If you could talk to a WWII Fighter Pilot

[justfreds]

my grand father flew the c47 in the pacific theater, he told the that the japanese tried to knock his plane out of the sky with a 15 foot pole (because he was on the deck).  then another time he said that his plane was full of gi's that were fully loaded, well some of them got sick and went to the back of the plane where this big bucket was, well he said that it was starting to unbalance the plane and so he gave his co- pilot a .45 and told him to go back there and keep em from the bucket. then one other time he was transporting 2-3 japanese prisoners, they were tied together and blind folded, he told his co pilot to shoot them if they moved.
he also said that when he was flying at night one of his buddy's plane went down and he never saw him again. also he mention about one of the bases he was stationed at in the pacific had a tree on it, it was a pretty big tree, well every time one of the planes would come in to land they would hear gunfire, as it turned out there was a japanese sniper nest in the tree that was on the base, they later burned it down.
these are some of the stories he has told me as of now.


LTARdeth

[Guppy35]

Just to keep the thread alive.   I spent much of the early 90s researching a B24 crew that went down over Vienna for the brother of the co-pilot who was killed.  I found the three still living members of the crew (down to 1 at last count) and pieced together all the info I could get on the crew and their missions with the 454th BG.  I flew their last mission in my head a million times and at one point was in the never never land between sleep and awake and found myself in the plane on that bomb run.  Talk about spooky.

Anyway.  This was what i came up with describing the death of a B24 and the fate of it's crew.

"The thunderous explosion in the cockpit of Terrible Terry, shattered the instrument panel and blew out the cockpit glass, while killing co-pilot Al Brody and pilot Richard Fry instantly. Severely wounded, Flight engineer Harry Kincaid, fell to the floor of the flight deck unconscious, lying face down with his head towards the instrument panel.

Behind him, the three other men on the flight deck were stunned by the blast. Bob Jensen, sitting with his back to Richard Fry, monitoring the instruments of his navigation panel, recalled the event:

"About four minutes down the bomb run, there was a tremendous explosion and I was pitched forward in my seat. I don’t believe I was knocked unconscious, but I was very definitely stunned, and I think probably it took 15 0r 20 seconds for me to recover consciousness. I looked around, looked to my left and to my utter shock, the right section of the nose forward of the copilot had been completely blown away. We had suffered a direct hit on the nose section from an 88 mm or perhaps a 105 mm antiaircraft shell. The instrument panel in front of the copilot was completely blown away. In fact there was nothing but blue sky, and I realized very quickly that there was no way in the world a plane with that amount of damage was ever going to fly. Looking at the various crewmembers, Al Brody, the copilot, still in his seat, was leaning completely over to the left. A quick look at him showed severe, massive wounds. It was obvious he had been killed instantly. I then looked at the pilot, Dick Fry. He was still sitting upright in his seat as though he hadn’t moved a muscle. I can’t recall whether his eyes were open or closed, or whether or not his hands were on the wheel. In any case, from the massive wounds he had sustained, it was obvious he had been killed immediately.

Harry Kincaid was lying on the floor of the flight deck, face down, with his head approximately between the pilot and copilot. In the position of his body, I could not determine what wounds he had sustained. So I rolled him over on his right side, and he had been severely wounded. It appeared to me that he was unconscious. For some reason—don’t ask me why—I had pulled Harry back probably about 2-3 feet. He still didn’t move, so I gave up those attempts.

Now I should backtrack just a little and tell you I did have my chest pack clipped on. In contrast, looking across the little aisle to my left, the Micky man (Al Bender) had left his chest pack lying on the floor, somewhere in the vicinity of his seat. Bear in mind the flight deck is very, very cramped with an additional two men shoehorned in. Bender was fumbling to reach his chest pack.

Bob Haws was still in the top turret. In any case, I could see his feet and legs moving, attempting to get out of his turret. I glanced at my little instrument panel in front of me. The Plexiglas covering over the instruments had been completely shattered. But at least I was not wounded, or so I thought at the time.

I dove headfirst across the floor of the flight deck, into the bomb bay in order to bail out. I knew there was no point in staying with the plane because it was obviously going straight down. So into the bomb bay I went, and much to my horror, the boot on my left foot caught on an arming wire in the bomb bay. The arming wire is just that—a wire—which extends from the nose of the bomb to a stanchion in the bomb bay. When the bombs are released, the wire stays attached to the stanchion, but it arms the bomb with the bomb is dropped. I attempted frantically to try and free my left foot and the boot got somewhat loose, just enough to enable me to bail out."

Bob Jensen appears to have been the quickest to react and was the first out of the stricken bomber. Elsewhere within the plane the other members of the crew also began to move.

It is not exactly clear what happened with Mickey man, Albert Bender. Bob Haws, coming down from his top turret, did not see Bender on the flight deck, which would seem to indicate he followed Bob Jensen out of the bomb bay. Jensen had seen him reaching for his chute pack. Haws remembers feeling someone crawl between his legs while he was still in the top turret. It is my belief this was Bender, and that he was the second man out of the bomber.

Bob Haws in the top turret felt the explosion rip through the cockpit. A cold blast of air hit his legs below the turret.

"Smoke and debris filled the flight deck. Immediately, I knew we were hit. I pulled the cord under my turret seat allowing the seat to hinge in an open position. My feet then touched the floor of the flight deck. I began disconnecting the lines to my oxygen, interphone and electrical system. My flak suit was stripped off, as was my helmet. The plane at this point went into a dive. The screaming engines became louder as we fell. The centrifugal force of the falling plane threw me into the corner of the flight deck. I was unable to move. I prayed that I might be spared. Many faces of my loved ones flashed before my eyes, then the plane came out of the spin and leveled off on its own allowing the centrifugal force to lesson. I was able to move once again. I glanced forward momentarily and saw Richard Fry and Alvin Brody motionless in their seats, and Harry Kincaid, our engineer between them on his hands and knees, wounded about the face.

The whole instrument panel of the ship was blown away and a gaping hole forward of the pilot’s position caused a surge of air through the flight deck. I glanced at my parachute in the other corner of the flight deck, scrambled for it and in the same motion pulled myself toward the open bomb bay doors where the six five hundred pound bombs were still hanging in their rack. At this point the plane went into another dive. With all the strength that I could muster, I hung my feet out of the plane from a sitting position on the catwalk of the bomb bay. The slipstream pulled my sheepskin boots off. I jumped, the slipstream also aiding in pulling me from the plane. I still had my felt, heated boots on my feet."

Bob Haws fell free of the plane, the third man out of the stricken bomber.

[Guppy35]

More from that last mission

"In the nose of the B24 Bob Slyder had been crouched over the bombsight, while Jon Sheperd had been in the nose turret when the flak shell exploded in the cockpit.

Bob Slyder "heard and felt an intense concussion just behind me. Something hit me very hard in my back, but did not penetrate the steel flak jacket I was wearing. Without even looking I knew the plane had been mortally hit and was going down. I turned and looked through a space above the navigator’s table where you could normally see the pilot’s feet on the rudder pedals. It was obvious there was extensive damage on the flight deck and I wondered if anyone up there was alive.

I lined up the doors on the nose turret and pulled Shep out. While I didn’t see any wounds, he seemed dazed and slow to react. I hooked up his oxygen mask to a nearby outlet and reached out to open the nose wheel doors. Just then the plane went into a spin and both Shep and I were forced against the side of the plane unable to move even a finger. All I could think of was riding to my death with an escape hatch just a few feet away.

After several minutes of spinning the plane leveled off, although it didn’t seem to be under pilot’s control. I grabbed my chest pack, which was hanging next to Shep’s (our regular backpacks had been turned in for re-packing as we were going on leave) and pointed to the nose wheel doors. He nodded in agreement, which I took to mean that he would be right behind me, and I opened the doors and jumped out. There was no doubt in my mind that the plane was going to crash, and the only reason there had been no instructions to bail out was that both pilots were either dead or seriously wounded."

Bob Slyder fell clear of Terrible Terry, the fourth man out of the plane. For reasons unknown Jon Shepard did not follow him out. Instead Shepard began to move back towards the bomb bay, crawling through the tunnel towards the cockpit and the bomb bay entrance.

In the rear of the plane the gunners were slow to react. Being behind the bomb bay, there as no immediate indication of the seriousness of the damage up front, and there was no word from the pilots to bail out. The gunners had no way of knowing that the pilots were dead.

As the plane continued to fall, tail gunner Russ Mars rolled back out of his turret towards the rear escape hatch. He quickly opened the hatch and prepared to bail out. Looking forward he could see Ed Stanton and Earle Kulhanek in the waist of the bomber with their chutes on. Stanton was moving towards the bomb bay, while Kulhanek was sitting on the floor of the plane trying to contact the pilots.

Further forward Mars could see Don Bucholtz struggling to crawl out of the radio compartment above the bomb bay. The steep angle of the falling plane made it a difficult uphill climb. As Stanton reached the bomb bay, Mars was hollering for Earl Kulhanek to bail out. Kulhanek was refusing to leave the bomber without permission from the pilots and continued to try and contact them. With the ground rushing closer, Mars had no choice but to bail out to save himself, leaving the plane barely one thousand feet above the ground. Mars felt his chute open and slammed into the ground possibly breaking, and at least seriously spraining his ankle. Mars was the fifth man to get out of the plane.

Ed Stanton reached the bomb bay about the same time Mars bailed out. Looking across he could see Jon Shepard at the forward entrance. With no time to spare, Stanton also bailed out his parachute barely having time to open before he hit the ground. Stanton was the sixth crewman to bail out.

What happened after this is not clear regarding the rest of the crew still alive in the plane. There is some evidence that Jon Shepard finally left the plane but at too low of an altitude for his chute to open. There is also some suggestion that his chute did open, but that he was too close to the crashing plane and was killed by the explosion when it hit the ground.

Don Bucholtz failed to make it to the bomb bay to bail out. It is probable that it was just too difficult for him to make the climb up from his position in the radio compartment, or that he fell into the radar spinner well in the spot normally occupied by the ball turret.

Earle Kulhanek clearly had a chance to survive, but lost his chance while trying to get permission to leave the plane from the pilots. Despite the efforts of Russ Mars to get him to bail out, Kulhanek refused to leave.

As the survivors of the crew floated to the ground in their parachutes towards captivity, Terrible Terry slammed into the ground and exploded on the southeast side of Vienna carrying the bodies of its two dead pilots and killing three others in the crash.

Overhead the 454th Bomb Group and the following Bomb Groups of the 15th Air Force continued on their way to the target, bombing the Floridsdorf Oil Refinary. Terrible Terry was the only bomber lost that day from the 454th, and the 15th Air Force."


An old AW buddy put it on his website.  Photos of the guys and some of thier 24s at:

http://www.worldwar2pilots.com/b24intro.htm

[Grendel]

Met couple dozen of those... And I don't care about just fighter pilots. Any pilot, any bomber crewman, all mechanics, they all were essential.

Some questions I've asked...
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/hist/

But a single question? Nah. There is no single question. Maybe "what kind of conditions did you live in and what was the food like?"
I'd say that is very important and it leads easily to other subjects, like their mates, what they did, how the units operated etc.

I don't care much about of those "which was better plane" or "what ammo belts did you use", I'm more interested on the people and their lives.

[Tac]

ive always wanted to know how they dealt with bowel movements at 30,000 feet en-route to target.


I can imagine the piss hose... but... what did they do if they had to take a dump?

[Grendel]

Originally posted by Tac
ive always wanted to know how they dealt with bowel movements at 30,000 feet en-route to target.


I can imagine the piss hose... but... what did they do if they had to take a dump?

What would you think?

There was tens of thousands of pants full of **** and piss created during long sorties.
On some planes you could take a piss, on some not. On some you just had to piss on the bombbay. Or on bombsight.

[dsrtrat]

I have. All I had to do was say, "uncle Bert, what was it like fighting the 109s of JG27 in a Hurricane or what was it like to wade into a schwarm of 190s in a MkVIII"?

The fellow in the pictures is my uncle, S/L Bert Houle. He flew off the ARk Royal in 41 and joined 213 squadron flying clapped out MkII C hurries. In this role, they were totally defensive and he was flying the day Marseille got 17 kills, 6 of which came from 213. Luck was on his side that day.

He was then posted to 145 squadron and eventually took command of 417s MkVIII spit squadron in Italy. He has 11 confirmed kills, bunch of probs and damaged. He scored the 1st kill over the Anzio invasion by knocking down a FW-190. He had tremedous respect for the 109 and 190 but had such confidence in his crewmen, plane and squadron that he felt they could take on anyone. Necessary IMHO for a fighter pilot. His proudest boast is that he never had a man killed in any spitfire formation he ever lead.

He is still alive but suffers from Alzheimers and can't remember much. He was close friends with Stockey Edwards and to this day, his wife is still in touch with Stockey. Luckily for me, being an aviation artist on the side, I have a nice painting of a 417 long wingtipped spit shooting down a FW signed by both of them.

Luckily for the world, the musuem in Trenton Ontario had the brains to do video interviews of many of the Canadian Aces. Here is the link where you can purchse them. S/L Houle's interview is 1hr44 minutes long. They are worth the price, believe me.

http://www.rcafmuseum.on.ca/

The 1st picture was taken in Italy 1944. Note the 20mm cannon hole in his rearview mirror.  He still has that mirror today. Quite spooky to hold it in your hand and think about how close it sits to your head. The second was taken a couple years ago in Ottawa. The spit belongs to Michel Potter who is building a flyable, 50 warbird collection. He currently owns a spitXVI, 2 hurries, a swordfish, a p-51D, a harvard, a tiger moth and is constantly growing his collection.

Enjoy!