467th Bombardment Group (H)
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01 Jan 1983 - Phillip George Day - Recollection
Recollection
I first met Ted at Hardwick in November, 1944. I had a cousin, Capt. Frank Wernlein, with the 93rd, then Group? Squadron? Gunnery Officer to finish out six months overseas after completing his missions in a short time. Frank flew in to Rackheath one Thursday in a 24 with only a crew chief aboard (Were you allowed to do that?), I was very impressed. I was on watch prior to a three day pass and we made arrangements to meet in Norwich, then to Hardwick for a day so that I could see some old classmates and RTU buddies, Carlos "Charley" Vasques, Earl (None) Gattin, Joe Clawson, Bland, Bertinni, Joe Nickols. While at Hardwick, Frank said “let's go see your other cousin" which was a complete shocker as my only other cousin in the Air Force, Ralph Day, had been machine gunned to death in his parachute after bailing out of his fighter plane over France in early 44.

Frank was speaking of Ted, married to Mary Evelyn Bell of Shreveport, closest friend of my oldest sister, they were (are) like sisters. We talked, visited, ate and drank together that evening. Ted told me how he made short runway stops, putting all four engines in idle cut off and pushing four wind milling propellers down the runway, restarting them before they windmilled too far down to be caught by putting the mixture back in auto rich. I told Bill Johnston, my pilot, of this on return to Rackheath and we used the method. It was like throwing out four anchors, we could turn off at the runway intersection every landing if we wished, it saved lots of wear and tear on brakes and we had our nose wheel on the runway, not hauled up and back trying to let the wings and flaps slow us down be-fore braking. Not SOP, but it worked. I never told anyone else about the idea, maybe a lot of crews did it…

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Personnel:
Day, Phillip George
Johnston, William Arthur