Chapter 5 - COMBAT

After a brief stop at Foggia Main airfield we arrived about February 20, 1944 at our base, Amendola, Italy. Amendola was located between Foggia and Manfredonia. We were assigned to the 340^th Bomb Squadron of the 97^th Bomb Group. The Second bomb Group (B-17s) was the other group on the base. Other B-17 groups of the 15^th Air Force at the time were the 99^th and the 301^st. The first morning, standing outside of our crew tent, I saw those B-17s taking off at thirty second intervals on their way to bomb the hell out of Hitler’s Reich. Those guys were doing something very important for the world and I was glad I was going to be a part of it. At that moment I made a commitment to myself that I would never be satisfied running a gas station or driving a milk truck.

[The first picture is from 2010. Amendola is still in use. The red outline is where the parking stands were for the B-17's. The lower picture shows the same portion from  1944. You can see aircraft on the parking stands. Pictures from Christian Arzberger, Steyer Austria]

Amendola 1944 Aircraft on pads

There were no hangars or buildings of any kind on the airfield. The runway, taxiways, and parking revetments were made of pierced steel planking, (PSP) . This was the only visible construction on the former farm fields. This area might have been a Luftwaffe base but I am not sure of this. The 340^th squadron headquarters was located in a white farm house on the left side of the road between Foggia and Amendola about a mile south of the group headquarters. A group of farm buildings and a large barn on the same side of the road and across the road from the airfield was the group headquarters and briefing room. The barn briefing room had a ramp for livestock to descend from ground level to the cement floor. Seats were the square metal bomb fin shipping containers. During the briefings I always thought of the people at our target for the day and the eerie feelings it gave me. They were going about their daily tasks not knowing that in three or four hours their work place would be destroyed and some of them killed.

The squadron living quarters were behind the farmhouse. We lived in tents with GI cots and blankets. The tents were heated by stoves made from Wermacht oil barrels. The chimneys were expended German 88mm flak shell casings with the ends cut off. Fuel was raw gasoline piped in by scrap aluminum oxygen line from a barrel outside. Gasoline was freely available from a tank trailer parked by the side of the road. Why we never had a tent go up in flames is a mystery. We felt sorry for the people back home who had to put up with gas rationing. After a few days we all began to look a little gray. We discovered the raw fuel burned with so much black smoke that our GI blankets were saturated with soot. This accounted for our gray looking complexions. We didn’t feel too much sympathy for our friends in the 8^th Air force in England who had to struggle with comfortable coal-heated Quonset huts. Occasionally at night we could hear the artillery at the front 35 miles away.

The squadron orderly room and squadron commander’s office were at the front of the farm house. The kitchen and chow line was a room at the back. It opened to the outside. Conveniently located outside was our mess area which consisted of some bench-like tables built so that we had to stand in the mud while we ate the powdered eggs, spam, toast and coffee out of our aluminum messkits. These messkits were skillfully designed to cool food as soon as it was served. The cold March rains in the darkness of the early morning spring added to the charm of outdoor dining in southern Italy.

Lt. Braum was scheduled to fly a familiarization mission as a co-pilot to Regensburg on February 22^nd. The crew needed a tail gunner and I volunteered to go with Lt. Braum. Later he said they found a regular tail gunner so I was scratched. During the mission the tail gun position took a German fighter 20mm hit in the rudder just above the tail gunner’s head. The tail gunner was killed instantly. I looked at the blood-soaked wrecked tail gun position and was glad I had not been in it. I learned never to volunteer.

For more detail and other personal insights concerning the following missions see pages 153 to 162 of the 97^th Bomb Group History: “The Hour Has Come”. The mission report comments listed below refer only to those of the 97^th and not to all of the heavy bombers on the mission. 

Amendola from the air

My missions are as follows:

Mission No. 1. February 25, 1944. My first mission was to Pola, Italy. The target briefed was the dock area. As we climbed across the Adriatic we test fired our guns and settled down to wait for who knows what. As we neared the target northbound on the bomb run I saw flak for the first time. It scared the hell out of me. I realized those guys are trying to kill us! All of a sudden the war was not fun, especially when the enemy shoots back. Those mushroom shaped gray bursts were followed by the peculiar double Ker-WHUMP sound of the exploding 88mm shells. Shortly we were through the flak and I relaxed thinking that wasn’t so bad. My God! We were doing a 360 degree turn and going right back over the target again. I thought we had enough combat for the day and here we were going in again! The 15^th Air force history says that 27 B-17s dropped 81 tons on warehouses. The mission report stated that flak was moderate and accurate. Damage to aircraft from flak, 7 minor, I severe. Two crewman slightly wounded from flak.

No. 2. On March 2 we flew a mission to the Anzio beach head where the army was in trouble with its attempt to circumvent the stalemate at Cassino by landing at Anzio to drive to Rome. Our load was containers of fragmentation bombs in clusters about the size of a normal 500 pound bomb. The containers were designed to come apart during descent and scatter the fragmentation bombs over a wide area. The frag bombs weighed about 20 pounds each and constructed of heavy rings of steel so that when they exploded, shrapnel was sprayed everywhere. I could see nothing on the ground except the ships and landing craft in the beach area. How effective the mission was I never knew. The mission report states that flak was scattered and inaccurate. Two aircraft had minor damage from flak. 4,464 20 pound frag bombs were dropped on enemy troops.ⁱⁱ

No. 3. March 3. The next day we bombed the railroad yards in Rome. The briefing was very explicit. If the rail yards were not clearly visible, we weren’t to drop. Uncle Sam wanted to take no chance on accidentally bombing the Vatican. Our tail gunner, Jimmy Stipe was on his first mission. Some bombs beginning to slant down from a higher element dropped by us at about 5 o’clock. Jimmy thought they were fighters diving through the formation and he said: “If they go that fast, I’ll never get a shot at them.” The mission report states that two Me-109s and one FW-190 probably destroyed and one Me-109 damaged. Two B-17.s were damaged by enemy aircraft and one B-17 from flak. One person wounded by enemy aircraft.ⁱⁱⁱ

No. 4. March 4 the group took off with other groups to bomb Breslau deep in Germany. The strategy was for the 8^th Air Force to bomb Berlin for the first time while the 15^th Air Force struck Breslau southeast of Berlin. We were briefed that our fighter escort would leave us in the vicinity of Vienna and for the next three hours to the target and back to the rendezvous with our fighter escort we would be on our own. While climbing over the Adriatic I had plenty of time to reflect on the possibility of a horrendous air battle with the Luftwaffe for three hours. Suddenly, and with a sense of great relief, the mission was recalled and we turned back. I believe the weather canceled the 8^th’s effort against Berlin. This mission is not counted in the group total apparently because of the recall and no enemy action.

No. 5. March 7 was a mission to the submarine base at Toulon, France. It was extremely cold at altitude. Our B-17Fs had open waist windows. Our electrically heated suits, gloves and boots was all that stood between freezing to death and staying alive. We were about 25,000 to 27,000 feet in altitude. In any case, we were much higher than the normal altitudes of 20 to 24 thousand. The blue one-piece electric suits had the habit of burning out at the elbow or knee where the wires were flexed more often. Over the target, Pat Varnado, the right waist gunner, was slapping his smoking right elbow to put out the small fire in his suit. I turned down the heat on mine to try to reduce the possibility of a similar failure. It was extremely cold. I cannot remember ever being so cold in any airplane. I never saw the bombs drop, never saw any flak either. The only enemy action was a single FW-190 far below trying to climb to our altitude. For a moment I wished he would shoot us down just so we could get warm again. Our descent from the target was along the Italian Mediterranean coast to the Naples area. On the descent, one of the B-17s behind us began to cough some smoke from its number 3 engine and shortly the pilots feathered it and continued with the formation. As we turned over the southern part of Italy near Naples, we passed to the north of Mt. Vesuvius during its eruption. The dense cloud of brown smoke was enormous and appeared to stationary in the clear sky. It stretched far above our altitude. The mission report states there was an effective smoke screen in the target area. Moderate flak, inaccurate. Seven aircraft sustained damage. Encountered 5 to 10 Me-109s and FW-190s who were driven off by fighter escort.^iv
 

No. 6. March 11 we attacked the railroad yards at Padua. We flew up the Adriatic and turned west to the target. Flak was moderate. There were no fighters on the way. Circling to the left after dropping our bombs we were southeast of Venice about 20 to 30 miles over the Adriatic. I was casually looking out my left waist window with the butt of my .50 caliber machine gun tucked under my right arm when suddenly I saw a line of several white burst of smoke with orange flame centers. Thinking this was a new kind of flak I reached down and put on my steel helmet which promptly pivoted on my headset down over my eyes. When I pushed it up, four Me-109s dove past my window from upper right to lower left. I had never seen those sinister black crosses so close. I was so surprised I never fired a shot. There was no time, they were gone so fast. Then at 7 o’clock low a burning B-17 with an intense orange flame coming out of the radio compartment reached almost to the vertical fin. The Me-109s were circling far out of range behind the burning B-17 and I fired some ineffective bursts at them. The B-17 continued to burn intensely and black specks began to come out and blossom into parachutes. I counted about 6 or 7. Others saw 10 chutes. There were eleven on board including a combat photographer. The stricken ship lurched upward as the tail broke off at the ball turret. The turret fell out, the tail assembly floated away and the wing assembly began to spiral down at the same instant flames exploded to the wing tips and the whole thing slowly spiraled down, shedding black smoking pieces of wreckage. I watched as the fire slowly burned itself out leaving nothing but a smoking spiraling spar assembly. I didn’t see it strike the water. The mission report states flak was light, scattered and inaccurate. Encounters with 15 to 20 enemy aircraft attacked tail area of rear squadron out of the sun; singly in pairs and from high in 4s and 5s in lines abreast. One B-17 fell back and was singled out for aggressive attacks. It started burning badly and 8 to 10 chutes were seen to open about the time that the aircraft exploded and broke into two pieces. One Me-109 was destroyed by the B-17 which was destroyed. Other claims were 2 enemy aircraft damaged.^iv  At the de-briefing we learned our co-pilot, Andy Franko was on that ship. We were all confident that he had bailed out and survived. We speculated that Andy was on a train ride that night as a prisoner of war probably laughing as usual.
 

No. 7. March 15. We bombed the town of Cassino at the base of the mountain, on top of which was the Abbey of Cassino, the target of a controversial bombing earlier in February. It was controversial because of the art treasures and historic value of the monastery. It was supposed to have been a German observation post. The Germans denied this during and after the war. Cassino was holding up the advance of the 5^th Army to Rome. The heavy and medium bombers went in to dislodge the Germans in the town. The smoke was so thick I could hardly see the red flashes of the 500 pound bombs in the smoke. We dropped 800 tons of bombs. I saw no flak and no enemy fighters. We were scheduled to make two missions to Cassino that day, but the second mission was canceled. We did, however, successfully create a highly defensible position in the rubble for the Germans who continued to hold the 5^th Army at bay for some considerable time after our sledgehammer blows. The mission report states flak was moderate, scattered, fairly accurate. 16 B-17s were hit by flak. 3 severely damaged, 13 minor damage. One crew member was slightly injured.

No. 8. March 17. We were to bomb targets in Vienna. The undercast was so thick over the Alps that nothing was visible on the ground. We turned back. On the way home a formation of about 40 fighters appeared at 8 o’clock level several miles away. I thought, Oh Boy! Here comes the Luftwaffe. Are we going to get it now! They came closer and closer. All eyes are waiting for them to launch their attacks. Suddenly, and still a safe distance away, the lead aircraft tipped up his right wing. There was the unmistakable dual tail of the P-38! Wow! P-38s! We’re safe! This was one of the most beautiful sights I ever saw in combat.

No. 9. March 18. The target was the Luftwaffe airbase at Udine, Italy. Over Yugoslavia on a northerly heading, our engineer/top turret gunner, Robert Haney, was wounded. Not until Lt. Braum told us on the intercom were we aware we had been hit. No one saw the enemy fighter makes his head-on pass. A 20mm shell missed the propeller, penetrated the top of the #3 engine cowling barely missing the engine and exploded outside of Haney’s turret. This knocked out his and the co-pilot’s oxygen. Haney was severely wounded in his upper left arm just above the elbow. His arm was nearly shot completely off. He had some difficulty notifying Lt. Braum. He had to slump down part way out of his turret and kick Lt. Braum in the arm several times to get his attention. Braum requested Dunaway, the radio operator, to lend assistance. The bombs were dropped immediately by the emergency release and therefore the bomb bay doors were mechanically disconnected from the electrical screw drives. By a handcrank the screw drives could re-engage the bomb bay door latches and the doors closed either electrically or by a hand crank. As armorer, it was my responsibility to close the doors in this manner. With no oxygen and no parachute, I repeatedly tried, with one foot on the lower center bomb bay truss and the other foot on the outboard structure, doors open, to get the latches to engage. I never was able to make them latch and the doors remained open. Dunaway need some first aid supplies and water for Haney so “Red” Hall and I made several trips over the bomb bay catwalk with no parachutes. The bomb racks are too close to the catwalk to wear a chute and transit the bomb bay. At the time I thought it was fun to run the eight or ten feet across that 10 inch wide catwalk with hands full, bomb bay doors open, no parachute, and nothing below but the Adriatic Sea. On approach to Amendola, we fired a red flare indicating wounded on board for a priority landing.^v

No. 10. March 19. Klagenfurt, Austria airdrome. What an ugly, harsh sounding name, Klagenfurt. It typified the fearsome ugliness of Nazi Germany to me. While on a westerly bomb run I saw a B-17 about 8 o’clock level suddenly explode. It was as if it had hit an invisible brick wall. Instantly it disintegrated into a flaming mass of falling junk. I saw no parachutes. It must have taken a direct flak hit in the bomb bay. The mission report states that flak was moderate and accurate. 4 aircraft sustained minor flak damage. Strangely, there is no mention of the aircraft I saw destroyed.

No. 11. March 22. The target was the railroad yards at Verona, Italy. I could see Jimmy Stipe, our tail gunner flying in another aircraft and we waived our guns at each other. Flak was heavy, moderately intense and inaccurate. 5 B-17s slightly damaged by flak. I saw seven chutes from a B-17 in a spin going down after the turn off the target.

No. 12. March 26. We encountered some light flak over Fiume, Yugoslavia. Because the undercast cleared so suddenly the bombardier did not have enough time to set up and our bombs dropped in the water south of the port. This was my first use of chaff designed to interfere with the German 88mm flak gun radar. The chaff consisted of aluminum strips about 1/16 inch by 10 inches and packed in loose bundles of brown paper. These bundles were packed in a cardboard box containing about ten packages six bundles deep. The idea was to grab six bundles at a time and throw them out the window, one after the other, when flak was sighted. In my frantic haste to unload as much chaff as possible, I carelessly did not take pains to make sure all of the bundles were thrown outside my waist window. Consequently, much of the chaff wound up in the waist and tail gun part of the airplane. The flak missed us. The mission report says the flak was heavy, slightly intense and inaccurate. 5 aircraft suffered damage by flak. 25 enemy fighters in the area. 8 to 10 Me-109s and FW-190s attacked from 6 o’clock, 4 to 8 abreast. 1 Me-109 probably destroyed. P-38 escort intimidates remaining enemy aircraft as indicated by enemy radio transmissions. 4 aircraft damaged by fighters. 2 aircraft brought bombs back. 1 jettisoned in the water and another jettisoned in the mountains because of ice forming on the engines.

No. 13. March 28. Railroad yards at Verona for the second time. Flak scattered and inaccurate. One aircraft dropped early because it was falling back out of formation. 5 Me-109s seen but only two made one pass at the last squadron. No escort.^vi

No. 14. March 29. Bombed the Fiat aero engine factory at Turin, Italy. Saw two Italian Macchi 202s for the first and only time. They stayed away from our formation. 105 B-17s dropped 325 tons on the target. The mission report says two enemy aircraft in target area, one made an unenthusiastic pass. No escort.

No. 15. March 30. Sofia, Bulgaria. Target was downtown Sofia to knock Bulgaria out of the war. Flak was heavy. Got on my knees, tucked in my flak suit and put my face next to my gun for protection. It was noisy and very scary. Unbelievably, we got through without a scratch. That was proof that flak box-barrages were not very effective. On the way home I traded places with the tail gunner. In that position, one can see from one o’clock all the way around to 11 o’clock. I could see the whole formation. I concluded one could see too much war back there. I found I was happy with my left waist gun position. Mission report says: Flak heavy, moderately intense and accurate. Flak damaged 14 aircraft slightly. 16 enemy aircraft observed out of range. They did not attack. No escort.

ii In 1955 while piloting a C-47 from Tripoli, Libya enroute to our base at RAF Manston, England, we flew low over the Anzio beachhead on the approach to land at Rome’s Ciampino airport. The farm fields were dotted with numerous areas of darker earth indicating where shell holes had been filled in.

iii In 1954 on my first visit to Rome after the war, I saw the new railroad station with part of the ancient Roman wall preserved through the station. I thought the Italians ought to be grateful to we Americans for tearing down the old one.

iv During the 1960’s when I was stationed at Ramstein and later in Wiesbaden Germany, I frequently piloted a T-39 Sabreliner along that same Mediterranean coast of Italy enroute to Athens, Greece at altitudes of 42,000 feet. Had I had any insight during the war as to the future, I would have been delighted to know what was to come.

We sometimes flew the T-33 as targets for the post-war Luftwaffe. That was very difficult for me to see those black crosses on American airplanes make fighter attacks on us. I was in the back seat running the chaff dispenser and I told the guy in front to raise the canopy and let me blast those bastards. If we had gone to war with the Soviet Union, in the heat of combat I would have had a hard time choosing between the enemy red stars and the friendly black crosses.

One sunny day enroute in a T-33 from Wheelus Field, in Tripoli, Libya to Capodochino airport at Naples, Italy, Dodge Leary and I canceled our IFR flight plan and descended under visual flight rules. We circled Mt. Vesuvius several times remembering the spectacular view of the WWII eruption and enjoying the view as we slowly lost altitude. We both agreed that even airline passengers did not have the kind of view opportunities we had as Air Force pilots.

v In 1989 at a 97th Bomb Group reunion, I met Stan Rosoff, the navigator. To the wide-eyed shock of his wife, I said, “Stan, the last time I saw you, you were a speck bailing out of a burning B-17.” He told me that Andy and the other pilot never had a chance. Stan looked in the cockpit just before he bailed out. The pilots were killed where they sat on the first pass by the Me-109s.

vi See "Fifteenth Air Force Story" by Kenn C. Rust., pp. 16,17 for a detailed analysis of the highly effective strategy that severely damaged the Luftwaffe in northern Italy.

vii In 1965, while on vacation at Lake Garda, Italy with the family and my Mother, I had to take my Volkswagen bus to a dealer in nearby Verona. As I stood outside, I noticed we were next to the railroad yards I had bombed in 1944. It was an eerie feeling to look up into the sky and think back to those days, remembering all of the flak and looking down on the yards as the bombs streamed out of the B-17s. As I looked around I noticed some of the masonry buildings had large chip marks in the stone. They looked like the damage done by 500 pound bombs. I hoped these people never forget who put ‘em there.