D-Day, and a war story

[jayb]

June 6, 1944.  Here's to the memory of those who lost their lives on that fateful day, and to those who made it through the war but are being lost in increasing numbers every day.  We can never repay them.

In early 1944 as the buildup to D-Day was gaining momentum, my uncle Myron was a radio operator on a B-24J Liberator stationed out of the Shipdam airfield near the city of Norwich in England.  At the end of January they began bombing certain installations on the coast of France that had begun springing up.  These turned out to be V-1 (buzz bomb) rocket launching sites, and were easily identifiable by the long rails that guided the missiles on their flight to England.  At that time the Nazis had not yet started launching the missiles; they were still building the launchers.  But Allied recon planes had seen the installations, and found that no matter where along the coast of France they were located, the rails all pointed directly at London, so it was rather obvious that their purpose was to aim some sort of projectile at the city.

On my uncle's 13th mission at the end of January, they were sent to bomb one of these sites near the French town of LeHavre.  The sites were protected by 88mm flak batteries, and at 12,000 feet over the target my uncle's plane took a flak burst outside the right waist gunner's window.  This killed the waist gunner instantly, and injured the left waist gunner, tail turret gunner, ball turret gunner, and top turret gunner.  Both right side engines were knocked out, and the inboard engine on the right side was jammed solid, so that the pilots couldn't feather the propeller, creating a terrific drag on the right side of the plane.  The pilot turned the plane back towards England, trailing smoke and losing altitude.

At their location the English channel was nearly 100 miles wide, and the B-24 did not maintain altitude on just two engines, especially with one dragging propeller.  In addition to the engine damage they had lost all hydraulics in the plane, but the B-24 was equipped with a hydraulic accumulator tank for this situation, which would allow the gear to be lowered and one application of the brakes.  All across the channel the plane dropped, but they made it to the coast with 150 feet of altitude left.  Luck was with them; right on the coast was a Spitfire base.  The pilot dropped the gear and set the bomber down, braking as hard as he could on the short runway.  The plane went off the end of the strip and crashed to a stop in the revetments at the end of the runway.  The wounded were taken off and all survived.  My uncle remembers being able to see hydraulic oil, engine oil, and blood still dripping from the bottom of the plane three days later.

It is amazing what those men went through, and at a such a young age.  My uncle detailed this story to me in a nine page letter a few years ago, and it is one of my prized posessions, and my only personal family link to World War II.  Myron is still alive and well, having survived several more missions before being injured and retired to ground duty, and going back home to Phoenix AZ after the war.  He still lives with my Aunt Peggy in Sun City, AZ.  Whenever our family goes to visit, we always make a trip to the B-24 exhibit at the Pima Air and Space Museum with Myron.

I love a good war story.  Anybody else got one?

[Kerry j]

My late Uncle Grant; my fathers older brother, was a B17 navigator; he lost every member of the crew he flew with twice during his tour of duty and always felt like there must have been some reason he and only he survived when so many other did not.

One afternoon in 1988 I decided to ask him if he wanted to fly with me in my Cessna T210 to Kingman AZ to see about getting the plane painted. He said he would love to go so I picked him up and away we went. The flight down was uneventful and Uncle Grant seemed to really enjoy himself. On the return trip, the temperature had risen to close to 100 degrees and there were a lot of thermals so the descent into SGU was pretty bumpy and I was worried about it bothering Uncle Grant. When the airport was in sight, I said, sorry about the rough ride, we'll be on the ground soon. Uncle Grant laughed and said to me that I didn't know what a "rough ride" was, he said, those were just air bumps and when we get down, I'll tell you about some rough rides I had in a B17.

After we landed and put the T210 away, he stared telling me about some of the bombing runs he made over Germany and specifically about the first daylight mission. He said that they were so scared about the daylight mission that his pilot and many other left the cowl flaps closed after take off and during the climb, so that the engines overheated and started burning valves so they had to turn back. He said that the next day during the morning briefing the CO addressed all the crews and said that if anyone "forgot" to open the cowl flaps they would be shot for desertion of duty. No one forgot to open the cowl flaps, but they lost 30% of the planes in their squadron that day to enemy fighters and flack. It was the worst mission he ever went on and the losses were so bad that they stopped the daylight raids for awhile and never tried another big raid until the Mustang P51 was in service and could escort them to Germany and back.

He talked about how rough it would get when the flack gunners got their range and how just before bomb release was the worst because they had to fly straight and true or the bombs would be off target.

It's hard to imagine how so many young men were willing to sacrifice themselves and how brave they were when the odds were so bad. An amazing generation; I really miss Uncle Grant and sure wish I had taken him flying more.

[WConley]

Jay - Funny you should mention the V-1 launchers.  At my French family reunion in Normandy a few weeks ago, my mom and her brothers and sisters were telling stories about life as refugees during the German occupation.  (The Gestapo had commandeered their home, since it sat on top of the hill overlooking the town.)  They had to hide in barns and neighbors' houses, but their main "home" was a large cave made from a pile of boulders deep in the woods.

The Germans had built a couple of V-1 launcher rails not far away in those woods.  My relatives described the sound of the V-1's launching as a terrifying screech and buzz.  Then it only got worse when the Allies started bombing the area.  Imagine being an elementary school-aged kid living in a cave with all of that stuff going on! 

Meanwhile my dad was a chief petty officer on a U.S. Navy cruiser in the Pacific.  His stories mainly involve bombarding Iwo Jima and Okinawa, with the occasional Kamikaze plane getting in amongst the ships.  Nothing like the stories of those aviators over Europe, or those infantrymen going ashore.

Speaking of going ashore, here's a shot I took at Omaha Beach:

[jayb]

Man, talk about a field of fire!  It's amazing anyone got across that beach alive.

I remember seeing somewhere that back in 1944 the beach actually had a 3 foot high ridge running down the length, about halfway to the bluffs, and that a lot of the troops that came ashore were able to take cover for a while behind that ridge.  Apparently the years have eroded that ridge away.  Did you see anything about that on your visit Bill?

[WConley]

From what I could see, the "shingle" (smooth stones) and sand ridge are pretty much gone.  The picture shows low tide, and the D-Day assault was conducted close to high tide.  That ridge of sand and shingle would have been where the sea walls are now.

Since the war, the village has definitely swallowed up a lot of beach above the tide line.  There are some excellent museums in the area.  When you see the diagram of the beach as it was, then look outside and see it now, the difference becomes apparent.

[Joe M]

My Mom lived into her 90s and I used to spend every Sunday with her.  One Winter afternoon, she dragged out an old photo album and started telling me stories about the pictures.  One picture was my Mom as a young woman with a tall well-built man with a mile-wide smile wearing Marine Corps dress blues.  I asked my Mom who that was and she told me it was my uncle "Red".
This made no sense to me because Uncle Red was weak and sickly and wasn't able to help around the farm.  He'd sweep the porch and do some things around the house but he was always stooped over and walked like every bone in his body ached.  He passed away in the early 60s and I could barely remember him.  This is his story.
My Uncle Red, whose real name was Stanley, was stationed on Wake Island with the Marine Corp Air Wing.  He was a fighter pilot and flew F4 Wildcats.  While many folks remember Pearl Harbor, not many remember the people who died on Wake Island which was simultaneously attacked.  In the first wave of the Japanese attack, most of the fighter planes were destroyed.  The mechanics managed to patch up 4 planes and get them airborne to meet the second wave.  The invaders shot down a few of our planes but the mechanics managed to patch up a couple more, including one equipped with homemade lugs to carry a 500 pound bomb.  As the Japanese troop ships approached the shore, one brave pilot dropped that 500 pounder down the transport's stack.
The Japanese commander wrote in his diary, "Attack unsuccessful due to American fighter planes."
Wake held out for several days under increasingly heavy attacks until the planes could no longer be repaired.  At that time they handed Uncle Red a rifle.  All Marines are infantrymen first.
Wake held for 16 days until it was fruitless to continue fighting and they surrendered.  Some of the prisoners were forced to rebuild the airfields and revetments, then were marched to the coast and executed.  Uncle Red was one of the lucky ones.  They put him on a boat and sent him to Japan where he spent the war as slave labor in the copper mines.  When he came back he was sick and weak form years of mistreatment, poor diet and back-breaking work.  His red hair had turned white.  The name of the company that ran the copper mines?  Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

[machoneman]

The start and almost the end of WWII for Walter!

My dad’s older brother Walt was a chief petty officer on an already antique 4-stack WW1 era destroyer cruising off the ship’s home port of San Diego, CA on the morning of December 7th, 1941.  About mid-day the radio operator reported he was picking up numerous local radio station reports that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. It took some time before the ship received actual coded Navy orders that this was true and they should prepare for possible action. The captain told the 1st officer to grab Chief Walt and do a fast survey of the ship’s fighting condition.  He was incredulous at this request as all aboard knew the ship had no shells for the cannons, no anti-aircraft craft ammo, no depth charges and no torpedoes! The only weapons they could fire were a single carbine and the captain’s .45 automatic locked in the ship’s safe.

After much radio traffic later that day to state they were defenseless, the Navy told them to stay out, keep a sharp lookout for enemy ships and subs, and ram them if they appeared So, they spent the rest of the day cruising offshore and of course found nothing. Eventually, they were told to head north at flank speed to the big San Francisco Bay navy depot and take on a full load of ammo and weapons. So, they proceeded north at night. Approaching the southern flank of the SF Bay defense zone sometime the next morning in heavy mists, the Army’s big 12” shore battery opened fire on the ship! 

http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/wwiibayarea/seacoastdefense.htm

Even though the ship frantically sent radio messages, hoisted signal flags and even shot off some flares Walt thought they had surely bought the farm! After many close misses with the ship zig-zagging to avoid the huge shells the shelling finally stopped.  They next hit the docks and loaded up the ship with fuel and weapons only to be told to head back out for an indeterminate time. Well, they spent the next 30 days cruising up and down the coast acting again as bait for any Japanese ships or subs to show up, only stopping for fuel with no shore leave for any of the ship’s personnel. No personal ship-to-shore communications or even mail was allowed though due to shocking effect the Japanese attack had especially on the vulnerable west coast.   

The best part of the story in my book though relates to what Walt did when they finally were told to pull back into San Diego for shore leave. Walt immediately left the ship and went to his sweetheart’s home where he immediately proposed to Beatrice. Well, they are both gone now but did live very happily married for over 60 years. God bless both of them.   

[66FAIRLANE]

My Dad (recently passed away) didn't speak much of the war either. His brother was killed on the Montevideo Maru (Australia's largest ever maritime tradgedy after it was torpedoed by a US submarine http://www.montevideomaru.org/history/history-montevideo-maru/the-montevideo-maru-lost-at-sea-lost-from-australian-history/) and he flew Beauforts out of New Guinea right at the end of the war. When he applied for a war pension at the age of 60 he was denied by the Australian goverment as he wasn't officially in a combat zone. One of their most dangerous jobs was to fly low over the jungle with "Nippon has surrendered" painted in Japanese under their wings. Of course the Japanese just shot the snot out of them and they weren't allowed to shoot back. Had a shrapnel scar on his face to prove it. But hey, it wasn't a combat zone.

The bravey of all the young men that served and still do is very moving and no amount of thanks can ever be enough.