you a heading home. When you are headed properly you pick up a steady beep on your radio. You try to keep the beep increasing in loudness as it gets fainter if you are turning to either side. You could fly a straight line to the base and when you approached you would be given an altitude to fly in at. They even gave instructions as to when to let the wheals down. The radio truck was parked at the end of the runway and when I came down out of the overcast I was about ten feet above the truck lined up with the runway And able to make a perfect landing. I was tired and relieved to be on the ground. The guys on the radar truck did a great Job!
The rest of the squadron gradually returned until we were all down and each pilot could go through debriefing, where he told what had happened on the mission. We found out then that from the three squadrons from our field there were eight pilots missing. Our squadron lost no one on that mission. Usually when a pilot goes down he calls an his radio or there is a lot of chatter if they engage enemy fighters. This time there was only silence on the radio. With forty eight planes in our three squadrons, if someone went down they should have been seen by one of us. We suspected the missing pilots might have flown to Norway or Sweden ( neutral countries ) for some reason. Some of those missing were friends of mine, but not as close as the fellows in our own squadron. High Command in England thought the Germans might have come up with a new weapon as no flak or enemy fighters were seen. All flights from England were grounded for three days while an investigation took place. None of those pilots ever turned up in prison camps and I don't think anyone ever knew what really happened to them. On another mission we escorted the bombers to Regansburg in southeast Germany, which was about as far as to Berlin, to bomb the ball bearing factories in that area. It was a tough mission because the flak was so heavy and the other defenses were greater because the factories were important. There were about 1500 planes from England and another 1100 came up from Africa. Someone erred in the planning of this mission as we crossed at right angles at the same altitude and we had trouble keeping from flying into each other. I never saw so many planes in the air at one time and guess the Germans hadn't either as they didn't send up any fighters! it was reaching the point where we had more planes than they did and so they only came up when they had a chance of success. We observed something unusual on that mission. Some white smoky objects came up from the ground in a spiral track to about 15,000 feet before they disappeared. They couldn't reach our altitude and seemed to move slowly. We reported them upon our return, but no one knew what they were. On other missions where the Germans didn't send up fighters, our fellows would be allowed to go down to ground level and shoot anything they could see.
On this raid our squadron went down and we dove shooting at some large boats on the Danube River. Every tenth bullet was a tracer that made a white trail in the sky allowing you to track them. It seemed strange to set your bullets going down and those from the ships coming up. I watched my bullets hitting the decks. We flew all the way back to England Just above the tree tops but never saw a train or airfield to shoot at. There were flak towers, but they were too dangerous and we all flew around them. They were concrete towers with many guns that could shoot in all directions. It did no good to shoot at them.
By now I had flown ten missions and was entitled to receive the Air Medal. At a ceremony at the base, we were presented with the medal by General Whelan. For each additional five missions we got an Oak Leaf cluster which we fastened to our theatre ribbon. I received two of these before being shot down.
On occasion we had the job of censoring outgoing mail from the enlisted personnel. No one liked doing this as it was a tedious Job. We had to read all their letters and cross out any military info that the enemy might pick up. Our mail was censored by the squadron commander then sealed and sent out. After reading letters for a couple of hours, I don't believe we bothered to cross out much.
Some of the English women living near the air base were selling chances on a fruit cake for a shilling a ticket. I had the winning ticket and when they delivered the fruit cake we could hardly believe it. It was in a washtub three feet across and over a foot high. We Put it on the table in our Ready Room where we spent our time relaxing. We had to cut it with one of our Jungle knives, a machete (another one of the Army's questionable issues: a Jungle kit for each of us in England). The bottom six inches of the fruit cake was solid fruit so you know it was rich. We cut off two sections for the other two squadrons and some for the enlisted men and still had enough to last a week. I don't know how they baked anything that big, but it tasted very good.
One other of our missions somewhere over Germany we lost several more of our pilots. We ran into a lot of German fighter planes and were soon scattered all over the sky. I was so busy trying to keep from being shot down that I didn't get an opportunity to shoot an enemy plane. When things calmed down I found myself alone so headed back to England. When I gained enough altitude I heard the relay plane calling a new compass heading as the wind had changed to about 50 mph from the north. I corrected to the new heading but there was no way of knowing if everyone had picked up the message. It was uncanny, the sense of direction I had. I believe I could have crossed at the narrowest part of the Channel even without a compass heading! It must have been a sense of direction I was born with because it made no difference what my location was over Germany, I knew exactly where England was all the time.
As it turned out, I was the only one from our squadron of 16 planes that made it back to our airfield. Most of the others were low an gas by the time they got over land and were scattered all over England upon landing. One of our flights of four planes was unaware of the wind changes, were blown off course and were way south of England. They were still over land, luckily, when they ran out of gas and had to bail out. Al Johnson the big Swede was one of them and it was the only time in the year that he didn't owe me any money! They were along the coast of France and were captured by the Germans. He was not in our prison camp so I did not see him until we were in Atlantic City for discharge. He told me that all four had landed safely and that when he came down in his parachute, he went through an old barn roof and landed in a pile of manure.
At about this time we made another move to a field near Maidstone, a small town southeast of London. We were closer to the Channel here and the field was entirely different. Some one else flew my plane down here and I went by train with the rest of the group. It is interesting to note that we went through the village of Sittingbourne where my mother was born. The train didn't stop so I had no chance to visit there. Our living conditions at Maidstone were different: in a tent with a dirt floor in the middle of an apple orchard. There were four of us in each tent sleeping on army cots with a stove in the middle for heat. On warm days we could role up the sides of the tent for ventilation. Another tent was the mess hall and we ate sitting on the ground under the apple trees. We ate with our army mess kits and rinsed them out in a barrel of hot water.
This was much different from the beautiful place where Len Pierce was stationed. The runway at Maidstone was a grass field surrounded by trees. They put heavy wire mesh in the ground to keep us from sinking in when the field was muddy. It was a bumpy field to begin with! The field was not very long and you had to get down before running into the trees at the and of the runway. One time I came back from a mission and the wind was blowing across the runway. (Planes always landed into the wind and took off the same way) I was not lined up correctly with the runway and was drifting to the right. It was too late to pull up and go around again as I was down to landing speed. This decision had to be made quickly and I decided to land. When my wheels touched the ground I began to bounce to the right and by using brakes and all the other controls I kept from crashing, managing to stop Just before hitting the trees at the end of the runway. It was the worst landing I over made, but I was relieved not to have damaged my plane. I was very embarrassed when I got out in front of my crew.
By now some of us had flown enough missions that our papers were sent in for review for promotion to First Lieutenant. We only had one First Lieutenant in our squadron and it was about time we had some promotions. I didn't get notification that they had been approved until I was back home after the war. The year I was in prison camp they paid me the lower wage so after the war I wrote to Washington and received all the difference in pay that was due me. We were also looking forward to the end of our tour of duty at this time. After flying a total of twenty five missions you were supposed to be sent back to the States. We were getting closer all the time and then they changed the total to 40 missions. You can imagine what this did to our morale. We gave up thoughts of going home and Just concentrated on surviving as many missions as we could.
We were about to get some new planes with the bubble canopy and were looking forward to that as they made it easier to see all around you without all the metal braces in the canopy. One day I was told my plane was coming that day and was looking forward to checking it out. We would take it up high over England to check the performance at high altitude, the guns and controls... just to get the feel of it. In the afternoon we had to escort some A-20 bombers to France on a bombing run and when I got back my new plane was gone. One of our new replacement pilots had been sent up to check it out and at 30,000 feet he said something felt wrong and he bailed out. My new plane crashed somewhere in England and I never even got to see it! He was just a young kid and I never did believe that anything was really wrong with the plane. I was angry with him for a long time as I never did get one of the new planes and flew all the remaining missions with the old one.
Another time when our flight was returning on instruments as the overcast was so thick, we came down to 1000 feet and broke out to find ourselves over London with the barrage balloons all around us. They were balloons that had a steel cable hanging down from them to prevent enemy planes from flying low over the city. We pulled up fast and were lucky to get out of there in a hurry without being hit by one of them.
One other mission when I was coming back alone I got over an area where the flak was heavy--bursting all around me so that the sky was blackened with shells. I realized than that I was directly over the Ruhr Valley which was the industrial center of Germany. It was heavily defended and normally all missions were routed around this area. I flew all the way across the area and had to use a lot of evasive action, including changing of altitude When flak bursts in the air it makes a black puff or cloud-and there were thousands of them shot up at me. It did make me feel good to think of all the shells they wasted and what it cost just to shoot at me!
When you are starting the plane there is a knob that you push out and pull in called the primer pump and it gives extra gas to the engine for starting. On one mission Paul Maxwell was in our flight and his engine quit on the way back. He found that the only way he could keep it running well enough to stay in the air was to work the primer pump. We all slowed down enough to stay with him and prayed that he could make It across the Channel. On the east coast of England at the point closest to Europe there was a landing strip on top of the white cliffs. It was called the Masden emergency field and all the planes that were damaged or having problems would head for there. A lot of the bombers would land there if they couldn't make it back to base. The runway was wide and straight in from the Channel so they didn't have to make any turns. Paul Maxwell landed there and his fingers were covered with blood from his having to work, the primer pump constantly.
During the last couple of weeks that I was in England we began to hear the V-2 rockets that the Germans began to use. Most of them were directed at London but we could hear the sound they made as they went over us. The gun emplacements that fired them were all along the coast of Europe and it wasn't long before they were sending them over at night. It was interesting to fly over England at this time as everything was being readied for the eventual invasion. Every field in southern England was covered with big pile of boxes and equipment. I didn't realize until after the war the tremendous amount of supplies, food, gas, ammunition and hundreds of other things that were needed to supply an invasion of that magnitude. No wonder there were shortages back in the U.S.! So much of this was to be lost in the Channel when ships were sunk on invasion day.
One night Bruce and I were hungry so we decided to break into the supply tent and find something to eat. We got up the side of the tent and reached under the roof where we found a gallon can, of fruit cocktail. Wt ran back to the tent where we began to eat it. We were soon full, but had no where to hide the remainder so were forced to eat the rest. It is no easy task to eat that much fruit cocktail and we decided not to try that again. At the other bases there was no form of entertainment and we had to go to the nearest city for alcohol and movies. Finally at this base they put up two metal nissan huts: one a bar, the other a theatre. I didn't use either one for very long due to the following events.
On May 10, 1944 they opened the bar at 6 pm and Bruce and I ordered a glass of Scotch and a beer each. After a couple of them we were feeling good and decided to go to the movies in the other hut. Bruce and I got to laughing so hard at the comedy that they threw us out of the hut. We realized then that the movie hadn't started yet! We staggered back to the tent and in the darkness Bruce tripped over something and fell against the hot stove receiving a burn to the side of his hand. I will mention here the value of the "Purple Heart" medal because Bruce received one later for getting drunk and falling on a hot stove and I received nothing for being burned when I bailed out.
The next day, May 11, 1944, we were not scheduled for a mission...a good thing because Bruce and I were in poor shape. Some of the other pilots had been shipping their foot lockers home with all their extra belongings. They would go to Fort Levenworth, Kansas and be kept there until our return. I filled mine up with a complete sheepskin leather flying suit including the boots, a pair of English flying goggles which were very different from ours, a pair of warm English silk flying gloves that came up nearly to the elbow my Jungle kit with the machete knife, all my extra clothing and the undeveloped rolls of film I had taken in England were also included. I had so many good items in there and was looking forward to having them after the war. About 4 pm we carted them off to the base Post Office to fill out the papers and pay for the shipping.