COMBAT
CREW
John Comer
The Story of
Twenty-Five Combat
Missions Over Europe
from the
Journal of a B-17 Gunner
Combat Crew is one of the best memoirs about the air war over Europe ever written. John Comer kept a journal of the twenty-five missions he flew in 1943 when the casualty rate on his base was close to 80%. After each raid Comer gathered the crew together and pieced together the air battle from a 360-degree perspective. His book is handwritten history, recorded within hours after the battles occurred.
Comer vividly creates his experiences as top-turret gunner/flight engineer in a B-17 Squadron that was thrown against the best pilots the Luftwaffe could offer. In 1943 the Germans were more experienced than the Americans and the Army Air Force had no long-range fighters to protect the B-17’s as they flew deep into enemy territory. That Comer survived is a testament to his crew’s skill and his luck; his 533rd Squadron (8th Air Force, 1st Division, 381st Group) lost three out of every four men on combat status during the six months Comer flew his first twenty-five missions.
Comer’s powerful narrative is devoted to the men who flew the planes, dropped the bombs, and fired the guns. Their everyday life was filled with terror, friendship, and fatigue. Comer recorded it all in his diary. The reader shares the fears of flight crew as they wonder if their heavily loaded bomber can actually lift off the runway. Many planes didn’t make it. Then there are the freezing temperatures in unheated planes (63 degrees below zero with the bomb-bay doors open and 200 M.P.H. winds blowing through the aircraft). There are missed targets, faulty equipment, red-hot shrapnel from antiaircraft fire, and what it was like to look German fighter pilots in the eye as they barreled in with cannons blazing. Above all, there is the horror of watching friends being shot down on every bomb run — no matter how “easy” the mission might have been.
Immediate, straightforward, compelling, Combat Crew is destined to become a classic of aerial warfare.
What People Are Saying About Combat Crew
“I find your remarkable book, Combat Crew, engrossing. It’s one of the best records of aerial combat in World War II I’ve ever read, and I want to tell you how impressed I am.”
— Charlton Heston, actor
“Combat Crew was a very special experience for me to read. You certainly put it down the way it was.”
— James “Jimmy” Stewart, actor and B-17 instructor pilot, United States Army Air Force
“The author flew on many of the most violent air raids flows by the United States 8th Air Force during World War II. Combat Crew gives the reader an accurate, dramatic, and firsthand, on-the-scene account of the way it was. It is a book that cannot be aside once started.”
— George G. Shackley, Colonel, USAF (Retired), C.O., 533rd Squadron
“John was kind enough to let me have a sneak preview of his manuscript, and it brought back a lot of old memories. He has a knack of relating our feelings and experiences in combat. It is a great book, and I recommend it highly.”
— Lieutenant Colonel William Cahow (Colonel Cahow participated in most of the combat action that is described in this book.)
“An accurate, gripping portrayal of a combat-crew member’s thoughts and actions while participating in twenty-five of the toughest missions flown by the 8th Air Force over Europe. A genuine account of aerial warfare from the top turret of a B-17.”
— Lieutenant Colonel Stuart S. Watson, C.O., 533rd Squadron
« « « « « » » » » »
Combat Crew Is Dedicated to the Memory of
James
Counce
Hardin County, Tenn.
K.I.A. Jan 11, 1944
George
Balmore
Bronx, N.Y.
K.I.A. Jan. 11, 1944
Herbert
Carqueville
Chicago, Ill.
M.I.A. Oct. 9, 1943
Raymond
Legg
Anderson, Ind.
K.I.A.
And
to the Memory of All the Men
Who Gave Their Lives
in the Air
War Over Europe
That the Rest of Us
Might Continue to Live in
Freedom
COMBAT
CREW
John Comer
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 1988 by John Comer All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Comer, John.
Combat crew / John Comer.
p. cm.
Reprint. Originally published: Dallas: J. Comer, c1986.
ISBN 0-688-07614-9
I. Comer, John. 2. World War, 1939-1945 — Aerial operations, American. 3. World War, 1939-1945 — Campaigns — Europe. 4. World War, 1939-1945 — Personal narratives, American. 5. Flight engineers — United States — Biography. 6. United States. Air Force — Biography.
I. Title.
[D785.U6C64 1988] 87-28085
940.54'4973'0924 — dc19 CIP
Table of Contents
Chapter
I
Arrival at Ridgewell Airdrome
Chapter
III
Mission to Le Bourget
Chapter
IV
Schweinfurt #1 The Ball-Bearing Plants
Chapter
V
Mission to Gilze-Rijen
Chapter
VI
Mission to Villacoublay
Chapter
VII
Missions to Amiens-Glizy and Romilly
Chapter
VIII
Mission to Stuttgart
Chapter
IX
Mission: Airfield in Belgium
Chapter
XIV
Second Mission to Schweinfurt (Black Thursday)
Chapter
XV
Mission to Wilhelmshaven and Gelsenkirchen
Chapter
XVII
Mission to Norway and Mission to Bremen
Chapter
XVIII
Mission to Paris and Leverkusen
Chapter
XXII
Mission to Osnabrück
Chapter
XXIII
Mission to Calais
Chapter
XXIV
Mission to Ludwigshaven
Chapter
XXVI
Good-bye to Ridgewell
After
the War:
Status of Crew Members as of 1986
Preface
The ultimate objective of Combat Crew is to make the combat missions come alive for readers of this book. In particular I want the wives, the sons, the daughters, and the grandchildren of the participants to feel that they are experiencing the extreme cold, the constant dangers, and the traumatic events that were common to all the men who manned the Flying Fortresses in the high thin air over the European Continent. To the extent possible my purpose is to take the reader along with us on the combat missions.
This account tells how one combat crew handled the boredom and monotony of barracks life, all the while sweating out the missions as the air battles unfolded. Every crew was different, reflecting the discipline desired by the pilot. However, I flew with thirteen air crews and found that all experienced crews were far more alike than different. The well-researched documentary books about this period may leave the impression that all of the missions were life-and-death struggles. It was not like that: each crew had some very rough missions and some easy ones. Often the accounts of the air battles over Europe are concerned with the commanders and the generals and their agonizing decisions. Again, it was not like that for us: We knew nothing about where we were going or why until two or three hours before takeoff. Once in the air we merely followed the formation, not being concerned about tactics.
What happened to “Gleichauf’s Crew” was much like the experiences of men in other crews who succeeded in completing their quota of missions. Each crew could see only part of the action within its range of vision. When our crew had a rough go, sometimes crews in another part of the same battle had it easy. And even on the missions we called “milk runs,” almost always some unlucky crews were shot down. Death was never more than a few feet or inches from the men in the Flying Fortresses.
Foreword
As we approached the site where Ridgewell Airdrome once stood I was overcome with memories. It was June 1972. All at once I was transported back three decades in time. I could hear the raucous roar of Flying Fortress engines revving up for takeoff in the damp predawn cold of an English morning. I could smell that mixture of oil and gasoline that filled the air when engines coughed and started. I could feel again the vibrations of those overloaded aircraft struggling to escape the runway and lift up over the mists. I recalled that uncomfortable feel of an oxygen mask fitted tightly against my face. I remembered the hours I spent recalculating the odds of surviving and the daily realization that they were not good.
Suddenly I shivered despite the warmth of the summer day. I could not shake off the chill of the past. Was this return to Ridgewell going to be a mistake? One by one I recalled the faces of my crew — a group of young men from diverse locales and backgrounds, thrown together by chance and placed under intense pressure. We were such ordinary men from whom the extraordinary was demanded. We were half-trained and woefully inexperienced. Most of our men had been in military service barely a year. We were expected to face the fury of Germany’s superbly trained and experienced Luftwaffe and survive. Some of us did. During those months together we formed bonds of friendship I have never experienced before or since.
We were getting closer and I strained to catch a glimpse of something familiar — anything that would confirm that I had once been a part of this place. Ridgewell had been home, prison, and refuge — the center of my world for so many months. I squinted ahead, secretly hoping for rain, but there was none. That seemed so strange! Ridgewell — without that eternal drizzle and everlasting mud? But that week England played a trick on my memory. The sun made daily appearances and the sky remained uncharacteristically free of moisture. Then it happened! About a hundred yards from the site of the base a gentle drizzle began to fall from skies that up to that moment had shown no hint of rain. It was eerie, as if it had been staged just for me. I was tempted to look upward and say, “Thank you.” And I knew I was right in returning to Ridgewell.
Then I was jolted back to reality. The site had long since returned to grain fields. Two old hangars were still standing, but now they were filled with farm machinery. They had traded airplanes for tractors! Part of me knew this was as it should be. Another part reached back through the years remembering how those hangars were once alive with men — and Flying Fortresses needing major repairs. I wanted to regain for a few moments the experiences that could be relived only by those men who flew from this field in that long ago time of war. I stood there silently in the soft rain for a long time, remembering.
My wife and two close friends were with me, but they could not participate in my nostalgia. Nor did they try. To me, it represented the most intensely lived year of my life. To me, this was ground as hallowed as Lincoln’s Gettysburg. Although I flew out of other combat airfields far distant from England, none was burned as deeply into my memory as Ridgewell. It was from here that I had the first traumatic shock of combat. It was from here that so many of my friends, some of the finest men I have ever known, began their last flight.
Prologue
November 24, 1942
A thousand men were assembled on the parade ground at Sheppard Field, Texas, on that November day, just eleven months after Pearl Harbor. A dapper Major strode to an elevated speaker’s stand. I will remember him as long as I live. The man was a spellbinder, a military pitchman with superb talents. I listened in hypnotic fascination as he described the adventurous life of an aerial gunner. Carried away by his fiery enthusiasm, I could picture myself holding off a swarm of Japanese Zeroes! With exciting fervor the speaker challenged those of us who had an extra share of guts. Some might, he hinted, be accepted for aerial gunnery. The Major concluded his remarks: “Those of you who want to escape menial assignments for the next three or four years, and live a life of excitement, fall out to my right for physical examinations.”
About fifty of us, whose judgment at the moment was questionable, lined up as directed. An hour later I was still sitting in the silence of the reception room at the base hospital awaiting my turn.
The hypnotic spell was beginning to wear off. Men were leaving quietly until there were only a few of us left. What the hell was I doing there? Did I really want to trade a safe aircraft mechanic’s job for active combat? Since when had I developed an extra share of guts? Slowly rational thinking returned. I got up and began easing out, and was ten feet from the exit when a hall door opened.
“Comer!”
“Here,” I responded automatically.
“That room on the left. Strip down; they’ll be with you in a few minutes.”
How often the timing of a trivial incident shapes our lives. If that orderly had been five seconds later I would have been gone, and the war for me would have been a vastly different story.
I suddenly remembered the crushing blow ten years earlier when an unexpected visual depth perception change abruptly ended my hoped-for aerial career at the Air Corps Flying Detachment at Brooks Field. I had to conclude that the defect would still be there and I was sure the medical exam would be the same as for pilots.
But now a strange feeling came over me: I wanted very much to pass those tests. And I did great until it came to the depth perception. Once more it floored me. When I showed such obvious dismay at the results of the depth perception gauges, the examining officer asked, “Are you in the Aircraft Mechanics School?”
“Yes, Sir, I am.”
“You might qualify for aerial engineer.”
“Aerial engineer?” I had never heard the term before.
“Yes, a flying aircraft mechanic who is also an aerial gunner.”
It was certainly an interesting new possibility.
“We are not as strict on engineers as on the other gunners. The Colonel might OK you.”
When I got to the Colonel he used a new instrument I had not seen in the past — an electric depth gauge. He studied the results, then looked at me.
“Comer, you’re close enough that I can waive the defect if you are sure you want to be a flight engineer. It will probably mean combat. Is that what you want?”1
I had no time to ponder my decision.
“Sounds great to me!”
“OK. I’ll mark your records as medically qualified for Flight Engineer-Gunner. Good luck!”
Chapter I
Arrival at
Ridgewell Airdrome
As the personnel truck sped through the wet English countryside my apprehension and uneasiness increased. In a few days we would be facing the fury of the German Luftwaffe. I glanced at the other five men of our crew. Each was silent, immersed in his own contemplation of what the immediate future held in store. It was July 1943, and it was all coming to a head for us quite soon now. What would it be like? Could we handle it? After only ten days of orientation in England, I knew we needed more gunnery practice. The truck slowed down and I saw we were approaching our destination. All day I had been dreading that moment. Most likely the base would be one of those hard-luck outfits who regularly lost high percentages of their aircraft. The worst of all was the 100th Group. Please! Not that unlucky snake-bit command! But logic indicated that the depleted groups would need more replacement crews like us, who had been hurriedly trained and rushed to the 8th Air Force to cover the heavy losses.
It was shortly after dusk, a poor time to arrive at a strange base with no conception of what it would be like. I looked at Herbert Carqueville, the pilot, and he pointed to George Balmore, the radio operator, who was dozing.
“Wake up, George. We’re coming into the base.”
Carl Shutting, the navigator, straightened his uniform. George Reese, the copilot, looked like he did not have a care in the world. He was like that. Johnny Purus, the bombardier, looked worried — as I was.
The truck wheeled into an obviously quite new base. Looking around, my first impression of the base was prefabricated metal buildings thrown hastily on top of English mud. At headquarters we piled out and unloaded baggage.
A Major took his time examining our papers. There was another crew with us, from the same training command in the States. “I know you are wondering where you are. You are assigned to the 381st Bombardment Group at Ridgewell Air Base.”
What a relief that was! The 381st was not one of the high-loss groups we had been hearing about.
“I am sending you to the 533rd Squadron, under the command of Major Hendricks. They are low on crews. A driver will take you to the squadron headquarters. Good luck on your new assignment.” From what I had seen since reaching England, we were going to need some luck!
“Major,” said Carqueville, “we’ve heard so many stories, how tough is it? What kind of losses are you having?”
The Major hesitated before answering and studied a large chart on the wall crowded with names. “See that chart? That’s the combat roster. We’ve been here sixty days, and so far we’ve lost a hundred and one percent of our combat personnel.”
That seemed impossible! Did he mean a lot of replacement crews had arrived and were already lost in addition to originals? Surely the Major would burst out laughing in a few seconds. I watched his face for some sign that it was a joke pulled on new arrivals. The smile did not come. The message was clear. I did not know then if that frightful loss figure was factual, or inflated to get across his point that the playing was over. (Those were his exact words! But later I found out that the early losses, while serious, were not that bad.)
The Major continued, “You’d know it anyway in two or three days. I guess it’s just as well to let you have it straight right now. Our strength is down and we are happy to have you with us.”
I glanced at the other men and noted that the color had drained from their faces. No one said anything as we loaded the baggage into a transportation truck. Each of us was trying to digest the startling high-loss situation and struggling, with scant success, to translate those figures into what they meant to us individually.
At the Squadron Headquarters we were greeted warmly by the Operations Officer. “I’m Lieutenant Franek. Welcome to the 533rd Squadron. We’re glad you’re here because we have only four combat crews in the squadron, and our minimum strength is supposed to be seven.”
Carqueville asked, “Have you any information on our four gunners? They were supposed to arrive about the same time we got here.”
“Yes, we do have information,” Franek answered. “They’re due tomorrow.”
That was the only good news I was to hear that day it was a great relief to know Jim Counce and the other gunners would definitely rejoin us. It would give our sagging spirits a lift just to see them again.
A truck transported us to the combat site, and the driver pointed out the small, metal Quonset huts that would be our quarters. The officers would be in one hut and the enlisted men in another, not far away. The driver said, “Note that here we are widely dispersed to prevent serious damage from German bombing raids. Personnel trucks make regular rounds of the field perimeter during the daytime, and early in the mornings when there is a mission. Combat personnel are quartered separately from the permanent personnel.” I picked up the nuance in his voice: what it meant was that combat people were not expected to be around very long.
The driver continued. “You men have a separate combat mess because your hours will be so different from the other men. As soon as you can manage it, I suggest you get into Cambridge and buy a used bicycle. It will make getting around the base a lot easier.”
“How far is Cambridge from Ridgewell?” I asked.
“About eighteen miles. A supply truck makes a run every day, and there’s also train service from a nearby village.”
I doubt if I ever had a more miserable evening in my life. The dingy hut, designed for twelve men, was a dirty, dimly lighted, depressing place. It was bare except for twelve crude cots. A single low-watt bulb hung in the center of the small metal building. I decided on a bunk and opened my bags, but before I could get my gear unpacked, some veteran gunners started drifting in to look us over.
“Where you guys from?” one asked.
Balmore answered, “I’m from New York, and Comer is from Texas.”
“That’s a helluva combination! You got some more men comin’ in?”
“Yes,” I said. “Our other four gunners will be here tomorrow.”
“Your pilot got a lot of high-altitude formation time?”
“Nope,” said Balmore. “Not much.”
A second man entered just in time to hear what George had said. “I feel Goddamned sorry for you guys if your pilot can’t fly tight formation.”
“Oh, I think he can do OK on formation,” I offered.
“It takes seventy to a hundred hours of high-altitude formation experience to be a fair pilot in this league. Your pilot got that many hours?”
“Far as I know he’s never been in a high-altitude formation, and has only a few hours of low-altitude formation,” I said.
“If they don’t find you a new pilot who knows what he’s doin’ at high-altitude formation you’re in trouble. Those Jerry sonnuvabitches can spot a new crew on their first circle aroun’ the formation and they — ”
They’ll tear into your ass on their first attack, interrupted another vet, “’cause they always pick the easiest Forts to knock down.”
A third man came in. “Don’t worry about it, you might make it — sometimes a new crew does get back from its first raid. This week it wasn’t too rough: we only lost twenty Forts — mostly new crews!”
Another voice added, “As soon as the Jerries approach us they look for you fresh jokers.”
“How can they tell which crews are new?” asked Balmore.
“Damned easy, friend. Green pilots can’t stay in tight formation. They throttle-jock back and forth — might as well flash a neon sign!”
A new voice spoke up. “Relax! Don’t get lathered up. Mebbe your crew will be one of the lucky ones. We were once new and we’re still here!”
“When you hit a German fighter with some good bursts, what happens? Does it break off the attack?” I asked.
The six vets laughed uproariously. “Hell, no! You can see your tracers hit those 190s2 and 109s3 an’ they bounce off like it’s a Goddamned flyin’ tank! Those square-headed Krauts keep comin’ at you no matter what you throw at ’em!”
The most vocal of the group continued. “The worst bastards they got are Goering’s Abbeville Kids — those yellow nose and red nose M.E. 109s are the roughest you’ll ever see.” He turned to Balmore. “Hey, kid, you’re about my height. What size blouse you wear?”
George replied testily, “None of your damn business!”
“Don’t get your guts in an uproar, friend. I need a new blouse, so I spot all you new gunners my size — one of you jokers don’t get back, I grab me a blouse before those orderly room pimps get over here to pick up your gear.”
One of the vets explained it: “At the 381st they don’t issue any replacement clothes. If you tear your pants, or ruin a blouse, you sweat it out until a gunner your size don’t make it back.”
“That’s how we do it over here,” said another. “That way ain’t no red tape — say, any of you men wear size thirty-eight?”
“I do,” I replied. “But don’t get any ideas — ’cause I’m gonna make it!”
“Maybe! But the first rough raid will thin out these huts — a lot of you new bastards won’t get back — maybe one of you will be my size.”
“Say — there was a nice lookin’ kid had that bunk over there for five or six days,” one of the vets remarked. “Saw his plane blow up — no chutes!”
He pointed to an empty cot. “The fellow who slept there — they brought him back with no balls.”
“Well,” a voice added, “that poor bastard don’t have to worry no more about findin’ a prophylactic station open at four A.M.!”
Ribald laughter reverberated from the thin metal walls, but I couldn’t share in their hilarity. My insides were tightening into knots, and I wondered if all those tales were true. I knew they were trying to scare the hell out of us — and succeeding! I kept thinking about those high losses the Major told us about, and realized the vets didn’t need to embellish their stories. The plain, unvarnished facts were frightening enough for me.
“Hey, you guys gotta watch those ’lectric fly suits. If a shoe or glove goes out at fifty below zero you can lose a hand or foot. “
“But the big thing is an engine fire,” from another voice. “When you rookies see that fire you got mebbe thirty or forty seconds before the explosion!”
The vets finally tired of their oft-repeated initiation game and drifted off. George looked at me for a long time without saying a word. He didn’t need to for I knew what his thoughts were. Sleep for that night was completely out of the question. The reality of what we faced was almost too much to absorb. Always ringing in my ears were the Major’s words: “We’ve lost a hundred and one percent of our combat personnel.” The vets told us we would get in about three missions a month, and the odds stacked up four to one that we wouldn’t make it! (Which later proved to be quite accurate.)
Balancing the bad news of the last six hours was my memory of how grand those Flying Fortresses looked in proud formation heading out toward Hitler-held Europe. The second morning we were at Bovingdon, the orientation base near London where replacement crews reported for induction into the 8th Air Force, we were awakened by the roar of many engines. In a matter of minutes the barracks was empty. The Fortresses were passing overhead on their way to strike the Mad Dictator, and none of us wanted to miss the sight. I have had many thrills in my life, but I believe that picture-perfect formation of American bombers headed for a clash with Goering’s best was one of the most emotional experiences I have ever had. I wanted to be up there with them. All that day I worried about what those men were going through over the Continent. In the early afternoon I was in an aircraft recognition class when someone whispered, “The Forts are coming back.” In one minute the classroom was empty. Where were the proud eagles of the dawn? They returned, but not in the style I had seen that morning. A few were in formation, but most were scattered across the sky. There were feathered engines and many trailed smoke. But where were the other planes? I counted only half of the number that went out that morning. I did not know then that ships in trouble, or low on fuel, broke away from the formations as they approached England, looking for a landing field. For the next half hour, I watched wounded Forts straggle in, a few on two engines.
July 20
There was an agreeable surprise at Ridgewell. The food was good. The combat mess hall was a hundred yards from our barracks. We were in a country where part of the food had to be imported, and all of ours had to come by boat from the States. So those mess officers did a great job with the materials at their disposal.
On the way back from noon mess I said to George, “We’re gonna have to get into Cambridge real soon and buy bicycles. I notice all the men here at the base have bikes.”
“John, when the other men get here, don’t say anything about what the vets did to us last night.”
“You mean let ’em get the news on their own?”
“Right! It oughta be interesting to see how they handle it. One thing for sure, they’re in for a shock!”
An hour or so later a truck pulled up near the hut and out jumped our four gunners. “Damn! I thought we were gonna get four good gunners and now you jokers show up again,” fumed Balmore. “Come see our Country Club Quarters.”
Now that the gunners were back, our crew was all together. James Counce and Carroll Wilson were our two waist gunners. Jim was twenty-three, single, and came from Corinth, Mississippi. He was an engineering student from the University of Tennessee. Jim served as second engineer and was fully as capable as I was, and a very solid man. Carroll Wilson, twenty, from Tulsa, Oklahoma, was assistant to Balmore in the radio room. Carroll was a likable youngster but had not grown up yet. He had married just before leaving for England. The tail gunner, Buck Rogers, thirty nine, was a rugged individual from a small Ohio town. I am not sure of his marital status. He had many rough experiences, but he was a loner and had little to say about some phases of his life. Nickalas Abramo, nineteen, from Massachusetts, operated the ball turret guns. He was an impetuous young man of Italian ancestry.
We were sitting around talking about going to Cambridge to buy bicycles, and the possibility of buying a radio for the hut. Suddenly the door opened and five or six vets entered. “What do you know? We got us some new gunners,” one of them said. “Where you guys from?”
I knew what was coming and glanced at George. We sat back in morbid fascination to watch how our four friends responded to “the treatment.” A few months later, initiating new arrivals was one of my favorite amusements.
If there was a crew favorite, I suppose it was Jim Counce. Carqueville had a special trick we played on Jim. I would go back to the radio room and make sure he was looking out of the waist window. Herb would put an engine into an extra-inch carburetor position to create some smoke on Jim’s side of the aircraft. As soon as Counce saw it he started toward the cockpit, and Herb quickly switched back to automatic lean. By the time Counce reached the cockpit the smoke would be gone.
“Smoke? I didn’t see any. John, did you see any smoke?”
“No. You’re seein’ things, Jim. Are you sure you’re OK?”
“I did see smoke from number-three engine,” he would protest vigorously. Herb would look at me and shake his head as if to say, “I’m afraid Counce is cracking up.”
July 21
From the first night at Ridgewell, it became slowly apparent that Carqueville did not have the experience at high-altitude formation flying to be a first pilot in the big leagues of combat over Europe. It was difficult to understand how the training command in the States could have neglected the one indispensable requirement for a B-17 combat pilot. For the time I knew Herb in training, he was given no high-altitude formation practice. Only two hours of low-altitude formation flying! A copilot should have had fifteen or twenty hours of holding a B-17 in formation over twenty thousand feet.
Late in the afternoon Carqueville opened the door to our hut and stepped inside. I knew instantly he was upset. “I’ve been cut back to copilot. I’m takin’ Reese’s place.” (Reese had come down with an infection and was grounded for the time being.)
“What!” Even though I was expecting it to happen, the news came as a shock. “It’s not fair.”
“Wrong! They had to do it. A pilot has to have a lot of formation time, and I don’t have it. Believe me, I don’t like it one damn bit, but that’s how it’s got to be.”
Jim spoke up. “We hate like hell to lose you. Now we’ll start all over with some pilot we never saw before. We could have made it with you I’m sure.”
“Thanks, Jim, but Hendricks couldn’t permit that risk. He made the right decision. Reese is goin’ to be the Assistant Operations Officer.”
Regardless of what he said I knew Carqueville was hurt. Who would be the new pilot? There was much conjecture and concern about what kind of man would take over the crew. The next afternoon Carqueville introduced us to the man who would hold our destiny in his hands. The officers had already met him. “Men, this is Lieutenant Paul Gleichauf, our pilot. He’s got the formation experience we must have if we are going to make it in this league.”
“Lieutenant, I’m John Comer, Engineer.”
“Glad to know you, John.”
The rest of the men introduced themselves and shook hands. It was an awkward moment, with Herb standing there watching his men accept a new leader.
“I’m glad to be your pilot,” said Gleichauf. “Looks like we’ve got good men, so I think we’ll do OK.”
There was more small talk but it was mainly verbal sparring while we sized him up, and the pilot got a good look at what he had to work with. Since Herb was to be copilot, it was much like a new football coach keeping the ex-coach as his assistant. Lieutenant Gleichauf was younger than I expected, but he did fit the image of an Air Force pilot more than Herb.
On the way back to our hut there was silence for a while, then George turned to Counce. “Well, what do you think of our new pilot?”
“Looks OK. He doesn’t talk much but we need the experience he has.”
“John, what do you think?”
“About the same as Jim — only thing, I wish he were a little older.” (Actually, he was twenty-four, and two years older than I thought at the time.)
Buck said, “That ain’t important — we gotta have somebody who can fly tight formation. That’s what all the vets say — to hell with the rest of it!”
Paul Gleichauf was originally from Lakewood, Ohio — a suburb of Cleveland. He was a handsome young officer — dashing, slim, and very attractive to women. He came overseas as a first pilot several weeks ahead of us. Just before flying a new Fortress across the Atlantic, a heavy fire extinguisher fell on his foot. He arrived in England with a bad case of hemorrhoids, wearing a moccasin on one foot, and certainly in no condition to handle a B-17 on formation flights. By the time we badly needed a pilot he had recovered enough to resume flying status.
Lieutenant Gleichauf would have been dumbfounded had he fully realized the low level of combat “know-how” of his new crew. He was aware that Carqueville was short on formation flying, but he had no idea how little gunnery practice the crew had logged before coming to England. He would have been further dismayed had he known that our total experience with oxygen equipment added up to only thirteen hours.
Who was to blame for this woeful lack of training? How could the 2nd Air Force Training Command have been so ignorant of our needs? I suspect that the Command was overloaded with ex-educators who let their passion for classrooms supersede the substance of what was actually needed where we were headed. In a new situation people usually fall back on what they know best. What happened to the communications between the 8th Air Force and the stateside training command? Much time was wasted on classroom trivia and not enough on the essentials necessary for a crew to survive in combat with the enemy.
The 8th Air Force was made up of two units: Bomber Command and Fighter Command. Bomber Command was composed of three divisions,4 each of which had two wings. Three groups made up a wing. The bomber group was the basic fighting unit of the Command. A combat group had four squadrons who handled the personnel. At that date a group was expected to put up a minimum of eighteen Fortresses on a mission. Sometimes it would be a few more. In most cases a group occupied one air base, and had about two thousand men in combat and support personnel. We found out in the first week that we were in the 8th Air Force, First Division, First Wing, 381st Group, and the 533rd Squadron. The First Wing was made up of the 381st, the 351st, and the 91st groups.
It took me a while to get used to Gleichauf’s cockpit procedure. He was as different from Herb as day is from night! He had none of the easygoing, relaxed characteristics of most four-engine pilots. He was all business from the moment engines started, and prone to issue short, concise orders, which at first sounded irritable on the intercom. But I knew we were lucky to get Gleichauf’s kind of experience and ability.
Herb Carqueville was from Chicago, where his family operated a lithographing business. Prior to the war he was quite active in the business, and expected to return to it when the war was over. A good relationship developed between Carqueville and me, partly because both of us had been in the business world for a number of years. Herb’s background gave him a different perspective from young men fresh out of college. At twenty-seven, he acted more like a mature man of forty.
Our Navigator, Lieutenant Carl R. Shutting, was from Chattanooga, Tennessee. I had a mental picture of a navigator: he would be a neat, orderly, well-organized person with cold, mathematical efficiency, and precise methodical habits. Carl Shutting was at the opposite end of the spectrum from such an image. He had been married before entering the service, but had recently been the recipient of a “Dear John” letter. Carl was twenty-four, and prior to the war had worked in the post office in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Johnny Purus, the Bombardier, was from the Boston area. He was in his early twenties, and as dependable as a person could be. He was a bit shy, soft-spoken, and not easy to evaluate immediately. For a short period he had worked as an aircraft mechanic, but not on B-17s. It was good to have another man with mechanical aptitude on the crew. There might come a time in the future when his help would be crucial.
When the war broke out I was thirty-one, married for not quite two years, and living in Corpus Christi, Texas. My education had been at Trinity University and the University of Texas. I was a competent outside salesman for machine tools, equipment, and auto parts. I had a solid background in the field of mechanics and supply, and also some electrical experience (fortunate because a B-17 was operated and controlled mainly by electric circuits). My position was flight engineer and I fired the top turret guns. The turret was mounted in the cockpit directly behind the pilot and copilot.
It did not occur to us that we were already on combat status. No one had told the gunners a single thing about the 381st procedure for gunners. In fact we had not seen a gun since we reached Ridgewell. We were still waiting for the briefing that the Operations Officer promised shortly after we arrived. I understood that we would get at least one gunnery practice flight that would outline the 381st gun armament procedures. We should have asked questions. Where did the crews keep the guns? Where did we get parts or supplies needed on a mission in a hurry? What about the briefing procedures on mission mornings. Did we report to the Briefing Room or go to the aircraft? But military life discourages initiative, so we waited and waited for the instructions, so vital, that never came.
July 29
At 0230 (two-thirty A.M.) the lights snapped on and six startled men roused enough to hear the Operations Officer:
“Now listen to this, Comer, Counce, Balmore, Abramo, Wilson, and Rogers. You’re flyin’ 765 with Gleichauf. Briefing at 0400 hours. Chow’s ready now. Come on! Out of that sack!”
“This is a combat raid!” said Counce. “Why didn’t they tell us we were on combat status. No one has told us one thing! Do we go to the briefing with the officers?”
“Don’t know,” I answered. “We gotta catch Gleichauf before he gets to the Briefing Room and get orders.”
There were fresh eggs for breakfast but I was too nervous to be hungry. I watched the men come and go in anxious fascination. Our crew seemed to be the only newcomers there. I had a tight feeling in my chest and was beginning to feel nauseated. I envied the confident air of the vets who appeared totally unperturbed. I wondered if I would survive long enough to develop such a carefree attitude. Probably not! I was under no illusions as to what generally happened to new crews. Not many made it back!
Trucks were lined up to ferry us to Operations, and in the dark they assumed ghostly shapes. Men talked, if at all, in subdued whispers. Most were silent except for an occasional curse as some new arrival stepped on a foot. It was a black, gloomy predawn, and our spirits were in complete harmony with the cheerless atmosphere.