On the morning of March 18, 1945, we were awakened by the jolly awakener about 3:30a.m. Little did we know what this day had in store for us!

After having the usual breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast and coffee, we headed to the briefing room and took our seats for the morning's briefing. The large map, about 15 feet wide by 8 feet high, was covered as usual; however, we did see that the gas tanks were "topped off" meaning a long mission. There was a little groaning when we all saw this, but nothing compared to when the map was uncovered showing "Big B" as our far away and dangerous target.

The red ribbon, pinned to the map, showed our route into the target as well as the route home. Flying across Germany, it took several heading corrections that were supposed to route the formation around all the known flak areas. The intelligence officer told us that we were not expected to be hit by enemy fighters, but that the flak around Berlin was heavy because the Germans, as they kept retreating across France and Germany from the Allies, brought their anti-craft guns with them thus making any targets quite heavily fortified.

This time intelligence was correct in their assumptions, as we later found out! After the usual mini-briefings, we got into our gear, received Communion, and headed out to the trucks that carried us to our plane. There was no conversation whatsoever as we were all thinking about that long day ahead of us.

We were assigned to position No.#6 in our squadron, which meant we were flying below and behind position No.#3 which flew on the left wing of the lead ship. Everything was satisfactory on take-off and assembly and within an hour we were heading across the North Sea. The route to the Initial Point (I.P) was without any problem, however, the number 3 ship aborted probably due to an engine failure and returned home, we then moved up to take his spot.

As we were now flying on the lead ship’s left wing, I was doing most of the flying, which sometimes isn’t so bad as you must concentrate on flying formation and you then miss seeing some of those flak bursts. Attlebridge took the Division just below 20,000ft to get a better visual target, and then at the I.P. turned off left to bomb a secondary target. This left the 467th Bomb Group, 789th Squadron, first over the target and our plane being the third ship over Berlin that day.

The flak was heavy and accurate, and we had just dropped our bombs and Bill Wilson, our radio operator, was still in the process of closing the bomb bay doors when we were hit. Bill Shinn and I didn’t know that we were hit until Carl Appel, the extra man aboard that day for the purpose of trying to jam the frequency of the anti-craft guns, told us. He simply grabbed each one of us on the shoulder and pointed back to the bomb bay which was completely engulfed with fire.

We believe, after discussing this afterwards, that the bomb burst directly in the bomb bay, while Wilson was closing the doors and caught the hydraulic lines going through that area. I didn’t know that Wilson had bailed out until I talked with him at the Hermann Goering Luftwaffe Hospital later.

Well, we thought of a fire extinguisher, but, the fire was completely beyond control. We also knew that we didn’t have much time left before the plane would explode. It’s funny how a person's mind works . . . . I knew that the window on my right was only about 1‐ 1/2 feet square, but the thought crossed my mind that maybe I should go out there. This was absolutely impossible. Even if I could fit through that small opening with all my gear, I would hit the wing. If anyone has ever been in a fire, that person will try anything to get out of it any way possible!

We pilots used to talk back at our quonset huts as to how long it would take us to get through the small opening between the two seats and back to the bomb bay. Some thought about 10 seconds, others thought maybe a little more . . . it doesn't take more than five!


Bill Shinn banked the ship hard to our left and left the formation before giving the signal to bail out. He gave the command and I rang the bail-out bell. With the thought in the back of my mind that the plane was about to explode, I didn’t waste much time. After taking off my safety belt, I started to get out of my seat, only to realize that my oxygen tube was still connected as well as the plug for my electric suit. With one swipe of my right hand, both were disconnected and I was out of my seat in a flash, between the two pilots’ seats and on the flight deck, which by this time was completely covered in flames.

Carl Appel (radar-countermeasures and extra crew member that day) was standing near the radio-operator’s spot and I motioned him to bail out the bomb bay. He shook his head most vehemently, NO! I assumed he was afraid and tried to push him toward the bomb bay. As time was a factor, I didn’t try this tactic too long. Bill Shinn was directly behind me coming through so I couldn’t wait any longer but made my way out to the cat walk of the bomb bay. All this time the flames were there hitting my eyes and forehead. . . . . my oxygen mask and helmet were still on protecting me from the flames. I dove head first off the cat walk into the space below.

We were told to go head first as the ship might drop due to air currents, and we might be thrown upwards thus hitting our head on the inside top of the plane. I was tumbling head over heels – guess I didn’t do too good a swan dive – as I was dropping through the air. The instructors had told us that if his motion took over, we were to place our hands at our sides and straighten out our legs. I did this and all the tumbling motion stopped right away.

Looking down for the rip-cord, I realized that I still had my flak suit on and this was covering the chord. I pulled the strap on my suit and off my head it went. Then I tried to find the chord only to discover that I still had my oxygen mask on and the hose coming from the mask prevented me from looking down. So off that came in a hurry and I finally found that elusive chord and gave it a good yank. The chute opened beautifully and there I was looking down at the great city of Berlin from about 15,000 feet up. I am guessing at this altitude. It could have been lower as I had fallen quite a way since bailing out.

As I was floating down, I heard these “popping” noises and my heart sank as I thought they meant that the shroud lines to my canopy were tearing loose and I was about to free fall the rest of the way to the ground. Looking upward and seeing all lines in place, I gave a sigh of relief and thanks to God. Then I looked up at the formation that was above me by at least 5,000 feet and saw the flak bursts that were making those popping noises. I then realized that those flak bursts would no longer be aimed at me. I remember that I was breathing in very short breaths and afterward realized that was, possibly, because of the high altitude, but more realistically because I was scared! When you are up that high, floating down in a chute, it seems you are just hanging there. I got a good view of the burning spots of Berlin. As we were only the third ship over the target that day, most of the fires would come later when I was on the ground.

As I came closer to the ground, I could see I was dropping faster than it looked higher up. I also saw that I was going to get “hung up” on the side of a three story building so I tried to manipulate the chute so I would fall onto the street. I also noticed a group of German civilians waiting for me, some with pistols in hand. I hit the sidewalk quite hard. I thought that my legs were broken but I was only stunned a bit. The civilians came running over to me, looking down at me and asked if I was American or British. I told them American, and that’s when they started kicking me around the sidewalk. Some German police “rescued” me from the civilians and quickly took me to an underground air raid shelter where I sat on a long bench with mainly women and children. I must have looked a real mess with my head and face covered with
blood and burns across my forehead and eyes. The blood came from a blow or cut on the top of my head, cutting an artery, or something like an artery as it was really bleeding. I don’t remember how this happened, maybe I hit my head when bailing out. Maybe I was hit by flak or banged into the foot rest of the top turret when I was going through to the bomb bay.

After the raid, which lasted another hour or more, they took me to a police station. They made me drag my parachute along the street behind me for about 6 blocks. The police station must have been a precinct station as it wasn’t too large, at least the part they put me in. There was a large room with a police captain’s desk, slightly elevated off the floor, some chairs around the perimeter and a wire cage, where I spent the next few hours wondering what hit me. I sat on a three-legged stool for the remainder of the day (our bombs dropped around noon) leaving only once when they escorted me to the bathroom. I must have been losing some blood right along as I was getting weaker as time went by.

About 5:00 or so, we again walked a few blocks, me dragging my parachute along behind with the guards pointing their rifles at me to make sure I wasn’t going anywhere they didn’t want me to go. We came to a square seven-storey building that was an above ground air raid shelter. I was later told that the walls were several feet thick and only a direct hit on top would do any damage. As I walked up several levels, I saw women and children sitting along the walls of the stairway.

We finally came to my resting spot for the night, a small room with fold-away cot along one of the walls. It was guarded by an old soldier in the hall. Being extremely weak, I laid down and immediately fell asleep, for how long I don’t know. When I awoke, there was a young German Red Cross nurse sitting by the bed with some dark bread sausage sandwiches and a glass of water. Today, I firmly believe she was responsible for keeping me alive through the night. Speaking in fairly good English, she advised me, or almost forced me, to eat and drink much water. I looked around at my pillow and found it blood red completely from MY blood! She gave me a new pillow during the night and constantly forced me to eat and drink. Sometime during the night, they wheeled me into their hospital room which they kept for civilian casualties. There the German doctor began to examine the wound on the top of my head. He shaved the top of my head to get a better look at it and decided that I didn’t need an operation. He did place a large compress over the wound and tied it tight under my chin.

They took me back to my room where I immediately conked out. Later during the night, I got up to go to the bathroom, stood up and passed out, finding myself on the floor a few moments later. All through the night, the nurse took care of me; however, she kept after me to give her Doris’s name and address…….she said she would write her to tell her I was safe. I had gone through months and months of training where instructors told us, if we were ever captured, never to give any more information to anyone than our name, rank and serial number. This was drilled into us constantly. The nurse, however, was very persistent and seemed as though she really wanted this information to tell Doris. Morning came and she was still sitting by my bed, feeding me and asking the same old question, “Sir, please give me your wife’s name and address. Surely, you want her to know that you are alright!” Finally, I gave into her persistence……only, however, not until they were carrying me out on the stretcher to the ambulance and she was running alongside with a pad and pencil. This is when I
told her. True to her word, she wrote to Doris, in German, telling her about how I was and how she took care of me during that night. That was the first notification that Doris received telling her that I was alive and kicking! She received the letter on VE Day, May 8, 1945.

I believe there were three of us prisoners taken in the ambulance to the Herman Goering Luftwaffe Military Hospital at that time. We were met by several nurses, some of them were Catholic nuns, who helped and directed us to our ward on the third floor. The bombings had knocked out the elevators so I had to climb those three flights of stairs. I flopped onto one of the beds and slept for an hour or more and as I woke, there in the next bed was Bill Wilson, our radio-operator. He was in the bomb-bay, closing the doors, when the flak burst directly inside of the bomb-bay. He told me that he thought we were done for and he didn’t wait for the signal from us to bail out. He hit the wing or propeller of the ship directly below us. It was necessary to amputate his left leg above the knee. He spent the next two nights, sleepless, in pain and thrashing in bed. The second night, he was taken back to the operating room for an additional operation because gangrene had set in. Next morning a German doctor came in and told us that Wilson had died due to the shock of the second operation so close to the first. This was a shock to us on the ward.

By this time Bill Shinn (pilot) was there, all bandaged up so that only slots for his eyes and mouth were open. Also, Stan Simpson, one of the waist-gunners was there. All he did was sprain an ankle when he landed! Shinn, Simpson and I related to each other our experiences since our plane was hit. Simpson told us how he and Ed Galbreath, the other waist gunner, were at their positions when they heard the bailout bell sound and me telling them to bailout. He said they knew the flak was thick that day, but never realized that we were in such serious trouble until he saw flames coming from the bomb bay.

Ed Galbreath was first to jump, and just before Simpson went, he saw Dick Cisco, our tail gunner, coming out of his turret and heading for the bomb bay, so he knew Cisco was okay. The three of us were the only ones of our crew that were together. We didn’t know what had happened to the rest of the crew until later in prison camp. We learned Jesse Watkins our nose gunner and a small 18 year old, turned his turret around after hearing the command to leave. The last thing he remembered is our navigator, Al Janss, going under the pilot’s compartment back to the bomb bay. The navigator and nose gunner were supposed to exit the plane in the opening for the nose-wheel but evidently Janss couldn’t open the door so he was about to bail out the bomb bay. Jesse remembers the behind of Janss going along the small passage and then the ship blew up. Jesse fortunately was wearing a chest-pack type chute and says he woke up falling through space, and then pulled the ripcord.