Chick’s Crew

A Tale of the Eighth Air Force

By Ben Smith, Jr.

Website designed and maintained by W. Austin Smith

Excerpts from the book

The War Hero

 

Well, I had made it – number one! There was no panic; I had performed well, even coolly under fire, and I had a wound to show for it. I had spent an entire year dreading this time with every fiber of my being. My fears had been imaginary.

In a letter to the folks at home I had written my baptism of fire. I told my mother that I had a slight wound, calling it a “nice little memento,” and would probably get the Purple Heart. Mother was a great PR person. I was mortified at what happened next. The Waycross Journal-Herald, our local newspaper, came out with my senior class picture and a bold caption: War Hero Gets Purple Heart.

What was worse, I didn’t even get the Purple Heart.

I was no longer worried about my performance. Now, I had a different kind of fear. I knew that we were in for some rough times. This was a bad scene and far worse than it had been represented to us. We were putting up thirty-six aircraft and losing one or two of them on almost every mission. Not allowing for those times when the group would have a really bad day, it didn’t take a computer to figure what the odds of survival were for a combat crew – almost nil. It was not an encouraging prospect.

Just before bombs away a moving shadow caused me to look up through the open radio hatch. A bomber had moved directly above us. Horrified, I was looking directly into his bomb bay. I called the pilot, and we slid over in the nick of time.

The bomber lurched as the bombs went away. I stood up in the door of the bomb bay to see if the bombs had all gotten clear. As soon as I did, a jagged piece of shrapnel sliced the command radio set in two and struck me directly in the chest. I was wearing a metal flak vest which was all that saved my life. It spun me around and stunned me momentarily. I saw that I was bleeding. A piece of spent metal had lodged in my neck, and this was where the blood was coming from. I was not badly hurt and felt no pain at all, but I had had a close shave.

A great column of smoke was coming up as we turned away from the target and headed for home. I felt that the worst was over, but we were in for some more excitement. German anti-aircraft batteries potted at us all the way back to Helgoland.

Flak knocked out our two outboard engines and blew off one of our bomb-bay doors before we could get them closed. Smoke poured from the two disabled engines which Chick had quickly feathered. We were strongly tempted to try for Switzerland but decided against it. We could not stay up with the formation, usually a fatal affliction. Slowly we lost altitude and forlornly watched our departing comrades in the bomber formation. We followed them until they were out of sight.

Chick headed us in the general direction of home. When we were down to 11,000 feet, we blundered over an enemy airfield. They began firing at point blank range and came within a hair of shooting us down. Chick put the ailing bomber into almost a vertical power dive to get away from the flak. We could not move because of the G factor and thought we had “bought the farm” for sure. We could only stare at one another in mute terror.

Chick and Fish pulled out just about the tree tops. They ordered us to dump overboard everything that would come loose. It all went – ammunition, machine guns, radios, clothing, anything we should find that was not fastened down.

                 At this point we were all in the radio room, my own post. I remember that we did something that seems melodramatic at this distance, but then it made sense. We all shook hands solemnly and bade each other good-bye.