Air Fronts: Theaters of Operation - European Theater of Operation: Target Germany - Act 1, Scene 1

AT MIDAFTERNOON on a gray day in February, 1942, a Douglas airliner from Lisbon landed at a west-of-England town. The trip had been routine, but not uneventful. Two hours before, far out in the Bay of Biscay, a plane believed to be a German fighter had flashed past the transport not far ahead and slightly above. Failing to spot the DC-3, the unidentified air-craft had continued on it's course toward the coast of France.

If the long-range marauder was German, the chances are it had been dispatched specifically to intercept and destroy the plane carrying a party of seven American officers, led by a brigadier general, who were en route to England as the advance guard of an American bomber command. Lisbon, swarming with spies, had seen the Americans arrive from Bermuda on the previous day. The natural reaction of the Germans would have been to plot the course of the unarmed transport and intercept it at a point far from any possible Allied interference. If such was the case, they failed only by the thickness of a wing—their own wing—which screened the DC-3 from the view of the German pilot.

The seven officers who stepped out of the plane that day carried with them a directive signed by Lieutenant General H. H. Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Forces, and dated January 31, fifty-five days after Pearl Harbor. The directive named Brigadier General Ira C. Eaker Bomber Commander in England and ordered him, among other things, to "make the necessary preparation to insure competent and aggressive command and direction of our bomber units in England."

It was a battered but still defiant Britain that greeted the Americans. The great German aerial Blitz was over; the danger of invasion seemed remote. But on the far fronts of the war things were not going well. The Libyan advance had turned into a retreat. In the Donets basin von Bock's steam roller was grinding its way forward slowly, but apparently irresistibly, toward Stalingrad. In the Pacific the Americans were making a last desperate stand on Bataan. The Repulse and the Prince of Wales had been sunk. Singapore, chief bastion of Occidental power in the Far East, was tottering.

More significant still for these apostles of unborn air power from across the sea, shortly before their arrival the Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, and Prinz Eugen, supposedly immobilized at Brest, took advantage of the vile February weather to make a dash through the Channel for their home bases. The RAF and the Fleet Air Arm took suicidal chances in a gallant and vain attempt to stop them. Critics of air power —ignoring the fact that the German warships had also eluded surface vessels—made the most of the occasion. There were recriminations in Parliament. It was a black week.

The Americans went to London. They had no time for sight-seeing, but they were impressed by many things—by the bomb damage, neatly tidied but still an object lesson in the destructiveness of aerial bombardment; by the black-out; by the stringency of wartime diet; by the calm fortitude of the British people, who wore the war like an old coat—frayed around the edges, but still nothing of which to be ashamed.

The task facing the seven officers would have appalled anyone—as one RAF officer dryly put it—except Americans. Starting from scratch, they had to build an organization which would —if their theories were sound, if their convictions were correct—eventually become a hammer that, used in conjunction with the RAF, would crack the iron skull of Nazi Germany.

It was a big job that they faced, but fortunately they had a big brother to help them—the Royal Air Force. The RAF was long past the immortal days of "the few" to whom so much was owed. With two and a half war years of trial and error and successful experiment behind it, with its Fighter Command guarding the skies by day, the Bomber Command striking the enemy by night, and the Coastal Command sweeping the sea lanes, the RAF might easily have been excused had it taken a condescending attitude toward the advance guard of Americans whose plans were so large and whose means were apparently so small.

The RAF took no such attitude. From the start, their generosity and sympathetic interest were the keys that unlocked many problems. "Tell us what you want," they said. "lf we have it, it is yours." They might have added, "Whether or not we need it ourselves."

There were some in the RAF--many, in fact —who took a dim view (to use their own expressive phrase) of the feasibility of daylight bombing over the fortress of Europe. They remembered, with acute and vivid pleasure, what had happened to the Luftwaffe's bombers over Britain on those autumn afternoons in 1940. They had tested the Germans' daylight defenses themselves, and found them uncomfortably strong. But if the Americans thought it could be done, they were all for helping them. The sooner the Americans could attain full partnership with the RAF in size and striking power, the better. That seemed to be the unspoken motto of the RAF in those early days. It has continued to be ever since.

Conferences with RAF and American Army officers began immediately. One of the first problems was to find a place where the Americans could hang their tin hats. This was solved eventually by the acquisition of an old abbey. The story has been told how the duty officer, on the first night of occupancy, was startled to hear bells beginning to ring all over the building. Investigation proved that each bedroom had a prim little card, relic of schoolgirl days, that read : Ring twice for mistress.

The first combat units were preceded by Intelligence officers who were sent to RAF operational stations where they were given every opportunity to study British methods. The first crew to return from the historic 1000-plane raid on Cologne was interrogated by visiting U.S. Army officers.

Work went on throughout the reluctant English spring. More personnel arrived, but barely enough to keep up with the demands. Airdromes had to be taken over from the British and American modifications had to be planned; reports had to be sent back to Washington ; everyone seemed to have colds in the head; at times the spadework looked endless.

And there was always the uncertainty as to how the great machine they were building would function in actual combat. In April some of the staff officers went to inspect a B-17E that had been turned over to the British. They returned with the following gloomy conclusions : "British experts who made a joint study with the above officers condemned the B-17E so far as operations against western Europe are concerned on the following points : (a) defensive fire power is too weak to afford reasonable protection, the tail-gun position being cramped and the belly turret so awkward as to be useless. They plan to remove it and use the airplane on Coastal Command work; and (b) 4000-lb bombs cannot be installed and bomb loads in any case are small unless the bomb-bay fuel tanks are removed at the expense of range."

Such criticisms were not ignored, but neither were they allowed to shake the ultimate confidence of the planners in the planes that were going to have to do the job.

At the weekly Monday-night staff meetings hundreds of other problems were discussed : the shortage of labor for airdrome construction, the problems of airdrome defense, of flying control, of transatlantic movement of aircraft, of security of information, of mud control on the sodden stations, of shortages of everything from vitamin pills to bulldozers. These meetings lasted far into the night, but in public little talking was done. The C.G. set the precedent at a gathering after a dinner given in his honor by the British. Called upon to speak, he rose and uttered twenty-three words : "We won't do much talking until we've done more fighting. We hope that when we leave, you'll be glad we came. Thank you."

Out in the field, early arrivals wrestled with as many problems as the staff officers at the VIII Bomber Command—and under far more trying physical conditions. Many of them were living under canvas. The English summer that year was not noted for its sweetness and light. These pioneers had to live on British rations—which were not to their liking. They soon made the acquaintance of those twin nightmares of station life—dispersal (the vast distances between key buildings dictated by the ever-present threat of aerial attack) and mud. As one engineer remarked : "Where there's construction, there's mud; and where there's war, there's mud; and where there's construction and war, there's just plain hell."

"
Where there's war, there's mud. . .

"
Where there's construction, there's mud. . ."

"
Where there's both, there's just plain hell!"

In May a light-bombardment squadron arrived. With it was Captain Charles C. Kegelman, destined within two months to become the first American aerial hero in the European Theater of Operations. In other parts of the world the British were mopping up in Madagascar and American air and naval power was winning the Battle of the Coral Sea. But the Japs were pushing ahead in Burma, a German drive on the Kerch peninsula was gathering momentum, and the fall of Tobruk was only a month away. The war was still balanced on a knife edge.

At the end of June the first American heavy-bombardment Group was on its way—by air. Not without loss. Three B-17's were forced down

One B-17 that never reached England. The crew was rescued from a Greenland icecap by a Navy plane.

on a Greenland icecap. One of the crews managed to survive by cutting off the blades of one twisted propeller with a hacksaw, then using that engine to furnish heat for the plane and power for the radio generator until a Navy flying boat, landing under extraordinarily hazardous conditions, rescued them. The other crews were also saved—one from a small island and the other from the sea. Two other Fortresses, caught by bad weather off Greenland, were forced down. Again, both crews were rescued.

The excitement that would normally have attended the arrival of this first Group was some-what overshadowed by the decision, taken on July 2, to have six crews of Captain Kegelman's light-bombardment squadron join six RAF crews in a daylight minimum-altitude sweep against airdromes in Holland. The planes to be used were RAF Bostons, but for the first time in World War II American airmen were to fly American-built bombers against the Germans. The fact that Americans and Britons should thus jointly celebrate America's Independence Day seemed a particularly happy omen.

At 0730 on the Fourth of July, the twelve Bostons took off across the Channel, flying in four three-plane elements, each element briefed to attack a separate airdrome in Holland. En route they were spotted by German "squealer" ships that radioed a warning to the ground defenses on the enemy-held coast. As a result the formation whose objective was the De Kooy airdrome was forced to fly through three miles of flak which the RAF element leader said later was the worst he had encountered in over sixty operational missions.

As the Bostons swept over the airdrome one of the American-flown ships was shot down and crashed in flames. Apparently the pilot made the fatal mistake of making a normal turn, allowing the flak gunners to anticipate his course.

The other wing ship, with Kegelman at the controls, was also badly hit. The right propeller and engine nose section were shot away. The engine burst into flames. The right wing tip struck the ground, and the fuselage actually bounced on the surface of the airdrome, tearing a hole in the belly of the bomber. Lifting the Boston back into the air on one engine, Kegelman headed for the Channel. He admitted after-ward that he was debating whether or not to set his crippled ship down on the sand dunes in a belly landing when over the interphone he heard the voice of his rear gunner exhorting him enthusiastically to "Give 'em hell, Captain."

This defiant attitude stiffened Kegelman's determination to keep going. When a flak tower fired on them, the pilot swung his ship toward it, silencing the flak gunners with his nose guns. He lifted his battered wing over the tower and continued home at water level.

That first combined mission could hardly be called a success. Kegelman had been forced to jettison his bombs. Of the other American-manned planes, two returned with their bombs, having failed to recognize the camouflaged target until too late. The other two bombed their objective but one was shot down by flak. The Theater Commander was so impressed by the report of Kegelman's feat that he wrote in pencil across it, "This officer is hereby awarded the Distinguished Service Cross." Three other crew members who flew that day received the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Control tower. . . Counting the final seconds.

The press enthusiastically hailed this debut of American airmen as the beginning of a new and gigantic air offensive. On the same day, at the headquarters of the VIII Bomber Command, the following notation was made : Arrival of aircraft: 1 B-17E. Total: 1.

By the first of August two heavy-bombardment Groups had arrived and were in a state of intensive training. By that date, furthermore, certain target priorities had been established. The C.G. quoted from the directive as follows : "First the factories, sheds, docks, and ports in which the enemy builds his submarines and from which he launches his submarine efforts. Next, his aircraft factories and other key munitions-manufacturing establishments. Third, his lines of communication. A subsidiary purpose of our early bombing operations will be to determine our capacity to destroy pin-point targets by day-light precision bombing and our ability to beat off fighter opposition and to evade antiaircraft opposition."

The first test came on August 17. It was a critical day for the VllI Bomber Command, not because of the size of the effort—only twelve Fortresses were involved—but because so much was at stake. Pressure in the U.S.A. for action in the European Theater had been mounting steadily. The British press had been hinting for some time that the American bombers were ready. Morale in the squadrons was wearing thin from repeated "dry runs," bad weather, and general impatience to get at the Hun. There were still plenty of skeptics who predicted dismal results from the first attempt at a daylight mission.

At 1526 the first Fortress took off. Eleven others followed, the. C.G. of the VllI Bomber Command riding in Yankee Doodle, lead ship of the second flight of six. The twelve Fortresses were carrying about eighteen tons of bombs destined for the railway marshaling yards at Rouen—the city, somebody pointed out, where Joan of Arc had died for the liberation of France half a millennium before. The formation assembled over the field and climbed steadily to their attack level of 22,500 feet before disappearing in the bright clear sky in the direction of France.

For the next three hours anxious ground crews, fellow airmen bitterly disappointed at being left behind, and high-ranking Air Force officers--plus some thirty members of the British and American press--waited about as calmly as expectant fathers in the anteroom of a maternity ward. Shortly before 1900 hours watchers on the control tower spotted a cluster of specks to the west of the airdrome. Eagerly they counted - for a tense moment there seemed to be only eleven. There was a sigh of relief as the twelfth appeared. Minutes later the big ships swept in to the runway, their names high-lighted by the level rays of the sun : Baby Doll, Peggy D, Big Stuff, Butcher Shop, Yankee Doodle, Berlin Sleeper, Johnny Reb, Birmingham Blitzkrieg, and the rest. Pilots and mechanics swarmed out to meet the crews. Quickly the word was passed around : All bombs dropped on or near the target, no casualties; good protection from escorting Spitfires; slight flak damage to one B-17; a few brief exchanges of fire with enemy fighters; mission successful.

Take-off... One plane air-borne every half minute.

Interrogation brought out additional information. Fighter cover by Spitfire squadrons had resulted in the loss of two RAF aircraft. The Germans lost two fighters for certain, five probables, and four damaged. Two Spitfires chased an enemy fighter into the range of one Fortress and there was a short exchange of fire but no claims were allowed. One other gunner got a shot at an FW, but fighter opposition was generally light. Diversionary missions flown by six other Fortresses had apparently confused the German radio direction finders to such a degree that they concentrated most of their fighters in the wrong area. The attacking Forts were not even reported by Jerry over his radio until they had crossed the French coast and were well on their way to the target—at which point the enemy excitedly announced that "twelve Lancasters" were heading inland.

The only American casualties were suffered when one of the Forts on the diversionary sweep ran into a flock of pigeons. The bombardier and navigator were "slightly damaged."

The combat crews were surprised that the mission had proved so easy. One of the pilots, describing his sensations, spoke for the rest of the airmen : When I was a little kid, I had a cousin and I used to hear him tell about the last war and how, when a bunch of men were asked to volunteer for a dangerous job, the whole damn line stepped forward, just like one person. I used to think that sure was fine, but I thought that if it was me I'd have been scared. And so on this show I expected to be scared, too.

Well, sir, it was a funny thing. When we got over the Channel and sighted the French coast I kept thinking, "Well, here it starts." But nothing happened just a little flak that never even touched us. Then, as we got to the target and went into the bombing run, I thought, "All right, there is where it starts." But it didn't start there either, because we just dropped our load and turned around and headed back without being bothered by a single fighter. Some of the ships were, but ours wasn't.

In any case, the first mission was far more successful than many had dared hope. Air Chief Marshal Harris, chief of British Bomber Command, sent an enthusiastic message to his American counterpart : "Yankee Doodle certainly went to town, and can stick yet another well-deserved feather in his cap." The American leader merely commented cautiously that "the raid went exactly according to plan, and we are well satisfied with the day's work." He pointed out that one swallow did not make a summer, so far as daylight attacks on Europe were concerned. But this warning was almost lost in the surge of enthusiasm and confidence that resulted from the first all-American attack on Nazi-held Europe. An official squawk from the Vichy Government was hailed as further proof of the effectiveness of the raid.

In the next four days the handful of Fortresses made three more attacks. The first was on August 19, when they bombed the German fighter airdrome at Abbeville as part of the great combined operations that made up the Dieppe raid. Again the RAF sent congratulations. Of the thirty Focke-Wulf 190's based on that field, twenty were withdrawn to a base farther inland after the Forts paid a second visit to Abbeville some time later. On August 20 the railroad marshaling yards at Amiens were attacked, still with-out loss to our forces. The Germans were obviously puzzled as to how to handle the heavily armed bombers. Besides, the fighter escort continued to prove very effective.

But the next day when twelve B-17's set out to attack a target in the Low Countries, they were sixteen minutes late for their rendezvous

"
He came in like this . . ." After each sky battle, claims of enemy fighters destroyed are evaluated

with their fighter escort. As a result, the Spits were able to accompany them only halfway across the Channel. The Fortress formation, reduced to nine planes when three developed mechanical trouble, was recalled as it reached the Dutch coast. But for twenty minutes Jerry had his first chance to match his fighters against an unescorted Fortress formation.

The fight that followed was prophetic in several ways. The massed fire power of the Fortresses shot down two enemy fighters for certain and damaged several others (the newspapers enthusiastically credited the Forts with six destroyed). But one Fortress that lagged behind and never succeeded in getting back into tight formation was pounced upon by five FW 190's. A 20-mm. cannon shell exploded on the star-board side of the cockpit windscreen, wounding the pilot and injuring the copilot so seriously that he died later. The tail gunner shot down one Focke-Wulf and the ball-turret gunner claimed two others. The top turret became unserviceable after one burst. No. 3 and No. 4 engines were hit, but continued to function, and the Fort limped home to an English base.

The moral was simply that tight formation flying was the best protection against enemy fighters, that a crippled or laggard Fort would invariably be singled out for concentrated attack, that such a Fort might be able to destroy two or three or even more of the attackers, but it would be lucky to get back to the friendly fields of Britain.

The engagement was prophetic in yet another way. Even the modest claims of enemy fighters destroyed in this first real test of strength caused raised eyebrows in certain quarters where a heavy bomber was still considered to be relatively helpless against multiple fighter attack. The report that nine unescorted B-17's had fought off from twenty to twenty-five crack German pursuit pilots, downing two certainly and damaging the planes of several others, seemed too good to be true. No one openly challenged the claims, but the first seeds of doubt were planted. Before many weeks were past, they were to grow into some pretty troublesome weeds.

The kindergarten missions continued with what now seems a pathetically small token force of aircraft. The shipyards at Le Trait were attacked by twelve Fortresses. Eleven reached the target at Meaulte—the Avions Potez aircraft factory and repair depot where the Luftwaffe was presumably licking the wounds it had received during furious air battle that had accompanied the Allied landing at Dieppe. Thirteen were dispatched to bomb the German fighter airdrome at Courtrai-Wevelghem, in Belgium. From every mission new lessons were learned.

All these missions were carried out in weather which was so good that later it seemed like a. happy dream. And as mission after mission ended with no aircraft lost, the British press, cautious at first, became more and more enthusiastic. They speculated with amazement on the stamina of the American crews who failed to be affected by altitude. The Evening Standard surmised wisely that it was probably because the American airmen were such husky specimens—baseball players, no less. A British doctor went aloft with a crew to study the effects of high-altitude flying and promptly passed out himself —an incident which merely enhanced the legend. A few sober experts pointed out that the weather would not always be so good and that shallow penetrations into France or the Low Countries could not cripple Germany. But despite stiffening enemy fighter opposition the prevailing mood was one of high confidence.

In September operations continued, with more aircraft available. A Liberator group had arrived, the first two squadrons flying the Atlantic in formation with the loss of only one ship—defiantly but unwisely named Friday the 13th. These were not to be ready for combat until October, but more Forts were coming into action. On September 6 they went back to Meaulte—thirty of them over the target this time–and two were lost. They claimed four enemy fighters destroyed, nineteen probables, twenty damaged. The first VIII Bomber Command Fort lost in combat in the European Theater of Operations went down over Flasselles, apparently under control but also under heavy attack from three FW 190's. Four men bailed out and their chutes were seen to open. The other B-17 was last seen near Beachy Head, struggling toward Dover. British Air-Sea Rescue launches went out to look for it, without success.

So the Forts were not invincible, after all. There must have been rejoicing in the Luftwaffe mess that night. Actually, the enemy fighters that day were observed to have yellow noses and bellies, reputedly the markings of Göring's crack fighter squadrons. Evidently the Germans were beginning to take the Fortresses seriously. Stilt, they tried to hide from their people the fact that the Americans were invading the skies over Europe. There was no mention in the German press of American heavy bombers in action; the planes were always "British," and since they flew so high that identification was almost impossible it was not hard to maintain the fiction—for the time being.

Twice during this period our light bombers went out to attack shipping and harbor installations on the French coast. Each time they returned without loss, but for the heavies the going was getting progressively tougher. The following extract from the report of a pilot who took part in the third attack on Meaulte on October 2 gives an idea of what aerial combat over Europe was beginning to be like :

At 5.00 A.M. on the morning of October 2, 1942, I was waked up in a Nissen hut at one of our bomber stations in England. It was dark, and for a moment I didn't know quite where I was. I dressed quickly and gulped down the tea that was brought me. After that I went to the Intelligence office, where they gave me the exact location of the objective. It was the Potez aviation plant at Meaulte, in occupied France.

When the signal for the take-off came, I was so scared that I could hardly talk. Somehow, though, I managed to make it.

We were in Vee of Vees all the way into the target. Our ship was "Tail-end Charlie," the rear-most left-hand ship in the formation, and hence the last to bomb. We hit scattered heavy "flak" on our way in, but it was slight and did no harm. We got well over our targets, in formation and unmolested, and the bombing part was easy.

But that's when the enemy fighters started to pour it on. The German's strategy was obviously to pick on the last ship and shoot it down. All the gunners in the crew started calling through the interphones: "Enemy aircraft at three o'clock, Lieutenant! . At five o'clock! . . At nine o'clock! . . ." They were all around us.

The fighters were employing two tactics that were new to me. When they peeled out of their formation to attack, they came in so close together that by the time one ship had shot up and banked away, the next in line had his sights on us.

The other dodge they used was to pretend to come in on one of the other ships, and then do a twenty-degree turn and shoot hell out of us. Mostly they came from the rear, but at least one of them came up under us from in front, stalled, and as it fell of, raked us the length of the Fortress' belly. I could feel his hits banging into us. As a matter of fact, I could feel the effect of all their fire. It was rather like sitting in the boiler of a hot-water heater and being rolled down a steep hill.

There was an explosion behind me as a 20-mm. cannon shell banged into us just behind the upper turret, and exploded; and I kept thinking, "What

Into the Drink. Leaving a trail of smoke, a stricken Fortress crashes into the English Channel.

if it hit the flares?" If it hit the flares and ignited them, I knew we'd go up like a rocket.

Then I looked out at the right wing and saw it was shot to hell. There were holes everywhere. A lot of them were 20-mm. cannon holes, and they tear a hole in the skin you could shove a sheep through. The entire wing was just a Goddam bunch of holes.

About that time, several other unpleasant things happened all at once. First, one of the waist gunners yelled through the interphone: "Lieutenant, there's a bunch of control wires slapping me in the face," which meant that the tail surface controls were being shot up. Second, the right-hand outboard engine "ran away" and the engine controls were messed up so we couldn't shut it off. Third, the left-hand inboard engine quit. And fourth, the ship went into a steep climb, which I couldn't control.

I forgot to say that the whole left-oxygen system had gone out, and that I was trying to get the ship down to 20,000 feet to keep half my crew from passing out. One gunner passed out from lack of oxygen, and the radio operator, seeing him lying by his gun, abandoned his own oxygen supply and put the emergency mask of the walk-around bottle over the gunner's face. The gunner revived just in time to see the radio operator pass out. He, in turn, took the emergency mask off his own face and revived the radio operator with it.

To return to the fourth unpleasant thing that happened—when our ship went into a steep climb, I simply couldn't hold her level. There was something wrong with the controls. I motioned to the copilot to help me, and between the two of us, we managed to get it forward and assume normal level flight.

Then I started to think. The enemy fighters were still shooting us up, we had a long way to go to reach England and safety, we were minus two engines and it took almost full left aileron to hold that damaged right wing up. It was time, I decided, to bail out of the aircraft. So I yelled into the interphone: "Prepare to abandon ship."

But just about that time the top gunner slid out of the top turret and fell between me and the copilot. His face was a mess. He was coughing blood; I thought he'd been wounded in the chest. It later proved that he wasn't, but he was clearly in no condition to bail out of an airplane.

I called for the bombardier and navigator to come up and help us with the top turret gunner, and they did. Back in the waist one of our gunners was manning two guns despite a bad bullet wound in his leg. I don't know how many fighters we damaged or destroyed; there wasn't time to worry about that. We got out over the Channel, finally, and a flight of Spits came racing out to meet us. Brother, they looked mighty good. We nursed the Fort across and made a belly landing on the first airdrome we could find. We nicked a hangar on the way in, but somehow we made it.. .

Afterward they counted sixteen cannon holes and 300 bulletholes in the Fortress. The pace was beginning to grow hot in what bomber pilots were soon to be calling "the Big League.