In their own words...

[bobbysocks]

Sgt William F. Owens 458 bombardment gp

Things hadn’t been too bad through these first twelve missions. Our plane was hit and damaged on some of the missions but none of the crew was injured. We were beginning to build hope that we might make it through the required twenty-five missions and be eligible to go home. All of this changed on my thirteenth mission. The early morning hours of June 29, 1944, had us preparing for another mission into the heart of Germany. This time our target was a JU-88 airplane factory. At the briefing we were told to expect heavy antiaircraft fire (flak) at and around the target. The large guns on the ground would fire at our planes, and the load was set to explode at a certain altitude. The explosion would create a large ball of black smoke and send out many pieces of sharp metal, which we would have to fly through. It could bring down a plane if it were a direct hit. We would usually fly at 20,000 feet or higher, but they could still reach us. We would have to climb to 20,000 feet over England before we crossed the English Channel and this would take several hours. This was in the days before jet planes. At this stage of the war the Germans were relying more on the antiaircraft guns than on their fighter planes. At times we would see their fighter planes but they would seldom attack us while our planes were flying in tight formation. They would wait for a plane that was damaged and couldn’t keep up with the formation. Their big guns were becoming more concentrated around the major targets. Flak was hitting more and more of our planes. The day before this mission, we made it back with a large hole in our wing. On the same mission our buddy crew was shot down. We went through Phase Training with this crew and became close friends. As their plane went down we could see some of them parachuting out of the plane.

I was flying in the nose turret on this mission (#13) on June 29,1944, and could see everything up ahead of us. As we approached our target the flak became heavier and the black puffs of smoke were everywhere. Our formation had to stay on a straight and level course so the bombardier in the lead plane could keep his bombsight on the target. We had to fly through the flak. The bombardier in the lead plane used his bombsight and the rest of the planes dropped their bombs when they saw his bombs drop. We had a switch in the nose turret that would drop our bombs when our bombardier wasn’t using our bombsight. I hit that switch and dropped our bombs as soon as I saw the bombs drop from our lead plane. Shortly after that we heard a loud explosion from anti-aircraft fire either in or just below our bomb bay section. Our plane immediately dropped about 5,000 feet and was damaged greatly. One of our four engines was knocked out, control cables damaged, oxygen system destroyed, and probably the worst of all, the fuel tanks in the wings were punctured and we were losing a large amount of fuel. Through all of this our Lord was still protecting us. Only one crewmember was injured. Our waist gunner was hit in the head with a piece of sharp metal. His flak helmet saved his life. The metal cut through his helmet and into his head. He was knocked out for awhile but was later revived. After dropping out of formation, our pilot and co-pilot got our plane under control and we headed back toward England. We were able to maintain our altitude at 15,000 feet, but had a long way to go and we continued to lose fuel. Our own fighter planes would usually meet us at a certain point and protect the stragglers from the German fighters. We flew alone for awhile before we saw several fighter planes off in the distance. We first thought they were German planes coming to attack us, but as they came closer we recognized them as our own P-51 fighters. I thanked my Lord once again. It was a welcoming sight, and they stayed close by as we made our way back.

Our luck ran out as we flew over northern Holland. We ran out of fuel. If the fuel could have lasted a little longer we would have made it to the English Channel and ditched in the water. When one of our three remaining engines failed our pilot gave the order to bail out. It was only the navigator and myself in the nose of the plane and we had to exit through the nose wheel well. By the time I got out of the nose turret he had kicked the door open and jumped out. I started to slide out of the opening but my parachute harness caught on the door latch. The wind pushed my legs back against the fuselage under our plane. It was very difficult but I finally pulled myself back into the plane. This time I went out headfirst. We had been taught to wait until we got close to the ground before opening our parachute but I couldn’t wait. I pulled the ripcord shortly after leaving our plane. The chute opened and I gave thanks to my Lord once again. After I calmed down I looked at my watch and it was about 11:15 in the morning and it was very quiet. There was no sound at all until one of our P-51 fighter planes appeared and circled me several times. As I floated toward the ground my mind was filled with many thoughts. I was dropping into a strange country not knowing a word of their language. Things seemed bad but they could have been worse. I could have been seriously injured or even gone down with our plane. I thanked my Lord once again for protecting me and I regained some of His wonderful peace, which helped me to face what was yet to come.

It seemed like I was in the air a long time before getting close to the ground, but when I did it came up to meet me. I landed in a wheat field. It was a hard landing on my left side causing rather bad bruises on my left elbow and left knee. I later learned that the area in which I landed had been reclaimed from the sea and was below sea level. The wheat field had large drainage ditches, with smaller ditches draining into them. I disconnected my parachute and started down one of the large ditches, not knowing where I was going. Before long I heard voices and saw two men coming down the ditch carrying my parachute and life vest. One of them could speak English and he told me they were part of the Dutch Underground. We played hide and seek in the wheat field, keeping away from the Germans until we reached the place where he wanted me to hide in the wheat. He told me to stay there and they would come back later. I thanked my Lord once again for sending help. I waited a long time and no one showed up, but I didn’t know of anything better to do so I continued to wait. By this time I was getting rather hungry, thirsty and sleepy, so I went to sleep. I don’t know how long I slept, but it was dark when I felt someone shaking me. It was the two men. They brought me two meatballs and two bottles of green pop. After eating I followed them to the home of a policeman where I spent the night. The next morning they gave me civilian clothes (rubber boots, shirt and pants) and took me into Meppel to stay with another family and wait for my phony passport and working papers. My passport listed me as a dentist born on June 6, 1919, and my name was Hendrick Bloomhoff. After receiving my passport and working papers, I went with a guide to the train station to ride the train down to Amsterdam.

I was in for quite a surprise when I reached the station. I was walking around on the platform and noticed other young men walking around. They were all wearing civilian clothes and one of them looked familiar. On closer look I recognized him as Billy Joe Davis, the waist gunner on our plane. I started looking closer at the other men as I walked and noticed that Edward S. Allen, tail gunner; Frank Peichoto, ball gunner; and Carry Rawls, top turret gunner; were also there. [Davis and Rawls were actually captured upon landing.] All five of us had made it to the ground safely and were picked up by the underground. We couldn’t stop and greet each other but it was a wonderful feeling to be together again and we would smile as we walked past one another. I gave thanks to my Lord once again.

All five of us got on a first-class train along with three guides and headed for Amsterdam. The underground didn’t want more than two of us traveling together with a guide, so when we got to Amsterdam we were divided into pairs of two. My partner was Frank Peichoto. Frank and I went through gunnery school together and became close friends. Then we were fortunate enough to be placed on the same crew. Now we were together again in the Dutch underground. We traveled together for the rest of the time we were in Holland. The two of us, along with our guide, were standing in front of the train station in Amsterdam waiting for a streetcar. Frank was smoking a cigarette and we noticed a German sailor coming toward him. The sailor was holding an unlit cigarette between his fingers and was bringing it up to his mouth as he said something to Frank in German. Frank, not knowing what the sailor said but anticipating his need, reached out his cigarette without saying a word. The sailor lit his cigarette from Frank’s and said, “Danke schoen” (thank you) as he went on his way. This was the first close encounter with the Germans and there would be more.

We stayed in Amsterdam with a man named Davis and his family for several days. He had been the Chief of Police before the war, but now was the head of the underground in that area. People came to him for advice and brought parts of guns or anything that could be used by the underground. We traveled by train only one other time. On that trip, along with several others, quislings (Dutch police in sympathy with the Germans) checked our passports. Our guides did the talking and we always got through. Most of our travel from this point was by bicycle, motorcycle, automobile and walking. At one time I rode on a motorcycle with a Catholic priest. Another time I rode in a 1932 Chevy with a wood burner attached to the back of it to create the fuel to run the engine. The engine kept running as long as there was fire in the burner. I can’t explain the mechanics of this contraption but it was a fascinating means of transportation and was greatly needed since gasoline was so scarce. Bicycles were a great means of transportation in Holland then, as it is now. When we were using bicycles or walking, our guides would tell us to stay some distance behind them in case they were stopped. If they were caught helping us they would have been put to death. On one bicycle trip we were following our guide on a road that was on top of a dike next to a canal. The water in the canal was higher than the land on either side of it. We were several hundred yards behind our guide when two German soldiers stopped him. We couldn’t stop when we got to him because we would have given him away. We kept riding along slowly until we got out of their sight and decided we had better stop and wait. We went over in the woods at the base of the dike and waited several hours but our guide never came. Finally another man stopped close to us and motioned for us to follow him. We followed him back the same way we had come until we came to a side road crossing the canal. We followed him on that road for several miles and found our guide waiting for us. He explained that the German soldiers were suspicious and he couldn’t follow us since the road crossing the canal was our turning off place.

We traveled almost the full length of Holland in the twenty-one days we were there and stayed in seven or eight different homes. One of the homes was on a farm out in the country. The house and the barn were all one building. The house was on one end and the barn with the animals on the other, but they both were very clean. Their pigpen was as clean as their kitchen. The men still wore wooden shoes or rubber boots while working in the fields due to the damp soil. I remember helping the ladies shell green peas for several hours while I was at this home. We stayed in another home that was an apartment, and there were German soldiers housed in the adjoining apartment. The people we were staying with told us not to talk out loud that night in our bedroom because the soldiers would be able to hear us. Their bed was right beside ours. Only the wall separated the two beds. While staying at another home I wrote a letter to my parents explaining all that had happened. I told them I was not injured and was with the underground in Holland. It was a rather long letter in which I told them other things like how much I loved them; what wonderful parents they were; how anxious I was to see them again; etc. A young man at this home said he would keep the letter until after the war was over and mail it for me in case I didn’t make it back home. He did mail the letter and Mom and Dad received it before I got back to the States. By that time my parents knew I was O.K. They had received letters from me while I was a prisoner.

The last home we stayed in before crossing the border into Belgium was in the small town of Erp. Two schoolteachers and their brother lived there and this was the first home where we could spend some time outside of the house because it was a small town and a secluded back yard. It was one of the few places where I didn’t feel the stress of being hunted by the Germans. We stayed there about four days waiting to cross the border into Belgium. They made pictures, which they later sent me along with some souvenirs (small wooden shoes and a spoon made of Dutch coins). Copies of these pictures can be found in the back section of this notebook.