Air Fronts: Theaters of Operation - European Theater of Operation: Target Germany - The Log of the Liberators

AT NOON on the 17th day of May the great sprawling French seaport of Bordeaux was relatively quiet. Far to the north, medium American bombers were slashing at the coast of Holland. Two hundred and fifty miles up the French coast a furious air battle was raging between German fighters and strong formations of Fortresses attacking their old objectives--submarine pens and installations--at Lorient. But nothing was happening at Bordeaux.

The Germans were not particularly vigilant. There were U-boats moored in the tideless basins and massive concrete shelters designed to protect them from air attack. Thirty or forty barrage balloons floated placidly in the air, a hazard for low-flying raiders. But Bordeaux was a long way from England. American bombers had never attacked it. The fact that even at that moment they were hammering at Lorient made the German garrison at Bordeaux feel doubly secure. They had not even bothered to silence the German-controlled radio... .

Liberators, easily identified by their twin rudders, fly low over the checkerboard landscape of Britain.

At 1228 thirty-four Liberators—not a large force, but still the strongest Liberator formation yet seen in western Europe--soared out of nowhere and dealt military targets in the harbor area of Bordeaux one of the most precise and devastating aerial blows of the war.

Actually, the Libs appeared out of the Bay of Biscay, where for hours they had been sweeping in a great 700-mile semicircle that had carried them far out into the Atlantic. Their land-fall, timed to a matter of seconds, was a master-piece of navigation. As the lead navigator, reserving most of his enthusiasm for the work of a fellow crew member, later described it :

Suddenly through haze and mist we saw a break in the coastline. Although it wasn't very plain, it stood out well enough to be recognized as the estuary that curves crazily from the Bay of Biscay to Bordeaux, some thirty miles inland. When we reached our I.P. (initial point) on the bombing run a few minutes later, it was the bombardier's baby. He took over. It was the finest piece of precision bombing I ever hope to see. The locks collapsed, water gushed out of the basin into the river; there were hits on the bottleneck of the railroad yards, strikes on the aero-engine factory. It was beautiful!

The crews of the Libs had a right to be pleased. For the first time in seven months of sporadic operations in the E.T.O. they had been given an assignment that called upon all their speed, range, and bomb-carrying capacity. They had carried it out successfully--and alone.

At 0900 hours that morning two Groups of B-24's had assembled at 2500 feet near Land's End. Four aircraft turned back with mechanical failures during the long overwater flight, and just before reaching the target one Liberator left formation with engine trouble and struggled to a crash landing in Spain. This was the only bomber lost in the attack. Its crew was unhurt.

During the climb to altitude that began while the formations were still far out to sea, one Group began to lag behind because of lack of power in the lead ship. By deviating slightly from the prescribed course, the navigator managed to bring the Group to a landfall almost exactly at the E.T.A. (estimated time of arrival).

A few flak bursts appeared over the target, but not enough to distract the bombardiers. Only one enemy fighter made a determined attack, and at 300 yards, under direct fire from three .50-caliber machine guns, he broke off and went down in a tight spin with smoke pouring from his engine. He was claimed as a probable.

Two Americans were slightly wounded and one was lost in an accident so freakish that it was hard to believe. A waist gunner standing beside his open window somehow pulled the rip cord of his parachute. The billowing silk, caught in the rush of wind, snatched him out like a gigantic hand. Man and chute hit the tail assembly and disappeared over the Bay of Biscay. The parachute was observed to be badly torn. . . .

Twenty-two thousand feet below, the harbor of Bordeaux was in confusion. Direct hits burst the great lock gates that kept the water-level in Basin No. I from being affected by the rise and fall of tides in the river. Water gushed out in a colossal stream. A 480-yard pier, used exclusively by submarines, collapsed completely. Two U-boats, spotted there at the start of the attack, had vanished six hours later when the photo-reconnaissance plane flew over and took pictures. At least eight direct hits blasted the Matford aero-engine factory. Chemical works and railroad yards were hit. Damage to residential areas was negligible.

Engine check.. .

Bombing up.

Ready to go.. .

It was a sweet job, and the crews of the Liberators were jubilant. They attributed much of the success of the mission to the use of only one type of bomber instead of the mixed formations in which the B-24's had usually flown up at that time.

The fact that the two basic American heavy bombers performed better separately than together reflected discredit on neither ship. It was simply a matter of different speeds at different altitudes, causing certain obvious tactical difficulties. Most reasonable airmen were prepared to admit that there was not much that a Lib could do that a Fort was not capable of doing, and vice versa. The main difference was one of appearance. Discrepancies in bomb load, range and armament were growing smaller as new bombers of both types incorporated various improvements that brought their performances closer together.

But there still was, and always would be, an undeniable esprit de corps that set Fortress and Liberator men apart. Up to May 17, the sleek Fortresses had tended to overshadow their less photogenic sisters. This was inevitable in view of the disparity in numbers, and the Liberator crews wasted no time brooding about it. Still, they found a particular satisfaction that day in doing a Liberator version of the American Plan of high-altitude precision bombing and doing it in so spectacular a fashion.

For seven months the Liberators of the VIII Bomber Command had been doing a variety of jobs, both odd and ordinary. Their debut over Lille on October 9 was not particularly brilliant. The abortive rate was high. But they stood their baptism of fire well, and to the people of Occupied France the name of the newcomer--an RAF idea--must have had a special significance.

For the next two months the Libs joined in the milk run down to the U-boat pens. Then weren't many of them and, like their Fortres sisters, they were sorely pressed for replacements They came back with the same battle damage from flak and fighters; their crews had equally harrowing combat stories to tell.

On November 18 over Lorient a bullet from a Ju-88 entered the cockpit of a Liberator smashing the pilot's arm and ricocheting off the control column into the copilot's leg. At the same time the tunnel gunner was twice hit in the stomach; one bullet that had passed entirely through his body was found protruding from his hip by the navigator, who administered first aid. The gunner took the bloodstained bit of metal that was handed him and put it into his pocket, remarking that it would make a good souvenir.

The pilot, clinging to the controls with one hand despite the pain of his shattered arm, was

Bordeaux bull's-eye: ". . . the finest piece of precision bombing I ever hope to see. The locks collapsed, water gushed out of the basin into the river..." The Liberators damaged basin (1) and aero-engine factory (2).

lifted out of the cockpit and placed on the flight deck. The bombardier, who had had some flight training but had never been at the controls of a four-engined ship, took his place. He and the wounded copilot took turns flying the ship.

Near the English coast visibility began to grow bad. The navigator took an Aldis lamp and flashed word to the other ships that they intended to land their wounded at the first available airdrome. Shortly afterward they left formation, climbed above the overcast, and started hunting for a break in the clouds. The bombardier's flat, unemotional report told the rest of the story

At about 6000 feet we came into the clear over the overcast. I asked the engineer how much gasoline we had. He checked and said we had about an hour's supply. We decided to fly along for about forty-five minutes and look for an opening. We flew on a 65-degree heading that the navigator gave us. Just about the time this period was up we found an opening, came through, and sighted the runways of an airdrome.

We had discussed the matter of landing while flying along. The copilot could not use the rudders, and on the landing we were both on the wheel. I was using the rudders and working the brakes. We made a fast landing. I turned off the runway to the right as we came to the end if it. After landing we immediately called for an ambulance and rushed the three wounded to the hospital. The plane was not damaged on landing... .

They lived in the desert on Spam and cabbage, harassed Rommel's rear-guards, struck at Naples-and Sicily.

In October two squadrons of Liberators were sent to the south of England to work with British Coastal Command on antisubmarine patrol. By November, huge convoys were streaming south to supply the African armies. The VIII Bomber Command was already harassing the U-boats "in the nest." The Liberator squadrons were charged with responsibility for the second phase of the anti-U-boat campaign--killing them at sea.

In the harsh winter weather the Libs went out on patrols that sometimes lasted nine or ten hours and covered hundreds of miles of steel-gray sea. Eyes grew weary searching for the telltale feather of a periscope or the shadowy outline of a U-boat hull. It was like looking for a pin in an acre of iron filings. The Liberator crews, stiff and cold, found consolation in the knowledge that they were a vital part of an immense net flung across the Bay of Biscay and half of the Atlantic, a net that was making efficient U-boat operations a mathematical impossibility.

Patrols were not always dull. One B-24 tangled with five Ju-88's far out in the bay, shot down two of them for certain, damaged one other, and sailed home intact. Said the pilot happily, "The Jerries must've thought we were one of those old British Liberators armed with .30-caliber machine guns. Brother, they were a surprised lot of Heinies!"

This was only the first odd job that the Liberators were called upon to do. In December three squadrons of them were ordered to Africa, for a "ten-day" period. Actually the ten days stretched out to three months, during which they lived in the desert on Spam and dehydrated cabbage, harassed Rommels' retreating rear guards, struck across the Mediterranean at Naples and the Sicilian airdromes, and made some good friends in the Ninth and Twelfth Air Forces.

The Liberators left behind in England struggled along with a force so attenuated that it was hardly visible to the naked eye. There were times when barely a dozen could be put into the air. At one point they had to commandeer replacement crews intended for Fortresses. A fine large Briefing Room at one station--once the Group Intelligence Officer's pride and joy because it was so roomy--became a positive menace as the circle of chairs grew smaller and the unoccupied area increased.

When the wanderers returned from Africa in March, full of tall tales and with the Libyan sand still gritty on the floors of their ships, the confidence of the Liberator Wing soared again. They went out with the Fortresses in what was --for them--considerable strength: eighteen, twenty, twenty-two planes. At Vegesack, on March 18, they shared with the Forts credit for smashing the submarine-building yards. Only one Liberator was lost.

The Libs did not always get off so lightly. At Kiel on May 14, flying lower than the Fortress formations and carrying incendiaries for the first time, they were singled out by enemy fighters for concentrated attack. Five B-24's out of seventeen were lost, the survivors destroying twenty-one German aircraft. The ferocity of the fighter attack and the violence of the evasive action taken by the big bombers are reflected in one pilot's account of the engagement:

Then things began to happen. Three of them started at us. Our top turret gunner picked out the leader and let him have about fifty rounds from each gun. The copilot saw black smoke pour from the nacelle and the plane go into a spin.

Despite the temperature of 20 degrees below zero Centigrade I was sweating like mad. I had on a pair of winter flying hoots and nothing else except regular dress, which was wringing wet.

The longest hours. . . waiting for bombers to return.

Two more fighters came in from the nose. I could see them firing their cannons, so I pushed forward on the stick with all my might. We went down like a streamlined brick, and they whizzed past us, barely missing the top of our wing. One of them took along several of our slugs with him, because our tracers were seen to go through his fuselage. When I pulled out of that dive, our top turret gunner was thrown from his turret, as was the tail gunner. All the other members of the crew were thrown about a bit. But the Jerries had missed us, and that was the important thing.

Just as we were approaching the target, four more fighters attacked us from dead ahead. One of their cannon shells hit our left wing. A moment later the copilot announced that the No. 3 engine was out.

"Want to feather it?" he asked.

"Hell, no!" I yelled.

Feathering a propeller over enemy territory is like writing the boys at the mortuary for space on their slab. All of the fighters see that you are crippled and immediately set upon you for the kill.

We had only three halfhearted attacks from then on to the coast, and those pilots must have been very green, or else I had become hardened to it all by that time. Off to our left, I saw one Me-109 do a slow roll and then head for home. His maneuver meant, "Well, boys, it's all over for this time. See you soon."

During the spring the Liberators began training for night operations. Personnel was sent to the RAF Operational Training Units to study the methods and technique of night flying. The American crews were not unfamiliar with night flying, but much had to be learned about differences in signal procedure, the tactics of night bombing, and so forth. Again, the Liberators were being used experimentally. Whether those experiments would prove much or little, time and the course of the war would tell.

In June the Wing became nonoperational; a new and very specialized training period set in. Combat crews had no idea what ultimate target they were pointing for, but it was obvious that it had nothing to do with high-altitude bombing. The big ships were sent roaring over the country-side in tight formation at treetop level. Low-altitude bomb sights were installed. Armament modifications, designed to increase fire power forward, were speeded up. The Liberator men, pleased with their new hair-raising tactics, speculated feverishly as to the nature of their next assignment. One month later, much to the relief of harassed livestock in English meadows, the Liberators were no longer to be seen in the skies of Britain.

They were to be seen in many places before they came back: over Rome in the first attack on the marshaling yards that tumbled Mussolini from his shaky pedestal, over Austria in the assault on the Messerschmitt factory at Wiener-Neustadt, one of the longest bombing missions of the war.

But the climax of their mission came 1350 miles as the bomber flies from their home stations. To attack this target they flew from Africa, not from England. They were operating with the Ninth Air Force, not with the VIII Bomber Command. But to the ground echelons left on the Liberator stations of Britain, three fifths of the American force that struck the Rumanian oil refineries at Ploesti on August I were "bur boys."

Nazi oil blazes. Some of the Liberators left the Ploesti target area with corn stalks stuck in their bomb bays

Ten days later at the station belonging to the oldest Liberator Group in the E.T.O. an eye-witness of the raid told how Lieutenant Colonel Addison E. Baker, commanding officer of that Group, led his last mission.

The Liberators took off across the Mediterranean after three weeks of rigorous and secret training in the desert where a rough replica of the target had been built. Practice runs had been made until the timing of the whole attack was polished to the last split second. Crews were briefed with movies and lectures down to the last oil derrick in the target area.

With each plane carrying 3100 gallons of gasoline and 5000 pounds of delayed-action bombs, the bombers swept north and thundered over the coast of the Balkan peninsula at 10,000 feet. It was a long trip, without the monotony of high-altitude approach. Once across the Danube, the formation came down to attack level. In the Rumanian wheatfields only 200 feet below, the

Delayed-action bombs from a preceding Group explode in one of the Ploesti refineries as more Libs attack.

thundering engines caused wild excitement. Combat crews could see details with startling clarity. One girl in bright peasant costume flung her apron over her head in panic. An old couple fell on their knees and prayed. Some farmers threw stones and pitchforks. A man leading two horses beside a stream took one look and plunged headlong into the water. Nor was all the excitement limited to persons on the ground. No less than ten crews reported that as they crossed a river a girl was swimming in it. Opinion was unanimous that she was without benefit of bathing suit.

The plan was to sweep down on the oil refineries from the north, but two of the Groups, including Baker's, passed south of the target on their first approach. The leading Group made a wide circle, but Baker, spotting a refinery, turned and made a direct run for it.

By this time the defenses were fully alert. Fighter planes were up. So low were the Liberators that more than once the fighters dove into the ground in frantic efforts to intercept them. As one crew member put it laconically, "Those fighters used non-habit-forming tactics!"

Flak was more of a menace than fighters. Everything from machine guns hidden in hay-stacks to 88-mm. cannon firing over open sights blasted at the Liberators. The guns in the big planes replied, waist gunners picking off rifle-men, sending bursts of incendiaries into oil storage tanks which exploded in sheets of flame.

Before the mission, Baker had stressed the absolute necessity of flying a tight formation in order to hit the relatively small target with the maximum number of bombs. "If anything happens to the lead ship," he said, "pay no attention. Don't swerve. No matter what happens, keep straight. . . ."

On the way in to the target a shell struck the right side of the cockpit of Baker's ship. It probably killed the copilot and must have injured Baker, but he kept to his course. Fire broke out. Seconds later, just at the target, a heavier caliber shell made a direct hit. Enveloped in flames, the Liberator shot over the target, dropped its bombs, and crash landed near the refinery it had helped to destroy. Colonel Baker is listed as Missing in Action.

Thundering down from the north, another Vlll Bomber Command Group led by Colonel Leon Johnson saw the delayed-action bombs of Baker's Group exploding in the target area. By going in at 500 feet or higher, Johnson could have lessened the danger from ground explosions, but mushrooming smoke would pave made accurate bombing difficult. He took his Group in at 230 feet, the height of the tallest chimneys. Casualties were heavy, but the target was completely wrecked. For his courage and leadership, Colonel Johnson received the nation's highest award, the Congressional Medal of Honor. He returned safely.

Near one of the targets, airmen saw the crew of a Liberator that had been shot down standing near their crumpled plane, waving their arms and cheering like maniacs. The surviving bombers raced away across the fields so low that some of them came back with corn stalks stuck in their bomb bays. Behind them on the horizon huge columns of smoke bore witness to the effectiveness of their work. "I wouldn't give a million dollars for the experience of that raid," a gunner said afterwards, "and I wouldn't give ten cents for another like it!"

That was the story as told to members of Colonel Baker's Group at their deserted station somewhere in England. "You can be proud of your boys," the eyewitness said.

They were proud of them, and of the ships they flew, and of the job they did. The story would be remembered as long as there were Liberator men left to tell it. The Germans would remember it, too—five refineries hit, at least two of them completely smashed. The price paid in men and machines was high. It was no higher than expected. The crews that survived knew that the losses in planes would be made good with newer, better planes.

They knew they could never replace the men.