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The Wrong Stuff
The Adventures and Misadventures of an 8th Air Force Aviator
By Truman Smith UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS
Copyright © 2002 University of Oklahoma Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8061-8350-3
CHAPTER 1
WHO, WHERE, WHEN
It was a dark and stormy night when the ten of us arrived in the back of a 6x6 Army truck at the 550th "Werewolf" Squadron Headquarters at Great Ashfield, East Anglia, England, where the 385th Bomb Group (Heavies) was stationed. It seemed appropriate, if not prophetic, that it was April Fool's Day in 1944.
The six enlisted men of our crew were taken care of first and escorted to their Quonset hut "billet," as the British call the barracks. Then we four officers were guided to our billet: 2nd Lt. Ernest "Moon" Baumann (Pilot); 2nd Lt. Robert "Ears" Moody (Navigator); Flight Officer Robert "Eut" Eutrecht (Bombardier) and me, 2nd Lt. Truman "Smitty" Smith, their twenty-year-old copilot. Everyone on the crew was senior to me in age by an average of three years.
For the sake of simplicity each crew was identified by the name of the pilot. Thus, we were Baumann's Crew; although it might have been more appropriate to call us Baumann's Dog and Pony Show -without the pony, because each of us had been trained to perform our individual tricks or specialties.
Up in the nose and on the point was our bombardier, "Eut" Eutrecht, who was much like an English Pointer; long and lean, always on the lookout and ready to point. After all, he was the "Bomb-Aimer"–point the target and bomb it. He was focused and high strung. Some might say nervous, but I think it was mainly his immaturity, since he was only twenty-one and even physically he had not yet filled out his six-feet-two frame.
By contrast our navigator, "Ears," was mellow, much like a patient golden retriever. He reminded me greatly of the actor Van Heflin in his Academy Award winning performance as an alcoholic intellectual in "JOHNNY EAGER" (1942). At twenty-four, and even with thinning blonde hair, "Ears" had not yet reached the peak as an alcoholic-intellectual, but he seemed to have the potential. And when he applied himself, he could even navigate us from A to Z. However, he was not always motivated to do it in proper sequence, which often added suspense to our flights.
"Moon" Baumann, our pilot, was of German lineage. By canine comparison, he was more like a German shepherd, although a bit on the small side. Even so, his manner conveyed the meaning of the saying: "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog." So with a B-17 and its crew of ten, "Moon" was very much larger and more lethal than his 145 pounds.
And as Moon's copilot, I was his right-hand-man, or boy. Four years younger, I did outweigh him by at least thirty pounds; more muscular than mental, because I still had a lot to learn about flying and living. Even my temperament had not yet developed, because I suppose I was more like a mongrel pup with a hint of coyote ancestry–chasing butterflies and mystified by everything, including my own tail.
Burnell was our flight engineer. Whatever airplane we flew turned out to belong to him; the same as any car belongs to the little bulldog that has been left inside of it. Most of the time he rode standing between Moon and me making note of the plane's performance, except when he was needed to operate the twin fifty-caliber machine guns in the top turret just behind us.
Aft of the top turret was the bomb-bay and aft of that was the radio room, guarded by "Rudy" Rudolfsky, a quiet yet nervous little terrier. Rudy was probably the smallest and the oldest on the crew who, to me, seemed totally out of place. I had the feeling that he should be in some high school teaching Radio or Shop, but of all places, not flying combat in a Flying Fortress.
Aft of the radio room was the waist of the ship with two gunners: Dyer, left waist and Carmen, right waist and armorer. Dyer was a likable Dachshund, while Carmen, with his black hair and chiseled facial features resembled a stealth-like Doberman.
Midship in the ball turret on the belly of the plane, with the temperament of an Irish Setter, was red-headed "Corky" Corscaddin.
Finally, managing the twin-50's in the tail was the classic bloodhound from Appalachia, Herby Hill.
This was Baumann's Dog Show; an eclectic, yet homogeneous, pack, where hopefully the whole would be more than the sum of its parts in contributing to the war effort.
The "WAR" was in its making in the spring of 1944 and, as a nation, we had not yet really begun to fight, because we couldn't. We had truly become, as the Japanese characterized us, a "Sleeping Giant."
Hitler had taken the whole of Europe for the Third Reich, offering the sale of Jews to the world. But there were no takers; not even the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, because we had lived in isolation, suffering our own problems of the Great Depression.
However, not wanting a war, the Japanese in the Pacific brought the war to us in 1941 when the U.S. Army numbered only 175,000 men; ranked 16th in size, behind Rumania. Having forgotten that the primary purpose of a federal government is national defense, we proved that a small military force is an invitation for attack.
So if we got lucky and worked hard enough, there might be a very questionable chance that the United States would survive, even though the odds were against it.
No, there was no foregone conclusion that the U.S. even had a future in 1941. It would simply cease to exist without the will and means to defend itself. But with what? It took a total effort just to put bread on the table during the Great Depression.
It was in the 1930's that Japan and Europe faced the same problem, except they had decided to do something about it. Japan, an island, needed expansion to acquire raw materials and resources. Germany also needed resources and room for living, Lebensraum, which it had lost as a result of World War One. So Hitler was indeed welcomed as a national hero by putting everyone to work and promising that he could feed the world by controlling the fertile Ukraine of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Why not? The Communists could not get the job done. They were not even able to feed themselves. Stalin had starved over 300,000 people in his home state of Georgia by shipping the food to Moscow to empower himself as leader of the U.S.S.R.; executing another twenty million people to maintain his authority!
Socialism was simply not workable and would destroy civilization.
According to whom? The United States? No.
It was Hitler who was the enemy of Communism.
Charles Lindbergh, the LONE EAGLE and American folk hero, along with Truman Smith (no relation to the author of THE WRONG STUFF), an Army major who had been appointed as the U.S. Air Attaché in Berlin in 1935, agreed with Hitler that Communism had to be stopped.
However, this is not what President Roosevelt needed to save the U.S. from the Japanese, who had been backed into a corner by U.S. trade sanctions.
What the U.S. needed was all the help and time it could get and why it had already allied itself with the USSR and Britain against the Japanese and therefore – against Germany.
But what about America's hero, Charles Lindbergh, who was apparently allied with the Nazis?
The fact that Germany's Air Marshall Goering presented a medal to both Lindbergh and Smith made them "Nazi sympathizers."
At least that was the opinion of President Roosevelt and his administration. So the charge was then publicized by the press and noted broadcasters like Walter Winchell and Drew Pearson that Lindbergh was unpatriotic.
Thus, Lindbergh was silenced and Roosevelt went on with the preparation for war against Japan and Germany in alliance with Churchill and Stalin.
Even so, it was not a "done-deal" that the Allies would win the upcoming war. In fact, it was most unrealistic that the Allies could even hope to defeat the Axis powers on a world scale.
By 1940 London had suffered the Nazi "Blitzkrieg" and Britain was on its knees, threatened with an invasion of German forces.
The U.S. finally enacted compulsory military service to try to build an Army, even though the Axis – Japan, Italy and Germany – already had the largest military force in history.
No, the survival of the Allies at the beginning of the 1940's did not even appear to be a possibility. Yet, they did not give up and the "Sleeping Giant" finally started to awaken.
Within 48 months, while the British, Soviets and Americans sacrificed their lives in a delaying action, the United States was miraculously able to build a military force, as well as support the British and Soviets.
And while it was still far short of what was required to defeat the Axis – and the Eighth Air Force had nearly been decimated in England; 1944 was destined to be a memorable year in world history.
So on April Fools Day 1944, Baumann's Dog Show took the stage. Our billet was not a Quonset hut, but the equivalent of a rather standard wooden barracks equipped with two rows of twelve, single iron beds spaced perpendicularly to the two long walls for a total of twenty-four bunks. There were windows in the long walls that were covered with blackout curtains. The mattresses consisted of square "biscuits," placed end-to-end for the length of the bed.
The inside of the roof doubled as the ceiling. Which is to say, the building was uninsulated and any heat generated by the two small stoves, less than three feet high, rose upward and away from the living space into the open attic.
Thus, the first six feet or so above the concrete floor were uncomfortably cold. It would have been totally unacceptable to prison inmates and good cause for a riot by their prison standards. Yet, this was to be our home. The question was, for how long?
While our hope to escape the wet and cold English springtime weather was quickly dashed, our reception was even more chilling.
The four individuals who were grouped at the far end of the open billet hardly acknowledged our entrance. And while we gave a cheery greeting and asked if we could move in, the response was depressing.
"Sure" one of them said, "Take any of those bunks at that end. They're still warm."
Then the group went back to its own.
One of them wore a leather A-2 jacket with Captain's insignia and pilot's wings. What the others were could not be guessed, but we assumed they, like us, were the flying officers of two other crews.
It turned out that the dandy wearing a red satin robe with a white scarf around his neck and smoking a pipe, as if he were to the manor born, was the Captain's navigator. The other six were dressed in an assortment of flight suits, long underwear and one wore a faded orange letterman sweater with a big blue "B" on it.
We tried to ignore their cynical un-welcome to us as we unpacked and put our bunks in order, accepting the fact that we, as replacements, were at the bottom of the pecking order and were naturally the intruders into their privileged and obviously very selective "club" of aerial combatants, who literally made their living by killing intruders into their midst over enemy occupied Europe.
Perhaps it would have helped to have had some sort of a briefing about the world of combat prior to being dropped into the middle of it. Except, there weren't any experts yet, because it was all part of a desperate "EXPERIMENT" to prove daylight bombing in the hope of winning the war.
Winning? There were no guarantees and we had already damned near lost it before getting started. The prospects were definitely not good.
So the question at the time was not really so much about winning as it was in just surviving. It was to be a marathon and not a quick sprint.
The only bragging right of the 385th was that it had led the entire Eighth Air Force on three attacks against Berlin at the beginning of March 1944, but nobody had been able to bomb the target visually due to bad weather – until the third try.
However, the Eighth Air Force, led by the 385th Bomb Group, did finally hit BIG "B," and that was certainly worth bragging about. It was an accomplishment that, in time, I would learn to appreciate.
It was not to Berlin, but it was to Germany that I began with my FIRST mission on Saturday the 8th of April, 1944, just a week after our arrival.
MISSION #1 Quakenbruck, Germany, 8 April 1944 Saturday: 30 ships up (5:30 Flying Time)
The Standard Operating Procedure was to break up a new crew and assign individuals to more experienced crews for the first few missions in order to help them adjust to the environment of combat.
I was assigned to fly copilot for First Lieutenant Mullins, whom I didn't know and who made it clear that he was not interested in getting to know me. Later I would realize it was best not to get to know anyone too well. Strangers die easier.
The ship we were assigned was the older model B-17 F, which weighed 32,000 pounds empty. However, it grossed twenty-seven tons when loaded with 2,700 gallons of gasoline for fuel, which amounted to 22,000 pounds, and a bomb load of 6,000 pounds of high explosives, plus the weight of ten crew members, equipment and heavy. 50 caliber ammunition for a dozen machine guns. This meant it weighed five tons more than the popular German Mark IV tank, without the armor, and it was expected to fly.
Our position in our Group formation was "Purple Heart Corner," better known as "Coffin Corner," which is the bottom ship in the bottom flight of the Low Squadron.
The main disadvantage in this position, unlike the High Squadron, was the inability to climb up and into the Group for protection in case of lost power. Also in the game of "crack the whip," the slightest increase of power by the leader meant that we had to firewall it at the tail-end to try and keep up.
Thus, the position we were to fly deserved its identification as "COFFIN CORNER," sometimes called "PURPLE HEART CORNER."
The Group formation usually consisted of twenty-seven aircraft, stacked in three Squadrons of nine aircraft each to form a "Box." Spare aircraft were sometimes attached to the High Squadron to fill in for aborting aircraft in case of early malfunctions.
While the plan view of a Bomb Group looks like an arrowhead, so does the profile view, with the Lead Squadron as the point and the High and Low Squadrons forming the barbs. No two aircraft fly at the same altitude, nor directly behind, nor ahead of each other. This gives room for individual maneuvering and reduces the chances of colliding. According to the book, ships were supposed to maintain a 50 foot separation.
The B-17 "F" model has twelve .50 Caliber machine guns. The B-17 "G" model has thirteen .50 Caliber machine guns. The way the aircraft are staggered in formation reduces, but does not eliminate, the chances of shooting into each other. So with 30 aircraft put up for the Quackenbruck mission, we had almost 400 machine guns for protection – as long as we maintained "Group integrity"; which meant keeping the "herd" packed together in tight formation.
The key word was "together." But having been given twenty-seven tons of an old war-weary "bucket of bolts," I doubted we could even get her up to our assigned altitude of 27,000 feet and keep "together" with the others.
And if that wasn't enough, we were also expected to ride this slow and heavy "flying bomb" just five miles above Germany for most of the day in order to drop our three tons of bombs onto a well-defended target before they could blow us up.
It didn't take a lot of experience to figure out just whose side the odds favored. At the time, I didn't know whether three tons of bombs made a bigger bang than ten tons of 100-octane fuel. But then, it really didn't make much difference since I was riding right in the middle of it all!
Another worry on my mind was that we were going to try to do this tricky job at only a-hundred-and-fifty miles an hour. I wondered, "Do these people really know what they're doing?"
Of course they didn't. It was all an "EXPERIMENT"! The British had already proved to their satisfaction that daylight bombing could not be done. So, it was no wonder that the Eighth Air Force had the highest casualty rate of all U.S. Forces.
Even so, it is noteworthy that no bomb group of the Eighth Air Force had ever been forced to abort a mission by enemy action.
The best evaluation of U.S. strategic bombing was given by Albert Speer, the Minister of Munitions for the Third Reich. He believed that if strategic bombing had started earlier and had continued a bit longer, it would not even have been necessary to invade Germany, because it would have been defeated by the inability to fight a war for a lack of resources. And that, of course, was the theory of strategic bombing.
But such a conclusion was after the fact and the fact we faced at the time was that the theory had not yet been proved. And an even more important fact on the 8th of April, 1944 was that I was betting my life on the success of this unproven theory.
Well, maybe not "its" success, but "my" success in surviving 25 combat missions. It was a question constantly with me that would deprive me of sleep and food and any pleasures I might consider. But, why had the goal been set at 25 combat missions?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Wrong Stuff by Truman Smith. Copyright © 2002 University of Oklahoma Press. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS.
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