Deadly Danger....

....Blind Determination!      

Flying Fortress

 

Bombing Fortress Europe into submission was no simple assignment.  Bombers based in England had to deal first with weather, then traverse the waters of the Atlantic or the North Sea where they were met by the combat-seasoned pilots of the Luftwaffe, determined to shoot them down before they could arrive over deadly, flak filled skies above the continent.  Those bombers fortunate enough to reach their target and drop their payload then had to fight their way clear of the continuing flak, penetrate the screen of enemy fighters, and again traverse the lonely expanse of often heavy seas to return to the fog-shrouded air fields back home.  It is little wonder that so few airmen survived long enough in the early days of the war to complete the 25 missions that would earn them a trip home.

Such daring dedication called for a special breed of fighting men, men undeterred by the odds stacked heavily against them.  One airman, when asked why he chose to fight in the air, glibly quipped: "It's the only place in the military where you can retreat at 300 miles per hour."

The Royal Air Force had conducted night bombing raids against targets inside occupied Europe long before the United States entered the war.  When General Ira Eaker arrived in England a few weeks after the Arcadia Conference to build the Eighth Air Force, he came with the American strategy for strategic bombing raids employing massive, HIGH-ALTITUDE, DAYLIGHT attacks.  Veteran British pilots were certain the concept was doomed to failure.  At least at night, bomber formations were shielded by darkness from enemy fighter attack.

General Eaker's strategy, rooted in the theories of air power espoused by visionaries like Douhet and General William Billy Mitchell, was as yet untested in combat action.  It was predicted upon the debates at the Air Corps Tactical School in the late 1920s and early 1930s when Kenneth Walker, one of the architects of the Air War Plan delivered to President Roosevelt in 1941, put forth what would become his mantra:

"The well-organized, well-planned, and well-flown air force (bombing) attack will constitute an offensive that cannot be stopped."

Every Man a Gunner

Key to that philosophy was the impressive American B-17 bomber.  The 70-foot, four engine heavy bomber was not only built to fly long distances at high altitude (by 1941 developments gave it an 1,800-mile range with a ceiling of 35,000 feet) to drop a three-ton load of bombs, it was well armed.  When Boeing introduced the test model in 1935 the impressive battleship of the sky carried five 30-caliber and 50-caliber machineguns with which to defend itself against enemy fighters.  That staunch array of firepower prompted early newspaper reporters to dub it a "Flying Fort." By the time the first Flying Fortresses began arriving in England in the summer of 1942 to begin their bombing campaign against Europe, they were sporting as many as a dozen or more 50-caliber machineguns.  Each B-17 was crewed by a team--ten men--and each of them was a gunner.

On the ceiling of the Flying Fortress and directly behind the pilot in a rotating Plexiglas bubble were mounted the twin fifties of the Top Turret, usually manned by the senior enlisted crewman and aircraft ENGINEER.  Further back in the fuselage the radio man's training equipped him to handle all necessary communications during the mission.  When the bomber was under attack however, he was quick to man his own gun from the radio room hatch to ward off enemy fighters. 

Behind the radio room and beneath the fuselage hung the clear Plexiglas sphere of the Ball Turret Gunner, a cramped and dangerous position critical to defending the belly of the Flying Fortress. Above the Ball Turret the two waist gunners manned their own fifties, defending against attack from the left or right.  Further back in the tiny craw space beneath the vertical stabilizer the Tail Gunner crouched at his own twin-fifties to protect the rear.  These six men comprised the enlisted component of the Flying Fortress crew, and could ably protect their airplane from attack from any direction left, right, above, below or behind.

The bomber's NAVIGATOR and BOMBARDIER shared space in the vulnerable nose of the Flying Fortress, one of the Luftwaffe pilots' favorite points of attack.  Each had specific duties in terms of plotting the route and accurately deploying the bomb load, but both were quick to defend their airplane with their own fifty-caliber machineguns.  It was estimated that the typical navigator spent 5% of his time navigating, 95% of his time behind his guns.  The same was true for the bombardier.

Only the pilot, in the left-hand seat of the cockpit, and the co-pilot on his right, did not have assigned and readily accessible machineguns to turn on attacking enemy fighters.  (In fact, some pilots such as Major Jay Zeamer in the Pacific, went so far as to have forward-firing machineguns mounted in the nose of their Fortress that could be triggered from the cockpit.)  Not infrequently did the demands of intense combat necessitate the co-pilot leaving his station to replace a killed or severely wounded comrade at one of the many guns spread throughout the Flying Fortress.

These ten men were more than just the "crew of an airplane"--they were a team.  "One word explains how we got through the hell over Europe 25 times--and back home without a casualty," stated Bob Morgan who piloted the famed Memphis Belle. "TEAMWORK!" For the most part, the squadrons of the Army Air Force maintained crew integrity.  The men were assigned together, slept in the same billets (though officers and enlisted had separate tents or buildings), and flew together except for those occasions when one might be pulled to assist a separate crew when one of their members was ill or injured.

 

First Blood

Twenty-four B-17s from the 97th Bombardment Group flew the first American bombing raid in Europe on August 17, 1942.  The attack against the railroad marshalling yards at Touen-Sotteville, France, was inauspicious, but did mark the entrance of the U.S. Army Air Force's campaign to bomb Germany into surrender.  Five additional missions followed before the end of the month, but like a swimmer dipping his toes into a pool, they were more a testing of the waters than a strategic offensive against a formidable enemy.

General Eaker's Eighth Air Force built rapidly as new aircraft and crews arrived in England.  The 306th Bombardment Group flew its first mission on October 9.  This was the fourteenth mission of the Eighth Air Force and would have been the first air mission flown by more than 100 bombers, had not 33 of the combined force of 84 Flying Fortresses and 24 B-24 Liberators been forced to abort.  It was a sad turn of events, for the American Air Force strategy for accomplishing their mission to destroy the Luftwaffe and German war machine was predicated upon fielding large bomber formation.  There was safety in numbers, and continuing small formation missions that were subject to interdiction by 100 or more enemy fighters were becoming exceedingly dangerous.

By November 1 Allied war planners were gearing up for Operation Torch, the amphibious landings in North Africa that had been deemed immediately preferable to, and as a prelude for, the much anticipated cross-channel invasion of Northern France which was now postponed until 1944.  To support these landings in the Mediterranean, Ira Eaker's Mighty Eighth (Air Force) was stripped of four bombardment and four fighter groups including more than 25,000 trained and combat-experienced airmen.  The transfer of these vital assets to the Twelfth Air Force in North Africa made it impossible for the Eighth to field more than 50 - 75 bombers for any mission for nearly six months thereafter.

Rebuilding the Eighth was slow, despite the arrival of the 303d Bombardment Group, which flew its first mission on November 17.  With limited air assets including protective fighter cover, nearly all Eighth Air Force missions through the end of 1942 were conducted against targets on the northern and western coast of France or nearby Holland.  With the exception of a December 20 mission to Romily, near Paris, the flight path was brief and mostly over water.  To venture to far inland would put the bombers beyond the range of their fighter escorts, and place them too long over territory controlled by the Axis, protected by enemy fighters, and peppered by deadly flak batteries on the ground.

Hitting Home

Following the swift success of the North Africa campaign, President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met in French Morocco for the Casablanca Conference (January 14-24) to plan their next course of action.  Though the resulting strategy was to continue the Mediterranean campaign with invasions of Sicily and then Italy to strike Germany from beneath, never far from the minds of those developing the war plan was the ultimate goal of the cross-channel invasion.  Critical to the success of that invasion was the neutralization of the Luftwaffe, which might otherwise destroy the amphibious assault from the air, long before landing craft reached the beaches of Northern France.

Ira Eaker's Eighth Air force had experienced only limited success in its first thirty missions, most of which were along the French coast, and had suffered devastating losses as a result of enemy flak and fighters.  During the conference at Casablanca there was tremendous pressure from British air commanders to force Eaker to abandoned his daylight bombing and join the RAF in attacking German targets under cover of darkness.  Eaker successfully argued that his limited success and high casualty rate were due more to the limited range of his fighter cover and the smallness of his fielded formations, the latter because of diversion of his assets to the North African campaign, than to the dangers of daylight missions.  He met personally with Winston Churchill, and with great diplomatic tack but determined zeal, convinced the Prime Minister that a campaign of "around the clock bombing" would be versatile to the Allied effort, damning to the enemy.  Further, he promised that his forces would strike Germany itself before the close of the month.

General Eaker's men fulfilled that promise on January 27, flying northeast out of England for the first time to cross the North Sea and strike inside Germany, another first.  Ninety-one heavy bombers, Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators, took off on that historic morning to attack Wilhelmshaven (near Bremen) in Northern Germany. Though only 53 bombers from that force reached their target, it marked the moment when the first American bombs exploded across the terrain of Germany itself.

Despite one of the bitterest winters in decades, the Eighth Air Force mounted thirty missions over the first four months of 1942, including a strike at Vegesack, Germany (near Bremen) on March 18 that was historic for two noticeable reasons:

• It was the first mission flown and completed by a formation of American heavy bombers numbering more than 100, and

• It was on this mission that First Lieutenant Jack Mathis of the 303d Bombardment Group's 359th Bomb Squadron became the first airman of the European war to earn the Medal of Honor.  The valiant and determined bombardier sacrificed his life to insure the completion of his mission.

Despite continuing heavy losses, the arrival of new bombers and air crews enabled Ira Eaker to mount larger and larger bombing formations. Soon flights were nearly equal in number to the quantity of enemy fighters that rose to challenge them.  Among the new arrivals was a young gunner named Maynard Smith, whom everyone called Snuffy. On May 1 Snuffy Smith became the second airman of the war in Europe to earn the Medal of Honor, and the first enlisted airman in history to wear that high honor.

Five new bombardment groups were assigned to combat status in the Eighth Air Force in May, giving Ira Eaker a total of fifteen bomb groups.  On July 17 Ira Eaker was able to field his largest bombing mission to date and the first to exceed 300 total bombers.  It was only a beginning.

Author Harold Mansfield noted that prior to the Casablanca Conference when his forces had been depleted by transfers to the 12th Air Force "Ira Eaker was wearying of small hits at nearby targets along the Channel. 'If we can get the equipment, we can knock Germany out of the war from the air,' he said. "By destroying Hitler's factories we can put an end to his air force. By destroying his munitions plants and communications we can stop his armies.'"

By July 1943, despite the temporary transfer of three Eighth Air Force B-24 Liberator Groups to the 9th Air Force in Libya for a top-secret mission (a long-range, low-level bombing mission to Ploesti, Romania), General Eaker at last had sufficient men and aircraft to mount his offensive against Germany.  When a week of frustratingly poor weather lifted in the last week of July, he wasted little time in at last mounting the kind of strategic bombing missions he had espoused for nearly a year.

Little Blitz Week

Eighth Air Force Mission #75 was a stunning blow to the Axis war machine.  In the first bombing raid into Norway, 167 heavy bombers made the 1,900-mile round-trip to attack the nitrate works at Heroya. It was the longest bombing mission of the war to date, one totally unexpected by German tacticians, and effectively put the important war plant out of operation for nearly four months.  Meanwhile, other bombers of the 309 total force, attacked enemy naval installations at Trondheim, as well as other targets at Bergen. Of the more than 300 bombers launched at the opening of what would become known as Little Blitz Week, only one was lost.  Her crew nursed their flak-damaged B-17 to Sweden where they landed without casualties, and were interned.

While the Axis reeled from the unprecedented strike that was later described as: "The most successful and shrewdly planned and executed mission of the entire war," General Eaker pressed his advantage.  The morning following the attack into Norway he sent 323 heavy bombers across the North Sea to strike inside Germany, attacking the shipyard at Hamburg and submarine base at nearby Kiel.  This time German fighter pilots were prepared however, and nineteen American bombers were lost.

The trifecta was completed the very next day when 303 heavy bombers were unleashed on the Reich, again attacking at Hamburg with 54 bombers while other's penetrated deeper into enemy territory to strike other targets. Nearly 100 Flying Fortresses fought their way deep into the heart of Germany, the 92nd Bomb Group hitting the Continental Gummiwerke A.G. Wahrenwalderstrasse tire plant at Hanover, just 150 miles west of Berlin.  It was a classic test of the as-yet-unproven aerial warfare doctrine:  "The well-organized, well-planned, and well-flown air force (bombing) attack will constitute an offensive that cannot be stopped."

For nearly a year the Eighth Air Force had kept most of its missions near the coast where formations would have less exposure to flak and fighter opposition until minutes before they were over the target.  Coastal targets were often also within range of friendly fighter escort in both directions. To bomb Hanover however, which was well beyond the range of friendly fighters, after reaching the coast of Europe the bombers had to fly over 100 miles of Nazi-controlled land to reach their target--every mile filled with flak and enemy fighter opposition.  And then, to further complicate the secondary mission of survival, the Flying Fortresses had to return home across that same 100-mile gauntlet, still without friendly fighters to keep the enemy from destroying them.

The well-organized, well-planned and well-flown air force that attacked Hanover on July 26 did INDEED constitute an offensive that could not be stopped, despite repeated attacks over the two hour inland flight to and from target by more than 100 enemy fighters.  The bombers got through not because they were impressively armed however, so much as they survived because of the teamwork and determination of their crews.  Enemy fighters had appeared almost as soon as the formation made landfall, and one 92d BG Fortress named Ruthie II was hit almost immediately, mortally wounding the pilot and sending him into a frenzy.  Co-pilot John Morgan held the pain-crazed pilot at bay with one hand, while piloting Ruthie II on to target to drop her bombs, and then return home.  For his incredible valor and determination Flight Officer Morgan became the third airman of the Mighty Eighth to earn the Medal of Honor.

Two dozen other Fortresses were not so fortunate, generating one of the deadliest days of the air war to date. Of the more than 250 casualties killed, wounded, or missing in action, sixty-five were later rescued from the North Sea by British air-sea rescue teams after fighting their way out of Germany only to drop from the sky in bombers too badly damaged to reach Britain.

Tuesday was a day of rest during Little Blitz Week but the following day the intrepid airmen were back in the sky, fielding 302 bombers to attack even deeper into Germany, striking the aircraft works at Kassel and the Focke-Wulf factory at Oschersleben.  It was a day full of firsts--and surprises.  Equipped with jettisonable belly tanks, for the first time American P-47 fighters escorted the flights into Germany ranging 30 miles further than on any previous escort mission.  Even at that, the American fighters eventually had to depart, leaving the formation to slug its way alone on the deepest penetration yet made into Germany.  Twenty-two Fortresses were lost when enemy fighters for the first time unleashed effective rocket fire on them, but the returning survivors were met by a second group of P-47 escorts while still deep inside Germany.  These caught sixty pursuing enemy fighters unprepared and destroyed nine of them with the loss of only one American fighter.

On Wednesday, July 29, the losses of four major missions in five days had begun to take its toll, but General Eaker refused to relent.  Nearly 250 heavy bombers returned to Northern Germany to strike the submarine pens at Kiel and the Heinkel aircraft factory at nearby Warnemunde.  On Thursday nearly 200 bombers again attacked deep into Germany, striking the aircraft works at Kassel, again escorted most of the way by P-47s with auxiliary fuel tanks that allowed them to surprise enemy fighters unaccustomed to seeing American fighters beyond the coastal fringe.

Little Blitz Week proved to be the greatest sustained air offensive of the war to date, with the combined bomber offensive taking a heavy toll on the infrastructure necessary to Hitler's war machine.  There was no respite for the embattled enemy, for throughout that historic week the R.A.F. bombed at night, often in formations of more than 500 aircraft, while General Eaker's airmen hit them in the daylight hours, striking sixteen major industrial targets in six of the seven-day period.

On July 31, despite clear flying weather, the Eight Air Force at last rested.  Little Blitz Week had at last proven the validity of high-altitude, massive daylight bombardment, but at a heavy cost.  Eighty-eight heavy bombers had been lost and more than 1,000 valiant airmen of the Mighty Eighth were dead, captured, or missing.  With nearly twenty more bombers damaged beyond repair and others in need of substantial rebuilding, Eighth Air Force assets had dropped from 330 B-17s seven days earlier, to fewer than 200.  Though General Eaker was eager to continue pounding the enemy, he knew it was time to heal the wounds and rebuild.  Not for two weeks would Eighth Air Force bombers based out of England fly another major mission.

Meanwhile, however, on the following day (August 1) the three Eighth Air Force Liberator groups sent to Libya on loan to the Ninth Air Force made history when they crossed the Mediterranean to strike the important oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania.

Hell's Angels

Little Blitz Week with its unprecedented success was possible only because at last the Eighth Air Force had built up to the point that large bombing formations could be fielded.  The arrival of the 94th, 95th, 96th, 351st and 379th in May, augmented by the 100th in June, made possible the 300+ heavy bomber formations that wreaked havoc on Germany in the last week of July. As important as this infusion of new planes and crews were to the Eighth Air Force's missions, it was the veterans from bombardment groups that had arrived months before that provided the experience and savvy necessary to mission accomplishment. Among these was the veteran 303d Bombardment Group.  When the Eighth Air Force flew its eightieth mission on July 30, the airmen of the 303d claimed credit for participation in 56 of them, including the first mission over Germany the previous January and five of the six Little Blitz Week missions.

The 303d arrived in England in the fall of 1942 to begin combat operations out of Molesworth, north of London. They flew their first mission on November 17.  Three more missions followed within the week, and on the return from one of them Captain Irl Baldwin, flying a B-17 with tail number 41-24577 but as yet unnamed, mused aloud over the interphone about calling his bomber "Hell's Angels."  The mission had been a rough one for his rookie crew, one of whom quickly stated, "Why not. This is the closest to hell that angels will ever get!"

The Flying Fortress #41-24577 indeed was named "Hell's Angels" and thereafter, many of the men of the 303d began to refer to their Bomb Group itself as "Hell's Angels," though the moniker was not formally adopted until early in 1944.  The veteran status of the 303d was certainly verified on May 13, 1943, when "Hell's Angels" became the first Eighth Air Force bomber to complete twenty-five combat missions.  The second Eighth Air Force bomber to reach this milestone six days later was one of the most well-known bombers of the war: "Memphis Belle."

Few heavy bombers, especially in the first year of the air war, were fortunate enough to complete the milestone twenty-fifth mission. By the time "Hell's Angels" became the FIRST to do so, thirty bombers of the 303d had been lost in 34 combat missions.  When the 303d's pilots and crews flew the Group's fiftieth mission on July 14, ten days before Little Blitz Week, that tally had risen to 38 lost bombers, more than four hundred men dead or missing in action.  In the summer of 1943 not only did the Eighth Air Force need new bomber groups, her veteran Groups were also desperately in need of replacements.

Sergeant Buske

 

Sergeant George W. Buske was one of the replacements that arrived at Molesworth in the summer of 1943, where he was assigned as Tail Gunner to the crew of 2nd Lieutenant Arni Sumarlidason (back/right in the photo.)  Sumarlidason was a veteran with sixteen missions in the right-hand seat from May 4 to July 17 when he was upgraded to pilot for his first mission in the left-hand seat.  That first mission as pilot was aborted and the crew returned to Molesworth where weather grounded them for a week. During that period they posed for a crew photo (seen here), and prepared for the upcoming aerial offensive.

Lieutenant Sumarlidason's crew flew on the first and second missions of Little Blitz Week, their only missions until mid-August.  The first eleven days of August were a re-building time for the Eighth Air Force, the opportunity to lick wounds, mourn lost comrades, and repair battle-damaged bombers after sustaining more than 25% losses as a result of the six missions in the last seven days of July.  On August 12 however, the Eighth Air Force was back in business.  Lieutenant Sumarlidason's crew joined 329 other heavy bombers on a mission into the heart of Germany to attack inside the Ruhr.

The target for Sumarlidason and the other 20 Fortresses from the 303d was a synthetic oil plant at Gelsenkirchen. Lieutenant Bill McSween recalled:

"I was a mite uncertain about the outcome of this one. The target was in the center of a valley where there was no way around anything. We flew straight through up to the Ruhr defenses, where all hell broke loose. Talk about 'intense and accurate flak!' They made us know it. Flak rattled off the plane's nose like hail. The target area was obscured and our bombs went wild. Focke-Wulfs attacked outside the Ruhr defenses and hit the high and lead groups."

The mission to Gelsenkirchen was a running battle all the way to target and then trying to fight out of the valley to return home.  In the tail of Sumarlidason's B-17, twenty-two year old Sergeant George Buske hammered away at the attackers while his comrades at the waist, the top and lower turrets, and the two officers in the nose fought to defend their airplane.  The 303d lost only one airplane and crew on the deadly mission, but other bombardment groups were not so fortunate.  Of the 330 heavy bombers that made that first mission of the new offensive, 243 reached and bombed their targets. Twenty-five American bombers and 250 valiant airmen did not return.

The Mighty Eighth stood down for two days after the tragic losses and fierce fighting of August 12.  General Eaker understood the value of continued bombardment of targets inside Germany, but it was also apparent that he could not continue in the face of such heavy casualties.  Little Blitz Week had shaken the confidence of Hitler's air chiefs and scores of enemy fighter planes had been moved from the Eastern Front to air fields in France, Holland and Belgium to interdict future bombing raids before they could reach the homeland.

These airfields and their fighters became the new priority for attack.  On August 15 the Eighth Air Force dispatched more than 300 bombers to attack enemy fighters on the ground along the coast.  The formations were escorted by Spitfires all the way, and though flack was heavy, losses were light and few enemy fighters were seen in the air.  The following day more than 200 bombers attacked airfields near Paris, again escorted all the way to target and home by P-47s with drop tanks.  In the tail of Lieutenant Sumarlidason's Flying Fortress Sergeant Buske experienced a largely uneventful fourth combat mission, as again few enemy fighters even got into the air.

The heavy losses of August 12 in comparison to the missions of August 15 and 16 vividly demonstrated the value of fighter escort if daylight bombing was to continue. In the latter two-day period a total of 573 bombers had been dispatched, of which 527 reached and bombed their targets.  Only six bombers had been lost.  The problem was in finding a fighter with sufficient range to escort bombing missions into Germany--a challenge that was being confronted at home and that would be answered before the end of the year by the new P-51 Mustang.

 

Double Punch

The mission of Wednesday, August 16, marked the completion of the Eighth Air Force's first year of aerial combat in Europe, 365 days during which General Eaker's men had flown 83 missions.  The price of their limited victories had been expensive, 411 bombers lost, more than 4,000 airmen killed, captured, or missing; and hundreds more recovering from serious wounds.

For Sergeant George Buske the Mighty Eighth's anniversary sortie of August 17 would mark his fifth combat mission, authorizing award of the Air Medal.  For the enemy it meant an unprecedented two-prong assault at targets the high command considered untouchable.  For the gunners of the Flying Fortresses it would mean the most intense aerial combat of the war.  For the crews of sixty bombers it would mark the end of their war.

In all a total of 376 bombers were fielded to attack the ball bearing factories at Schweinfurt  and the German Messerschmidt complex at Regensburg, the latter marking the deepest penetration into Germany to date.  A record 724 tons of bombs fell from the 315 heavy bombers that fought their way through enemy fighters to reach their targets.  At Regensburg virtually every major building was hit and scores of newly-completed Me-109 fighters were destroyed on the ground.  Then the Flying Fortresses did the unexpected.  Rather than turning back to fight their way home to England, they turned south to cross the Mediterranean and land in North Africa.  It was the first Eighth Air Force shuttle mission of the war, setting a precedent for future missions deep into the heart of Germany to eventually attack the Axis from two directions.

Martin Caiden in Flying Forts recalls the determination of the men who flew the deadly mission to reach and bomb Regensberg:

"In the B-17 named X Virgin a waist gunner was killed by German fighters. Internal systems were slashed and cut by enemy fire. In an unprecedented move, four men chose to bail out deliberately (over German held territory) so that the remaining crew would have enough oxygen to take the ship over the target and return. Over the target the bomb-release mechanism failed to work...

"But a wounded gunner felt he hadn't come all this way for nothing. He left his guns and worked his way to the bomb bay. With a screwdriver he loosened the shackles and then jumped up and down on the bombs until they broke loose and fell free.

Sergeant Buske's Fortress, along with 28 others from Hell's Angels, hit the ball bearing plants at Schweinfurt. The important industry there provided  40% of the critical bearings for the Axis war machine, and on this day though the damage was not as heavy as that inflicted on Regensburg, two major factories were damaged and production greatly hampered.  It was little comfort for the heavy losses sustained.  Lady Luscious tail gunner Sergeant Merlin Miller recalled the running fight home after his Fortress had dropped its bombs:

"Half a dozen (enemy) fighters, maybe more, would get behind us and string out, and com in one right after the other at our group. It got so that we could just pick out the fighters to shoot at that looked like they were coming directly at us.

"There were parachutes too, many parachutes floating through the air, sometimes through the formation, white ones that the Americans had, dirty colored ones that the Germans had. You could see, oh, 40 to 60 parachutes in the air at once sometimes. And sometimes there'd be pieces of planes just floating through the formation from blown-up bombers, blown-up fighters, long columns of smoke from the ground, going down to the ground and coming up from the ground. You could see where we'd been, actually follow our track over the mission just by looking back and following the columns of smoke coming up from the ground. It was incredible!"

None of the falling bombers witnessed by Sergeant Miller came from the 303d; all twenty B-17s sent to attack Schweinfurt returned home, many heavily damaged, but all still intact. Nevertheless, twenty-four bombers from other groups that attacked Schweinfurt, and thirty-six bombers from the Regensburg task force, were shot down in combat. Returning airmen reported shooting down a total of 288 enemy fighters.  There is no estimating how many additional fighters might have been shot down by the 600 American airmen who never returned. Furthermore, while the number of enemy fighters destroyed may have been somewhat exaggerated or erroneous, it certainly gives evidence to the unusually high number of German fighters fielded unsuccessfully to thwart the double-punch Eighth Air Force anniversary mission.  Mission #84 that fielded 376 bombers to attack targets deep into Germany demonstrated how far Ira Eaker's determined airmen had come since that first mission 365 days earlier when twenty-five Fortresses flew fifty miles across the English Channel to drop bombs at the coastal city of Rouen, France.

 

Beware, the Easy Mission

The heavy losses of the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission forced Ira Eaker once again to concentrate on missions closer to home while new aircraft and crews streamed into England to replace the mounting tally of missing men and machines. From August 19 until September 6, the earliest date on which Eaker could again mount a massive strike into Germany, the Eighth Air Force concentrated on short strikes against coastal installations while constantly under escort by P-47 fighters.  In all, during that three week period of near-daily strikes, losses were under 4%--again validating the value of fighter cover to bomber operations. The light losses however, are no indication that these quick hops across the English Channel were Milk Runs for bomber pilots or their crews.

Two days after the Schweinfurt mission Sergeant Buske crouched in the tail of his Flying Fortress as it crossed the channel to attack enemy air fields near the Holland coast at Gilze-Ruen.  Twenty bombers from the 303d were the tail formation of a 93-bomber force that expected a quick run to target and a relatively easy return home--all under the protective care of dedicated fighter pilots.

Upon reaching the coast Buske found himself busy fighting off the ME-109s that rose to meet the incoming formation, but comforted himself in the knowledge that the bombers would only be over enemy territory for half-an-hour before turning back across the channel for home field.  Then, it seemed, everything went wrong.

The lead bomber, which was to mark the target under the prevailing "bomb on the leader" technique that had been a staple of such missions since early in the year, failed to unleash his payload.  The mission leader circled, leading the bombers around for a second pass and doubling the time that the formation would be under the sights of anti-aircraft gunners on the ground and enemy fighter pilots around them.

Crouching in the tail of his B-17 on this, his sixth combat mission, Sergeant Buske unloaded on the attacking enemy fighters with grim determination.  As he tracked on yet another incoming enemy he suddenly felt the tail shudder under the impact of a 20mm shell that ripped holes in thin metal and tore through the flesh of his hip.  Blood streamed from the open wound, but with danger still everywhere around him, Sergeant Buske gritted his teeth against the pain and continued to fire.  He shot down one enemy fighter and warded off several more. Not until the last fighters had disappeared while the Hell's Angels formation headed out over the channel to return to Molesworth, did he give in to his serious injuries and cease defending his airship.

For his heroic actions and determination on that day when two Hell's Angels bombers failed to return home, Sergeant Buske was awarded his first Purple Heart, an Oak Leaf Cluster to his Air Medal, and the Silver Star.  For the next forty-five days he was confined to the hospital for treatment of the wound in his hip.

By September Ira Eaker's three Liberator Groups had returned from their secret mission in Libya and the continued flow of new airmen and aircraft from the United States had nearly brought his B-17 strength up to seventeen full Groups.  On September 6 he dispatched 407 bombers, his largest force yet, to bomb targets at Stuttgart, Germany.  Little more than half of the force reached their target and forty-five bombers were lost in aerial combat including two Hell's Angels bombers and crews.  The mission served notice to the enemy that the Eighth, despite continuing heavy casualties, was prone to strike inside the homeland at any time, though following the September 6 mission the Mighty Eighth resumed primarily anti-aircraft missions into occupied territory.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Buske was released from the hospital early in October to return Molesworth, while rookie replacements continued to arrive in England to keep the Eighth Air Force at fighting strength.  Among the new arrivals was the young radio man from Sergeant Buske's home state of New York who became one of Hell's Angels on October 8.

Forrest L. Vosler

 

Black Week 

When Staff Sergeant Woody Vosler arrived at Molesworth, on flight status and fully capable of manning any of the positions on a Flying Fortress on Friday, October 8, twenty-two Hell's Angels were on a mission to Bremen, Germany.  It was the opening day of a new week of blitzes inside Germany, but this week would be remembered with a far more ominous title that its predecessor of July.  It would come to be called, with good reason, Black Week. 

Vosler was assigned his billets, a low, drab building where several enlisted crewman slept on three-piece RAF 'biscuit' mattresses.  In later interviews he recalled meeting three of his roommates, though he couldn't recall their names.  Since individual air crews normally bunked together, these were probably the men with whom he was intended to serve in the coming months, most probably the enlisted men of the B-17 Shades of Stricnine.

The mood at Molesworth was somber that evening, for although all 22 Hell's Angels returned safely from the day's raid over Bremen, it had been a tough mission.   Heavy flak damaged sixty percent of the 3d Bombardment Division's participating bombers, and 75% of the 1st Division's aircraft.  Thirty of the 357 bombers launched that morning were lost, and twenty-six more were damaged almost beyond repair.

Staff Sergeant Vosler awakened to an empty hut the following morning.  New replacements were not immediately committed to battle, but first received days, or even weeks, of training and preparations before the first combat mission.  The crew of Shades of Stricnine however, had found their number on the roster for the day's mission to Anklam, Germany...their fourth since arriving at Molesworth the previous month.

By nightfall the barracks was still quite empty.  Lieutenant B. J. Clifford's Shades of Stricnine was last seen gliding into the clouds near the Danish coast with its wheels down, one of the left wings smoking, and enemy fighters continuing their attack.  The entire crew was killed in action, a vivid lesson to Forrest Vosler on his second day at Molesworth as to the danger of being an American airman at war in Europe. Twenty seven other Eighth Air Force bombers went down that same day.

Sunday was no day of rest for the Eighth Air Force as 275 bombers, including 21 Hell's Angels, were launched to attack targets inside Germany for the third straight day.  Though all Hell's Angels again returned safely home, the Eighth Air Force lost 30 bombers bringing the three day sum of losses to 87, with an equal number severely damaged.

No where were the tragic losses of October 10 felt more severely than at nearby Thorpe Abbotts, home of the 100th Bombardment Group that had fielded twenty bombers that morning to attack the railroad yards at Munster, Germany.  Seven were forced to abort, but an unlucky thirteen continued towards their target deep in the Ruhr.  The limited-range P-47 escort was forced to turn back when the thirteen 100th BG Fortresses, which were the lead for this mission, were nine minutes from target.  Almost immediately more than 200 enemy fighters pounced on the B-17s, in minutes shooting down twelve and leaving only Lieutenant Joe Rosenthal's Rosie's Riveters to continue.  Despite the odds against him from continuing attacks that put a rocket through the right wing, knocked out the #3 engine, and destroyed the oxygen system, Lieutenant Rosenthall continued to target.

Loren Darling and John Shaffer, the two waist gunners, were shot up badly. The tail gunner was hit in the butt and the top turret gunner collected a nick between the eyes while he was busy destroying two enemy fighters, which were seen to burst in flames. A third was destroyed by the radio operator. After the assaults had ceased, all moveable equipment was thrown overboard and Rosie brought his bomber home - alone. Rosie's Riveters was all that remained of the 100th Bomb Group formation after a day’s air battle, and thereafter the Group was called the Bloody One Hundredth.

 

Black Thursday

In Forrest Vossler's first three days at Molesworth he had witnessed the departure of bombers each day to attack deep into enemy territory.  No doubt he struggled with his own fears, for the moment must surely come soon when he would be assigned to one of those departing Flying Fortresses.   No doubt he also remembered well the words of the instructors at Radio school: "A day will come in combat when the job of getting home is up to the radio operator," and prayed that he would be equal to the challenge.  Before that moment came however, he remained a spectator to the war, grounded at Molesworth to witness one of the most tragic days in Air Force history.

During World War II some forty missions were launched against the important bearing factories at Schweinfurt, beginning with the deadly Eight Air Force anniversary mission of August 17 that had cost two dozen American bombers. The second mission to Schweinfurt on October 14 was even costlier.  Of 257 Flying Fortresses that flew into the heart of Germany, twenty-eight went down to flak or enemy fighters before reaching their targets. Fighting their way home another thirty-one bombers went down, with one badly damaged Fortress forced to ditch in the English Channel.  Five bombers that reached England were unable to land.  The crews of three parachuted to safety, two others crash-landed.  Added to the sixty-five lost bombers were seventeen more that were so badly shot up they would never fly again.   With eighty-two B-17s stricken from the Eighth Air Force inventory in a single day, and nearly 1,000 casualties, the pressure was on to get new air crews built from the recent arrivals.  Staff Sergeant Vossler's moment was at last upon him.

Jersey Bounce, Jr.
They call it that Jersey bounce, A rhythm that really counts;  The temperature always mounts, Wherever they play,       the funny rhythm they play.

One of the original B-17s assigned to the 303d Bombardment Squadron had been named Jersey Bounce from the title of a popular song penned by Buddy Feyne.  The stout Flying Fortress flew 14 combat missions with the 303d before being transferred to the 384 Bomb Group. Jersey Bounce, Jr. soon followed when B-17F #42-29664 was assigned to the 303d on March 21, 1943.  The name was a foregone conclusion for, though over the bomber's nearly one-year of combat it was flown on 32 missions by 9 different pilots, no man flew her more times (7 missions) than Captain Robert Nolan who as a Lieutenant, had christened the first Jersey Bounce.

Among the distinguished list of men who had flown into harm's way aboard Jersey Bounce, Jr. was Captain Merle Hungerford, who had served with the 303d in various capacities for nearly a year.  In an air force that practiced crew integrity, Captain Hungerford had been a floater that filled in where needed. The versatile air officer flew his first mission as a co-pilot on January 13, and followed up with four additional combat missions in the right-hand seat of a Flying Fortress in the months that followed. During Little Blitz Week he participated in one mission, flying as co-pilot on the July 29 mission over Heligoland Island off the North coast of Germany. In all he logged eight missions in the right-hand seat with five different pilots. On the October 10 mission into Germany Jersey Bounce, Jr. had led the formation with Major Mark Mitchell as pilot, Captain Merle Hungerford as co-pilot.

On October 26 Captain Hungerford was upgraded to pilot, but before flying his first mission in the left-hand seat of the cockpit, he flew one more mission in Jersey Bounce, Jr. with Major Mitchell.  Prior to departing Molesworth for that November 5 mission to Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Hungerford and Mitchell posed in front of their trusty bomber with the crew, among them Jersey Bounce's replacement Tail Gunner, Sergeant  George Buske (lower left in photo above.)  Having recovered from his wounds ten weeks earlier, the scrappy kid from Rochester, New York was back in action.

Six days later Captain Hungerford posed for another crew photo, this time in front of the B-17 named Sky Wolf.  The bomber's assigned pilot was a newly arrived replacement, Second Lieutenant John Henderson.  Though new to the Hell's Angels, Henderson was a savvy veteran in the air.  He had been flying since age 16 and with his brother had owned an airport in California. Before the United States entered the war Henderson had flown with Canada's RCAF, becoming a flight officer.  When the U.S. Army Air Force entered the war Henderson was given the rank of Staff Sergeant and had to go through USAAF flight training again to earn his commission and right to pilot a B-17 bomber. Sky Wolf's assigned co-pilot was 2d Lieutenant Walter Ames who had washed out of fighter pilot training.  He was to miss the crew's first five missions, so Captain Hungerford was assigned fill in as an instructor pilot for the new crew's first missions. Sky Wolf's radio man was a tall, 20-year old recently arrived replacement, Staff Sergeant Forrest Woody Vosler.

Sky Wolf - Lieutenant John Henderson Crew

BACK: Capt. Merle Hungerford (IP), 2Lt Walter Ames (CP), 2Lt John Henderson (P), 2Lt Woodrow Monkres (B), 2Lt Warren Wiggins (N)  FRONT: S/Sgt William Simpkins (E), Sgt. George Buske (TG), Sgt Stanley Moody (WG), S/Sgt Forrest Vosler (R), Sgt Ralph Burkart (WG), Sgt. Edward Ruppel (BT)  - Photo taken 11/11/1943

 

Ball Turret Gunner Sergeant Ed Ruppel recalled that original crew and the preparations they were given for their first taste of combat action:

"We were supposed to be replacements for the Schweinfurt raids, but we didn't put any combat missions in right away. They took us by truck to gunnery training at a place called 'The Wash' on the coast of England.

"When we got there they took us into this big room, and the man said: 'Everything you've ever learned in the States, forget about it. You don't know nothing! We're going to teach you now what it's all about.

"This guy says, 'First of all, we're going to give you how long you're going to live.' And he went through each gun position, and he told us how long that guy would live. I forget how long he said the man in the ball would live, but it was very short. The two most vulnerable spots were the tail and the waist guns. A waist gunner had something like two to three minutes in combat. They said that combat could be three seconds, one pass and it was all over for you. It was all very hard-core.

"At the end they explained the reason they were telling us this. The man said, 'All of you that don't want to go into combat, step over on the side. Nobody's going to holler at you, nobody's going to knock you down or anything, I just want to know now.'

"So somebody raised his hand and said, 'Why the hell are you so interested in that?'

"The man said, 'I want to know now that you're going to quit. I don't want you to quit when you're upstairs, and mess nine other people up. Understand?'

"Then they started to teach us what it was all about. We were out there for days, going through various stages. In the last stage we fired .50-calibers at various silhouettes that were set up. Then we went back to Molesworth to fly practice missions with instructors to show us what we were doing wrong. When we finished, they figured we were ready for combat.

At age 19 Staff Sergeant William Simkins was youngest member of the crew. He was also the bomber's Engineer, one of the most critical positions. He recalled the crew's first loss:

"Our tail gunner quit after our first mission. He just up and said he didn't want to fly anymore. We got George Buske as a replacement. He was an experienced gunner who had flown before, and he hung around with Ralph Burkart, our right waist gunner. Burkart was from Columbus, Ohio.

"Our left waist gunner was a guy named Stan Moody, from Maine. He was a real gun expert, a gunsmith or something. He hunted in the woods a lot and used to fool with guns all the time. Our bombardier was Woodrow Monkres from Oklahoma--small but tough. And our navigator was Warren Wiggins, from Long Island. He could really get you around.

From Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer
By Brian D. O'Neill

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The Battle of Bremen

November 26, 1943

Thirty-five Hell's Angels bombers lifted off from the airfield at Molesworth on the morning of November 26, the largest 303d Flying Fortress formation in more than a year of aerial combat.  The sizable combat group was possible because of all the new crews that had arrived and been trained, including Lieutenant John Henderson and his men who on this day flew into combat in the legendary bomber named Hell's Angels.  On this first mission for the new crew, Captain Merle Hungerford flew in the right-hand seat as Instructor/co-pilot.

Nine wings of Eight Air Force airplanes, 505 heavy bombers in all, were destined to deliver a decisive blow against enemy installations at Bremen, Germany. Simultaneously, another 128 bombers were to assault industrial targets near Paris.  With 633 heavy bombers in the air it was the largest, single-day American air mission yet mounted. Flying escort were 353 P-47s and 28 P-38s, the aerial armada numbering nearly 1,000 total aircraft.

Due to high clouds the formation had to climb to 27,500 feet where the cold winter air was at least -50 degrees. Beyond the dangers of ice building up on windows to obscure visibility were the far more dangerous heavy white contrails that steamed behind each bomber in formation.  Such contrails provided a virtual smoke screen that might allow enemy fighters to slip up on the tails of the formation without being seen, to render deadly fire.

Indeed more than 50 enemy fighters hit the lead formations, Fortresses from the 303d, as soon as it passed the coast.  The running battle lasted more than an hour as enemy FW-190s, Me-109s, and rocket-firing Me-110s attacked in packs.  In Hell's Angels Lieutenant Henderson's crew experienced combat for the first time, save for the veteran tail gunner.  In the Ball Turret Sergeant Ruppel kept up a steady stream of fire.  "They (enemy fighters) tried to hide in the vapor trails left by the Forts and sneak up without being seen," he later recalled. "I saw three or four of them try this, but it didn't seem to work too well.  The gunners drove them off as soon as they came out in the open."

Busily attending his radio, Sergeant Vosler suddenly noticed that the waist guns had fallen silent.  Looking in that direction he saw Sergeants Moody and Burkart lying silent on the floor.  Hell's Angels' oxygen system had failed, rendering the gunners unconscious even as enemy fighters continued their attack.  Without hesitation Woody grabbed portable oxygen bottles and rushed to the waist to revive his comrades.  The action subsequently earned him the Air Medal.

The Bremen bombers and fighters slugged it out with the enemy to claim a total of 70 enemy planes shot down, but at the cost of 22 Flying Fortresses, 3 Liberators, and 4 P-47s.  It was the opening of a campaign dubbed the Battle of Bremen.  Eighth Air Force bombers returned to Bremen again three days later, and then three more times in December.  Of the eight missions major missions flown by the Eighth Air Force from November 26 until December 16, four were strikes at Bremen. Along the way Lieutenant Henderson's crew added two more missions to their growing tally.

The Battle for Bremen, and the last mission flown against the enemy installations there until June of the following year, culminated with the mission mounted on December 20.