…This is June 12 and mission fifteen flying deputy lead of the group to hit an airfield at Evreaux, France. We are sending in three squadrons and are carrying high explosives, incendiary, fragmentation and delayed action bombs. We are to hit the buildings, hangers and runways. We are to blow it up, cut it up, burn it up and drop delayed action bombs with 12-, 24-, 36- and 72-hour delays on the runway area to keep the Germans out. If they attempt to fix the runway, these delayed action bombs go off and keep the work crews from getting it fixed. They don’t know what delay is set in the bombs and it keeps them kinda loose! Each squadron has a mix of bombs so in case someone misses at least all types of bombs will take effect.

WE played cards until quite late last night because it was not our turn to fly. Dave Swearingen’s crew was up, but we got an early wake up call. It seems like he had a little to drink and wasn’t able to make it so we are taking his place.

Everything seemed routine as we took off in #237, formed up and climbed enroute so when we crossed the French coast we were at our bombing altitude of eighteen thousand feet. As we made the turn at the I,P, we could see that they had only on battery of four anti-aircraft guns firing at us, and it seemed like a piece of cake. Our load was two hundred forty pond clusters of fragmentation bombs and we were to drop in a close string on the hanger area. We opened the Bombay doors as we approached the puffs of flack. Their guns always shot a pattern — low left, hight right, high left and low right — so we could kinda figure out where these bursts would be. Solinsky had pulled the safety pins from the nose detonator so when the bombs dropped the little propeller on the end would spin off and the bomb would become live. Just after “bombs away” a pattern of flack appeared. Low left, hight right, high left and we knew that the next would be low right and that meant it would hit right below us. It did and their was a hell of an explosion as our bombs exploded. We were already lifting up because the plane lightened as the bombs dropped away and the explosion lifted us higher.

I had been looking out over the right wing and had checked back on the instruments just beef the loud bang. I looked out again and it appeared as though someone had run up and down the wing with a can opener. We had been blown slightly away from the lead plane and we were fighting for control. I called for a crew check and everyone reported in and no one had been hit. We were just settling down into formation when the oil pressure started dropping on number one engine. When it got down to the red line, I pointed it out to Chuck and he said, “feather it.” I lifted the guard over the feathering buttons and hit number three, pulled back the throttle, etc. and it feathered out and stopped. We had just gotten the plane trimmed, advanced a little more power on the other engines, and I looked and the oil pressure on number four began fluctuating and finally dropped to the red line. I again pointed this out to Chuck and again it was, “feather it and shut it down.” I thought, “Oh God, here we go again!”

With number three and four shut down we were really having a problem. No power on the right side and more power on numbers one and two on the left side made the plane turn to the right. Chuck had cranked in all the trim that the trim tabs would provide and we were both standing on the left rudder to try to maintain straight flight and I had put down fifteen degrees of flaps to try to save altitude. The Wyatt in the left waist position called and told us that number two was smoking and leaking oil. Chuck and I looked at teach other and decided that no way could we feather it, so we would let it run as long as it would.

We were now losing altitude and dropping back from the formation. All at once number one began to roar and was running away. The supercharger control was gone and we couldn’t control it. Changing the prop pitch to full slowed it a little, but it was really getting hot. I opened the cowl flaps so it could benefit from the maximum amount of air, but the collector ring went from red to cherry red to white hot. THe strain of standing on the left rudder with both feet left us with a nervous tic in our legs and they would start to jump up and down, but we had no choice now but to do everything we could to try to get back to the invasion coast of France.
I had the command radio channel so I called the formation leader. We were supposed to maintain radio silence so all I said was, “Lincoln Green leader, this is Lincoln Green Deputy.” After a few minutes he said, “Lincoln Green Deputy, this is Lincoln Green Leader, state your position.” I told him we were about twelve miles back and eight thousand feet down behind them. He answered, “Goodbye.” Now at a time like this that sounded rather final. As German fighters always picked on stragglers and cripples, and we qualified for both and it began to bother me a little, in fact, a whole lot. I don’t remember becoming any more scared, because I was about as nervous as you could get, but I did get madder and madder. Finally, I pressed the radio button and said, “At least you can send me some fighters!’

This transmission was never acknowledged, and there we were alone, crippled and scared and trying our best to get that big bird back to the coast. I called all the gun positions and told them if anything with less than four engines appeared and pointed its nose at us to shoot at it. About six minutes later the right waist gunner called and said there were four “bogies” coming in at three o’clock. I told everyone that could to train in on them. They kept coming and finally pulled up and there were four P-51s! What a sight! We didn’t have a fighter channel on the radio so we couldn’t contact them, but they pulled up two right and above and two left and below. As slow as we were going, they had to weave in and out to stay with us, but they hung in there for over an hour until we were approaching the coast and then they waggled their wings and took off to find something that was more fun to do.

By the time we were approaching the French coast we decided to fly over the city of Caen. The British were in control there when we went in but, as we crossed over there at three thousand feet on the way out, the Germans had retaken some of the town and we were subjected to heavy ground fire.

We had fought that great airplane for one and one-half hours trying to keep it flying and bring it back to the coast. It seemed for a time that we wouldn’t be able to make it. We were down to one hundred twenty miles per hour, nose slightly up, two engines feathered on one side, one smoking badly and one running away. We were down to three thousand feet from eighteen thousand five hundred and it felt like we had physically held that plane up in the air for the last fifty miles. Our arms, feet and legs were numb from fighting the controls. Our engineer Bernie Solinsky and the radio operator Bob Troy were on the flight deck now feeling as tense as we were with all the tracers from machine guns on the ground flying by us, and all the time we’re settling closer and closer to Mother Earth. We couldn’t stand this any longer so we turned right into the two dead engines which is a bad thing to do, but it was necessary to get us in the clear. We leveled off for about five minutes then turned left along the water’s edge.

We got by Caen and spotted a slash in the ground to our left. It was made by the British Royal Engineers who were carving out a single airstrip. We found out later that the Royal Canadian Air Force was to bring in a squadron of ‘Typhoons: the next day. These were British fighter bombers.

This strip we had spotted was about five miles from the beach. I told Solinsky to stay with us for a while and pushed the bail out button for the rest of the crew to jump. They all bailed out and Bernie walked through the Bombay to the waist section to check the landing gear. We had made the decision to land wheels down on this partially completed strip. After what we had been through we wanted to save our “valiant steed” is at all possible.

Bernie called to tell us the right gear was down and locked, then a few seconds later that the left gear was down and locked. I told him that even though he wanted to stay, to jump because we couldn’t guarantee what would happen on landing. He disappeared through the bottom hatch. We made a rounding turn at eight hundred feet to line up with that strip of freshly turned earth. We knew it was short and narrow, but as we lined it up, it seemed to get shorter and shorter and narrower. It was power off, except for number one which had a mind of its own. Drop flaps. “Oh God, here we go again!”

The hydraulic system is gone and in a limited time frame I attempted to put some more down by using the “wobble pump”, but succeed in only getting down about ten more degrees before Chuck was rounding it out for touchdown.

Just after we had made the turn to line up at eight hundred feet we discovered the strip was covered with men. Some had shovels, picks, etc, and, near the farthest end, there was a bulldozer being operated. They didn’t see us coming so what to do now? Luckily, there were some soldiers with Bren guns guarding these people from snippers in the woods. One soldier spotted us and fired a burst over the heads of the others working on the strip and they looked up, was us, dropped their equipment and ran. The operator of the bulldozer, when he spotted us, just jumped leaving the dozer on the strip and ran.

As we had only partial flaps, and some power on number one, we came in pretty fast. We hit the soft sandy strip about one hundred twenty miles an hour. With the hydraulic system shot out we knew we had only one push on the brakes. We both tipped out feet forward locking the wheels. First it tipped up as the nose wheel sucked up in the wheel well and slowly started to turn right because of the power on number one engine. We slid down that sandy gash in the earth sending shovels, etc. flying. Lips tight, eyes squinting, trying everything to keep ti straight. Just as it seemed that all was lost, that we would lose it and start to cartwheel, that number one engine hit the bulldozer that had been left in the middle of the strip. This turned us to the left and lined us up with the strip again. We were now down to about sixty miles per hour as we hit a bank about two feet high that was left when the dozer had made its last pass across. The nose bounced up and the B-24 lurched up though the top of the hedgerow and settled down in the grass of the next field. There were a few cattle grazing there and they just raised their heads, looked at us and went back to eating.

We had stopped and things became very quit. I popped the snap on my safety harness and my chute, stood up, turned, opened the top hatch and pulled myself up on top of the plane. Looking only to the left, I ran down the wing and jumped to the gourd. As I hit, I heard the pitter patter of little feet and looked up to see Chuck jumping down beside me. We looked deep into each others eyes and shook hands as I said, “That sure was one hell of a ride!” We then both started talking in excited phrases. Chuck talking about how lucky we were to hit that bulldozer before we killed ourselves and me damning that wobble pump that wouldn’t work fast enough and both of us about clipping the top of the hedgerow.

We both had lighted up a cigarette when we hear this whining, roaring sound, flooded by a loud, thumping explosion back by the strip. I said, “What the hell was that?” We finally decided that there were artillery shells falling on the strip. The Germans evidently knew that an airstrip was being built, but didn’t know exactly where because the were unable to get any planes up to spot it. Our fighters had control of the air over the beachhead area for several days. We guessed that when the enemy saw us coming in for a landing they had zeroed their guns in where we disappeared behind the trees, so if we hadn’t gone by the end of the runway we could have been in deep trouble.

When the explosions started, we got down behind a stump. Thinking back on it now, I realize it wouldn’t have done any good, but we surely felt a hell of a lot safer at the time.

The barrage was over in a matter of minutes and we were walking back by the plane when we spotted a Jeep coming. In the Jeep along with the driver and a Captain was Wing Commander Brown of the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was probably the maddest man I had ever encounter in my life! He ranted and raved about us screwing up his strip, and then having the hell blown out of it and that he had to have the steel mat down in the morning so he could bring his planes in by noon. I finally got a little weary of it and told him that when it came down to a choice between his strip and my butt he was going to lose every time. He carried on for a few more minutes before they sped away in a cloud of dust. We took care of the Norden Bombsight. It was top secret and had to be put out of commission.

By then a group of the soldiers who had been working on the strip ran up and were looking at the plane and ask about how they had survived the artillery barrage. We found out that as far as this group knew there weren’t any casualties and not any damage they couldn’t fix in a short time because it was only sand.

About ten minutes later another Jeep driven by a Corporal drove up and asked if we needed a rider. Not having any idea of where we were in connection with what was going on in the immediate area, we asked if he would take us to the mess area because we were hungry enough to eat the rear end out of a road killed skunk.

After a couple of gentle pats on the side of #237 we got in the back of the Jeep and bounced across a field behind a screen of trees. There they had set up a few tents and had a field kitchen set up, but they didn’t seem to be cooking anything so all they gave us was each a cup of tea and a number two can of fruit cocktail to split between us. Now this was not exactly what we had in mind and it really didn’t do much to fill the void but was better than a kick in the tail with a frozen boot.

We looked around until we found the Jeep driver and he volunteered to take us down to the beach or as near he could. A soldier from the British Infantry rode along with us. We managed to get about halfway to the waters edge when things became pretty congested. Coming the other way were columns of soldiers, trucks, Jeeps, half-tracks, tanks and all the equipment used in fighting a war.

We thank the Jeep driver and tell him we will proceed on foot along the edge of the field. The British soldier is in the lead when we come across some white tape that has been stretched around a square of several hundred feet across. The soldier turns and says something about the tape. The noise combined with the British accent makes me think he said not to step on the tape, so I step over it and proceed into the square. He glances around and screams, “Stop! You are walking though a bloody mine field!” I become a statue of a man with one foot off the ground. Slowly I turn around and search the ground for my footprints and, when finding them, I carefully make my way back to the others. I cant believe it but the soldier has turned into a tour guide. He shows us a stack of plastic mines that were removed from the makeshift roadway. The detonators had been taken out and were laying in the grass.

A number of German corpses were lying under the edge of some bushes. I reach down and pick up a cap and stuff it in my pocket. We see the result of someone’s bombs as they had exploded as the British and Canadians were nearing the beaches a few days ago.

Ahead of us is organized confusion — Higgins boats are grinding ashore dropping their ramps and disgorging their load, be it men or machines. Everyone and everything trying to get ashore and continue inland. Large piles of boxes and equipment are everywhere waiting to be loaded an trucked away. Motors are roaring, people shouting and diesel and gasoline fumes drift across the sand.

We stop a lieutenant and ask if he knows how we can get a ride back to England. He points to a rather large, red-faced man standing on a little mound of sand and black grass and tells us that he is the Beachmaster and to ask him. Getting this man’s attention is no easy task. He is using a bull horn and shouting, cajoling, cursing and pleading with people to go this way or that. Controlling mechanical, foot and boat traffic all at t one time seems an impossible task, but he is doing it. He has very little time for conversation.

While waiting for a chance to talk to him, Chuck points and says, “There is Smith, our tail gunner.” I’m looking for someone dressed as we are in a green zippered flying suit and I don’t see him. Chuck shouts at him and waves his arms. Smith recognizes Chuck and comes our way dressed in a Royal Air Force uniform. Seems he had landed in the water and had been pulled out wringing wet. As he stood there shivering, someone pried the top off a box and handed him this dry uniform. He looked rather handsome in this blue get up.

When we finally got a chance to speak to the Beach master and explained what we wanted, he pointed to a Higgins boat that was nearly unloaded and told us to run down and get aboard it before it pulled up its ramp and backed away from the beach. Here we were standing indie the still oblong box as it turned, heeled over and bounced toward the jetty for another load.

A number of ships had been scuttled in water shallow enough to leave the decks ten feet or more above water at thigh tide and were hooked together to form a platform several hundred feet long. Ships crossed over from England, docked alongside and off loaded their cargos onto the huge platform. This cargo was then loaded aboard Higgins boats and ferried to the shore. Our boat joined the line of boats waiting to approach the dock. After about twenty minutes we pulled alongside, tied up and immediately started taking crates and boxes of all sizes.

The three of us scrambled up a cargo net to the deck and were motioned aside by a Navy man. We retreated about fifty feet to a pile of rope that was coiled up near a part of the superstructure. What a flurry of activity as the tethered ship disgorges its cargo by cranes, cargo nets and conveyors. Shouts of the men in charge, whines of winches, rattles of chains, crashes and thumps that causes a din that makes normal conversation impossible.

After about an hour things quiet down as the hawser ropes are released and the ship slowly edges away. During this rather quiet period we hear a roaring, swishing sound whistling above us, coming from the left and quickly disappearing to the right which was the shoreward side. This was happening on quite a regular basis and we couldn’t figure out what it was. Finally I got up off my comfortable seat on the coiled rope and asked a Navy seaman what was going on up there. He pointed out to sea and said that that battleship way off in the distance was the U.S.S. Texas and that it was firing broadsides at a white house several miles inland which he pointed to. It seems that the Germans were using this white house as an observation platform to direct artillery fire toward the invasion beachhead. We had no Allied artillery positions set up to knock it out so they called upon the Navy to do it for us.

We could see puffs of smoke when they fired the sixteen inch Navy rifles and soon thereafter we could hear these giant projectiles flying by overhead causing this whistling, swishing sound. A little later we would hear a dull, booming sound as they hit.

The battleship Texas would fire a broadside that would cause the ship to heel back and the guns would be pointed up at least a thirty degree angle. IT would then rock back and they would point toward the water, and as it rocked back up and came into firing position, it would fire again and the sequence would be repeated.

Shortly thereafter we looked toward shore and Ould no longer see the white house, and the Texas quit firing so we chalked it up as “mission accomplished!”

The seaman asked us if we had seen the projectiles as they were going over. We had laughed because we knew he was kidding us, but he wasn’t. He told us when we saw the next puff of smoke to look skyward toward shore and when we heard the sound to look just ahead of it and we would see them. When we saw the battleship fire we turned and looked up and were amazed to be able to see these sixteen inch projectiles flying through the sky.

Another ship slid up alongside and started to unload. We lounged on our pile of rope watching the coming and going of the ships and boats and finally drifted off to sleep.

About six p.m. we were awakened by one of the Navy men who told us our transportation to England had arrived. We went over to the rail and saw a small, rather sleek boat tied to the side. The U.S. Navy had P.T. boats, the Germans had “E” boats and this was the English version of an M.T. boat. It was powered by two six hundred fifty h.p. diesel engines, had a small cabin and a sheltered deck area. We were ushered aboard along with some Army and Navy brass who had evidently been ashore to observe the landing.

The skipper of this craft wasted no time in getting under way. We swung sharply away and the bow came up and soon it had leveled off and planed along on a rather calm sea. Now, this was an unique experience for us flying guys. About a half hour later the sea became rather rough and he throttled back a little to smooth out the ride as some of the “ground pounders” were getting a little seasick.

The skipper came up on deck to observe his passengers and limped over to where we’re sitting with our backs to some ring life preservers. He asked us if we were fliers and, when we acknowledged we were, he told us that he had been an English Lancaster bomber pilot, but had gotten badly hurt in a crash landing, so when he got up and about again they gave him command of this boat because he had owned a boat before the war. This then accounted for the limp he had. He invited the three of us down in the cabin for a drink. The cabin was small and compact and in the center was a table fastened to the deck. It had indentations in it for plates and glasses or mugs. He got out four glasses, set them in the table and opened a cabinet and took out a rather large bottle of dark looking liquid. As soon as he opened it it was readily apparent it was rum. Ever since early sailing days it was a custom in the English Navy to have their daily rations of rum and I guess this is still true today. Anyway, he poured these water glasses full of rum, set the bottle back in the cabinet and sat down, raised his glass and toasted the Queen. Rum and I have never gotten along too well, but I took a long drink and set the glass back on the table.

We chatted about flying, the war in general and the Navy. I would sit there until I could get my mouth full of saliva, then tip the glass up and take a drink. This was the only way I could down the stuff. In doin this, I emptied my glass before the others did and he immediately jumped up and asked if I would like another drink. To be nice about it I told him, “No, thanks, I don’t want to run you short.” When he said that he had ten gallons aboard, I thought to myself, “he probably uses it in the diesel engines.”

He lured ne another half glass and I sat back feeling the flow and the affect of the drink. I looked to one side of the cabin and I could see blue sky out of the porthole and on the other side I should see green water and in seconds they would reverse. This led me to believe that this little boat was really rolling and soon I knew I had better go back on deck in the fresh air. I excused myself and went topside and sat by the bulkhead facing aft and the fresh air made me feel a whole lot better.

Between drinks and the fact that it had been a long and exciting day I fell asleep. When I awoke it was because the boat had been throttled back and we were kinda bobbing along on rather calm water. Chuck and Smith were beside me and it was black. It was as black as it can only get on a moonless night in an English blackout. Someone led us over to the rail and said to reach out and we would feel a ladder. Chuck went first, then Smith, then I went. It was an iron lancer and we climbed what must have been at least fifty feet until we reached the top. The sides of the ladder rolled up at the top and there we were standing on cement in a blackout somewhere in England. We had no idea where we were, we only knew it was rather still and eerie.

We stood there talking in whispers and wondering what to do next. Smith said he thought he saw a light flash briefly, and it was decided to walk that way. It was easy walking down this cement walkway, but we stepped gingerly because it was like traveling into the unknown. After a few minutes a light was flashed in our eyes and someone out in the darkness shouted, “HALT.” I mean, we really froze in our tracks! Footsteps approached and someone in an English accent said, “Who are you and what are you doing here?” We told him we had arrived by boat from France, climbed up yonder ladder and were looking for someone who could help us and maybe tell us where we were. He said that we bloody well had some explaining to do, then shined the light down and told us to follow him. We asked maybe fifty yards to a small square building. He opened the door to a brightly lighted room and motioned us inside. As we became accustomed to the lights we saw it was the inside of a guard hut and the windows were all covered with blackout curtains.

Seated at a desk was a British Naval officer of some junior rank, probably a Sub-Lieutenant who was officer of the day. We explained to him how we happened to be at that particular place and wanted to know where we were. He told us that we had arrived in the slip of the H.M.S. Valiant, and we were somewhere in the South Hampton Naval yard.

We informed him that we wanted to go to the nearest American Army installation. After talking it over they decided we should be taken to the front gate to the place an talk to the people in charge there.

We got in the back of a 6x6 truck and were driven to the gate that must have been a couple of miles. Never did get a chance to see what this place looked like. In the guard hut at the front gate were a couple of enlisted people and another officer. We went through the whole bit again explaining who we were and how we got there, and how we wanted to be put in contact with the United States Army. They said that there was a U;S; Army depot down the road about two miles, but they couldn’t take us. We would be allowed out the gate to the road.

We stood out on the road for about twenty minutes until a British lorry came inching along in the dark. We hollered and he braked to a halt. We asked if he was going by the Army Depot and, if he was, could he give us a ride over there. He told us to jump in and we rode along to the front gate of the installation. Here started a very frustrating series of events. We went into the guard shack and asked to see the Captain of the Guard. He wasn’t available so we asked the sergeant if he could arrange some transportation from there to Rackheath Airfield Station #145. He asked to see our orders. We explained that it was impossible for us to have any orders. He replies, “No orders, no transportation.” Oh, the hell with it, we were tired, dirty and in no mood to argue, so we said that we wanted a bed so we could get some sleep. Finally, he let us inside and said that there were some barracks four blocks down on the corner on the right and, if we could find some empty bunks in there, to crawl in and we would sort everything out in the morning.

We found the building, went in and it was dark. How the hell do you find an empty bed in the dark? We finally went along feeling the foot of the beds until we found three empty ones, flopped down and, in spite of all the nervous tension built up in us, we were soon in a sound sleep. A sleep like someone had brained you with a rock!

When we awakened the next morning it was about eight-thirty a.m. We washed up and inquired the whereabouts of the mess hall. We followed direction given to us and all went well until we found it was closed. I pounded on the door until it was opened by a very large mess sergeant. We explained to him what had happened, and he explained to us that the mess hall closed at eight a.m. sharp. I must have looked like I was going to cry or something because he finally relented and told us to walk around to the rear entrance. He met us there, took us inside the kitchen and seated us at a table and ordered the cook to fry up some bacon, eggs and fried potatoes for us. A large pitcher of hot coffee was provided for us and the Sergeant sat down and told us he wanted to hear our experience. After all he was doing for us, we were more that happy to relate what had happened.

We found in the telling that some things sounded very serious but that there were some very amusing incidents as well. When we finished eating things were beginning to look brighter. We thanked him and the cook warmly and made our way back to the main gate. Things in that area hadn’t improved one bit. When we explained to those day shift men who we were, what had happened to us and what we wanted we again heard the familiar refrain, “No orders, no transportation.” We couldn’t even call the base on telephone. Finally, we could see we were getting nowhere fast, so we again wandered out in the road. The weather was rather dreary with low clouds and a mist falling. We huddled to make plans for what we should do now. Chuck said, “Listen!” We stopped mumbling and grumbling and detected the roar of an airplane engine in the distance. Chuck went back and asked what airfield it was and was informed it was Thorny Island R.A.F Base.

We started walking in that direction and soon a truck slowed down and asked where we were heading. When we told him we were going Thorny Island, he told us to hop in because that was where he was going. When he stopped at the gate, we got down and stepped inside where we were warmly greeted by the British guards. We again went through who we were, what had happened, how we had arrived there and what we wanted. We were given seats, told to wait and soon a Flight Lieutenant came in. He had apparently been told about us and asked a few questions, then invited us to ride in a car with him down to the flight line. Word had evidently gotten around that we were coming and several flying officers were standing there to meet us. We talked to the Operations Officer and he called the weather section and they told him that weather would clear enough at half past one that they could fly. He said that as soon as it cleared he would have someone fly us to Rackheath, but that in the meantime we had better accompany them to the Officers’ mess for lunch.

British Officers were very “spit and polish” and I can assure that right now we didn’t fit in that category. We went into the rest room, washed up a little and tried to comb our hair a little with our fingers. (Yes, we still had hair then!) Our flight suits were wrinkled and sweet stained from flying that B-24 and we had quite a stubble of a beard, but they said not to worry.

We entered and sat down to six man table with white linen tablecloths, real dishes and flatware. We were served by English girls and everything was quite proper. We were asked a barrage of questions and the guys all around us seemed to be quite interested in what we had experienced.

At the table on my right, on Flight Lieutenant seemed to be taking quite a little ribbing about something and after lunch while having a cigarette I asked him what it was all about. He said he was a torpedo bomber pilot and that the previous night had been out on night patrol trying to spot some enemy shipping. He had been out for a couple of hours when he got a nice blip on his radar screen. He swung around on hundred seventy degrees, flew back, picked up a radar contact again, made a nice run on it, dropped his torpedo and returned knowing full well he had sunk an enemy vessel, but as it turned out he had lined up on and released his torpedo on a huge rock on the edge of the Guernsey Islands. He explained that it probably would be quite awhile before he lived that down!

We went back to the flight line and the Operations Officer again checked with the weather section and they said that less than a half hour they expected the weather to clear enough that they could begin flying. We lounged around for a little while conversing with some of the English pilots who were quite interesting to talk with even though they were a little hard to understand. First, because of the British accent and second, because of the terms they used to describe their planes and some of the maneuvers used in flying them.

The Operations Officer walked outside with us and pointed to a plane parked off a ways and told us that it would be the one to take us to Rackheath and that he would send a pilot out shortly. It was a vintage training plane, an Avro-Anson, in not the best shape I’ve ever seen. As we stood there looking it over we observed three men walking toward us. There were two privates and a sergeant who walked with a rather pronounced limo, but was wearing pilot’s wings. He came over, mumbled his name which we didn’t catch, and opened the door and climbed into the cockpit. We got in and grabbed an English parachute and attempted to figure out how to get it on and fasten the harness.

This Avro-Anson was a twin engine, low wing, monoplane with a seating capacity of six people with regular landing gear, not tricycle, like a B-24. The privates crawled up on the right wing with a crank which they stuck in the engine. We thought, “My God, this thing is so old it had inertia starters!” They turned the crank faster and faster as the pilot kicked it in and the engine caught, fired and started to run. The same procedure was used on the left engine until it was running. The privates jumped off the wing and waved as the pilot gunned the engined, kicked the rudder pedals to turn it around and without checking with the tower or lining it up with any runway he pushed the throttles forward and we were off on a flight I’ll always remember. In fact, it is one I’d like to forget!

The ceiling was still rather low, and as he made a climbing turn to clear the field we nearly ran into the cloud base. He throttled back a little and turned sideways in his seat and I yelled, “What the hell are you doing?” He said that he had to crank the landing gear up by hand. When this was done, he turned back to the controls and turned into a sightseeing pilot. He was flying along about four times the height of the telephone wires and he would tip the damned thing up on one wing to point the thing out he thought we would be interested in. Really, I was interested in getting my parachute buckled, but for what reason I don’t know, because he never flew high enough that I’d ever be able to use it. I began to realize now how he had acquired that pronounced limp!

After what we had been through the last couple of days, I could have done without this clown and his flopping around the sky.

After an hour or so of this, we were nearing Norwich and the ceiling was a little higher so we were flying at about five hundred feet. As we approached our area, the three bases Attlebridge, Horsham St. Faith and Rackheath came into view. He asked which one was ours. Chuck just pointed because we were nearly beyond speech. This pilot made no attempt to contact the tower, but just made a diving turn, leveled off and landed crosswind toward the tower. When he had brought it to a stop we asked him to shut it off and we would get a drink or a bite to eat, but he declined saying he had to get back to the airdrome. He again kicked the rudder to turn it around and gunned it taking off crosswind and disappearing into the lowering clouds.

Here we were home again, three very scruffy looking people gazing around at familiar surroundings. We walked to Squadron Headquarters and were greeted warmly by our friends that happened to be there. Major Wallace said that by the looks of us we probably wanted to go to our Nissen hut, clean up and change into our uniforms. He called for transportation and a Jeep soon pulled up and took us to our area. We dropped Smith off on the was and he was immediately surrounded by his friends. Word had spread of our arrival back at the base and many friends stopped by to see us and congratulate us on a safe return.

By the time we had showered, shaved and changed it was getting toward supper time. I had discovered some items missing and it didn’t take a super sleuth to figure out where they were. A friend by the name of Earl C. Wheless always said that if I got shot down, he was going to take my dress blouse so I suspected he had also ran off with my bicycle.

We asked through the woods to the Officers Mess and as I entered I saw Wheless seated across the room. As I approached him he said, “Your blows is in my hut and your bicycle is parked out front, welcome home, Buddy.”

That night our hut was filled with people and drinks flowed freely, but Chuckand I sat there at times in deep thought. We were wondering where the other seven guys were. Were they healthy or did something happen to them when they bailed out? The Major stopped by and said for us to sleep in in the morning, but for us to accompany him to Group Headquarters at two p.m. for a critique with S-2 (Intelligence). This was also quite an affair as many of the “top brass” were there, and we had to recount all of our adventures.

When they asked us whaat could be changed, we told them that other Amy installations should be made aware that, when people were shot down and trying to get back to their respective bases, they should not be refused transportation because of the lack of travel orders.

We were hustled over to the Personnel section where we had to again recount our experiences so they could make out press releases for newspaper and radio.

After supper we went to the lecture hall and gave a talk to the ground personnel. We got hold of Smith to accompany us, but being the quiet guy he is, he didn’t say much, but he nodded his head and grinned a lot.

Kirsis, Buchecker, Wyatt and Dunning got back at various times during the afternoon and evening and we had quite a get together. Each one but Dunning had on some kind of different uniform. Krises had a British field jacket, Buchecker was half British Army and half Canadian Air Force, Wyatt was British Infantry. Dunning said he was “just glad to be back!”

We are all still worried about Troy, Gilbert and Solinsky. …..(Many days later after returning from a “Rest Home”) ….I saw Robert Troy and he said that Solinsky had a broken ankle and was in an Army hospital in Southern England.