Bomber Pilot Page 9

  We left about midday of the day after we were told to pack, and we landed late that afternoon at a field near Newquay on the coast of Cornwall in southwest England. Most of the ships of our group came in just before dark in a fast-dropping fog. A good many ships of the group had dropped behind for numerous reasons. Some had not arrived in England, and some like Fowble's were back at base undergoing repairs. I think in having left only the one crew behind I was missing fewer crews than any other squadron CO.

  When I landed in Cornwall late that afternoon in the summer of 1943 I was elated. We were a part of a fighting outfit on the way to adventures my imagination wildly exaggerated. I was thinking about those adventures as I parked the ship and got out to watch the others come in. The fog, which had been bad when I landed, was worse now and some of the pilots of Yaeger's squadron were having quite a tough time of it. They could see the field when they were right over it, but not when they got back to make an approach to the end of the strip. As a result they made approaches not properly lined up with the runway. Each time some of the ships would go around for another try and one or two would hit it right and come on in to a landing. Others nearly made it aided by the traffic controller in the tower, who fired red flares directing them to go around and signaling that he thought an attempted landing on that approach would be too hazardous. One ship that had a particularly rough time carried Major Yaeger. After half a dozen attempts he did come in. He was off to the right of the runway, but he made a violently steep turn very low to the ground. He straightened the ship out at last over the runway, cut the throttles, and tried to set it down. The ship lost flying speed about fifteen feet high over the runway and practically fell in from there. Several of the bulkheads were buckled in the landing. No one was injured, but it would take quite a long time to repair the plane.

  That night we were briefed for a takeoff to Africa and early next morning we took off. We were going in a rush and were to fly through the Straits of Gibraltar to Oran, on the African coast of the Mediterranean. We were briefed to expect a front and some rather poor weather just about the time we hit the Straits. The mission started in clear skies. My squadron was in the lead except for a ship carrying group personnel, including Colonel Wood and the newly promoted Major Brooks, which was slightly ahead of us. We maintained contact with them for a number of hours out. As the trip wore on the skies darkened and visibility lowered. According to our plan, we were laying no great emphasis on maintaining formation and so the formations, such as they were, began to split up.

  I was still flying H for Harry, Opsata's ship. I had Bob Wright on my left wing and Smitty on my right. As we turned east to go through the Straits of Gibraltar the weather got much worse. Rain fell in patches, and the visibility was reduced to less than a mile, with some spots where we could scarcely see our wing-tips. I let down to less than fifty feet over the water to enable Wright to stay with me if he wanted to. He apparently was going along flying close formation even though there were times when I was strictly on instruments for as much as a minute or two. I could catch occasional glimpses of the water when I went on instruments, which was enough to assure me that, though I was flying very low, I wouldn't fly into the sea. How Bob Wright could see me well enough to fly close formation during those moments when I could scarcely see my own wing-tips, bothered me, but apparently not Bob.

  Our navigator announced that as well as he could figure we should be passing through the Straits, and at that moment I noticed a black smudge on a cloud of rain in front of us. Then there was another off our right wing, and one a little above and one on the left at the same time. The thought must have occurred simultaneously to all of us that we were being fired upon. Andy was in the copilot's seat, and Sergeant Quinlan, the engineer, was standing between the seats looking out with us. Evidently we had come a little too close to the shore of Spanish Morocco and some of Franco's Falangists had opened fire in the hope that they might prevent us from ever becoming operational.

  Very quickly I pulled up to get in the cloud close above us, just as Sergeant Quinlan said: “My God, they're firin’ on us.”

  I wasn't frightened at all. Those little puffs looked harmless, there weren't many of them, and I hadn't seen enough of the effects of flak to cure my casual attitude about it.

  “That stuff couldn't hurt you,” I laughed.

  “Not until it starts bustin’ under my fanny,” said Quinlan. “Tell that man don't shoot, I'll marry.”

  We flew on in the rain on instruments for a while and let down gingerly a little way. Then we could see the water under us, though we were a few hundred feet above it. We had passed the front and the weather was improving. Soon we saw Wright again, about a mile off our left wing; he saw us and soon we were merrily on our way again in formation. After a while the sky over us broke. We could see a speck or two in the distance here and there. They were ships of our group headed toward Oran. We picked up two of them, which increased our two ships to what looked like the beginning of a formation. We compared notes on navigation, using radio communication in a way not to violate radio security, and found we were just about on course and on time.

  When we touched the north coast of Africa well inside the Mediterranean, one pilot put on power and nosed down, pulling away and ahead of the rest of us. He was evidently trying to beat us to the field at Oran, I wanted to be the first in, but I knew it was wise to conserve fuel, even though we did appear to be coming along with plenty to spare. The ship ahead was not of my squadron, and so I made no effort to restrain the pilot. We were told by the navigator to expect arrival at La Sénia airport, Oran, within the next ten minutes. We hit it as he called it, and let down there in the middle of the desert feeling a bit the swashbuckling heroes. After all, we had come from America only a week or so ago. We were the vanguard of Ted's Flying Circus on its way back to Africa to pummel the hell out of the Axis.

  When I got out of the airplane I didn't even think to look it over. But Sergeant Quinlan took me by the arm and led me back to the tail of the ship, where he pointed out a jagged hole in the rudder. It wasn't very big, but if it had been in a vital spot it might have been quite dangerous.

  “You don't mind the flak?” he said.

  I laughed and jumped into a truck waiting to take us to our quarters.

  The fort at La Sénia was a typical, desolate French fortress. It appeared to be malaria ridden. The barracks were depressing piles of red brick which rose out of the desert as symbols of past French colonial power. To the west of the fort and on the shore of the Mediterranean was a tall mountain with a castle on its very pinnacle that could be seen clearly from my barracks window. The road leading up to it looked extremely precipitous and tortuous. The castle was the castle of Monte Cristo, and I felt it added measurably to the romance of the setting. Little romance was lent by the fact that our barracks stank. They stank in just the way I imagined they would. Del Cross observed that the odor of the barracks was like the odor of the part of a zoo where the lions are kept. At least, I thought, barracks like these would be good for giving someone a viking's funeral.

  That night we sat around the bar and sipped a native version of cognac, a concoction only an imaginative vintner could call cognac and sell to an American. But the effect was about the same as cognac, so that the officers’ bar was a convivial place. There was something about just getting one's money changed into that worthless-looking, dirty French paper that gave me the feeling that this was a long way from home. The food was horrible, and the only choice the menu offered was between quinine and Atabrine. The water was heavily chlorinated not only to kill the germs, but to chlorinate one's stomach. They said it made it safe to eat the food.

  That night we found that the ship which carried Major Brooks and Colonel Wood had put in at Gibraltar because of a shortage of fuel. There was a small field on the rock where we had been briefed we might land in case of necessity. So without stretching it too far, I still had a chance to be the first at our new base.

  Early
next morning we took off. We were about three hours out when we got to that part of the North Africa coast where the army of Rommel had beat its last withdrawal. So far as the eye could reach the coast was littered with burnt-out tanks and half-tracks, shot-down aircraft, and all sorts of material wrecked by the advancing Allied armies. Time and time again we flew over airdromes where numerous German aircraft were parked, some of which looked almost intact but all of which were obviously damaged by Allied bombing beyond the point of ever flying again. Many months later when we were dropping fragmentation bombs I learned that our “frags” or “daisy cutters,” as they were called, had a way of making a parked plane look at close range like a Swiss cheese facsimile, while at a distance it might look perfectly all right. I muttered something about getting my line chief to rebuild for me a good Focke-Wulf 190 out of the numerous ones I saw lying around. I might even fly home in it.

  As we flew down the coast of the Mediterranean, the land looked like a lot of desert country in the southwestern part of the States except for occasional camel trains and villages of rambling Arab tents. Finally we made our destination, which was supposed to be secret. We were based just outside the city of Bengasi, which, at that time, was one of the most bombed and shelled cities in the world. Bengasi is in what the British called Libya, and what the Italians called Cyrenaica. There were numerous airdromes in the area and by flying over and calling the radio tower of each, we finally surmised which one must be our new home. There was no radio at the field where we decided to land, but it fit the description and so we put down. Two ships of our group had beat me into the field, which dealt another faint blow to my pride.

  There was a runway leveled out of the desert and that was about all. It didn't have a hard surface, but it obviously didn't need one for this season of the year. It was dusty but plenty hard to sustain the ship. We landed and taxied off the end of the runway pulling the heavy plane over some rough ground to a spot which seemed safe from incoming aircraft and traffic in the immediate vicinity. Looking out of the side window I could see an Arab tent, some goats, and a camel a few hundred yards from where the ship was parked. That was all that broke the expanse of the desert. Picturesque, but what about security?

  Soon a truck appeared to take us to the living site. We left one member of the crew to guard the ship and took off, riding about a mile and a half to what appeared to be the beginning of a tent city. A service unit had been sent in only a few days before and had put up a tent for us to use as a mess hall, and that was about all. There were other tents available which we could draw and pitch for ourselves. We learned all over again what I had known from my old Infantry days: that good soldiers, no matter where they are, and with no matter how little, will immediately begin to better their living conditions. If given long enough they will even manage a degree of luxury—anywhere.

  The officers of highest rank and the enlisted men of lowest alike began to pitch tents and put up cots and in the process found a few snakes and a great many scorpions. Across the desert there was nothing but flat, arid country shimmering in the clear, dry air. You could see for miles. It was July and this was the Middle East, Cyrenaica, Libya, Bengasi—take your choice. And aside from the really objectionable snakes and scorpions there were literally a million huge locusts—grasshoppers to me. While we pitched our tents they lit on our necks, flew down our backs, hit us in the face, and got in anything left lying around. They were nasty things, but after a while we got tolerably used to them.

  Shortly after we landed we were given a desert snack of grimy sandwiches and synthetic lemonade. After we pitched our tents and worked on them for an hour or so our regular dinner, which consisted of powdered eggs with a good deal of dust scrambled in them, bread, and canned sausage, was served. There was a little apple butter which soon ran out, as did the sausage. However, the excitement of being here was enough to keep us from worrying about the food. We were sure it would improve after our whole group arrived and our normal supply channels began to function. And there was one aspect of this location we liked—the Mediterranean beach was only a short distance away. Tomorrow we might go and have a swim to ease the pain of the desert. We felt, in time, we could make our new home a fit place to live. I thought about it all that night as I lay in my tent too tired and too excited to sleep.

  The darkness kept coming long after I thought it had all arrived, until it was several times darker than any night I had ever known. Just finding one's way from one tent to another only a few yards distant was a real accomplishment. As I finally fell asleep in my tent, I remember dark figures stumbling by the door. They were men looking for their own tents, and as they went by some would call out, “Hello darky, hello darky, gimme a QDM.” That had been our procedure flying in England. When a pilot got lost in the fog he would fly around giving that call to get directional information from the British radio locator stations.

  The next morning I was up early to have breakfast, which consisted of poor coffee sprinkled with dust, bread without butter, and powdered eggs. Since it would be several hours before we might expect any more planes, we did a little work on our tents in the morning; then wangled a jeep and went swimming. We drove into the outskirts of Bengasi before going to the beach. What we saw of the town gave us our first idea of what war does to cities. There were only two buildings in the whole town that maintained any semblance of their original form. One was a very large and beautiful Catholic church. The other was a building out towards our airdrome some distance from the main section of town. It was used as headquarters of the Ninth Bomber Command. The city had changed hands several times, and apparently each side by sparing this building had given forethought to the headquarters housing problem.

  In the harbor we saw hulks of ships as thick as schools of fish. There were over a hundred ships sunk in the immediate harbor area. Before coming into the downtown area we turned off to go to the beach. The living area of another of the groups of heavy bombers operating under the Ninth Bomber Command was only a short distance and was right on the beach. It was a beautiful spot with waving palms and soft clean sand in place of the dust we had at our camp. The Mediterranean was navy blue, with white fringes on some of the delicious-looking waves. In the heat of the desert sun the water looked too beautiful to be anything but a mirage. We drove the jeep through the tent area and down to within a hundred feet of the water to find a sandy beach as broad and clean as any I ever saw. It was covered with bathers—all male and in their birthday suits.

  Every few minutes a Liberator would come barreling down the beach only about ten or fifteen feet above the sand, buzzing the bathers. Where we had come from not long ago such action would mean a very stern and quick court martial for pilot and copilot. Maybe this was just the natural thing in the combat zone.

  After a swim as we were getting dressed we saw a couple of formations of Libs coming back across the Mediterranean. They were in pretty good shape except for three straggling bombers with feathered props following the main formation. They obviously had engines knocked out by flak or enemy fighters but were making it back to home base.

  While I was looking around on the beach I found a fellow whom I knew from back in my training days at Randolph Field. He mentioned several guys I knew who were stationed there. One of these was dear old Sully, my prize Irish cadet, O'Sullivan from Boston. Another was a little fellow named Antonio who had been the navigator on my B-17 crew at Sebring, Florida. He lived in the most glamorous tent I ever saw; it had a marble floor obviously removed from some bomb-wrecked building in Bengasi. The floor was lowered about two feet below ground level and sand was piled against the sides of the tent in revetments, an arrangement that made it much cooler inside. Tony was more than half way through his combat tour of missions. How I envied him his experience; I felt a surge of impatience at the delay in my getting into combat.

  Those first days at Bengasi were intensely interesting. I got in to see the town several times. I visited the NAAFI, a British officers’ club. I tried c
hatting with the natives without much success. I worked on my tent, but with little heart. There was too much to be seen and in our spot there was little incentive to beautification. We were in the bottom of a dust bowl. Every time the tent was made neat inside, a wave of hot wind would carry a quarter inch of silt in and spread it over everything. Sometimes I wondered how the airplane engines ran in such blinding dust. Of course it was damaging, but we found that they gave far better service than we had any right to expect. The longer we flew with those Pratt & Whitneys, the more we stood in awe of them. The name given the Arab or Egyptian natives was Wogs. And so Pratt and Whitney engines rebuilt at the local desert depot were accordingly called Pratt & Wogs. If you had a ship powered by Pratt & Wogs you must be satisfied if it flew at all. Remarkably enough, however, some of these rebuilt engines kept grinding out missions with little trouble.

  Day after day more planes arrived. After the first four or five days we had something of a strike force assembled and started flying practice missions. There were stragglers of our command scattered all the way back to our base in England, but such was the story for every long movement. We could do without them until at length they caught up.

  We had been in Africa only a few days when John Brooks told me he had permission of the group commander of the outfit stationed down on the seashore for two or three of our command and staff personnel to go with them on a mission. We were yet to have our first raid and this flight would give some of us an idea of what to expect. He asked me and one or two others if we wanted to go. I wanted to very much. I felt it quite an advantage to be able to get the experience to carry with me on the first raid when I would be leading my squadron. I was set up to fly with a young first lieutenant who had recently become a squadron commander.