Our group received recall orders, after climbing to 27,000 ft trying
to get up over some bad weather. Two wings got the recall order, and in
order to come back, for some fool reason they turned into each other. Two
of the big fortresses right behind us collided, and Dill had a ringside
seat for the accident. On that mission two engines on the same side had
to be shut down, one with a run away governor, the other having lost oil
pressure. The flying forts can fly on two engines, if both of the props
are feathered and one engine on each side is operative. So with one engine
gone, and the other engine on that side feathered the ship could not fly
for long. It kept losing altitude, even after we tossed all nonessential
items overboard. Dropped our bombs into the North Sea, still loosing alitude.
That was when Dill did not answer the crew check. Gene Kealer went back
to give him artificial respiration, then I did. I was called up front to
give position reports to the home base, since our ship might not make it
back to England and we might have to ditch. The navigator could not tell
us if we would make it back to the nearest base or not. It was a time of
testing for me, the first time my work as a radio operator was of deadly
importance to us. If I could get in contact with the home base and send
position reports, the British air sea rescue boats might be close to us
when we ditched in the ocean. After several position reports, it was just
a matter of waiting and hoping. Then the ball turret gunner told us that
a PBY was down below us, trying to keep up. Its 90 to 100 mile an hour
top speed just about matched our 100 mile an hour limping along with two
engines out. About the time we got low enough to see the waves lapping
in the wind below us, our altitude was about 50 ft. When we arrived at
the shore of England, there was an airbase right there for us to land on.
Looking back on this trying time, the pilot of course headed the plane
to this airbase, since we could have gone no further anyway, and had asked
for landing priority and everything was cleared to let us land. The crew
stayed at that airbase for a day or so, while our crewchief from Rattlesden
and other mechanics came with two new engines, and installed them.
Another time we had a sort of exciting time. We took off for a mission, the weather turned bad, and we were recalled. There was a solid bank of clouds below us when were were flying around, trying to find a way to land thru the clouds. We must have flown around for some time, finally the pilot found a hole in the clouds, a small hole. We had already dumped the bomb load into the North Sea, so the ship wasn't too heavy. He tipped the plane on one wing, spiraled down thru the hole and came out under the clouds with maybe a 1000 ft ceiling. There was a small pursuit plane airbase used by the British. Of course, a big B17 had never landed on the field before, just pursuit planes. The runway was about 3.000 ft to 4,500 ft long. B17 runways are 8,000ft long or more. After a circle around the area, TWG came in to land. When the big ship touched down the main landing gear was about 10 ft from the end of the runway and the tail touched down in the grass before the cement began. The brakes were applied as soon as all the wheels were on the ground, and when we got to the end of the runway we were still going about 35 miles an hour. We sort of skidded around the corner along the perimeter track to a slow lumbering crawl to where we were told to park the ship. We had a pleasant evening and night with the British airmen. Next morning after gassing up on British fuel, we got ready to take off at the extreme end of the runway. At full throttles and full brakes until the engines were really screaming, we jumped ahead when the brakes were released. We had about 10 ft elevation when the far end of the runway slipped below us. We were back home to Rattlesden in short order, happy to be back.
If the radio operator was on the ball, ditching in the North Sea could be a casual affair. One of the crews in our Nissen hut had ditched three times, and usually had stepped off the wing of the B-17 directly into the air sea rescue boat. When picked up by air sea rescue the men would be given nice warm socks and a woolen sweater which were the envy of the guys in the Nissen hut.
At that time, the B-17 was perhaps the best ship to ditch in, if you had to ditch. If there were no big holes in the main gas tanks from 20mm cannon shells or flak damage, the B-17 would stay afloat for a half hour or so, especially if the main gas tanks were almost empty. But B-17's usually stayed afloat until all the crew got out into rubber rafts or the air sea rescue boats. The other heavy bomber, the B-24, had its fuselage below the main wing. Ditching this ship was an entirely different matter. It was dangerous because it broke up more often, and often only about half of the crew could be saved.
Looking back on many of my experiences in England flying combat, we seemed to never have faced up to the odds of dying. It was sort of a psychological defense to not think about it. Our ships were almost never actually fired on by German pursuit ships. One of the two ships I was on had one bullet hole it it, though. On a bomb run the bomb bays were open and a Me 210 came up thru the clouds just below us. He was surprised and fired a burst of 20mm cannon at us. We got one hole in the bomb bay, from the inside out.
Many times we had "ring side seats" watching groups or wings near us being attacked by fighters. We used to count the parachutes that would open after a big B-17 was hit seriously and began to go down. Of course, if it was in a spin and going straight down the centrifugal force would keep most of the crew from saving themselves. Sometimes only one or two would get out. Anti aircraft fire was another matter. On some missions, it would burst at an altitude several thousand feet below us, other times it would burst among the formations. Sometimes shrapnel would sound like gravel on a tin roof as it would hit the non-vital areas of the ship. The gas tanks were self sealing, and they could seal themselves if the holes from flak or cannon fire were not too big. A hole of 2" dia. might seal itself but still leak a little. Many times our ship would come back home leaking fuel like a seive. We'd land and pull off the runway as soon as we could, and walk away from it, or run, fearing that it might catch on fire.
One time the left waist gunner, Fred Hawley, went as a toggelier on another ship. Over the target area, the plane was hit near the end of the bomb bays with a direct burst from the standard 88mm flak cannon. All the beams around the bomb bays were broken. Only the stringers along the top of the fuselage were intact. The radio room floor was gone-the radio operator was the only person killed. The plane came back with the ball turret guns locked in down postion, luckily too, that way the ball gunner could get out. When the plane landed, it would have sagged to the runway, broken in the middle if it had not been for the ball turret being ground off as the ship landed. Oh yes, a 500 lb bomb had been tossed off the bomb racks out thru the side of the bomb bays by the blast, but it didn't go off. No other ship except a B-17 could have come back with such damage.
Go back to WWII main page
Go back to Diary main page 
This page has been accessed at least
times since 29 Jan 96 or whenever the counter was reset.