I became interested in my father’s wartime experience, regrettably after he left us and was not available for me to question about the finer points of his experience. I say finer points because a crew mate of his, in later life, penned his POW memoirs. My father, Vic, and this crew mate, Len, both gone now, bailed out together, were captured together and I believe spent their fifteen months of captivity together.
Also, Francis Troy, a “Man of Confidence” was a gunner on dad’s crew and I believe dad was in his marching group. Francis, Men of confidence were elected by their prisoner peers and served as liaisons to the German camp officers. Men of confidence usually had more historical records associated with them than other POWs which further benefited my research.
Early 1943, allied forces won the battle in North Africa and in June launched an attack on Sicily and in September 1943 on southern Italy. When the Italian forces capitulated (the Germans didn’t and fought hard to save Italy) and halted any serious military operations, US engineers built a system of air fields in southern Italy that could assist the airmen flying from 15th AAF bases in UK and extend bombing efforts deep into the eastern axis territory.
Vic arrived at San Pancrazio air field, Italy in late 1943, where he would make seven bomb missions, the last being to destroy ball bearing factories in Steyr, Austria on February 23, 1944. Pam and I visited Steyr and the factory complex in question; it is still there and still making ball bearings.
The conditions in a B-24 at 24K feet are far from ideal when simply flying, but when Luft waft fighters are trying to shoot you down and ground batteries are trying to blow you out of the sky with thick burst of radar aimed flack, it’s an absolute miracle any of our boys made it out alive. They did though and they are the reason, in my book, that we were able to land ground forces and win the war.
Vic’s plane was lost after a successful bomb run to a head-on attack by a ME-109 fighter. He said things happened too fast to react; he shared that bullets passed through the engine next to the fuselage on his side (right) an then destroyed the right vertical stabilizer (the B-24 is twin-tailed). The engine cowlings began to fly apart and the plane went into a slow spiral downward. The pilot stabilized the plane and rang the “bailout” alarm. Vic’s account agrees closely with Len’s memoir. The entire crew bailed out, were captured and made it home to build post-war lives. They also carried home the emotional trauma of their experiences and continued to pay the high price for our freedom.
I asked Vic one time how many practice jumps he had before he bailed out. He said none. I then asked if it was hard to jump out an airplane for the first time. Not hesitating he said, “it’s not hard to jump out of a burning plane”. Jim