Over
conventional underwear we customarily wore a blue long-john type
zippered electrically heated suit. It had electrically heated gloves
and ankle high canvas boots with rubber soles. The gloves and boots
plugged into receptacles on the sleeves and legs. For some reason, I
always wondered when I plugged in my left boot in the morning, would
I be back in the tent to unplug it that night. Over the heated suit
we wore a conventional one-piece flying suit, not the heavy
sheepskin-lined leather. I wore the sheepskin flying boots over the
heated boots. We picked up the rest of the equipment before the
mission briefing. In the aircraft we wore a yellow Mae West life
jacket over the flying suit and the parachute harness over that. The
parachute was a white 28 foot canopy in a separate chest pack that
fastened to the harness by two snaps. I laid the pack at my feet
next to the armor plate below the waist window. Over all of this we
had a two piece (front and back) flak suit and a regulation GI steel
helmet over our leather helmets with the built-in headsets. The
throat mike for the intercom was activated by a hand operated switch
from the overhead communication box. The oxygen mask was checked on
the ground and at 10,000 feet. We had the interphone connection,
oxygen hose connection, and the heated suit connection to our
individual control boxes. All of this equipment got pretty heavy
after a few hours standing by my open waist window. That is why I
quit carrying my .45 pistol in my shoulder holster. The first day I
wondered why most of the experienced guys wore bath towels around
their necks. I found out how cold it was by those open waist windows
without some kind of scarf. The next day I too wore a towel around
my neck.
Before
take-off, we wiped all the oil off our guns so they would not freeze
at altitude. We checked to make sure we had our 600 rounds of .50
caliber ammunition. The belt loading was one tracer (red tipped),
two incendiary (blue tipped) and two armor piercing (black tipped).
So for every tracer I saw flying out of my gun barrel there were four
slugs between each red tracer dot. The rate of fire for aircraft
Browning .50 caliber machine guns was 750 rounds per minute.
In
combat, the waist gunners had to stay out of the way of the one who
was firing because the space was too narrow to allow us to stand back
to back. Latter model B-17’s had staggered waist windows to
alleviate this problem. We had to stumble over the mounting pile of
spent .50 caliber shell casings lying on the floor. I have always
claimed I was a waist gunner who wasted more ammunition than any
other gunner in the air force. If I could see it I would shoot at
it.
It
amazed me how much flak we could fly through and not get seriously
damaged. Of course some aircraft always took major damage and once
in a while, some were totally destroyed. From the waist window I
could see ahead to the 11 o’clock position. Ahead over the target
was a black cloud filled with the bursts of the 88mm flak guns. The
Germans typically put up a box barrage. They concentrated their fire
at a point in the sky where they thought we would be. On our bomb
runs, we could not evade these box barrages and would fly straight
through them. Every human survival instinct begged for turning away
from that threatening black cloud. We just flew straight ahead as if
it wasn’t there and hunkered down behind our armor plate and tucked
our flak suits in tight and rode it out. The sound of flak I have
never heard accurately reproduced in the movies. It has a peculiar
double explosive sound I can only describe as a “ker-WHUMP”.
On
one mission we carried a combat photographer. He had a special main
hatch which was inserted in place of the regular hatch on the right
side of the airplane. This special hatch had a large 35mm movie
camera. The photographer carried his own oxygen mask and bottle. I
told him that if we had to bail out, his camera was a goner. I also
felt better because I had something to shoot with more effective than
a movie camera. Everytime I see movies of B-17’s in combat
formation, I wonder if these were taken from our aircraft.
The
trumpet solo in Glen Miller’s “String of Pearls” inexplicably
always ran through my mind generated by the constant roar of the
engines and slipstream by my open waist window. It was always cold
at those altitudes of 20,000 to 24,000 feet. Everytime I hear that
tune it brings back crystal clear memories of standing at the open
window in the cold, clear blue sky with my .50 caliber machine gun
tucked under my right arm, oxygen mask on, watching the other B-17’s
in the formation and waiting...waiting for the Luftwaffe to show. I
hoped that what we were doing was going to forcibly impress on the
Germans they would never again want to wage war on the world. We
intended to beat their brains out. We did.
We
experienced a sense of relief when the bombs finished streaming out
of the formation bomb bays and dropped out of sight. That part of
the mission was for Uncle Sam. This part, going home, was for us.
Another recollection is that while we were enroute to safety near our
home base we could open our K rations for the only snack during those
four or six hour missions. K rations were field subsistence rations
in a box wrapped in water-proof paper about the size of a Cracker
Jack box. The only thing readily edible was the fruit bar wrapped in
cellophane. Because of the cold there was no way to peel the wrapper
off the frozen bar so we would eat the bar, wrapper and all. I
always tried to hit the tail gunner’s head with his K ration but it
was hard to throw it past the tail wheel strut.
On
one mission, I can’t remember which, I shot up our own left
stabilizer. We had a new B-17 that had ring and post gun sights
several inches higher than those I had been using. I was tracking an
Me 109 who was attacking from eight o’clock high. As I followed
him down, I was just going to stop firing to avoid hitting the
stabilizer, when WHAM! There was a big gash on the top of the
stabilizer and two neat holes in the leading edge. Those two slugs
ripped and shredded the fabric of the elevator. Jimmy Stipe, the
tail gunner, looked to his right and saw the damage only a few feet
from him. He said: “(Expletive), are they getting close!” I
told him it was me. Standing by the ground crew as they surveyed the
damage, they thought it was enemy gunfire. They were trying to sight
along the damage to determine if the waist gunner was guilty. They
finally decided it wasn’t him. Whereupon I confessed and corrected
them. Nothing was ever said. Perhaps because another B-17 landed
that day with both of its stabilizers shot up.
At
the de-briefing we reported all of the pertinent information we had
seen during the mission to the intelligence people. Along with the
Red Cross donuts and coffee, we were offered a shot of Old Overholt
bourbon whiskey. The flight surgeon dispensed it one shot at a time
to those who wanted it. You had to drink it in front of him because
some had previously saved their shots for a party later. I never
took my shot. I could hold out my hand perfectly steady proving to
myself I didn’t need it.
The
missions went on day after day, the only cancellations were caused by
the weather. One day, after the de-briefing, some of our crew went
back to the airplane for what reason I do not now remember. As we
walked through the late afternoon sunshine across the airfield to our
squadron tent area, I had time to wonder if I would be alive tomorrow
at this time. Living from day to day, not knowing if you had another
day to live is more or less of a burden on the individual. I do not
know if this question would have affected me before the 50 missions
were completed. If someone somehow offered me the opportunity to
find out, I surely would refuse. I do know that crew loyalty was a
major factor in combat. We never thought or discussed quitting.
Flying combat was entirely voluntary. If a combat crew member wanted
to quit all he had to do was tell the flight surgeon and he would be
immediately grounded and remain overseas until the war ended. We had
a replacement ball-turret gunner on his first mission who was very
calm on the interphone. I thought he was a reliable gunner. After
the mission, he told the flight surgeon that he didn’t think he
wanted to do that anymore. That was the end of his combat flying.
The combat crews had the incentive to complete the fifty missions
because they could rotate home to the states. Incidentally, for the
15th
Air Force, all missions above the 48th
parallel counted as two missions which made our total comparable to
the Eighth Air Force’s twenty-five missions.
I
can only recall the names of two of the B-17’s we flew. One was
“Opissonya” which can be seen in the 97th
Bomb Group video history. The other was the “Miss Maywood”
donated by the American Legion post in Maywood, New Jersey. The
crew chief of “Miss Maywood” is Guy S. Kellogg who lives in
Battle Creek.