391st
BOMB GROUP
If you
have not read one or both of the 391st BG histories, you should do so. These volumes present the formation and combat
experience of the group in excellent detail.
One learns that the Group was formed in early 1943. It trained as a unit throughout that year,
deployed as a unit in early 1944 (some by air, some by sea), reassembled in
England at Matching Green and conducted combat operations as a unit. But what about replacements, crews and
individuals to replace combat losses and rotations when crews completed 65
missions?
The
participants know all about these matters, and this section will seem trivial
to the "old heads." It is
included, however, for readers from a later generation, our children and their
children, and readers who may stumble on this material at some future time.
WE
WERE IN THE ARMY
By the
time of World War II, the Army Air Corps had become the Army Air Forces. It was a part of the Army, and many of the
terms that we know now from the postwar, independent Air Force did not
apply. The proper term was
"Commanding Officer", not Commander.
There were no Air Force Bases; there were Army Air Fields (AAF), or just
Fields. One usually said Barksdale
Field in everyday talk, not Barksdale Army Air Field.
TRANSITION
SCHOOLS
B-26
first pilots were trained at one of two "transition schools." These schools were Laughlin AAF, Del Rio,
Texas, and Dodge City AAF, Dodge City, Kansas.
Here the young aviator, usually fresh from advanced flying school, where
he had flown some twin-engine trainer, such as the AT-9, AT-10, or UC-78
(Bamboo Bomber), learned to fly the B-26.
When he had completed the course of some two months' duration, he
reported to a Replacement Training Unit (RTU), unless he was slated for
instructor’s school, flying tow targets, or some such non-combat duty.
REPLACEMENT
TRAINING UNITS
The RTUs were in business to
train replacement crews for combat.
Again, there were two of these for the B-26. One was at Barksdale AAF, Shreveport, Louisiana, and the other at
Lake Charles AAF, Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Here crews were assembled and crew training began.
Co-pilots
came directly from advanced flying school.
Bombardiers came from their training bases, as did the flight engineers,
radiomen, and armorer gunners. What did
they do and learn in RTU? Except for
the first pilots, they had to learn the airplane systems and their duties in
routine flying. All had to learn their
duties in combat flying. They had to
learn to talk to each other on the intercom, observing the niceties of brevity,
clarity, and crew position. Co-pilots
got to make a few landings and takeoffs.
Gunners got to do some firing.
By the way, the flight engineer manned the top turret, the radioman the
waist guns, and the armorer gunner the tail guns (at least, that was what the
school taught). Practice bombing was an
important part of the program; the bombardier used his Norden bombsight, and
the pilot attempted to obey the visual commands of the PDI (Pilot's Directional
Indicator). Many of these bombing runs
were scored. There was some night
flying and some round robin cross countries.
Emergency procedures received attention, but everyone thought or hoped
that they were for somebody else. There
was quite a bit of formation flying, because it was the backbone of our kind of
combat operations, and practice was essential.
I have already mentioned that the B-26 was a good formation airplane,
but the pilots had to gain proficiency.
After
about two months of this regimen, the crew was ready to move on. Before continuing, let me share some
memories of Barksdale: living in a
tarpaper barracks with the outside temperature 113°; sleeping on a folding cot;
the tower's call sign, "Carfare"; our training squadron's call sign,
"Hobo"; some showoff at the Officers' Club pool actually knowing how
to dive; being taught a single-engine landing procedure that was okay for a
10,000 foot runway but not too great for one of 4500 feet; a B-29 stopping by
(none of us could imagine how anything that big could fly); and the Ink Spots
singing in a hangar.
GOING
OVERSEAS
The
move began with a train ride from Barksdale or Lake Charles to Hunter Field,
Savannah, Georgia. Here the crews were
assigned airplanes, which they proceeded to check out, calibrating the compass,
the airspeed indicator, etc. There also
were new pieces of equipment to be studied and used. There were briefings about the overseas flight, ditching, water
survival, and all those good things.
There were training films, some about things other than flying!
The
crews then began their deployment. In
the summertime, they flew over the northern route. As I went by this route, I will describe it in some detail. There were 16 airplanes in our contingent,
which took off on 6 Aug 1944. We
departed on the same day, flying individually at intervals of some
minutes. Our first stop was Dow Field,
Bangor, Maine, for one night. The next
day we took off for Goose Bay, Labrador, where weather in Greenland forced us
to stay for several days and caused us to be called back on our first
departure. The destination in Greenland
was Bluie West One at Narsarssuak. If you
haven't landed at BW1, you have missed one of life's biggest thrills. We were briefed for hours with talks, movies
taken from the nose of an airplane, and a topographical model. The reason for what might seem like overkill
is that BW1 is 52 miles up a fjord with walls several thousand feet high,
numerous dead-end offshoots, no room to turn around, and usually an overcast
below the tops of the walls. You had to
get it right the first time. When you
got within a few miles of the airport, signified by some geographical feature
that I do not remember, but not seeing the field, you began a turn to the
right, slowing. When you passed a
grounded ship, you put the gear down and half flaps and kept turning. When you passed three small islands (I may
have the ship and islands reversed), you put down full flaps and kept
turning. Pretty soon you saw the
runway, which runs slightly uphill.
There is a glacier dead ahead; you could not outclimb it. If you had to go around, you had to turn
hard left before the first hill, or you had bought it.
We
remained at BW1 for two or three nights, not because of weather over Iceland,
our next destination, but because of weather over the Greenland icecap. Upon leaving, taking off downhill, we had to
climb, going back down the fjord until we reached some specified altitude which
I do not remember, after which we turned right and continued climbing back
toward the field, which I believe we had to cross at no less than 7000 feet,
continuing to climb to the east to 12,000 feet to cross the icecap, after which
we could let down over the water on our way to Meeks Field, Reykjavik,
Iceland. We stayed one night here--my
turn in the barrel--I had to sleep in the airplane.
We took
off the next morning for Prestwick, Scotland.
Approaching Stornoway, in the Outer Hebrides Islands, we descended
through broken clouds only to find ourselves directly over a British
battleship; we thought we were goners.
Prestwick was zero-zero (not forecast), so we were diverted to Northern
Ireland, landing at Toome. More about
Toome later.
The
next day we delivered our airplane to Stansted, England, where the B-26 repair
depot was located. Then we were off by
truck to Stone, a well-known and much disliked replacement depot, where we
killed time until arrangements were made to send us (in the back end of a B-17)
to what might be called the "Combat Finishing School" at Toome. Here we had several weeks learning to do it
"their way." Finally, we were
assigned to Groups to which we were sent, in my case, by ship across the Irish
Sea, train to Bishop's Stortford, and bus to Matching Green. Group orders assigned us to squadrons. Crew integrity was maintained through all of
this.
In the
winter, crews flew over the southern route, and I refer you to the Group
histories for a description of this route.
I am sure the hop to Ascension Island provided a thrill to match that of
BW1.
I have
described the "normal" crew resupply system, but it was not the only
way crews ended up flying the B-26. For
example, SO-266, dated Sep 22, 1944, from the 70th Replacement Depot, the
famous Stone, shows "crews" assigned to the various groups. The people went where assigned, but they
were not crews. The so-called crews
were pure fiction, manufactured by personnel at the "Repple
Depple." Both
P. K. Bonde and Dana Wetherbee assured me that they
hardly knew their so-called crews before or after reporting to the 391st. The Group, apparently knowing what was going
on, proceeded to assign the people to squadrons on an individual basis, as
shown in Hqs 391st BG SO-126, dated Sep 24, 1944. I am confident the squadrons then crewed the individuals based
upon their qualifications and "exigencies of the service."
Where
did these people come from? That would
take another book, but many of the pilots were longtime instructors; many of
the individuals had previous tours.
Wetherbee, for example, had flown 50 missions in B-25's in the
Mediterranean; the powers that be were smart enough not to send him through the
whole training pipeline again.
Be all
this as it may, these people make the present task very difficult. I have only word of mouth to go on in
placing them into crews. At this time,
I have only a few of such crews identified.
I have included lists, by crew position, of the individuals who I have
not been able to place in a crew.
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