Having been assigned our B-17 for the flight across the Atlantic Ocean we prepared for the trip. On December 19, 1944 we flew our new, radar-altimeter equipped B-17G serial number 44-8600 along the Savannah River and into Hunter Field, GA area to check compasses, airspeed indicators, engine and flight instruments. We also picked up a passenger for the flight across, Flight Officer Olson who was an operator of the airborne radar with which our aircraft was equipped. Upon his arrival in England he was to get a combat assignment that turned out to be different from ours.
On the next day we started our trip, we flew to Fort Dix, NJ and spent the night. On the following day we flew to Grenier Field, Manchester, NH. It was cold but it was such a very pleasant base that we really enjoyed being there. The next morning I decided that because of the extreme cold, the oil in the propeller spinners was too thick to allow us to operate the feathering mechanism properly so the decision was made to stay an extra day at Grenier. Actually our oil heaters would have solved the problem for us but we really did want one more day in the States. We did our last bit of Christmas shopping at the PX, went ice-skating, made a few last phone calls and finally, on the morning of December 23, we took off and continued our journey.
We flew east to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, over Prince Edward Island and on to Gander, Newfoundland, a trip of about 900 miles. We ran into a bad snowstorm as we approached the Gander airport and were the last plane to make it before air traffic control closed the field. Here it really got cold (we heard it was about 30 below all the time we were there) and nasty. We spent Christmas in Newfoundland waiting for the weather to clear in the British Isles so that we could have good conditions for landing. I posted a rotating guard detail at the airplane each night to make sure no one stole our personal gear and the new equipment and flying clothes we had just been issued. The night that it was my turn to stay in the aircraft, I put one down sleeping bag inside another down sleeping bag, lit a candle for light and spent the night. Actually it wasn't too bad.
The prices at the PX at Gander were phenomenal. I bought ten cartons of cigarettes for $4.50 and a quart of Canadian Club whiskey was $1.10. Finally on the afternoon of December 27th (my 21st birthday) we got word that the weather had moderated and we would fly out that night, this would allow us to arrive in the morning and be able to land in the British Isles during daylight. The officers attended the flight and weather briefing late in the afternoon while Ellis and the others in the crew prepared the aircraft for long flight. After the briefing Bud, Stud, Dan and I were delivered to the airplane. I climbed in by way of the rear hatch and as I made my way to the front of the aircraft, stooping over to get through the narrow, low passage, each member of the crew took advantage of my position to give me a good birthday smack right on the behind. What made it memorable was that I had just about frozen my butt in the open truck that took us to the airplane and each smack felt like they had knocked a piece of frozen meat off. I stung for a good while after I finally got into my seat.
The weather prediction for the flight over the water was bad. We would fly through five frontal systems and since we flew low (5000 feet) for purposes of fuel economy we expected to hit icing conditions on and off throughout the course of the flight. However, we expected the weather to clear about dawn which was when we planned to reach the west coast of Ireland. That would also give us good clear weather for our landing at our destination in the northwest corner of Wales, the Royal Air Force base at Valley just outside the town of Holyhead.
The takeoff was uneventful. Since an emergency requiring bailout or ditching in the North Atlantic meant sure death, we took a pragmatic view of our situation and made ourselves comfortable by ignoring the usual safety practices of wearing seat belts and Mae West flotation vests. The plane had a heater, an unheard of luxury in the military--this was the only one I was ever in with a working heater. We warmed the ship up and stripped our cold weather clothes off leaving us in our loose, comfortable flying suits. This gave us the physical freedom to relax and move about that none of us had ever before (or afterwards) enjoyed. We had jugs of hot coffee and hot chocolate, sandwiches, candy and cigarettes . I took us up to the cruising altitude of 5000 feet, leveled off, set the auto-pilot to the compass heading of the first leg of our flight and settled back for a long, comfortable flight.
We had taken off around midnight so that we could land in Wales in the morning, consequently we were all a bit tired. Bud and I split the flying duties, I was to fly the first two hours, he was to take the second two hours and so on. He settled back into his seat and dozed off. We had no more than gotten settled when our adventures started. The first thing that happened was that we ran into icing conditions. I immediately started the flexible wing boot de-icers and turned the prop de-icers on. Ellis kept an eye on the wings to be sure that we were breaking all the ice off, meanwhile pieces of loosened ice that were thrown off the propellers by centrifugal force slammed into the skin of the aircraft making it sound as though we were being bombarded. Once we got used to the noise, we all settled down. Then I noted a slow drop in our airspeed so I checked the pitot tube heater that warmed the incoming ram air that activated the airspeed indicator, making sure that it was on. This was supposed to prevent ice formation in the tube that took in ram air for sensing speed and altitude. I dropped the nose of the airplane to pick up some speed and although the feel of the controls told me I had increased the speed, the indicator continued to show a decreasing speed. Then the altimeter began a rapid descent towards zero. It was clear that despite the heater, the pitot tube had iced up. I called Olson, the radar operator we were ferrying across, and had him activate the radar altimeter so that I would know how high I was. With Olson's help, I took the aircraft back up to 5000 feet and again resumed our compass heading but with the altimeter and airspeed indicator registering zero.
This turn of events didn't please Stud at all. We were flying on instruments through a series of weather fronts and he could not see the sky to get a star fix to determine our exact position. There were no radio navigational aids (LORAN hadn't been invented yet and radio silence was observed by all ships at sea because of the submarine threat) available for the entire flight and now we had added the uncertainty of not knowing our actual airspeed. I set the controls to give us our planned cruising speed of 155 mph but with no airspeed indicator, we were only guessing at what our actual speed was. Without position and speed determinations, we couldn't compute the wind speed and direction, both of which were vital to our arriving at our proper landfall when we finally got to Ireland. I told Stud to do the best he could and promised that if we all perished I wouldn't hold him personally responsible. Despite the seriousness of our situation, I couldn't really believe this was happening to me so I suppose I acted rather silly. Since all the communications were carried out over the intercom, the whole crew joined in to talk about the ice and the bad weather and to comment on my discussions with Stud. We all treated it like one heckuva great adventure. Since there wasn't much we could do about it, Bud went back to sleep and I had a cigarette, drank hot chocolate and watched the instruments. Occasionally I would reset the gyro-compass to the heading of the magnetic compass to compensate for the precession of the gyros that resulted from the periodic axial shift due to the earth's rotation. If this wasn't done the rather primitive auto pilot that we had, which was guided by the gyro-compass, would fly us in a slow arc rather than in a straight line.
After an hour or so of this, the flight settled into the routine we had expected except that now the roar of the four engines was interrupted by the periodic noises made by the ice smashing against the aluminum skin of the aircraft. Also I was uneasy flying with a useless altimeter and having the airspeed register zero. All this had taken considerably more than the two hours that I was to fly so I woke Bud and turned the command of the aircraft over to him. After a while, I dozed off. We then had a little adventure. At about 5 A.M. GMT, I was rudely awakened by my navigator, Stud, who grabbed me under my right arm and lifted me clear out of my seat while screaming in my ear, "Where do you god-damned bus drivers think you are going?" I looked at the compass and to my horror I saw that we were headed due south, not east where our destination lay. I looked at Bud, my co-pilot, and there he was, with his head rolled over on his shoulder, sound asleep. And there we were, flying over the North Atlantic Ocean while a terrible winter storm raged around us, with both pilots asleep and the automatic pilot gyros precessed to a southerly heading that would run us out of gas over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I immediately got us back on course and proceeded to take command for the duration of the flight.
To Stud's questions about how long we might have been off course, so that he could make the appropriate corrections, I could say little. I knew about when I had fallen asleep and I knew when I was awakened so with this little data Stud was left to do what he could. He gave me some changes in our compass headings, I readjusted the auto-pilot to accommodate these changes and once again settled down to watch the instruments and keep us, hopefully, on course for the rest of the trip. By now the feeling of unreality had left me and I was wide awake and deadly serious about trying to get us onto dry, friendly territory as soon as possible. My instructions were to open the sealed orders I had carried with me since leaving Hunter Field when we reached the point of no return (a little less than halfway across the water). At this time, we were not certain of our final destination, flying the Atlantic probably meant we were to go to England or to Italy. However we had heard of crews flying to India via England and the Middle East and we were anxious to learn of our fate. I opened the orders and read them over the intercom. We were headed to England to fly with the 8th Air Force. After a few comments from Tex about how he had always wanted to see if those English girls were all they were cracked up to be and some good natured grousing about the dangers of flying bombing raids deep into Germany, it was generally agreed that we had gotten the assignment we had all hoped for most.
At about 6 A.M. the clouds began to break and I could see a hint of the dawn in the east. As the dawn broke fully, Tex sang "Sunrise Serenade", we flew into clear skies, the ice in the pitot tube began to melt and the airspeed began registering, we turned all the de-icing equipment off and we began, for the first time, to enjoy the flight in our lovely new B-17, its silver skin glistening in the beautiful early sunshine. What a memorable 21st birthday! Our planned flight was to take us into the mouth of Donegal Bay on the west coast of Ireland but with all the perturbations to our original flight plan we really didn't know what to expect. As the clouds began to disappear and the light got stronger, we all began to scan the horizons for sight of land. The only noise to be heard on the intercom was the discussion between Stud and me about how we might locate ourselves once we made our landfall. I can still see Stud with his head sticking up in the astrodome right in front of my windshield and peering right and left as he searched for land. As we approached our estimated time of arrival for the Irish coast he told me, "I sure as hell don't know where we are Buzz,"
I was getting a little nervous myself but not wanting to spook the crew I reminded him that we had plenty of fuel to get ourselves oriented and back on course once we sighted land. As we approached our ETA the most miraculous thing happened, land slowly appeared to the front, to the right and to the left of us. It turned out that the in-flight corrections that Stud had made, guessing all the way, had brought us to the coast of Ireland exactly on course and heading into the mouth of Donegal Bay! I still wonder if maybe Stud led us down the garden path just to make our first sight of land as exciting as possible. And were we ever excited! There were jokes and songs on the intercom, everyone came up to the pilot's compartment to congratulate Stud on his marvelous navigating, we broke out the coffee and cigarettes again and finally began to relax.
We flew across Ireland and the Irish Sea and over the Isle of Man to the north coast of Wales where we finally made voice radio contact with the tower at the Valley Airfield just outside the town of Holyhead. The landing instructions, delivered in a British accent, made it all real. After logging eleven exciting flying hours we had finally arrived in the European Theater of Operations . On the field were parked DeHavilland Mosquitos, Hawker Hurricanes, Supermarine Spitfires and some of the RAFs larger bombers, Handley-Page Halifaxes, Bristol Blenheims and Avro Lancasters, all combat aircraft of legend. We were thrilled by all this but we were horribly tired and stressed out after our ordeal and really pleased most when we got to our sleeping quarters where I slept for 14 hours without waking.
The trip of a lifetime.
From "The Youngest Crew" by Paul Wagner
Lagumo Press, Cheyenne, WY, 1997, ISBN 1-878117-18-1
