Most anyone who has never been in air combat can have some understanding of what it might to like to be attacked by enemy fighters. The movies and TV have amply given viewers the sights the airman saw. Often the action shows the bomber crews fighting back with the gunner shooting down one of the attacking fighter planes and saying something to the effect, "That's for my buddy Joe, come on you SOB's and I'll give you the same medicine." Well anyone who believes this believes in the tooth fairy also. The truth is the bomber crews were in an extreme state of fear and the only thing on their minds was the hope that the Nazi's would break off the action before we were shot down. In the story of my third mission, April 29, 1944, I gave one personal account of what it feels like to be looking down the 20 MM cannon barrel of a Luftwaffe fighter. Praying for God to survive the battle is the only thought on everyone's mind. Some things cannot be expressed in words and one is the deep seated fear that racks ones consciousness when he feels he will be killed in the next few moments.

I want to express another fear the bomber crews experienced that is very difficult, if not impossible, for anyone who had not been there to really understand. The movies and TV make very light of the danger from Flak. Few would guess or even believe that the Air Force lost more planes from anti-aircraft fire than from the much more dramatic fighter attacks. In fact. Flak destroyed 3501 American planes in 1944. This was 600 more than met their doom by fighter plane opposition.

This was a different type of fear, you could not shoot back. Once you entered into the range of the AA guns, you could only hope that our efforts to jam the enemy radar would foil their aim and altitude. We could take evasive action after we had dropped our bombs but on the bomb run from the IP to the drop point, the bombardier took control of the plane with his bomb sight. His concentration was 100% through the sight, tracking the target. The flak would be exploding all around us, planes could be burning, wings coming off, men parachuting through the sky but the bombardier could care less. His job was to make all the effort of all the ground personnel and the flight crews be worth the cost. What would be the use of going through all this if the bomb load was not on target? The rest of us were helpless, the pilots were not flying the plane, the gunners were not defending us. I had no navigation to consider until after bombs away. We were sitting ducks.

Evasive action took place after bombs were released but on the straight and level bomb run our waist gunners would throw out hand full after hand full of "Shaff", sometimes called "Window." These were strips of aluminum foil that would confuse the German radar aiming devices.

Another device used by the 8^th Air Force was an electronic jamming unit which went by the name of "Carpet." It sent out radio signals on the same frequency as the Nazi AA radar thereby confusing their aim. Each combat wing had some planes of each group with a Carpet transmitter.

The Germans also used ground optical range finders to detect our altitude and direction. There was no way to foil this method of aiming their guns. One of the most distasteful methods used by the Luftwaffe to acquire knowledge of our altitude and direction was to send one of their planes (sometimes one of ours that had been captured) to fly along side our formation, out of range of our guns in order to radio back to the ground our altitude, speed and direction and to correct the accuracy of their batteries.

Over Berlin, we flew through 20 miles of flak batteries, as many as 520 guns. This was a horrible experience and something to be dreaded. The guns fired in batteries of four, a burst would go off in front of us, we instantly flew through the black smoke. A second burst would be a little closer, a third would be almost on our nose. I was sure the next would blow us to kingdom come but by the grace of God would go off at our tail. I was almost frozen with fear by the time the third had exploded.

Later after we started bombing the oil refineries, Hitler ordered an even greater density of Flak guns be placed to protect this extremely essential industry. We knew we would catch all hell when we got near any large city or industrial complex. But sometimes without any warning, an AA battery would open up on us out of a clear blue sky. The worst example of this occurred on my 11th mission, May 13^th to Tutow in northern Germany on the Baltic Sea. We had cleared the coast of Denmark on the way home and were over the North Sea. After having removed out flak vests, a barge in the water with AA guns opened up on us. We were taken completely by surprise. The explosions were very close but by the time we got our flak vests back on, we were out of range of their guns. This really frightened us and never again was I so hasty to inform the crew it was safe to remove their flak vests and helmet when we broke enemy coasts on the way home.

One of my duties was to inform the crew when it was time to put the flak vest and helmet on and when it was safe to remove it. The helmet was a modified GI steel helmet and the vest was a series of overlapping metal plates sewed into a cloth jacket which covered our torso front and back. The helmet covered down over our ears and back of our neck. There is no doubt as to the added protection all this gave our bodies but equally as important was the psychological value of doing what you could to "hide" from danger.

The Germans had their own psychological tricks also. On one mission over northern France, the flak exploded with red smoke instead of the normal black. It did not make the flak more deadly but sure as heck scared the fire out of us not knowing what it was. When the action got hot and heavy, even though it was 40 degrees below zero or more, I would always perspire so heavily that sweat would come out from under my flight helmet and freeze along my forehead. I would pick the ice off with my fingers when the action was over. In spite of the flight helmet with ear phones and the flak helmet and the roar of the motors, I could hear the flak hitting the plane. It sounded like gravel on a tin roof when hitting my navigation compartment which was covered by the metal skin of the fuselage.

When the AA shell reached a predetermined altitude, it exploded. The shrapnel spread out like an inverted cone. The real danger was being above and to the side of the burst. On our 26^th mission, July 25, 1944 to St. Lo, we were caught directly in the center of the cone. The shock threw our plane 15 to 20 feet straight up. Our wing men caught most of the damage. I almost bailed out.

A number of times we were in a flak barrage and suddenly daylight would be showing through holes in the fuselage where I was standing. I knew the vicious hunks of metal were ripping through the plane and expected the next burst to go right through me. As I've said before, God was with us because in 31 missions with hundreds and hundreds of flak holes in our plane, not one man in our crew was ever hit. It seems like a miracle to me that all of us escaped uninjured.

The concentrations of AA batteries in enemy territory were pretty well defined and in most cases we could avoid going through unnecessary flak until we reached the target area. I think one of my greatest specialties as a lead navigator was avoiding their "hot spots." As brilliant as the Germans were and as adept in warfare, they did some very stupid things also. To me an outstanding example was their failure to put AA guns between Dunkirk in France and Ostend in Belgium. There was about a one mile opening between these cities where we broke the coast with thousands of planes either going into or out of the continent. We did this day after day with the flak unable to touch us. The second or third time I went to briefing and saw that our flight plan called for a fly by at this point of the coast, I was apprehensive that surely the enemy would have moved his guns just a little closer and shoot the heck out of us. It never happened, I can only guess that the AA commander was afraid to tell the Berlin planners they had made a mistake.

The greatest fear of flak I ever encountered was on my 28^th mission on August 13^th to a bridge junction near Rouen, France. More about it when we get to the story of that mission but briefly I saw a plane explode before my very eyes in the formation ahead of us from a direct flak hit. Fear gripped me, I did not want to fly over that spot which we would do in another minute or so.

Yes, fighters and flak were bad but we had other things that took a dreadful toll of our planes. As many as one out of six aircraft lost were from non-enemy causes. Pilot and navigation error, take off and landing, weather, equipment failure, collision between planes in the crowded air space over England, excited gunners hitting our own planes with machine gun fire in the heat of battle, and just plain horse play cost many many lives.

To sum it all up, the combat crews lead very dangerous lives yet we loved it. Every man was a volunteer and being young, we always knew the other fellow would be the unlucky one and sure enough this was true "For those of us who survived."