Issue 51.12
We adults all have memories of Christmas days of years past. I’ll bet any of us could remember when you got a favorite gift or the happiest Christmas or the saddest or the most unusual day. I remember when I was eight years old; I wanted a “Lindy Pilots Helmut”; Lindy as in Charles Lindberg. I was in the orphanage at that time so I didn’t think I would get one. That year, the huge ACM Mining Company took the wish list and every kid got something. I got my “Lindy Helmut complete with attached goggles. I also remember the most emotional and unusual Christmas day of my life. That happened in the year 1944 when I was flying bombing missions into Germany as a lower ball turret gunner on a B-17crew.
On December 16thThe Germans unleashed the Ardennes sector battle on unsuspecting green and scattered American forces. Many Americans retreated or were taken prisoner. My brother-in-law George Matkin’s unit was attached to George Patton’s third Army. His unit was rushed into the battle. George’s Battalion’s job was to clear mine fields for the Americans when they advanced. It was about December 23rd that the German advance was stopped. The Germans had a unique method to clear a minefield. They sent expendable trucks, half tracks and other vehicles ahead of the tanks to clear safe pathways for the tanks to travel. Of course the trucks and drivers were lost but the tanks were saved. George’s unit Used electronic equipment and old fashioned probing to find the bouncing betties and other mines ahead of advancing Americans. On Christmas day, George’s men ate cold K rations. A K ration came in a little box about one and a half inches by four by ten inches. It included just enough to keep a man from starving. George said they had no turkey either hot or cold for his Christmas dinner.
Meanwhile I was flying overhead. The Air Force’s job on the 24th was to knock down every bridge, overpass and obstruction for a semi circle around the German army. Three squadrons of the 351st bomb group had not been to our home base for six days. After a mission, the weather was so horrible that we stayed at a deserted paratrooper base waiting for a break so we could get home. The sixth night we did get to another American air base where we were loaded up with gasoline, bombs ammunition and other essentials. We did get a hot breakfast on the twenty fourth and from there we flew a mission. The three squadrons each with eleven or twelve planes of our group took off about noon on the 24th Each squadron had a different target that day but we flew as a group so we flew over all three targets. We flew at an altitude of 7,200 feet. Our squadron’s target was a bridge where the autobahn and railroad crossed. The idea was to isolate the German armies from supplies. From my position in the lower ball turret, I could see the ground very plainly. Our bombardiers blasted the overpass and I watched as the small village built around also disappeared into a cloud of yellow dust. The 44 tons of bombs left nothing standing. The stark scene that happened on that day burned into my brain like a hot iron so deeply that every day and night for the next fifty years I could see that scene plainly.
Even 68 years later I can pull that scene up and see it so plainly that I can almost count the 25 houses. After that mission, we still couldn’t to our home base so we slept in the planes. The next morning we were trucked to our home base where we had a hot turkey dinner.