Issue 1.14
On returning from a bombing mission into Germany, the procedure is for the Flying Fortresses of the 36 sent out that morning that have not been shot down to land in a pre determined sequence. The three squadrons of twelve bombers each will fly in formation on a circular route around the home field. The last element of three bombers will turn off from the main formation and separate in distance. The first one will enter the landing pattern at a forty- five degree angle with the other two following at a safe landing distance.
The first one is now flying parallel to and some distance away from and in the opposite direction of landing on the main east-west runway. After two 90 degree left turns, he is now about two miles from the runway and approaching to land. The next two of this element are on the same course and at a safe landing distance from the first. While the first element lands, the rest of the group flies in a circular route and another element of three drop off and follow the first element. This procedure follows until all of the bombers are safely on the ground. It sounds simple but the pilots are under much frustration and it is many times trickier than the take off procedure that happened early the same morning. In the winter time for most long missions, most take offs are done before daylight and landings are done after dark and the English weather proved difficult to accurately predict. Landing took more time than the 30 second interval between bomber take offs. Of course a Fortress with wounded fired red flares and had priority to land first. Upon returning from a mission into Germany, it became our crew’s turn to get into the landing pattern. The co-pilot hit the switch to lower the landing gear and it was the waist gunner’s job to check to see if the gear was down. “Waist to pilot, the landing gear did not come down even a little bit.” “Pilot to engineer” (the top turret gunner) “its up to you to crank the landing gear down”. Luin Lewisthen opened the door to the bomb bay and stepped out onto the eight inch cat walk. He sat down awkwardly and started to crank.
We lost our place in the landing pattern and had to go around twice more but Luin got the landing gear down and locked into place. We crew members preferred short missions to
‘Happy Valley” (the Ruhr Valley) to thirteen hour missions to the far reaches of our range in eastern Germany. All of the chores that have to be done such as landing gears, bomb bay doors, fuel transfers and other things are done by electric motors. There are something like 54 electric motors in a B-17 bomber. Electric motors are less apt to be battle damaged than would
a hydraulic system. Today’s mission was the industrial city of Essen. The FLAK we encountered was moderate but not intense like at cities such as Berlin, Hamburg or Mersburg. In my opinion
Hamburg had the most highly concentrated area of FLAK even though Hamburg had only 2,500 guns against Big B’s 3,500 ground guns, they were in a smaller area and so that we were in the blacker cloud of “Black Mushrooms” for a shorter period of time. This was one of the nineteen missions that we came home with holes in the plane and this time it did damage to the landing gear mechanism.
Sam Wyrouck may be contacted at 801-707-2666.