A Tribute to My Crew
My crew and I arrived at the 95th Bomb Group in mid-April 1944. After poor winter flying weather, orders were given by the 8th AF command to fly in big numbers of planes and fly deep. It was our good fortune to successfully complete 36 missions. In our early missions we survived a number of Luftwaffe fighter attacks. We felt certain we experienced more than our fair share of anti-aircraft shrapnel, having countless holes in the planes we flew. I was privileged to fly under the command of Colonel McKnight and in his formation when he led the 95th. Colonel McKnight was small in stature; to his pilots he was 7 feet tall. If you will bear with me, I would like you to fly in each position of a B‐17.
ON THIS MISSION YOU ARE THE PILOT. You are well qualified and trained to be commander of your crew. After three months of academic, physical and discipline training, patterned after West Point, you take your first training flight off a grass field in an open cockpit plane on April 6, 1943. A year later on April 25, 1944 you fly your first combat mission. The full year in between, you were on a training flight Monday through Friday, every day weather permitting, flying over 400 hours. Training was demanding – 50% of your primary flight class washed out. The national average was known to be 40%. Two months after your first flight, you were doing aerobatics, spins, snap rolls, slow rolls, etc. Upon receiving your wings and commission you are overwhelmed to be assigned to fly the B‐17, the largest plane in the air at that time. After B‐17 training, you are assigned to meet your crew members in Avon Park, Florida. Your combat training is cut short after 11 weeks and 130 flying hours to head north by train to board the Queen Elizabeth with 20,000 other troops. Your arrival at the 95th in Horham is a somber experience. You are assigned the empty bunks of a crew that had recently gone down. You inherit their white sheets. Several days later you are assigned a takeoff time for an orientation flight. With two engines running, the tower announced the field was closed – to shut down all engines. In seconds, from an air‐to‐air collision, bodies and fragments of planes descended within your view. While training in Florida your crew made a unique friendship with another crew, each crewmember forming a bond of friendship with their counterpart. Your friends went down, no survivors, on their second mission. You are on that mission. In combat one did not make many friends. Normal procedure on the first mission is to have the Pilot fly Co-Pilot on another crew for experience. On your first mission, and thereafter, you flew as Pilot with your full crew.
YOU ARE NOW THE CO-PILOT. Initially you are disappointed to be assigned Co‐Pilot. You took the same training as the Pilot, earning your wings and commission. You dreamed of commanding your own plane. Flying three out of your first ten missions to Berlin convinced you of the necessity and importance of a B‐I7 Co‐Pilot in combat. Your Berlin missions are approximately 10 hours, requiring 8 hours of high-altitude formation flying, requiring second by second concentration. When attacked by enemy fighters, a tight formation is critical for survival. Over the target under concentrated enemy anti-aircraft artillery fire, the success of the mission is dependent on a tight formation. After the 3rd Berlin mission you are a seasoned Co‐Pilot and Pilot. Numerous times, you as a Co‐Pilot, have successfully assumed command when the Pilot was disabled. On this mission your alertness saved the lives of 20 airmen. The mission started with an instrument take‐off at approximately 5 a.m. in poor weather. You climbed on instruments to the designated rendezvous altitude of 17,000 ft. Weather was poor at 17.000 ft. You climbed to the new rendezvous altitude of 19,000 ft. Similar conditions at 19,000 ft moved the rendezvous to 21,000 ft. Shortly after reaching 21,000 ft. you grasp the control column and violently turn the plane to the left, standing it vertically on its wing tip. Another B‐17 roared by, so close the Bombardier stated he could have touched it. Your split-second reactions avoided a deadly collision. Minutes later the mission was scrubbed due to bad weather. Several hundred dispatched B‐17's now had to descend through the weather, on instruments with zero traffic control, to their base, and land with bombs aboard. You receive no recognition of merit, no credit for a mission. Your flight log merely listed approximately 2 1⁄2 hours in the air.
YOU ARE NOW THE BOMBARDIER AND NAVIGATOR. You will spend approximately eight months in the Plexiglas nose of a B‐17. You enter and leave through the front hatch on every flight. You do not need combat for excitement. Taking off and landing, day and night, in the nose of a Flying Fortress is a thrill a minute. In combat, fully loaded to 30 ton, you are conscious of barely being airborne when the 6000 ft. runway ends. You are the first to see and enter the blackened flak filled skies over the target. Enemy fighters favor attacking from 12 o’clock high, directly at you. As Bombardier you have trained for months on the Norden bombsight. You have the responsibility of releasing bombs, knowing they will result in death and destruction. With your crew you maintain intercom communication with the gunner stations on all missions, making each of them a vital member of a team effort. Your calm and collected manner and dry sense of humor serves you well. Throughout all the missions there was never any panic. Your name is Harry Hull. As Navigator, it is critical that you chart your planes exact location at all times. On two missions, damage forced your plane out of formation, forcing you to return alone. On the Munich mission your plane took a near direct artillery hit over the target, spraying shrapnel throughout the plane. You sensed an alarming loss of power as the plane rapidly lost altitude. As the Pilot leveled the plane at approximately 5000 ft, you learned the oxygen supply was destroyed, the left inboard engine disabled and feathered, and turbo power lost on the remaining three engines. The Pilot made the decision to try and return to base rather than nearby Switzerland. Your navigating skills successfully plotted a return route away from the sizable cities and enemy airfields. Miraculously you returned to Horham without further damage. Your plane had been reported shot down.
YOU ARE NOW THE ENGINEER GUNNER. You are located behind the Pilot and Co‐Pilot in a turret with your head exposed above the plane. You are trained on the internal operations of the plane. On take‐offs and landings, you stand behind the cockpit, calling out air speed and altitude readings. When a 500 lb. bomb failed to release over the target, you leave your turret, and with a portable oxygen bottle, proceed to the narrow catwalk between the gaping bomb bays. At 27,000 ft and 40°‐50° degrees below zero, you successfully release the bomb. On another mission, again with a portable oxygen bottle, you attempted unsuccessfully to manually close the bomb bay doors, which failed to close by motor. The resulting drag slowed down the plane, dropping it out of formation and forcing a delayed return landing with open bomb bay doors. On ensuing missions, you are knocked out of your turret by shrapnel and suffer facial lacerations. Yet on another mission the Co‐Pilot finds you unconscious with oxygen disconnected. You served heroically. Your name is John Kozlowski. Several weeks after completing 36 missions your health broke down from the trauma of combat. You spent 10 years of your young life in rehabilitation; a heavy price to pay for freedom.
YOU ARE NOW THE RADIO GUNNER. You have a lonely position in a small closed compartment, aft of the bomb bay. You have the responsibility of maintaining communication with the mission command and with your base. On one mission, with the 95th as lead group, you have a German speaking associate specialist with you. The plane was specially equipped to monitor activity on Luftwaffe airfields and report to command. On the Leipzig mission, due to poor visibility, the group made three bomb runs over the target. One is too many, two is far worse, and three is suicide. On the third run your plane is hit hard by shrapnel. Shrapnel came up through the floor of your compartment and tore a hole through the seat of your radio chair, scattering debris throughout the compartment. Miraculously you were uninjured, while standing, throwing out metallic chaff to confuse enemy radar. Several hours later, upon landing, you remained in a state of shock and had to be assisted off the plane.
YOU ARE NOW THE BALL TURRET GUNNER. You have nerves of steel to be fully exposed below the belly of your plane during fighter attacks and antiaircraft artillery over the target. If the power controls of your turret are disabled by enemy fire, you are totally dependent on your fellow crew members to manually crank your turret to the open hatch position. Even in training, many fellow crewmembers would not enter the ball turret unless the plane was parked on the ground. At age 27, you are an unlikely candidate for ball turret gunner. Your maturity is a guiding factor in combat and off duty. On the Munich mission, you served heroically, treating your fellow gunner and making sheared control cable repairs. You are dearly beloved as one of the 95th’s great story tellers. Your name is Lou Westerburg.
YOU ARE NOW THE WAIST GUNNER. While the Pilot and Co‐Pilot have the most comfortable seats in the house, you have the most uncomfortable. You are standing for hours, scanning the skies for fighter attacks. You have two dubious advantages, nothing to write home about. One, there are two of you to commiserate and two, you have quick access to bail out. Your area is possibly the coldest area in the plane. You and your colleague have suffered many a frozen finger handling your guns. When the Co‐Pilot made the life-saving severe maneuver, you were thrown violently against your guns, nothing but metal. Your heavy flying suit helped protect you from serious injury. On the Munich mission, you were seriously wounded in the shoulder by shrapnel. You were stabilized and bleeding controlled by your fellow waist gunner and the ball turret gunner. You had surgery at the 95th Base Hospital, returned to the states having a second surgery for full recovery. Along with the ball turret gunner, you claimed two fighter kills With so many group guns in action, your claim was not recognized on record.
YOU ARE NOW THE TAIL GUNNER. You are fearless and one of a kind to be tail gunner on a Flying Fortress. Surely there are few volunteers, if any, for this remote position. A comfortable seat and your personal bailout exit are your only two dubious advantages. On night take offs, using an Aldis signaling lamp, you flash color code to identify your planes location. You are seated backwards, totally dependent on the Bombardier’s communication to keep you abreast of what is happening forward in the plane. You are flying possibly in the most frequently damaged area of the plane. You pray for a tight formation to keep enemy fighters from lobbing 20mm shells into your position. You breathe easy only after your wheels touch down on the runway after each mission.
Thank you for flying with me.
Jack Bertram, Pilot, 412th Squadron
