Issue 29.12
Our crew number 5383 trained together as a ten man crew with two waist gunners but when we got overseas and combat operational, they were flying nine man crews with only one waist gunner. Before we flew our first mission they took both waist gunners off the crews and put them in a pool. From this pool some were picked to fly with different crews to make them up to nine men, some were further trained as togoleers to replace bombardiers, some were trained as spot jammers whose job it would be to somewhat thwart the Germans ground radar. Since I was a waist gunner I expected to be taken off the crew and put in the pool but Bob Parnell, our pilot, asked me if I would take the position of the lower ball turret so he could let Ted Johnston go into the pool instead of me. A crew is like a family and I did not want to be cut from my family so without hesitation I said yes. Everyone hated to be put in the ball turret including me but my love of the crew over rode my fear of that position. When we flew our first three missions, each green crew, including ours, were given two experienced men, a co-pilot and a waist gunner to go with us to get us into the combat mode and so we wouldn’t do anything foolish. Likewise for the last few missions of a tour, crews were split up and they were the pros flying with green crews. We hated to do this but that was the facts of life. The night before one of those missions I went down to operations to see with whom I would be flying with. Sure enough, I was scheduled to fly with a green crew the next day. Later that night a friend and barracks mate got a cablegram that informed him that he was a new father. He was so happy and excited that he went down to operations and told them he wanted to fly every chance he could so he could get home sooner. Operations took me off that green crew and put him on. It just so happened that they needed me on a different green crew after all. It was pre determined that in an element of three planes, the one I flew in was number one and my friend was in number two position as our wingman. We had a normal take off and rendezvous and our formation was still gaining altitude while
Crossing the Friesian Islands off the coast of the Netherlands and were not yet on oxygen nor was I yet in my position in the ball turret. A six gun battery of FLAK guns opened up on us and while looking out the left waist window of our B-17, I saw that my friend’s plane took a direct hit and went straight down. The hit plane didn’t explode or burn but it did go straight down.
We did not see anyone get out. I thought to myself “I’m sure glad my friend took my place on that doomed ship. He did what a combat flyer never never did. That was to volunteer for a specific mission.