Article

In some instances, in place of an interview, we have included articles written by or about our volunteer. In these instances, we title the link [Article].

Marne Wilson

It was our third mission and this one was to Berlin. When I say "our" I mean that our crew had all trained together in the states and come to England as a team. We were getting to know each other quite well. Because we were new (anyone with less than five missions was new), we were assigned one of the older B-17Fs in the top position of the formation which is very vulnerable.

Well into Europe, when the Germans showed up, we were singled out by one FW-190 as an easy target. He came in from 11 O'clock high--a position where we couldn't get any of our guns trained on him. As he neared for a shot, I knew he had us and my reflexes fell back on what I had been trained to do in just such a situation. The way we were taught to counter a deflection shot was to turn into the attacker so I did. I pulled the plane up into a steep right climbing turn bringing our noses to bear in on each other. For several seconds we were on a collision course. I felt if he was going to get us, we might as well make him pay the price.

He apparently didn't want to die that day because he quickly dove under us while just getting off a short burst. His bullets punched four jagged holes in one wing but did no real damage. But here I was, nose high in a turn, speed blead off, heavily loaded with bombs and fuel; the B-17 dropped away in a spin falling out of the formation. A B-17 is not a plane you want to spin and we never spun them in training. However we were trained in spin recovery while flying primary in the Stearman so I applied the same rules--pull back on the power, yoke forward and kick in opposite rudder. My co-pilot, a nineteen year old kid, was frozen at the controls. I reached across and struck him a pretty hefty blow on his arm to get his attention because I needed help in recovering the plane. He came out of it right away and cranked in the turbos. The B-17 grudgingly straightened itself out and we got her back under control. By now the squadron was four thousand feet higher and still on its way to Berlin.

Most of the crew, who are never strapped down in the plane, were pretty badly banged up during the spin. Fortunately there were no serious injuries but we were all frightened from the experience. We finally rejoined our formation and found an opening where another less fortunate B-17 had been. I didn't want to get back on top. We continued on, dropped our payload and returned without further incident. One difference however, normally after a completed mission, the crew were quite jovial on the return flight, but this time they were silent.

After we landed, our crew chief, an elder man in his late 30s, saw those four jagged holes and started banging on the airplane and swearing at us. He really put on a show about what we did to his plane and all the work we caused for him. Pretty soon he had us all laughing and finally he started to laugh. He knew just what we needed. After that, we were OK. We had another mission the following day and carried it off without a hitch.

I only flew five missions with that crew. I was reassigned as a lead pilot which meant I flew with a different crew on each mission. Some of our pilots flew all their 35 missions with the same crew.

Paul Gilbert

Interview

"At this point the plane was hardly flyable. All our radios were shot out and with only one engine running, the plane kept sliding off. Fortunately a couple of our fighters picked us up but they were low on gas and finally had to leave us. We finally reached the North Sea and started preparing to ditch. The crew is trained to sit next to each other in the radio room and put their hands forward to brace against the shock. As I neared the water, I couldn't see too well because spray was hitting the windshield so I had my head stuck out of the cockpit and as a result, I made a poor landing and slammed into the water and broke the plane in two at the radio room."

Jack Robins

"Missions prior to Berlin have been aptly described by thousands of crew members. But Berlin was different at least for me, because it created a situation that in my wildest imagination I could not perceive.

We were hit, as I later discovered, in and around Hanover. Flak had killed our No. 3 and 4 engines and we had left the formation. By this time, the flak had stopped and the fighters poured in. The fighter that finished us off laid in over and just behind our left stabilizer and seemed to empty his entire arsenal into our No. 1 and 2 engines. Working my gun, I could not get it below the horizontal to fight him off. As he peeled off we were hit from beneath into the ball turret and the radio compartment. While all this was going on, I thought I heard a ringing in my ears: a soft ringing, as we wore headphones and helmets. With the firing of the guns and the roar of the engines still working, it never occurred to me that my pilot had activated the alarm bell until I had ripped off my helmet and headphones and yes it was ringing, loud and clear. And when it rings, you go. I don't know why but I had to make sure I connected my oxygen mask to an emergency oxygen bottle, opened the door leading to the bomb bay the bomb bay doors were open, got onto the cat-walk and saw that the door leading to the pilot's deck was open. No flight engineer and both pilots gone, and bending down to look into the nose, nobody home. Back through the bomb bay to the radio compartment; got the attention of both waist gunners with a thumb down gesture. The three of us cranked Bob Taylor, our ball turret gunner, up and out, and snapped his chest pack on his harness (he had been wounded in both legs). He was then pulled to the side fuselage door by both gunners and thrown out. They indicated that our tail gunner had already left the ship. I reached for my chest pack, entered the bomb bay, tumbled out, pulled the ripcord and all that came out was the pilot chute. By the time I was able to break open the pack to release the main chute, I guess I was about 1000 feet above the clouds. I figure I dropped about 15,000 feet before the chute opened, as there was supposed to have been a 500 foot cloud cover over western Germany that day. Suffice to say-I was captured and spent 14 months in Germany."

Wayne Stump

"I was 21 when I piloted those missions. . . and my ball turret gunner was 17. We were young."
We lost over 300 B-17s on takeoff during the war. When loaded, it was all those four engines could do to lift us into the air. If one engine coughed, the 17 was about to become another war statistic. It was required takeoff practice that the flight engineer place his hand over mine to make sure that those throttles would remain full forward until we were airborne.

Wes Sullivan

My 35th and final mission.

I'd gained my first pilot rating a few weeks earlier, but I elected to finish out my tour as co-pilot with the crew I'd joined back in Ardmore, Okla. (We still hold crew reunions every other year.) I was two missions behind the rest of the crew. To catch up, I volunteered for two missions while the rest of the crew went to London on a two-day pass.

The morning of the 18th, we were hoping for a milk run, on our final mission. We were deputy lead plane, which meant that our navigator, Gene Hackney, went to a special briefing before the general briefing. We got used to watching his facial expression as he came out of the briefing room for a clue as to how tough the mission would be.

That morning his face was as glum as I'd ever seen it. We were going to "Big B."

In those final months of the war, the Mighty Eighth mounted over 1,000 B-17s on each raid. What a show that was. We took off in pitch dark and immediately began firing signal flares through the top of the plane. The color code on those flares indicated our group. We were the 385th Bomb Group, 548th Squadron.

The sky over Eastern England was ablaze with those flares, the greatest pyrotechnic display ever seen. By the time we were at 16,000 feet, we'd sorted it all out and were assembled in our groups.

Then began the greatest aerial ballet ever, with those huge groups of 36 planes maneuvering into position at one minute intervals. On that March 18 morning, while we were bombing Berlin, planes still were assembling over Britain in a line across the channel and across Germany.

Over 10,000 men in the air on one mission. There never will be another labor-intensive aerial war like that, never such a spectacular show. It is no wonder that people of later generations look back on that era with awe.

Big B, along with the gasoline fabrication plants at Mersberg, were the most heavily defended targets in Germany. That morning was no exception.

As we unloaded our bombs on the target, we came under heavy antiaircraft fire. Our lead plane was shot down, so we moved into the lead position.

Then it was our turn. The glass was blown out of the cockpit, #3 engine started spewing oil. A piece of shrapnel tore a jagged hole in our left aileron while we were in a turn, taking us out of formation and leaving us circling, alone, over Berlin.

My first pilot, Bill Whitehead, began cranking in the big tail of the plane, to counter the effect of the aileron. That huge 19-foot tail was controlled by a tiny control cable. It would put an intolerable strain on that cord to force the tail into the wind.

He applied the pressure slowly as we held our breath.

Suddenly, Bill said to me over the intercom, his voice sounding like that of a whipped puppy, "The cable just gave way, Sully. We're going down."

I'll never forget that moment. I wouldn't get to go home to my wife Elsie, pregnant in Oregon with our first son. To have come this far, and not to make it.

Just then I heard another voice, from amidships. It was Len Edwards, our waist gunner, saying, "I just hit my helmet on the rudder cable. I'm sorry." Suddenly, there was hope.

Slowly, we brought the plane to a straight course, barely able to maintain flying speed, headed for home. We came all the way back to England, into the jet stream, at a ground speed of 85 miles per hour.

We weren't sure how the plane would behave on landing. We offered the crew the option of bailing out. No one accepted. We dragged the plane in over the end of the field at Great Ashfield.

We were down. It was over. I could go home to my pregnant wife. Someone met me as I went back to the barracks telling me I'd been promoted to first lieutenant.

People may wonder why those of us who flew B-17s in the Eighth Air Force remain, to the end of our days, in love with that plane. It brought us back.

F4U Corsair

Hal Staub

Interview

"My transition from F4Fs [Wildcat] and F6Fs [Hellcat] to the F4U-1 was an experience where the Corsair flew me all over the sky until, with a lot of perseverance, I was able to master the aircraft. I discovered that the Wildcat and Hellcat were very forgiving but you had to fly the Corsair every minute. Within a few hours, all of our pilots developed a real love affair with the F4U."

SBD Dauntless [Navy Dive Bomber]

Jack Danner

Interview

"My best-remembered mission was one of my first. Peeling off at about 16-18,000 the radio was blasting about a pilot down in the water and lots of other chatter. I completely forgot my dive brakes and zoomed down passing all those who had gone on before. A glance at the gauge showed 425 knots [220 knots was normal]. I was afraid to open the flaps as I'm sure they would have torn off. I managed to pull out very low and very fast still over the target and released my bombs which then soared out a good two country miles into the blue Pacific. It was ten minutes before my gunner spoke a word to me. He did however remain my gunner for the rest of my time."

P-51 Mustang

Roy June

Interview

"From March through August of 1945 up to the Japanese surrender, the Mustangs flew support missions for the B-29 Superforts on their missions to the homeland, as well as numerous sorties against ground targets on the homeland.

These missions were heavy in losses. My Squadron lost 22 pilots during the six months it flew from Iwo Jima in 1945. These were the longest over-water flights by land-based single engine aircraft in World War II. Flights were up to 800 miles one way and up to eight hours in duration. There were no bases between Iwo Jima and the Japanese mainland, only water." On one mission to meet with the B-29s, our flight flew into bad weather which turned out to be a major typhoon.

O. B. Carter

"In Burma [with The First Air Commandos] we developed a system of low altitude vertical dive bombing with the P-51 which gave almost pinpoint accuracy. However since we were using both 500 and 1000 lb. bombs on racks designed for 375 lb. maximum, we sometimes had difficulty with bombs hanging up on release. It didn't take long to discover that a quick shake of the stick sideways, simultaneous with the bomb release, would usually insure bomb separation from the airplane.

Since we were mostly involved in close air-ground support and interdiction missions, we rarely saw the Japanese in the air. I only had air-to-air combat on five of my 82 missions, but found the P-51 to be very effective against Japanese fighters, using the normal hit-and-run tactics. In this manner, I was able to get two confirmed Japanese fighters in the air, and 15 on the ground."

Dick Paliafito

"I was on a strafing mission to the Augsburg, Germany area, about 70 miles west of Stuttgart. That's when I was initiated into the nasty part of war; they shoot at you. We were about 25 feet above the ground and within the confines of a marshaling yard. The triple "A" [anti-aircraft] was very intense with the 20mm bursting all around the aircraft. While jinking my lady wildly, my left wing was vertical to the ground and I observed a large sheet of flame which was, sadly enough, my flight leader. That was the first time I was shot at and I've always thought that someone upstairs was watching over me, because even on succeeding strafing runs I was never hit, not even small arms."

Ed Witzenburger

Article

A thin spray of fluid hit my neck. The coolant line! My heart skipped a beat! The odor of the coolant fluid, Prestone, spread through the cockpit. Instinctively I switched the coolant shutter to the full open position and checked the cylinder head temperature gauge. Already it had climbed 5 degrees above the 90 degree Centigrade reading which I had set manually before hitting the target. My eyes smarted from the fluid as I eased the ship into a climbing turn to the west toward the mountains.

"Hello Red Flight, Hello Red Flight, looks like the old four dollar rifle has paid off. I'm heading for the hills. Stay with me."

B-24 Liberator

Frank Pease

"It was early in '44 and I was right waist gunner with the 389th Bomb Group. We were returning, unescorted, from a raid deep into Germany when 76 ME-109s hit us from above. I thought for sure we were gonners. That is a huge number of airplanes and the left waist gunner had counted every one of them. Somehow we all survived that first pass. Now those enemy fighters were re-forming on the left side just out of our gun range for another pass. Our co-pilot was yelling on the radio, 'Bandits! Bandits! Bandits!'"

"Before the Germans commenced that second pass, they spotted twin contrails of 13 P-38s high above us heading in our direction. The 76 "Bandits" dove away from us and we never saw them again. Gawd I love American fighter pilots! We would have been nailed for sure."

P-38 Lightning

Vaughn Denning

"When the pilot had to bail out, he had to clear the elevator that was located a few yards directly behind him. I know of only two methods of bailing out of the P-38 and avoiding the elevator that were ever successful. One method was to roll the airplane upside down and trim the controls so the tail would go up when the pilot pushed himself downward out of the seat, and hopefully under the elevator. The other method involved carrying a ten-to-twelve foot long rope with knots tied about every foot. The pilot would tie one end of the rope to the airplane inside the cockpit. To bail out, he would lower himself over the wing's back edge by holding onto the knots in the rope. Hopefully, his weight should lower his body enough so he would pass under the P-38s elevator when he released the rope"

O. B. Carter

"The P-38 was very easy to operate and a real joy to fly as long as everything went normally as planned. However, in modern computer terms, it was not always a user friendly airplane and had a few bad habits as most high performance airplanes do.

First among them was the so-called compressibility phenomenon wherein at high vertical dive speeds, the air would begin to pack up ahead of the wing and the elevator control would become useless and so rigid that you couldn't move it. It happened to me in July 1942. I was not unduly alarmed at first because we had been well-briefed on the phenomenon and were told the correct procedure was to reduce power and use elevator trim control in order to bring the nose up, slow up, and regain elevator control. I did this but when I had rolled the elevator trim to its full nose up travel against the stops and nothing happened, I realized that I was in deep, serious, probably fatal trouble. It was discovered later that the elevator control rod linkage had broken completely where it passed through a bulkhead in the horizontal stabilizer!

Now, the aeronautical engineers tell us that it is aerodynamically impossible for a propeller-driven airplane to go supersonic or even into the trans-sonic barrier. No doubt they are correct and I make no claims. But they also say that aerodynamically, it is impossible for a bumblebee to fly. I don't argue the point. All I know is that on that memorable day in July 1942, for a few seconds, probably not over 2 or 3, it got awfully quiet and very, very smooth (which I am told is typical of supersonic flight) just before all hell broke loose and that "E" model P-38 started to come apart.

First the canopy left and almost instantly the side windows imploded inward. We know that because after landing there were still large jagged chunks of Plexiglas from the side windows laying on the cockpit floor and on my lap. Then, not necessarily in order but very rapidly, the high speed fairings around the wing roots (just outside of the cockpit) peeled off, the wheel well doors tore off, the cowling around the inside coolant radiator on the left boom tore off and took out with it much of the left vertical stabilizer and rudder. This caused the tail booms to be slightly warped to one side. Finally most of the glass covering the instruments on the cockpit panel was broken but I still had a good air speed indicator and altimeter.

All this destruction undoubtedly saved my life because the resulting drag as I came into heavier air at lower altitude, slowed up the airplane enough for me to regain elevator control and finally get it out straight and level at about 1000 feet MSL over that big hill in La Jolla, California, which I believe is about 800 feet above sea level. I had started at about 32,000 feet. The airplane was so un-airworthy that it took full power on both engines to get it back to the North Island Naval Air Station in San Diego. I was able to get the gear down OK but not the flaps so the landing (cross traffic) was pretty fast.

As a result of this experience a fix was developed to correct the problem. It consisted of an inverted V-shaped dive brake device located under the wing at about the mean chord line, which would pop out about 6 or 8 inches when activated by a red emergency panic switch on the wheel.

This experience was the first of five incidents that occurred to me in the next 6 months which proved conclusively the rugged construction, durability and dependability of the P-38. Without going into boring detail these incidents consisted of (2) an engine fire at high altitude, (3) a midair collision, (4) flying through very high voltage power lines, which knocked most of southern California south of Escondido out of power just 2 days before Christmas 1942, and finally (5) landing a P-38, single engine on a county road, with full drop tanks, on New Years Day 1943. This was caused by total failure of the left engine, total loss of oil pressure on the right engine, and an extreme desire to put that bird on the ground at the nearest stretch of hard surface ASAP before that running engine seized up!!!"

P-40 Hawk

Aaron Liepe - China Air Task Force

Interview

"I was acting squadron commander of this small group of pilots and aircraft assembled from several squadrons. When the enemy aircraft were within a 50-mile radius of our base, Lt. Casey and I were scrambled to intercept the approaching enemy. Due to engine trouble, Casey had to return to base, leaving me as the only aircraft in the air. As I approached the enemy formation, knowing that the enemy frequently tuned into our radio frequency, I began giving attack instructions, via the radio, to an imaginary four flights (4 aircraft per flight) of our fighters. After attaining sufficient altitude, I began my attack. There were approximately 12 bombers and 24 fighters in each of the enemy formations. After several high-speed attacks, all the time giving instructions to my imaginary flights, I had expended all of my ammunition and had to break off contact.

However, unbeknown to me, the enemy second and third formations were changing course and returning to their base, never having attacked or dropped their bombs on our base. The other three of our aircraft were finally able to get off the ground and intercepted the enemy formations on the way home. I was credited with one "Betty" bomber destroyed and two probable."

P-47 Thunderbolt

Richard Parker

Interview

We looked over the airplane. It was absolutely amazing. The hub was smashed against the propeller. There was holes in the propeller from the boxcar. There was boxcar stuck in the leading edges of the wings and tail. Two cylinders were knocked out of the engine, the canopy was gone. The whole underside of the airplane was scorched from the explosion.

Bob Good

I had just transferred from P-38s to the P-47 in the late spring of 1945. By then the German Luftwaffe consisted mostly of very inexperienced pilots with few hours. At the time, I had about five hours in the "Jug" as P-47s were called and was not yet accustomed to the range of my guns. I pulled toward an ME109 and fired but had not closed sufficiently to have him in range. It didn't seem to matter to that young pilot however, he bailed out before I got any closer.

O. B. Carter

I was returning from a raid on Rangoon low on gas. There was a Zero on my tail shooting at me. I wasn't worried about the bullets because the P47 was well protected from the rear, I was worried about my fuel supply and if I had enough to make it home.

B-25 Mitchell Bomber

Walt Radovich - 1st Air Commandos

Article

All our bombs were expended in two runs and no one had seen any antiaircraft fire. Some of the rafts had disappeared and the town was on fire. Grant Mahoney, the imperturbable, boyish pursuit pilot from Oakland, California, had his Mustangs stooging around above us just in case some Zeros came along.

We got word that a large Japanese ground force was attacking Wingate's Chindits at Broadway [Burma]. I didn't take the time to wait for my crew but took my B25 off and flew the 200 miles to Broadway to help in the defense of that base. I used both 50 calibre rounds and fragmentation bombs flying the B25 like a fighter strafing the enemy positions. It was probably the only time a B25 was ever flown into combat with only a pilot and no crew. I couldn't use my 75mm cannon because I had no one to load it.

Waco Glider CG-4a

Art Silverman

Interview

My landing was good but I hit a building which spun me around and I hit a tree but it didn't hurt the front. That is where you unload a glider. The cockpit rises out of the way and they drove the jeep out. It was up to me to make sure that the cargo is unloaded and on its way. After that, I picked up my M1 and started searching for an infantry unit.

It was chaotic. Gliders landing everywhere in the dark. Vehicles, cargo and personnel unloading from the planes. Some gliders were demolished in the landing. We didn't know where we were. We were supposed to meet up with a trailer but we couldn't find it. The jeep sped off and everyone was running around trying to figure out where to go and what to do. We slogged around in the mud.

Luftwaffe 88 Anti-Aircraft Gunner

Karl Eichner

At 15 1/2 years of age, we attended school in the morning and manned the guns in the afternoon. We lived at the 88 battery sites which were not too far from my home south of Munich. A year and a half later the war ended. I was in the hospital when the Americans came. By this time, I had been inducted into the Wermacht (Army). Having recovered sufficiently in the hospital, I wanted to go home. Had the Americans known I was army, I would have been held longer for interrogation and clearance, so I destroyed my army papers and claimed to be a civilian. They believed me and allowed me to walk out of the hospital.

29th Infantry Division hits Omaha Beach

Sandy Hirschhaut

Interview

My two ammo carries and I were some of the first off the LCI. I saw the mess on the beach. The water was bloody, the sand was bloody, dead and wounded all over the place. Even though we were in the first wave a few had come before. I decided right away, despite our training, I wasn't going to find a defensive position in that sand. In front of us, about 30 yards, was a very steep mound and I decided I was going to get to that mound as fast as I could.

4th Marine Division invades Iwo Jima

Les Carlyle

Interview

My first night on Iwo was perhaps the worst night of my life. Like everyone else, I was disorganized, wet, cold and scared to death of the white phosphorous and fragmentation shells that the Japanese fired almost without letup all night.

Special Forces (Green Berets)

Tom Henry

Interview

Those of us who plan these kind of missions understand the necessity of backups. Whatever the equipment, if you calculate that you need one, you go for two. If you need two, you go for four and so on. It is just like if we want to blow up a bridge and I calculate, using my formulas, that it will take four pounds of C3 to blow that beam, I use eight pounds.

C-46 over the Hump

Bill Masters

Interview

All in an instant I saw the tail of the ship go by my head, felt the cool air on my face and pulled the ripcord. The next thing I remember was the stillness - after the few minutes of confusion in the airplane, there I was suspended in the night sky somewhere between India and China, clapping my hands together to keep them warm and humming to myself.

Jeff Arnett

The second bomb had just been dropped on Nagasaki but the Japanese had not yet surrendered. We were taking a C-46 laden with medical supplies to Shanghai for our POWs and had made three passes over the city dropping leaflets announcing our intentions. Upon landing, the Japanese Army met us with guns and held us up at the airport for two hours while our status was determined. Finally the Swiss Consular people interviened and took us to their quarters where we spent the night. The next day, the Japanese formally announced their surrender and we got about our business.

During this same time, a C-46 faired less well in Canton where they were interned in a Japanese prison but were released the following day to complete their life-saving mission.