Isssue 3.14
Part 1
Most Of our missions were carried out at altitude of 30,000 feet or higher. Our highest mission was flown at 34,000 feet Today, when you see the contrails high in the sky but can’t see the airplane causing them; that’s where we flew. We didn’t have pressurized or heated interiors so we used heavy electrically heated coats, bottoms, gloves and shoe inserts. The rest of the crew wore sheepskin boots over their electric shoes but there was no room for boots so I wore felt shoes over my electric slippers. The rest of the crew each had one oxygen mask (with a couple of spares) but I, the ball turret gunner had two masks. The temperature was always in the minus 60’s and as low as 69 degrees below zero. I had to have two oxygen masks because there was absolutely no heat in the ball turret and the spent brass chutes acted like funnels to scoop the cold; two hundred miles per hour, wind into the turret and one mask would soon freeze up.
The other crew members wore goggles to protect their eyes from freezing but because of the downward angle that I looked into the computing gun site, I couldn’t wear goggles so to keep my eyes from freezing open, I had to make a fist and hold one heated glove over one eye and then trade off to the other glove and eye. If I stopped doing that for a minute or two then I could no longer blink.
As soon as the mask was frozen almost shut with my breathing moisture I would take a deep breath of pure oxygen, unhook and uncouple the frozen mask and quickly couple and hook the second mask to my face all while holding my lungs full of oxygen. A mistake couldn’t be made because if I had taken one breath of nothing, I would have lost consciousness. I would then crack the ice out of the frozen mask and put under my heated coat Oxygen masks had to fit uncomfortably tight to make a proper seal. A mask was good for about an hour before I had to repeat the process.
We necessarily had an oxygen check every minute. It would go like this:
Bombardier 0 K. Navigator 0 K. Pilot 0 K. Co-pilot 0 K. Top turret 0 K. Radio OK Ball Turretet OK Waist 0 K Tail 0 K. Usually Lt Carolotta the Bombardier started the check but if 90 seconds elapsed anyone could start the check. On the bomb run Lt. DeLaura usually answered for both the navigator and the bombardier and also at times either the pilot or co-pilot answered for both of them.
Part 2 continues next week.
Sam Wyrouck can be contacted at 801-707-2666.