Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Shot Down - Missing In Action

Shot Down - Missing In Action

By Wesley Carrington Greayer

493rd Bomb Group, Tail Gunner on Edward Glotfelty's Crew

Author of The Tornado Struck at Midnight (ISBN 1-59129-729-x)

(Availble at Amazon, B&N and your local bookstore)

Nineteen days after D-day, on 25 June 1944, the 493rd launched mission numbers fourteen and fifteen. They scheduled twenty-six bombers for St. Avoid, France, and twenty-six for Romilly-Sur- Seine, a Ju-88 air base 100 miles east of Paris, near Troyes.

Glotfelty's crew drew the Ju-88 air base, described at the morning briefing as a "Milk Run." Now on their sixth mission, things were looking up. Today they were veterans, no longer in danger of self-destruction. Surviving seven missions would improve their chances of completing their thirty-five-mission tour of duty to about fifty-fifty. In the Eighth Air Force, a fifty-fifty chance of survival made them feel like they were home free. Perhaps they could do some Christmas shopping?

As advertised, the flight to the target was uneventful. On this sunny summer morning there was no flak, no fighters, no weather - a scenic tour of France- a classic Milk Run; delightfully boring. From his tail turret, Wes Greayer enjoyed the spectacular view of the channel and speculated that had their route taken them 200 miles further south, he would have had a birds-eye view of the Normandy beachhead. Imagining the terrain crammed with men and equipment actively engaged in destroying Hitler's war machine was all that kept him awake. The calm before the storm. Were it not for the routine roll call every few minutes, half the crew could easily have dozed off. But at the end of the bomb run, the moment Bombardier, Norm Loney, released the bombs and yelled "bombs away", all hell broke loose. A single burst of flak had damaged engine number two; the prop wouldn't feather; the engine began running away. Ed couldn't maintain airspeed and watched helplessly as the other 35 planes in their formation flew rapidly away leaving them . . . a-l-o-n-e, alone . . . in a sky full of Jerry fighters spelled . . . trouble, . . . t-r-o-u-b-l-e.. . . They were about 280 miles from Debach and no one was eager to crash in enemy territory or ditch in the channel. Enemy fighters were always on the lookout for stragglers. Ed faced the daunting task of nursing a disabled ship across 200 miles of enemy territory and 80 miles of open sea. No one was dozing now.

Ed turned Automatically toward the west where, . . . if they succeeded in traversing the 280 miles, . . . they would land at Debach, England where 29 more deadly missions awaited them! . . . Had they chosen to fly 250 miles the other way, . . . eastward . . . toward Zurich, Switzerland, it would have meant the end of the war for them. . . . But, it never crossed their minds. Everyone on board began calculating how best to get back to their home base. The 'nonswimmers', and there were a few, voiced their dread of ditching in the channel.

"How about Normandy?"

The allied invasion had established a six-mile-wide beachhead on Normandy, so Normandy was another option. This route added 130 miles to their trip, and there was the added threat of enemy fighters, but it would avoid much of the heavy flak and give them an alternate landing site in friendly territory before having to decide to cross the channel. It seemed like a reasonable precaution. They decided to head for Normandy. Norm Loney gave Ed Glotfelty a heading of 330 degrees and an ETA of 09:40, but not knowing the exact location of the fighter strips on the beachhead, his figures were half guesswork.

The ball was now in the gunners' court. As Ed headed toward Normandy all eyes anxiously scanned the sky for Jerrys. Luckily, a group of American P-38s saw them first. The moment they spotted the P-38s heading their way, a cheer went up. The twin booms of these "Little Friends" made them easy to recognize. Not much danger of mistaking one of them for a Jerry. The pilot of one Lightning nearly stuck his wingtip into the waist window as he gave the crew his thumbs-up signal.

Their ship, EDIE, shook, shimmied, rattled, and rolled. It seemed EDIE would surely come apart at the seams. The noise was tremendous. They were losing altitude, and the pilot, copilot, and engineer had their hands full just keeping EDIE, flying. But heading toward the channel flying formation with four P-38s gave the crew a wonderful sense of security. Despite the shaky condition of their ship, they knew no Jerry would add to their predicament.

With EDIE doing the rumba, Ed ordered the crew to prepare for bail-out. Wes snapped his chest pack to his parachute harness, opened the camera hatch, and sat with his legs dangling and braced himself with his hands on each side of the open hatch. Looking straight down, he waited for the order from Ed to jump. Harry Baker, ball gunner, Dennis Hall, waist gunner, and William Toney, radio-operator, each with their chest chutes on, lined up behind Wes, ready to go. Up front, Norm Loney, the bombardier, and Clark Henry, the nose gunner, also stood poised. Still over enemy territory, no one was eager to bail, but they would all go the instant Ed gave the order. Like the Captain of any ship, Ed would be the last man to leave. Any delay by any of the crew would further risk his life.

On the way to Normandy, they debated the pros and cons of their various options. From Normandy there would still be about 210 miles to their base with half of it over water. What were the odds of crossing the channel successfully with a crippled ship? Should they try it? They expressed their opinions freely and the crew was roughly evenly divided, but if they lost another engine they would wind up in the drink. Some wanted to go-for-broke; who knew why? Perhaps they had a hot date back in Debach? Ed listened to each man's opinion carefully. Every man's life was on the line, so no one was pulling rank . . . but, Glotfelty was captain of the crew and his decision would be final, vote or no vote. . . . Within 50 miles of Normandy the number four engine failed and the question became academic. With two engines out and others likely to fail at any moment they were on their way down. Now it was a race to the beachhead before they ran out of altitude.

Approaching Caen, Ed and the others could see a grand panorama. Hundreds of ships, large and small, dotted the Normandy shoreline. Tanks, infantry, and huge stockpiles of stores were plainly visible. Many barrage balloons protected strategic emplacements and the stores of ammunition. Two airstrips were clearly visible, one a hastily built steel-mat, and one a concrete runway. The concrete runway looked much more inviting for landing a heavy bomber.

They arrived over the airfields at 12,000 feet. Ed watched the direction of takeoff and landing of the fighters using the airstrips, which told him the direction of the wind. Ed circled the concrete runway and began the let down in the right direction to land upwind. As Ed did this, Wes was sitting in the camera hatch, looking straight down. Wes suddenly saw flashes of gunfire.

"Whoa, there Ed, it's too hot here. If we get any lower those Jerry snipers will part my hair."

"Roger, Wes. I'll haul-ass and head for the steel mat."

Harry said, "Jesus, Glad we didn't bail over here! They'd have picked us off like clay pigeons."

Approaching the landing strip, Ed said, "We're getting too low for bail-out, guys. Assume your ditching positions." Ed called to the guys up-front. "Norm and Clark, time to join the others in the rear." (No one flew in the nose during takeoff and landings.)

The bombardier and nose turret gunner crawled through the bomb-bay and joined the others. Baker and Greayer assumed positions on each side of the bulkhead door separating the waist from the bomb-bay with their backs against the bulkhead and their hands clasped behind their heads. The other four crew members sat in front of Harry and Wes with their backs against the man behind and their hands clasped behind their heads.

Ed throttled back the two remaining engines as he made the final turn to line up with the runway. As he leveled off for landing, he shoved the throttles forward. . . . Silence. . . . The engines didn't respond.

He bellowed, "Wheels-up," as he slammed the stick forward and kicked the rudder hard to slide the ship to the side of the steel mat. Placing the ship into a steep dive to maintain airspeed and prevent the wings from stalling, they plunged straight down. Everybody aboard was mentally hauling back on the stick and silently praying that EDIE would not live up to one of the B-24s' nicknames, 'the flying coffin'.

ED hauled back on the stick just in time, pulling the nose up and setting EDIE down on the dirt alongside the runway. (Had he belly landed on the steel mat they would have met instant death as the plane and mat would have rolled up into a ball.)

As the ship slid along on the dirt the inside filled with a dense, choking, impenetrable cloud. Someone yelled, "F-I-r-e!," as the ship slid to a stop. Everyone jumped up and scrambled to the Plexiglas waist windows. Frantically tugging on the windows, trying to escape, they found the windows wouldn't budge. . . . They were trapped! They'd be roasted alive! (The crash had distorted the fuselage and locked the windows fast.) They should have removed the Plexiglas windows before the crash.

Still tugging on the window, Wes looked round to find himself alone. Loney had spotted the open camera hatch in the floor and within seconds the crew had exited through the space between the belly of the plane and the ground. Wes lost no time in following them. Emerging on the right side of the plane, he saw the ship in shambles. Running around the right wingtip, toward the front to check on the others, with the others in close pursuit, Wes saw the nose of the ship folded under the fuselage. With tears streaming down every face, they continued to circle, thinking the others were dead.

Meanwhile, when the ship, Edie, stopped sliding, the pilot, Ed Glotfelty, copilot, Jon Appleton, and engineer, Gene Cromer had climbed out the top hatch, emerging on the left side. They started circling toward the tail, looking for survivors. As Wes and the others rounded the front they spotted the others and gave a shout. The two groups converged. The emotion of that moment was overwhelming. They realized they were all OK. Tears of joy, or whatever, streamed down every face, as they embraced one another. It would be impossible to experience another such emotional high in a lifetime. Brothers under the skin they were not, . . . but at that moment they were bonded. The crash had demolished the plane, but they were all alive and uninjured. Before they crashed Jon Appleton, the copilot, had cut the ignition. There was little danger of fire. The cloud inside the ship was merely dust kicked up by the plane as it slid on the dirt alongside the runway.

The plane sat about halfway down the strip with the left wing extending across the runway. The engines were all ripped off and strewn about on both sides of the wreck. It didn't seem possible that anyone could have emerged alive. Only now, as they congratulated one another, did they notice they still had their chutes on their chests! With less than eighteen inches clearance between the camera hatch and the ground it was hard to figure how they all had slipped through this tight space so rapidly, when they exited the plane.

They had crashed in Juno sector of the beachhead, the portion held by Canadians. Hundreds of Canadian military quickly gathered round, gazing with disbelieving eyes at the demolished ship and the surviving crew. The distant thunder of guns reminded them that a war was raging a scant eight miles away. Troops were in need of air support. Without pause, British and Canadian Hurricanes began taking off from each end of the airstrip - each fighter peeling off to the right as they passed each other over the downed bomber. Had this not been possible, the lives of this crew would have been a poor trade for the lives of the ground troops that may have been lost. As the crew milled around congratulating themselves and telling their story to ground personnel, a crane moved into position and began tearing EDIE apart. They needed to clear that runway. They would use dynamite if necessary to remove the bomber.

As Wes was chatting with a Canadian Army Corporal, the soldier asked Wes if he would go back aboard and find something from the ship he could have as a souvenir. As Wes crawled back aboard, he wondered why he hadn't thought of that possibility. Wes went to the flight deck and was able to wrench the clock from the instrument panel. As Wes crawled out of the camera hatch he slipped the clock into the pocket of his fatigues. (Wes had dressed in a set of long-john underwear, his electric flight suit, covered by his fatigues, to cope with the sixty degrees below zero temperature at bombing altitude.) Wes told the soldier he was sorry, but he was unable to find a souvenir. (To this day his lie still bothers Wes.)

After the medics checked them over, they were debriefed, providing information for the Canadian officers to relay to the 493rd headquarters. Having completed the formalities they climbed aboard a six-wheeler for the trip to the beach. Once there, they watched the soldiers unload tanks and other military vehicles from the British LST that would transport them to London. The LST wouldn't set sail until the following morning, so since it was early afternoon and would be hours before they could climb aboard, Harry and Wes stowed their gear on the beach and began scouting the area.

Woha! What a sight to behold! One wondered at the drama played out there just 19 days before. Thousands of boys had died on that beachhead to secure the spot where they had landed; it was too painful to think about. Shallow depressions covered the beach where a few days earlier Canadian boys, seeking protection from the withering gunfire from the blockhouse overlooking bluff, had scooped out a bit of sand, trying to create a shelter. Still clearly visible were streaks in the sand made by frantically clawing fingers. Harry and Wes were thankful that those boys had secured this sanctuary for them to land on, but at what a horrendous cost? . . . Above their heads, a huge German blockhouse on the prominent bluff had a commanding view of an immense stretch of beach. Harry and Wes climbed up and explored the fort. They estimated the concrete walls and roof were 14 feet thick. Blockhouse guns were fired through a narrow slit protected by a thick steel door which opened only long enough for the guns to fire. Cruisers and battleships accompanying the invasion had rained shells on the fort, but the shells simply bounced off leaving minor chips on the outer surface. It was a simple accident that wiped out the blockhouse crew. A shell from a ship had, miraculously, entered through this slit while the door was temporarily open, knocking out the bunker.

Harry and Wes continued West, to the first French town set free in the Juno sector. Stopping outside a church, two girls, displaying a bit of cleavage, confronted them. There were smiles all-round and some lame attempts to communicate, but the language barrier proved insurmountable. Although the girls seemed more than willing to continue their flirtation, but after their recent brush with death neither boy was ready for adventure. There wasn't enough time for romance, so they settled for a coy smile and sisterly/brotherly kiss on the cheek as a parting gesture.

They boarded the LST at 2100 hours. In the morning, when the tide lifted the LST from its moorings on the sandy bottom, it would sail for London. Before hitting the sack that evening, Wes thought about all the boys that stormed the beaches on D-day. He wrote a few lines in his diary.

On D-day the allies struck.

Boys ‑ charged the foe

and ere they reached the shore

they were men -

dead men

The LST sailed at 0900 hours on 26 June 1944, landing at East India Docks - London at 0400 hours the next morning, 27 June. The 300-mile trip had taken nineteen hours. The crew reported to the area commander and received chits for their lodging, and orders to return to their base on the 28th. They also received free-rein of the London PX, but since they had no money, this was to little avail. (When they left on their mission the day before they could hardly know they'd wind up in London.) Nevertheless, as this was their first time in London since they arrived in England they headed for the PX just to take a look around.

Their sojourn turned into an exciting adventure. Soldiers were a common sight in London but not airmen in flight gear who had obviously just returned from combat. Dressed in their electric flying suits, fleece-lined flying boots, parachute harnesses, and carrying their chutes, they looked at like conquering heroes. People stared in awe and as they strode through London. They were greeted with lots of stares and a few "God-blesses." One lady, who reminded Wes of his mother, rushed up with tears streaking her face; embraced him, and planted a kiss along with her "God-bless." It was a heady experience.

When they entered the PX, all business stopped. They were a sensation. Every salesgirl gathered round to hear their story. As they left, one of the young women handed Wes the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of every woman in the place. This bonanza assured them the would have dates on all their later trips to London.

Lying in his bed at the Salvation Army, that evening,, Wes listened to the buzz bombs flying overhead and recalled all that had happened since they left Lincoln, Nebraska on Mothers day, only six weeks ago. It seemed more like six years.

Returning to their base on Wednesday 28 June, they were shocked to find that, like the "Three Bears,"'someone was sleeping in my bed.' Storming into the OR they learned their beds had been assigned to another crew. No information about their safe landing in Normandy had been passed on to the 493rd headquarters and when they failed to return they had been reported MIA! Fortunately, no War Department telegrams were sent home. Unfortunately, the press had gained the information and in each hometown the local newspaper headlined the crew member from the local area, reporting him MIA. Newspapers always seemed eager to be first with bad news. Thus, many a sweetheart not in the official channels of communication assumed them dead. This spread heartache far and wide.

From his first mission, Wes had recorded all his missions on a 3 ft x 3 ft piece of drywall attached to the wall, next to his bunk. When he failed to return from his sixth-mission, a gunner sharing the Quonset hut listed him as MIA. Wes amended the log.

MISSION LOG

25 June 1944 Mission # 6. --- MIA

AMENDMENT

25 June 1944 Mission #6-- Troyes Area (Romilly-Sur-Seine Airfield) 50 100 lb. GPs - shot down - Crashed on Normandy Beachhead - Canadian JUNO Sector (S theater) - Boarded LST 9 PM - sailed with the tide at 9 A.M. - 26 June - Landed East India Docks - London 4 A.M. - 27 June - returned Wed. 28 June to find we were reported MIA! and another crew was in our beds. Evicted crew -

Next day, a reporter from Stars and Stripes came over to get their story. When asked of his most vivid impressions, Lt. Loney answered, "We have only the greatest admiration for the courtesy and efficiency of the RAF, RCAF, and the Royal Navy in returning us to England. Having had a ringside view of the invasion front, we are proud to be allies of our British friends who are ramming the front closer to Berlin."

The reporter promised to send a copy of his story to each of their families The story appeared in the STARS AND STRIPES on Thursday, July 20, 1944.

At the completion of Five Combat Missions each crew member had earned the Air Medal. In their absence, it had been awarded posthumously. After their return they collected their medals and their pilot, Edward R. Glotfelty, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his exploits in Normandy. Ed threatened to refuse the medal unless all members of the crew was also awarded the DFC, but the crew voted him down unanimously. A high-ranking officer from Eighth Air Force headquarters traveled to Debach to perform the ceremony, after which the crew received a 'surprise' 48 hour pass. They immediately went back to London for a party attended by twenty or more of the PX girls. Many a wartime romance began at that party, and a great time was had by all. Six-months later when their tour ended, many tears were shed. Letters kept the embers alive for a few months - but then, . . .

And they did survive 29 more missions. Mission number 35 to Frankfurt, Germany was on 24 December 1944, CHRISTMAS EVE.

Wes entered the details in his mission log.

MISSION LOG

Mission #35. Frankfurt Sunday 24 December - Airfield - Clearest Day Ever - Not a Cloud - Destroyed Airfield -- 9 & 1/2 Hours - Moderate Flak - 20,000 ft. - Saw ME 262 - I didn't shoot. He didn't attack either.

The End WE ARE GOING HOME.

They all sent telegrams home:

DEAR MOM AND ALL

FLEW MISSION NUMBER 35, OUR LAST MISSION, TODAY 24 DECEMBER STOP

WILL BE HOME SOON STOP

The families received their telegrams on Christmas day, . . . the perfect Christmas present.