[bobbysocks]

The Ghost Ship
The date was November 21, 1944; Lt. Harold R. DeBolt with the 401st Squadron was assigned a B-17G number 43-38545 from the 324th Squadron, Hal's 33rd mission. The plane was so new; it didn't have a "Name" yet. It was only the 3rd mission for this plane. The mission was to go back to Merseburg, Germany and was lead by Major Klette.

The weather was terrible, with solid clouds everywhere as the mission proceeded. Most things had been routine until he turned on the bomb run. The formation tended to slow up in the turn and with bomb bay doors open, DeBolt's aircraft stalled and dropped out of formation. At this instant he was attacked by enemy fighters and also began the run through a very heavy and accurate flak barrage. Due to malfunction with the bomb release mechanism, the bombs would not drop. This caused the aircraft to fall further out of formation. About this time the whole ship took the blast from a flak burst just below the bomb bays, the plane was badly damaged.

The explosion caused the bombs to drop but No. 2 and No. 3 engines also went out. No. 2 was out completely and No. 3 was wind milling and causing undue vibration throughout the aircraft. The crew began jettisoning all surplus equipment in an effort to lighten the Fortress as DeBolt set course for home. The plane was losing altitude and was turned to a heading of 270 degrees west, for friendly lines. The crew stayed with the plane as long as they could and when it was down to 2,000 feet, Hal gave the signal for everyone to "bail-out" and they did, while the Fort continued on its way with the autopilot doing its job. All chutes opened and the men were picked up by British infantrymen soon after landing.

The damaged Fortress continued onward, losing altitude and remaining in a perfect landing attitude. The Fortress mysteriously made a perfect three point landing in a plowed field. It ground looped at the end of the field and sat there with engines still running, undamaged in an open field, near Liege, Belgium. The landing was in a flat strip area, near a British Army encampment. A British Officer ran out to help the crew, but only found neatly stacked flying gear inside and was astonished to find no one on board. He inspected the Fort (as a possible German trap) but found no one. He then turned off the operating engines. The British Officers name was Major John Crisp.

The Stars and Stripes published the story the next day and called DeBolt's B-17 - a Ghost Ship, or Phantom Fort.


Flights Over Germany (Shot Down Twice)

By Warren D. Price


At that time 25 missions was considered a tour and you would be eligible to come home however that was changed to 35 before I could finish my tour.

My first mission, April 1944, was to Munich, Germany and it was here that I learned real fear with fighters all the way in and the heavy flak over the target. This mission made it certain I wanted out of the waist position and into the tail if I was going to make it through this tour. At this time our crew was reduced from 10 men to 9 to put together new gunnery crews. This meant one waist gunner would sit out the next mission. That day was my day to stand down and my crew was shot down over Leipzig with no reports of anyone bailing out. This was a bad day for a lot of us.

When this happens, the extra crew member is put on stand-down basis for a couple of weeks to recover from the shock before being assigned to a new crew.

I spent my time on the skeet range and the gunnery range trying to keep busy. A Major Reaume and I shot skeet together on several days before the crew was lost and we both had 7 missions at this time. He had flown about every type of plane they had in England and was getting ready to fly lead for the 401st squadron. I had told him that 2 wanted to fly the tail position but didn’t look forward to starting with a new crew again. A short time later my name was posted on the board and was assigned to fly the lead plane crew tail position with the Major Reaume crew. All of this crew had rough combat experience and it was difficult to know that every man was as good as there was at his job Major Reaume’s mother owned a small airport in California so he grew up in a cockpit and it showed. He outranked all other active pilots on the base but I never saw him use that as a tool to put another pilot in line. His rank made him second in command over the entire 91st Bomb Group but his skill made him the No. #1 man to contact if there was a problem. He said very little about his personal life except that he was single and an Air Force Academy graduate. All of his first lead crew members were single except the navigator and that position had to be filled with the best the group had regardless.

We made the rest of our tour together and as I look back today I am sure I idolized him and I’m sure that he was aware of this. Many times when we were coming back from a mission he would give me a call as soon as we came to the English Channel to let me fly the plane across the channel. Later when flying weather ship out of Monroe, Louisiana, I spent hours in the cockpit getting a crash course on flying the big 4 engine jobs.

The following days flight crews list was posted around 4pm so we had time to prepare. Most important was a shower with a soap that prevented bacteria. This was important in case of a wound it could be hours before receiving medical attention.

The day the Battle of the Bulge began we were in the air before the news was announced so was unaware of the situations. We went deep into Germany to hit oil fields and refinery and started our "let down" to 10,000 feet early to get off oxygen. We believed we were over safe territory and had pulled off our masks and eating our lunch when ground fire opened up at point blank range. A large hole appeared 3 feet above me in the tail section and another round hit an outside engine so they had our range and speed programmed another engine had to be feathered so we couldn’t gain altitude. The ground fire had concentrated on our plane and the rest of the group was able to get out of range before getting hit. We were able to cross the German lines and the two feathered engines did not catch fire so we had time to consider our options. The navigator was hit in the shoulder so bailing out was not considered. It was decided by Major Reaume to crash land in the best area we could find. To stay in the air in our condition was foolish with German fighters in the area. For us to call our base would have alerted the fighters to our problem so we picked an alfalfa field to set it down. There were 3 Belgium workers in the field and I’m sure our problem scared them too. The Belgium people were not to be trusted and in some cases were pro German. With this in mind we hoped they would cooperate and further problems would be avoided. The landing was good enough that no one was injured and the navigator was still conscious and in good condition. Reaume was able to communicate our needs to the Belgians and each of us carried an escape packet with money, a price was agreed upon and we started our walk to a mine entrance where we would stay until dark. As soon as it was dark we started the walk to Liege, Belgium where we would find friendly troops and contact our base. We arrived in Liege in the early morning and M.P.’s put us in an old hotel for some rest. The navigator was taken to a field hospital and we radioed our base that we were safe. Two days later we were aboard another B-17 headed for home. An incident did occur when Reaume explained what we wanted the Belgians to do. They wanted to go home to tell their family where they were going. This of course was impossible because they could not be trusted and could very well come back with a truckload of Germans. They finally realized they could not be left and agreed to go as planned.

In December of 1944 we were shot down again and crash-landed at Merville France without incident. Our base flew in a B-17 in for us, parked it at the local airport and the two pilots caught a ride back to the home base immediately. We were notified that our plane had arrived and would be gassed and ready by the time we got to the airport. Both pilots had been celebrating the landing of yesterday and were slow to get our gear, etc., to the new plane. It was evident there was an altitude problem when we called the tower for take-off clearance. They weren’t ready to go back to our base and the tower control was not sympathetic. It was a short flight home and the flight bulletin board had us scheduled for a mission the next day.

The English people are a serious type. They are masters of the art of conversation and I found them to be students of history and very knowledgeable with American history. Their sense of humor is usually lacking and I attended a number of comedy shows in Cambridge that were slapstick type comedy and very boring after 15 minutes. The dry humor most of us enjoy is unknown to the British. Their transportation was mostly train and bicycle and since it rains often for 10 months of a year, every bicycle has a raincoat tied to the rear-carrying basket. All students and adults carry a book or newspaper or both. They read constantly and it is evident in their correct English. There is some slang but not much.

The food served in English pubs was plain and good. Meat, sugar and coffee were in very short supply during the war so this is not a true evaluation today. We always rode our bikes to a local home that served "Fish & Chips" when we had a day off. Their fish was always fresh and their potatoes were far superior to anything in the U.S. They always offered beans and Canadian bacon at the pubs and this was always a treat. Their bread was the old "home baked" type and was excellent. The pastries were poor by our standards and we stayed with the toast with peanut butter and orange marmalade for our dessert. I think our government shipped marmalade to the ETO in tank cars as it was everywhere. The tea was a good substitute for coffee but was never hot enough for me.

I carried my fly rod with me every place except on missions. I fished the small lakes and streams and caught carp and suckers. They had trout rivers but not in our area. The local farmers had pheasant and a type of grouse and they would allow us to hunt. All of the game was given to the farmer and they were very appreciative.

Soon after arriving at our base in England our first acquisition was a bike. For safety reasons all buildings were scattered over a large area and the need for transportation was top priority. There were many of them for sale on the base and a good used bike was cheap. The jeep was used to transport us with equipment to our plane but on days that were on stand down, it was our bike to get us to the range, etc.

Our library was almost non-existent and we borrowed from the men that received books from home.

On April 15, 1945 the major and I finished our tour with a milk run that was a short trip to a submarine base. We were home by mid-afternoon and we thought a low buzz job over the tower was a good idea. A mild reprimand was the penalty but we felt it was the thing to do.

We both had 6 air medals with battle stars so we knew a discharge was waiting when we got home.


Where Did You Come From?

A Story by Mike Banta

RMY A/C 936, IDENTIFY YOURSELF

February 19, 1994, on my eighteenth mission, I was hit in the right hand by a piece of flack. After landing, they took me to the hospital where the doctor took stitches in my hand and then took me off of flying status till my hand healed to the point where I could use my hand in flying.

Since the injury did not confine me to the hospital but prevented me from flying, they gave our crew a week's flack leave. This meant that we were free to go anywhere in Great Britain. We took a train to Aberdeen at the furthermost northern tip of Scotland, as far as we could get from the war, and we had a marvelous week's vacation from the terror of flying combat missions.

Upon our return, my hand still had not healed and the doctor kept me off of flying status while the rest of the crew started flying missions filling in on other crews where one of its members was unable to fly. On March 10, my hand had healed to the point where I was again put on flying duty.

During the nineteen days I was not on flying duty they assigned our B-17, Yankee Gal, to another crew. I was told that they did this because they were assigning us a new plane that had flown only one mission as we were now a seasoned crew and that Yankee Gal, which had completed many missions had been assigned to a new crew that had just arrived on base.

This sounded like our crew was receiving a great honor. We were told that since this was a new B-17 that we would have the privilege of naming it. I was told that the name and picture would be painted on the aircraft next time it had to be taken to the hangar. The crew brought up name after name but Ray, the copilot and I, being from California favored "Sunkist Miss," from the song "California, Here I Come." The debate raged on but to no effect, because after test flying the B-17G prior to flying it in combat, Ray and I flatly decided we did not want this aircraft.

On the test flight the number four-engine propeller ran away. This meant the mechanism for controlling the pitch of the propeller was not working when at full military power which is the power setting used for take off. On take off the propeller pitch control did not work and the RPM of the propeller and engine increased till it exceeded the red line on the instrument gage. We had to reduce the power of that engine or it would tear apart. Thus, it was almost like taking off with three engines, which was no problem on a test flight but could be very dangerous with a full bomb load.

At cruising power, the prop pitch regulator worked reasonably well though it had to be watched carefully. Next, the plane was vibrating so badly that the sliding window next to the pilot seat kept sliding open. I had to keep sliding it closed with my left hand while flying the plane with my right hand. This left no hand for the throttles and other controls which I found quite unacceptable.

We tried to trim up the ship with the trim tabs but they made little difference in the attitude of the ship no matter which way we turned them. The ship simply wouldn't trim up no matter how much Ray and I tried.

Next, we heard a tearing of metal and then a whoosh from the Bombardier - Navigator compartment below and in front of us. This was followed by an excited announcement from the navigator that the hatch through which the pilot, copilot, navigator and bombardier enter the aircraft had torn away and left nothing but a gaping hole. Many other smaller problems were reported from other positions on the plane.

When we landed A/C 936, I loudly proclaimed to the crew chief that I did not want A/C 936 and please return Yankee Gal to our crew. The crew chief promised to fix every thing we had written up on the flight sheet but he said, as I knew, that he had nothing to do with assigning aircraft.

I went to the ready room for the 324th Bomb Group and spoke to the Major, telling him that A/C 936 was a piece of crap and we wanted Yankee Gal back.

"They told me that I was honored by being given this aircraft with only one mission on it that I could name as my own ship." I said, "but what has happened to Boeing that the quality of the aircraft they are now building had dropped so low?"

The major said that they could not reverse the assignments but that they would guarantee to repair all the faults in the aircraft prior to our first combat mission in A/C 936. He again reminded me of how lucky I was to be able to name my own B-17. I left the meeting naively believing him.

March 24, 1945, our crew flew our first mission in A/C 936. I was assured by the crew chief that the prop control on # four engine had been fixed and was working properly and that he had found the problem with the trimming mechanism so that we should have no problem trimming the aircraft.

On take off for that day's mission, with a full bomb load, the propeller on engine # 4 again ran away with the RPM again going out of sight. I again had to cut the power on that engine, a hazardous measure with the heavy loading of bombs plus a full load of fuel. The aircraft was hard to trim and Ray and I fought all day to hold close formation. When we returned from the mission, I called the crew chief over and told him of the danger in which he had put our crew. He promised to change every part of the prop pitch assembly system, which was a closed system, before our next mission.

Our next mission in our "new" B-17G, A/C 936, was on March 28, to an aero engine factory at Spandau. The crew chief said he had replaced every part of the prop pitch system and, therefore we should have no problem. Once again, #4 propeller ran away at maximum power used during take off but we had little difficulty lifting the aircraft into the air well prior to the end of the runway. We were fit to be tied. It seemed as if no one cared that we were flying a disaster waiting to happen. We were flying as right wingman to the Squadron lead ship and on the way into the target the group leader got slightly off course and inadvertently flew us over a known flack area. Our squadron was flying high squadron in the group formation and we received
accurate and tracking flack as we unnecessarily flew over this known flack area on our way to the target. The squadron leader and the aircraft flying of his right wing received heavy flack damage. Captain Gaines, the squadron leader had two engines shot out while Lt. Smith on his right wing, lost one engine. We were the only plane in the element to receive only light battle
damage. This was fortunate as we already had one engine acting up.

With the Squadron lead flying on only two engines, his aircraft was losing altitude and with the primary target still many miles away, he decided to attack a secondary target, the Stendal marshaling yards.

We were obviously anxious and irritated by the accurate flack area that the group leader had unnecessarily flown us over and also at being unable to attack our primary target. Thus, when we landed, I was in an especially irritated mood and lit into the crew chief for not correcting the problem with the prop control.

"Take the whole engine and propeller off and replace them." I demanded.

"Sir," he said, "there is nothing more in this world that I would rather do, but I asked and the brass say that we can't throw away a perfectly good engine. I've replaced everything in the prop control system and I don't know what more I can do."

"If that prop runs away on our next mission," I told the crew chief, "I will assure you that it won't be a perfectly good engine when we return to the base."

Our next mission was to Bremen on March 30th; to strike the submarine and shipbuilding yards. Since the sub pens were made of heavy reinforced concrete, we carried a maximum bomb load of thousand pound delayed action bombs. We were leading the rear element that day. Again on take off, #4 prop ran away and this time we barely had enough runway to lift off with a full load of gasoline and the extra heavy bomb load. This engine had to go, I determined. The engine blew about half way to Bremen.

"Feather #4." I called to Ray on the intercom.

Ray reached out and hit the feathering button on the instrument panel and turned off the ignition and gasoline. The propeller continued windmilling and black oil poured from the rear of the engine. The prop control mechanism not only wouldn't control the RPM on take off, but it was also incapable of feathering the prop. With the prop windmilling instead of feathering, the
wind resistance of the unfeathered prop took one of the remaining engines to just push the dead engine through the air. It was like flying on two engines and with an extra heavy bomb load, our air speed dropped and we were unable to hold our altitude.

I called to our two wingmen and released them to catch up with the formation. I then called Major Klette, our Squadron commander and reported the mechanical difficulties and that we would be only able to hold an altitude of about seven thousand feet with the heavy bomb load. The Group was attacking at an altitude of twenty-five thousand feet. Since we had no bombsight, I informed him, we were aborting the mission which meant we were turning around and heading home. At this time we were flying all alone without any protective formation, a position in which the German fighters loved to catch a B-17.

Unbelievably, he told me to continue to the target, find the drifting smoke from a smoke marker bomb and drop my bombs on that. Bremen was very heavily protected by antiaircraft batteries. At seven thousand feet we would be sitting ducks. If the antiaircraft didn't get us, the German fighters would be waiting for a stricken B-17 flying alone miles into Germany with one
engine out and windmilling. It became abundantly clear to me that the Major intended to use us as a decoy to bring up the German fighters who would be looking for a B-17 flying alone with one engine out. This would permit our little friends to make some kills.

By this time we had fallen far enough behind the Group that radio transmission was breaking up and it was hard to decipher our transmissions to each other. It was obvious that he was having trouble understanding what I was saying and he had no idea of what I could understand of what he was saying to me. I thought a moment and realized that to drop bombs on smoke markers from bombs dropped ten or fifteen minutes before would only plow up some German farmers sauerkraut patch. Yet our chances of surviving this desperate and foolish attack were extremely poor. Our aborting the mission was not impairing the rest of the group as our B-17 had been removed from the squadron because of mechanical failure which incidentally could have been
avoided if someone had not been so stingy with new engines.

"I can't hear you clearly." I radioed to the Major. "Did you say return to base? The reception is so poor that I can't make out what you're saying."

"No!" he shouted. "I said . . . " and his voice became inaudible.

"Roger," I said, "I'm following your advice and returning to base."

When we reached the channel, we were holding our altitude at about seven thousand feet. We opened the bomb bay doors and released our unarmed bombs over the channel. I radioed the base for permission to come straight in for a landing. They cleared me for a straight in approach. We had a smooth landing with no difficulties and taxied to our assigned revetment.

The crew chief was waiting for us and came over to see his B-17 covered with oil and dripping all over the tarmac. "Well," he said I see you got rid of the engine. The plane will be going into the hanger for major repairs. Would you like to have the name you've chosen and a pretty girl painted on the nose? This is your chance to have the artist do the art work."

"Hell no!" I said, "I'm still trying to get rid of this dog. If I name it, it's mine for keeps."
We never did get rid of A/C 936 and flew it for most of our remaining missions. After the engine and propeller were replaced, we never again had a problem with the prop running away on take off. We even got used to the ugly way it flew. I'd like to tell you that the ugly duckling grew up to be a swan but that would be a lie. We did however learn to love the ugly duckling
though not enough to name it.

There was no way that they were going to tell me what had happened to A/C 936 prior to it being assigned to me. For fifty years I wondered and wondered. At the fiftieth reunion of the 91st Bomb Group Memorial association at Oklahoma City, I met Dale Darling (no relation to our copilot) who served as radio operator on the Laws crew. He has spent his last few years photocopying the records of the group at the Army Archives. At my request, he researched the
history of Army A/C 936 and the following documents tell of the dirty trick those bastards pulled on me when they gave me that brand new B-17G with only one mission on it.


>From a letter to Dale Darling, November 13, 1994:

My request concerns the information on what happened to A/C 936, DF-Z, of the 324th Bomb Squadron prior to its being assigned to me and my crew. From Ray Bowden's book, I can determine it was assigned to the 324th right after A/C 911, Bull Session, was assigned to the 323rd on November 5, 1944.

A/C 936 must have received major battle damage after November 12th when I flew my first check out mission. In checking the information you sent me, I find 926 did not fly on any of the missions I flew until it was assigned to me just prior to my March 24th mission.

I would be eternally grateful if you can find the time to check the mission critique sheets from November 5, 1944 through December 12, 1944 to see if A/C 936 flew any missions and, if so, any evidence of damage received. The mystery of what happened to A/C 936 between when it arrived on base in November or December 1944 and March 1955 when it was assigned to me is one I am most anxious to solve.

Your buddy in the 324th,

(His answer said that 936 had been shot down on it's first mission but made a forced landing in allied occupied France. It was flown back to Bassingbourn and declared salvage. After six months as a hanger queen it was resurrected from parts of several hanger queens and given to me.)