Page Five

On the East Coast, we were loaded on the El de France, a former French luxury liner, for our trip across the Atlantic. Partly because of the good ship speed, and a very indirect route, we needed no escort. This was not considered a big risk, since the submarine threat was rather minor and evasive action could be pretty effective with the ship speed.  The ship was loaded with replacement ground troops provided to replace the battle of the bulge losses. However, that is another story.

We were assigned as a replacement crew to the 704th Bomb Squadron of the 446th Bomb Group in Bungay, England, Flixton airbase This is where the rubber meets the road (i.e.. the purpose for all the previous training). We only hoped the training had been adequate.

Preparation for the upcoming combat tour included meetings where it was not specifically stated, but was surely implied, that you should not dwell on what your bombs would do when they reached their ultimate target. The explosions would not just damage mortar and steel. If a great concern did develop, you must ask yourself one basic question. If we do not do this, could the leveling of a good portion of London be a preview of what could happen to New York. Chicago, or Indianapolis? One trip into London, where you see what happened and what the people had endured for years, provided the answer.

Missions

After the initial indoctrinations were completed, it came time for the first mission. Our pilot and I flew our first mission basically as passengers with a veteran crew. Our co-pilot was to do the same with another crew but, after two failed attempts for mechanical and weather problems, his first mission was with us as a complete crew.

The pilot and I completed twelve missions during our tour. We were scheduled to fly number thirteen on Friday the 13th of April 1945, but the flight was stood down. It might be noted that this was the day after President Roosevelt died and the war in Germany was, in fact, nearing an end. We flew no more combat missions. Most missions were pretty non-eventful. Just go, hope flak and fighters are scarce, drop your bombs, and return to the base. Sure sounds simple. Unfortunately, the broken and burnt trees just past the end of the runway were a constant reminder that some did not even make the takeoff.

Much could be written about the six months under combat conditions, but I will limit it to a few events.

One was when the clouds went above our altitude limits at our formation area over England. Because of these conditions, we were ordered to go to France and give a try there. After the firing of many flares, four crews found each other. Somehow, we formed with other planes, not our wing, and eventually bombed a target. I was never really clear on what all happened except that we did, in fact, end up back in England. So much for blind luck. Needless to say, all four crews had missed the recall message while on our way to France. Another involved our Wing Commander (Col. Troy Crawford). Our wing was leading the 8th Air Force, so our commander was the formation monitor.

Another pilot would fly him in a Red Tailed Mosquito (British twin-engine aircraft). They would fly back and forth along the formation to make sure it stayed tight. The mission involved hundreds of planes. This was also early in the use of the ME262 (twin jet engine aircraft) by the German Air Force. Bandits were reported in the area, so the Mosquito pilot started to move into the bomber formation for protection. Now the bandits were expected to be the ME262's. Head on, the profile of the Mosquito and the ME262 looked a lot alike. As a result, some gunners in the low left formation opened fire and shot the Mosquito (our commanders aircraft) down. The plane was in a spiral dive when it entered the undercast and there were no reports of parachutes.

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