Bomber Pilot: A Memoir of World War II

5 The Air War of Western Europe

5 The Air War of Western Europe Once again in England there was much rearrangement work to be done in order to get the group in shape to Hy as a proper part of the Eighth Air Force. It was evident that the days of Ted's Flying Circus were gone. The group was merged into a large bombingorganization that would not permit operation as a small strike force moving wherever current need directed. The circus was through, though the blood and spirit of its men had marked the progress of the war from EI Alamein to Bizerte and from the Carpathians of Romania to the Alpine foothills of Austria. I was glad to see my friends of the old group who had been left behind us at the base in England. I was sick and weak from dysentery and loss of weight, and there was still the pain aching inside me at the loss of Fowble and his crew. Four months before they'd been a bunch of kids, and since that time they had lost completely the youthful facade which tears so easily in combat. Now their lives were ended, but they had inHicted grievous damage on the enemy and paid a thousandfold interest on the labor and expense of their training. Circumstances had doubtless combined in similar ways many times during this war. But to me the case of this crew was different. At the least it was in the highest category of magnificent and patriotic behavior. European Air War 135 The days succeeding my arrival brought in the stragglers. Captain Frank Ellis and his crew had still not arrived. Frank had brought home a ship on one of the last raids in Africa that was so shot to pieces he had to leave it where it landed. Consequently , he had to depend on Air Transport Command to get him and his crew back. His old ship had borne the letter E-E for Ellis, we called it. It had hurt Frank to leave that ship. "Never mind," I told him. "When you get back to England you11 have a new E for Ellis; I promise you the next new airplane we get." When I got in there was a new Liberator waiting for delivery to my squadron. I gave the order to paint the large E on the tail. It was parked in Frank's old parking place, where I knew he would be glad to see it. The other ships were cleaned up in a hurry. We had to get right into operations because bad weather for flying is the normal thing in the English winter, and we had to take fullest advantage of the remaining good weather of late fall. In the time we had been operating in England before the group had bombed a couple of airfields in France, but we had never crossed the border of the Reich. Now we were excited and nervous about the prospect of carrying the fight home to Germany . It was just the normal feeling about getting our feet wet for the first time. We kriew until we did we couldn't fully consider ourselves a part of the air war of Western Europe. One morning just before dawn we were rolled out of our sacks to go to the briefing room. The layout as to who would fly the mission had been planned the day before. Lieutenant Colonel Miller, group air executive, was to lead as air commander and would fly in the number one plane. I would be deputy lead and fly on his right wing to take over in case anything happened to him. We were briefed to go to Vegesack, Germany. It seemed at that time a long way to go over hotly defended enemy territory . About three months later when we had friendly fighter cover it wouldn't have seemed half so far. When the target for the day was announced to the crews in the briefing room and they knew that we were really hitting Germany for the first time, there was no chorus of cheers. I have heard much about cheers from combat men upon such momentous occasions. I'm 136 European Air War sure such responses don't come from units whose combat losses are anything like ours were. We were going to Germany and, with no support from friendly fighter planes and unlike heroes of fiction...