I generally video chat with my dad every week, but I missed the chance to video chat with Poppa (the grandfather patriarch of the family). Before he went, he left a 92 page autobiography. Tonight I'm reading bits and pieces, mostly I wanted to re-read his ww2 army air corps fighter pilot memories, as reading them really made me think I missed out on military service. Here are a few choice memories. Enjoy.
No West Point
When we returned to Washington, I began to realize that it wouldn't be long before I would be looking forward to being drafted into the service. I decided that I would like to have some part of the decision as to what branch I became involved with. While Maxine and I were in Bloomfield, I received a telegram from the office of Clyde Herring, Senator from Iowa, which asked me to send my date of birth so that he could appoint me as second alternate to the principle for an appointment to West Point Military Academy.
When we arrived at Washington, I found that within two weeks I would have to take a physical exam and an entrance exam. If I passed all that, I would go to West Point if the principle and the first alternate did not pass. I had been out of school for two years at that point, and I needed to bone up on math and some other studies.
The next two weeks I studied everything I could think of, and finally went to take the test. I passed the physical with flying colors, and took the written test. I had some trouble with the math part of the test, due to my rusty study condition. It didn't matter, really, because the principle flunked, but the first alternate passed, and he went to West Point.
And I just have to share a little tidbit from his time in the Army Air Corps. He was a fighter pilot and flew the P-47 Thunderbolt.
Crossing the Atlantic
After a visit one day and evening with my aunt, Dorothy Owen, in New York City, and lots of processing, we were loaded on a Navy Transport for transportation to the ETO (European Theater of Operations). We joined a large convoy of ships for the trip. Leave it to my luck, it was one of the roughest Atlantic crossings that any of the ships crew had experienced. The heavy seas were very dangerous, and it caused some rather serious problems.
Each night, the convoy would close up to allow the destroyers and escort vessels to better protect us from the ever present German submarines. Some nights, we could hear the depth charges going off in the distance. Our 10,000 ton transport was the command ship in the convoy. The sister ship of ours that was following us was involved in a collision with an aircraft carrier that was off our starboard side and had to put into port in the Azores. 75 passengers in the forward hold of that transport were swept out to sea and disappeared forever.
It took 14 days and nights to make the crossing. We were literally all over the North Atlantic, from Greenland to the Azores, to Iceland. All dishes on the ship were broken and scattered all over the quarter deck. A 5 inch shell got loose on the top deck of the ship, right over our heads, and rolled back and forth all one night long. It was, of course., an explosive shell, but fortunately, didn't explode. It couldn't be captured until the morning.
On His Missions
Our missions were very diverse. We basically did close support of the ground troops and artillery and tank & we did dive bombing missions on airdromes and on troop concentrations in towns and cities.
We strafed anything that moved and could be called a military target; we strafed trains and troop concentrations. We strafed airfields and airplanes on them. We strafed ammunition dumps and river barges also. We escorted medium bombers on bombing missions in central Germany and in Bavaria. We patrolled the sky for enemy aircraft. We acted as Radio Relays for flights that went deep into Germany from our base, so that we had constant radio contact with the base.
I've been asked how I felt about combat. I have facetiously said, "I had a ball! Where else can you go to fly the best equipment in the world, and where else can you go to blow up a train!" Actually, it was frightening from the time we started engines until we crawled out of our airplanes at home base. Being shot at with 88 millimeter canons and 20 and 40mm repeating anti aircraft guns was not entertaining.
Paris
After a short stay in Stone, we were flown to Orley Field, near Paris, France. There, we were taken to a Chateau, called, “Chateau Rothschild”, and were billeted in tents on the Chateau grounds. It wasn’t very pretty, because it had been painted in camouflage paint, and was an ugly color of green. The Germans had done that, when they used it as a headquarters. It was some short way west of Paris, and was close to a subway stop. While the processing went on, we were allowed to go into Paris for one evening and night. We all took advantage of that freedom and did a minimal amount of sightseeing in Paris, principally on the Champes Eleysees. I will never forget that night.
It happened that the night we were allowed to go into Paris was the first night the lights had been turned on on the Arch de Triomphe, since the liberation of Paris. It was an occasion that would equal VE day (Victory in Europe day), in the United States. The Champs Eleysees was packed with people from building to building. The street was full of people for a distance of three or four blocks. Getting through the crowd was impossible. I was able, with the guidance of a couple of other guys, to go around a block and arrive at the subway stop where I wanted to get a subway train back to Chateau Rothschild.
When I arrived there, there was an immense crowd that was coming out of the subway stop and an equally large crowd trying to get down the wide stairway into the station. As I drew near to the stairway, the crowd surged and caught me up in it. I was swept down the stairs without having my feet on any step, and was just as quickly swept back up the stairs in the same condition. I made that trip twice.
On the second trip, as I started moving back up the stairs, I observed a Frenchman looking desperately toward me and gesturing down. I looked down and could see a shock of blond hair. I reached down, and found that there was a young woman who had fallen down under the crowd and was in danger of being trampled. I took hold of her body, and with the Frenchman holding her legs and I holding her shoulders, we raised her above the crowd.
The crowd swept us out of the stairs, and out into the street nearby. We laid the lady on the parking with her friend caring for her. Before I could check on her condition, I was again swept toward the stairs. This time, I was able to avoid the trip down the stairs, and was able to get out of the crowd and away from that subway station.
Combat Flying
The experience of flying combat in the war needs a special place in this story. The missions were tough and the hazards to health were very real. Many of our pilots were lost on those missions, or were able to limp back to base with lots of damage. They gave a good account of themselves in aerial battles with German fighter planes and did lots of damage to the air bases and ground installations of the German Army and Air Force.
When those of us who arrived as replacements joined the group, there were already groups of friends that had been together for a long time. They were not very fast to accept any other friends. Many times, I felt that they didn’t want to become acquainted with the new inexperienced pilots, because too often those inexperienced men were the first to have difficulty in combat and get shot down or injured in some way. Making close friends often resulted in the painful loss of those friends.
My first combat mission was a dive bombing mission on an airport deep into Germany. Where it was, I could not say, because I was conscientiously flying formation on my leader. We got to the German air base and circled above it once. We went into trail formation, and the leader led the flight into the dive bombing run. I followed him.
I observed what I thought was a gasoline storage facility on the g round beside a hangar, and I peeled off into a dive – nearly straight down – aiming at the gasoline tanks. I did the normal procedure (jinking back and forth) from 8500 feet down to 4000 feet, where I straightened out the dive and aimed directly for the tanks. I pulled the nose through the target, counted 1-2-3, and pickled off my bombs. I then pulled out of the dive, applied full throttle and water injection and jinked out of the area, with anti-aircraft fire following me, but missing me. If there was anti-aircraft fire on the way down, I wasn’t aware of it, but I think it was definitely there.
The two places one was vulnerable were on the way down and on the way out of the area. On the way down, in addition to the oscillation that one used to change directions constantly, short bursts of machine gun fire were made to keep the people on the ground under cover and less likely to be able to accurately aim their canons. In any event, I managed to get through my first dive bombing run without taking any damage to the airplane. I felt pretty good, especially when I looked back and saw that the gasoline storage tanks were blazing and giving off large clouds of black smoke. I think the hangar was also in jeopardy.
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We flew a mission to an ammunition dump on the east side of the Elbe River, in the vicinity of Reisa, Germany. It was on that mission that the Group won its second Presidential Unit Citation. Many of the pilots on that mission claimed the Distinguished Flying Cross as a result of the mission. I couldn’t do so, because the commanding officer wouldn’t allow anyone who had less than 50 missions to write up a mission for that award. I didn’t have 50 missions, so I couldn’t apply. What a silly rule.
It was on that mission that I lost my leader. William Thompson was a fine pilot and a good friend. He didn’t hold with the “new boy” rule. He was an excellent leader. I flew as his wingman on that mission. We were “White Flight”. There were 16 airplanes in the squadron on that mission. “Red Flight” led the squadron. White Flight was the second flight and second in command. “Blue Flight” was the third flight, and “Green Flight” was the fourth flight. We were simply assigned to fly an armed reconnaissance mission, which meant that we were to cruise the area and find targets that would be helpful to the ground troops and armored divisions. We were in contact with the controllers who were in the lead tanks of the columns on the ground. We ran out of targets and asked the controller if there were any targets he wished us to look for.
He told us that there was an ammunition dump near Reisa on the Elbe River. He said it had been a target for heavy bombers and medium bombers, but they had gotten no results. He suggested we look for it and destroy it if we could. We found the target, and prepared to attack it. Red leader had his wingman call White leader (my leader) and relay the message that Red leader didn’t have a functioning radio, and that White leader should take over the squadron mission.
William Thompson acknowledged that direction and gave instructions for the members of his flight to attack the target, while Red flight and Green flight flew top cover, to guard against our being attacked by fighter planes. White flight got into trail, and Thompson made the initial run on the target. He fired on a small building in the field of several buildings, and it immediately exploded in a huge blast of fire, smoke and debris. He flew through the fire and smoke and out the other side. I followed him, and picked out a small building to fire on. I fired on the building and it blew up like the first one had. I flew through the fire, smoke and debris and out the other side.
Because of the location of the two huts, I flew through the smoke and flames of both buildings. The explosions were so severe that they blew the canopy off one airplane in our group that was flying top cover at 8,500 feet , and damaged another airplane so that it had to be retired. It caused a negative dihedral of the wings of that airplane.
William Thompson and I made another pass at the target and destroyed two more huts. During our second pass, Blue leader suggested that his flight join in the strafing. Thompson directed that flight to make a left hand pattern around the target. (White flight was making a right hand pattern.) Blue flight made a left hand pattern, but in the process, lined up for its firing run in line with White flight. It was necessary for me to make a 360 degree turn to space myself on Blue leader. Blue leader put himself between me and White leader.
Having spaced myself, I made an attack and destroyed another hut. I flew through the fire and smoke and debris, and pulled up on the other side of the target. (We were attacking from east to west, up to and across the Elbe River.) After my second pass, I turned right to proceed into the pattern again for another pass, and I happened to look to the west. There, I saw a P-47 going west. I announced that I was going to follow him and give him protection from attacks by enemy fighters. I caught up with him, and discovered that it was my leader.
He was in a damaged airplane. There had been fire in the cockpit, because the inside of the canopy was scorched white. I talked to him, and he was very subdued in his speech. I told him I would take him home, and that I would get a heading to our base. I told him I would fly beside him, and that he needn’t worry that he couldn’t see ahead very much. I told him to start climbing a little at a time, so that if he needed to bail out, he would have some altitude. We flew along like that for quite a while. We reached 6500 feet and were flying on a course that would take us home.
Suddenly, his airplane gushed oil from the under side of the engine. I told him about that and he said his oil pressure just went to zero. He and I decided that he probably had to do something right away, because the engine might very well freeze up and stop, giving him no options except to bail out. There was an advanced American fighter base just under us, and he decided he would like to try to land there. I called on the radio to see if there was any control there, and when I got back on Thompson’s channel in the radio, I heard him say, “Gotta get out. Getting away from me.”
The airplane lost some altitude and then turned over on its back and went into a “split S”. It started straight down, and ultimately dived straight into the ground. At a very low altitude, it snapped over and dived straight into the ground. I never did see a parachute or any sign of Thompson coming out of the airplane.
I landed nearby, got a flight surgeon to take his ambulance and looked for Thompson. We found his body in a small town in the middle of a cobblestone street, covered with his parachute. He had obviously snapped out of the airplane at the low altitude when the airplane snapped over.
We picked up his body in the ambulance and took it back to the base where I had landed. That was a new base that was waiting for its squadrons to arrive. The Flight Surgeon was a part of the advance party for the base. He was quite considerate of me. He didn’t let me see Thompson, either before or after they put him in the ambulance.
I bid them goodbye and with a heavy heart, I took off and flew to our base. There, members of the flight were waiting to get news from me. I had to tell them the bad news. I don’t think I have really ever gotten over that experience. What could I have done different to get him home safely?
Without a doubt, that was the most difficult mission I flew, both from the standpoint of the difficulty of the target and the pain of what happened to Thompson. I shall never forget either parts of it.
Poppa's biography stops on page 92, and he never finished writing his war experiences. I didn't get to read it until several years after he was gone. I never knew what he experienced, as he never talked about it. I knew him as the quiet patriarch, in the big red house in Iowa, Iowa court appellate Judge or retired. I've seen one picture of him in his youth, young, brash, egotistical yet humble, exhausted, standing, with a cigarette in hand by his P-47.
It's kind of amazing the state of their cutting edge technology, compared with what we have today. It's really too bad the human evolution has not kept step with the technology we've created. War will continue to be fought with the latest technology we have available. Today, that technology is (more or less) freely available to anyone. Social manipulation, security penetration, we are in the wild west of IT. Our "acts of war" security hacks and data dumps are not unlike the fight in the west for power and land and water.
And as we walked through that fire, we will walk through this fire. Come out the other side. Casualties and adventures will occur. We are all walking to our deaths. Let us live our lives, such that they were worthwhile to live.
I raise a glass to you Poppa. For revealing to me a side of you, I previously did not know. In your death, I know you better, keep your memories fresh and increase the deep respect I have for all who put their life on the line. xxx