Issue 50.13
The air crews that flew into the fury of the Luftwaffe often times took the day’s battle to bed with them. I myself during the flying of my missions recall many nights when the guys in the barracks after a tough mission did some crazy things. The officers and the enlisted men lived in separate places. We enlisted men in our barracks sometimes would become unnerved after listening to the shouting of men who were sound asleep. One night one gunner screamed out “Our wingman is hit and has lost control and is going to crash into us”. I’m going to bail out”. Our navigator, John Delaura told us that another crew in his barracks, in the middle of the night shouted out loud enough to awaken all of us “We’ve been hit so co-pilot feather number two engine”. His co pilot in his sleep answered “We already have one engine feathered but I am feathering number two”. Both men were sound asleep. I should note that most men in bomber groups slept in metal Nissan huts that were made of a half circle of corrugated steel and were either too hot or too cold. We in the 351st group took over an older RAF (Royal Air Force) field that had wooden barracks. We even had hot showers (sometimes). One thing we did not have and we all wished that we could have one was a Fox Hole. When those jagged chunks of metal are flying around, a Fox Hole would be a good thing to have. I did have an ability that I used often. That was the ability to contract myself smaller so as to make a smaller target. At least when I tried to make myself smaller, I thought I was smaller. Of the thousands and thousands of heavy bombers that were shot down over Germany during World War Two, more were lost to FLAK than were lost to enemy fighters.
Probably the most ill conceived advertisement of the war appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. It showed a waist gunner in a bomber going about his business of shooting at some German Fokke-Wulff fighters. The caption said “Who’s afraid of the big bad Wulffs”. Many bomber groups saw that advertisement. Some cut it out of the magazine and put it on a bulletin board with a blank sheet of paper beneath it. At some groups, the first name on the sheet was the group commander. The sheets filled up fast and the sheets were sent to the advertiser. No one ever admitted to not having fear. Fear was something that people in deadly combat had to contend with. The trick is to control fear. A combat crewman does not have fear for the whole mission. Sometimes we tell jokes, kid around and even sing. When we encounter enemy fighters is not the time of greatest fear. When we are in heavy FLAK is when the greatest fear kicks in. Some guys at that time wet their pants and that is not the best thing when we are wearing electric heated clothes to keep us warm at 65 degrees below zero. Ariel combat is a very stressful way to make a living and ninety-nine percent of the men can handle the stress enough to keep doing their job, but in every squadron, there are some that break.
For those that break, it is buck private and steady KP for the rest of the war. It is my firm opinion that anyone who had endured mortal combat where day after day and month after month both enemies and friends are killed, that person will have “Baggage” to carry for many years. Then, if a person broke, he was branded a coward. I myself carried my “Baggage” for many years and even after 69 years, I feel a twinge once in a while.
Sam Wyrouck can be contacted at 801-707-2666.