Explosion in Mid-Air
On July 11th, 1944 we were just forming up on a mission to Munich, the fourth largest city in Germany. Our target was to be a jet aircraft plant located in the city and over 1200 heavy bombers were dispatched to the target. This was the Group's 86th mission and my 11th mission.
Our crew was made up of me, Jack W. Gazzale (Pilot), Jim Philips (Copilot), Fred Oglesby (Navigator), Ralph Hipsman (Engineer), Everett Broadie (Nose Gunner), his brother Robert Broadie (Tail Gunner), Bob Ehlert (Ball Turret Gunner), Burt Chenkin (Radioman), and William Becker (Waist Gunner).
At approximately 0930 and about one hour after takeoff and still forming up over England, the crew began to smell fuel. Suddenly the left wing was engulfed in flames and exploded, sending the aircraft into a severe spin preventing anyone from moving to an exit.Seconds later the main fuel tanks and possibly the bomb load exploded and the aircraft disintegrated. I was blown from the plane still strapped in my seat and Oglesby and Evertt Broadie (in the nose) were ejected through the nose section, severing Oglesby's left leg. Oglesby related that, as he fell toward earth unconscious, he became aware of something slapping him in the face and it was his boot and the severed leg. He pulled the ripcord and noticed his blood soaked parachute deploy before passing out again.
Witnesses on the ground reported seeing me plummeting toward the ground still strapped into my seat and at the last possible moment, unbuckling my seatbelt and pulling the ripcord. I received only minor injuries, but the trauma of injury and lost crew members was devastating.
Oglesby, bleeding profusely from his severe injury, was in a way, lucky. He landed in a tree beside the road just as an ambulance and crew came by on their way to a hospital with plasma. They and some farmers immediately removed Fred from the tree and applied emergency first aid, although they were unable to save his leg, he did survive and died only last year. Jim Phillips, Ralph Hipsman and Everett Broadie were lost in this crash.
The debris covered a five mile long path with an engine at the beginning and the largest piece, the tail section, at the other. Some debris fell on a B-24 base, causing a departing B-24 to abort it's takeoff after being hit by some of the debris.
Fred Oglesby and I are Colonels in the Confederate Air Force and I have the distinction of being a charter member of the High Sky Wing. Oglesby was a member of the Arizona Wing, which operates the B-17 "Sentimental Journey", whose markings are those of the 457th Bomb Group.
the nissan hut
To me, a Nissen hut at Glatton during the winter of 1944-45 was a man made cave. The interior was always cold, damp and gloomy. The windows were covered by thick blackout curtains, the overhead light bulbs, two to a hut, gave scant lighting. As a result, the time spent in the hut was mostly for sleeping. Off duty time was largely spent at the officer's club where there was a hugh fireplace which gave off some warmth, if you stood close enough.
The hut provided quarters for up to twelve men but my hut usually housed ten. There were no chairs, no table. Men in lower bunks could sit down, but men in upper bunks were disadvantaged.
In my hut no lingering ties of friendship seemed to develop. For example, the four officers of the Don Meyers crew, a typical crew, shared my hut from the time I arrived at Glatton in December until they finished their tour in March. Within a matter of days, they received travel orders, packed up, left for the Stone Replacement Depot and we never heard from them again. No final good-byes, no exchange of addresses. Why was this so?
To begin with, the Nissen provided cramped and uncomfortable quarters, an atmosphere not conducive to social conversation. We tended to share limited personal information about ourselves. The infrequent talks seldom touched on serious matters as the war or future plans. I didn't know who was married, not anyone's home state with the exception of a bombardier nicknamed "Tex" Huddleston, who I assumed, was from Texas.
There was another factor, and it was probably the primary one, working against the creation of friendships, namely combat missions. We tried to deny it to ourselves but the missions concentrated and dominated our thoughts, You could'nt help thinking that maybe tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or the next day after that, you might be wounded, face captivity or even death. A man was meditative about missions and survival. Maybe we tried not to know each other too well, so if a man from the hut was posted as missing, or killed, the loss would be less personal.
For the seven months I was stationed at Glatton there was no combat loss in my hut. On one occasion after a mission John Medwin was declared missing in action, but his plane landed safely at an alternate field and he later came back to Glatton.
The only man wounded in those seven months was Bill Pursell, who got his first medical attention from a British doctor when his plane landed at a Royal Air Force base due to a shortage of fuel. The flesh wound on his leg was painted with a generous amount of a disinfectant called Gentian-Violet. For a time he was the "man with a violet leg" but he fully recovered.
Your bunk bed was a repository for your mail and other items. One day I returned from a mission and found a good-looking box lying on the bed. It was an Air Medal, given for six missions. Additional increments of six missions brought flimsy sheets of paper to the bunk informing me that Oak Leaf Clusters were added to my Medal. This method of award delivery lessened the luster of the award. No ceremonial rites, no hand shakes.
The practice of rating an officer with an efficiency report continued even in combat. In view of what one of my reports contained, or more correctly what it did'nt contain, I was lucky that my report even reached me. The rating completed by the 750th Squadron Commander, Major James Havey, on March 15, 1945, stated "the only rating I can fairly give this officer is UNKNOWN."
If there was anything good to be said about living in a Nissen hut, it was the omission of a mainstay of military routine in the States, the inspection of Quarters. We took advantage of this; we wasted no effort to make up bunks or to be neat. This disarray added further to the man-made cave atmosphere of the Nissen hut.
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