| OCR Text |
Show Volume XV Issue XI The Ogden Valley news Page 11 May 15, 2008 Lest We Forget Note: This story is from Valley Elementary teacher Mrs. Jane McVaugh’s 1999 fourth grade class that collected and typed up a number of historical accounts from Valley residents and family members of the students. They then compiled the stories in a book called “Lest We Forget: Stories about World War II.” The following account is by Valley student Craig Atkinson’s grandfather—Keith Atkinson. I joined the Air Force in 1942. I trained in many places in the United States. As I was training, they assigned us a crew and an airplane—a B-17, A Flying Fortress. At that time it was the biggest airplane that they made in the army. It carried a lot of bombs, a lot of men, and a lot of ammunition. When we went overseas to Europe, I flew over in this particular plane. When we got to Europe we were assigned to a particular airfield over there. We were also assigned to a particular place to live. It was in a Quonset hut. It held twenty men and two airplane crews. There were ten men to each crew on an airplane. We kept our things in a foot locker by our bed so when we moved, we could take everything with us. When we had to get ready for a bombing mission, we would get up at four o’clock in the morning. We would go to the mess hall to eat. When we got through eating breakfast, which sometimes consisted of powdered eggs and powdered milk, a piece of toast, and sometimes hot cakes, we would go and get in an open truck and would be taken to another building called the briefing room. There they would tell us where we were going to fly for that day, how many bombs we would carry, how many fighters we were expected to run into, and how much shooting was expected to take place over the target that we were going to be at. When we finished our briefing, we would go to our airplanes. The ground crew would check the plane and make sure everything was OK and was ready for us to get into. In order to get ready we would have to have our flying suit. This flying suit was a pair of white coveralls. The suit had wires all through it and it had shoes and gloves. The wires would heat the suit to keep us warm during our flight. We would plug them into the airplane and the suit would warm up. We would have our sheepskin coat over the top of the flying suit. We would take our parachute with us. When we were going to our airplane we picked up what we called the flax suits. The flax suits have a lot of little pieces of metal sewed in them. They covered the front and back of our bodies. We had to wear them in case someone shooting at us hit us. The flax suit would sometimes prevent shrapnel and ammo from going into our bodies. This was a protection to us. Sometimes we were very happy that we had these. When you got back to your barracks at night, you could sometimes see where a piece of metal had hit this suit and made a dent in it. As we went on our missions over Europe, we would be given a little packet. In this packet was a map that showed different parts of Europe. It showed where we would be flying that particular day. If we were shot down, we were expected to find our way to some safe place so we could get back to England. In the packet was also a little bit of hardtack candy that could sustain us for two or three days. We had a knife, a compass, and a few things like that to help us. I was thankful I never had to use this. The parachute would strap on the front of us then we would have to carry our ammunition. In this airplane, we had twelve fiftycaliber machine guns. The planes would all be lined up in rows and would take off every thirty seconds. As they flew up into the air, they would have to group so that 24 planes would be in one group. When they got high enough, they would start flying over to Europe. As we started up in the air, we would have to put on oxygen masks. In this oxygen mask was a microphone so we could talk to other members of the crew and we could hear them talk to us. We were always in communication with one another. Our oxygen masks were on, our guns were loaded with ammunition, and we were flying at about 10,000 feet. We would then climb to 20,000 and sometimes 25,000 feet. When we got up that high, we would always have to be looking out the window of the airplane watching for German fighters who might be coming along. They would always meet us as we crossed over the English Channel. As we flew over the channel, we would go to 25,000 feet. At 20,000 feet, the temperature ranges from about 20 degrees below zero to 30 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. That’s why we had these electric suits and sheepskin coats over the top of them. If they didn’t work well, you cold freeze to death in the airplane before you ever got back. Flying so high we could see the ground, but we couldn’t pick out any details. As I mentioned, we had ten men in the plane. There were two men in the front of the airplane—one was a bombidear and one was a navigator. The bombidear was responsible for dropping the bombs on the target and the navigator was responsible to lead us to the target. There were two pilots and then we had a gunner who sat at the top of the airplane. He had two machine guns sticking out. He could whirl that clear around 360 degrees and shoot in any direction. We had another turret underneath the plane and he had a machine gun and could whirl around and shoot in any direction. Out the side of each plane, about the middle of it, were two more men. They were able to shoot out either side. In the tail of the plane were another two guns. Another person manned them. Sometimes the German fighter planes would come straight at you. Sometimes they would come up from the bottom, sometimes down from the top; you never knew which direction they were coming from so you always had to be looking. You had to look all over the skies as far as you cold see because in just one minute, going about 300 miles an hour, they could come by so fast you could hardly see them. I flew in all positions in the plane. I was a gunner. When I sat down my knees were bent against me. Above me were two handles and in the back of the handles was a little trigger and that’s what you used to shoot the guns with. As you turned the handles the ball turret would turn all around, or it would go down or up. There was a gun sight that you looked through to pick out airplanes and shoot at different angles. Along with you there were two boxes which carried your ammunition. If you used it up you could not get any more. In the plane there was a door to get in then it would be closed and locked. Once you got in that ball turret and it started rotating around and round, you had to stay there until you got back to England. You could not get out of this ball turret no matter what happened. If the plane got crippled, you had to fly home in that ball turret. One of my first missions was to Berlin. This was the earliest part of 1944. I was in the waist gun at this time. I happened to look out a different direction and all these planes were along side of us flying the same direction. I was looking at this one plane and all of a sudden it just vanished. Somebody had hit it with a shell from down on the ground and the plane just blew up. All ten men were killed instantly. That’s why war is such a terrible thing; people were getting killed all the time. As I was flying over to Berlin, I was very nervous and very scared of course. The enemy would come over and shoot at us quite often. When we would get back to our field we would go look at our plane. Quite often we would see bullet holes through the plane in various places so you knew that they had been shooting at you. The Ogden Valley News is looking for Ogden Valley and Ogden Canyon historical biographies, stories, and photos to use in its publication. Please mail, email, or call Shanna at 745-2688 or Jeannie at 745-2879 if you have material you would like to share. From the ground, all these guns were shooting up. These bullets were made of steel and the steel pieces would break off in all kinds of jagged pieces. As they blew up they would go through the plane and even if you had a flak • suit on, they would go through it. The flak guns would shoot down a lot of our planes as we flew over Germany. They were 88 millimeter guns that the Germans would shoot up. The shells had two triggers on them. If one trigger hit an airplane, it would blow up. When we got to an altitude of 21,000 feet, then the other trigger on the flak gun would blow up automatically. As you looked out the window looking for other planes, you could see all these puffs of black smoke all over below. Sometimes they got so thick that you could almost get out and walk over them. That meant that they were shooting a lot of gun shells at you and trying to shoot you down. There were probably 400 B-17’s and B-24’s flying in the same place trying to bomb aircraft factories, oil fields, and many plants that helped the war situation in Germany. That was the time you got very nervous and afraid that maybe your turn was coming. Then you would see a German fighter out there and you would no longer be afraid. You would be concentrating on what was going on out there and would be trying to follow the fighter with your guns. If you had close enough range, you would shoot. The biggest problem was having fifteen or twenty B-17s on either side of you or up above or below you. You had to be careful when you were shooting at the German planes so you didn’t shoot at your own planes. I flew over many cities in Germany. When we dropped the bombs, you could see them explode, but you couldn’t tell what was going on. We were too high up in the air. And you always wondered, “Did I kill somebody with that bomb? What did happen?” It made me really feel bad to think that I might be killing some boys or girls or some innocent people as we were bombing Germany. A lot of this was happening. I flew 28 missions over Germany. One of the main missions that I remember was when there were probably a thousand B-17s and B-24s going over. We always flew in the daytime, the English flew at night. As we flew we could see all these planes all over the sky going for different targets all over Germany. As you would pick out your target, a bombidear would line it up then drop his bombs. As the bombs were dropped, the plane would give a little lurch because there were about four tons of bombs in the airplane. As they were dropped, the plane would lift up a little bit. On one mission, we had a thousand planes go over to one city. We were to bomb that city. We weren’t to bomb anything particular. They just wanted us to destroy the whole city. The city was probably as big as Salt Lake. All the planes would drop their bombs as they got in certain places over the city destroying everything they could. That was terrible to have something like that happen, but there were a lot of war plants there, oil fields, and a lot of things that the Germans needed to make war against us so that’s why we were doing it. This was a terrible thing to happen. When we’d get to the city, all the German fighter planes would go off to the side and they wouldn’t follow us any more. When we got over the city, you could see all these black puffs of smoke all over the sky. That’s when you knew the Germans were shooting up from the ground to shoot you down. A lot of our planes were shot down in that way. So it made me nervous. I wondered, “Am I going to be next? Is my plane going to be hit?” Every once in a while you’d feel something hit the plane and you knew that you had been hit, but not in a vital place. We did lose one engine one time by ground fire, but with four engines on an airplane, you were able to get back to England. Even with two engines going on, an airplane you were still able to get back to England. Sometimes if HISTORICAL cont. on page 13 Historical Photo Mutual Camp circa 1942 Pictured from left to right: Virginia Nelson Gailey, Sharon Barnett Unrah, LuJean Robson, Karma Wangsgard Smith, Lola Allen King, and Janet Allen Koepple. Photo courtesy of Karma Wangsgard Smith. |
