Combat Crew (43 page)

At 5:30 A.M. the lights came on and roused me from a deep sleep. I listened to the roster: “Counce flying 888 with Klein — Balmore flying 912 with Crozier …”

I raised up in bed. “Those are good crews. Right?”

“We could have done a lot worse,” Counce answered.

“Well, since I'm already awake, I might as well go out and see you jokers off.”

The personnel truck let George out first. “Good luck! I'll see you back in the States when this thing is over.” A handshake and he was gone.

I helped Jim get the guns ready until it was time to start engines. “Good luck, Jim. Let me know where you are stationed when you get back to the States.”

He gave me that big grin and closed the hatch. I watched the ship pull away and almost wished I was going with them. I had to hurry to get my bags ready for the truck that was to take us to the nearby station. Just before the train arrived, I looked up as I heard a formation overhead.

“Take a good look, Carl. That's the last time we'll see the 381st in action.”

“Good luck, boys,” he said. “Go get 'em.”

It was a long, slow train ride across England to Chorley, on the west coast, the embarkation point for service personnel who were returning to the United States. Nearly all of these men were wounded, or for some other reason were no longer needed in the combat area.

When men completed a tour of combat duty and returned to the States, quite a few of them did become highly nervous for a while. The condition was brought about by too many traumatic experiences buried deep in the subconscious mind and seeking an outlet. The excitement, and the motivation created by the need to defend all that was good in our civilization, was abruptly withdrawn, and replaced by a humdrum military existence. The change was too sudden and drastic for the mind to accept it right away. So those men continued to dwell mentally in the immediate past for a while. The falling aircraft, the explosions, and the hideous flak were strongly imprinted and needed to be worked out of the subconscious mind. In time, the nervousness would wear off for most of those who were affected. The need to talk about the war would fade, to be replaced by the daily trivialities of civilian life, from which they had escaped for a brief time into high adventure. For the majority of those men there was no lasting damage. Slowly they returned to what we call normal. For a few, perhaps more sensitive than others, the memories were too indelibly planted. For them, more time and treatment were needed. In severe cases of neurosis and continuing anxiety, injections of sodium pentathol were used, along with the help of a psychologist, to pry troublesome memories out of the subconscious mind. The patient was induced to talk at great length, in response to questions about those lingering nightmarish experiences. The drug helped to release the deeply buried tensions. Most times it worked.

I was standing in the snack bar at Chorley when I saw Lieutenant Ferrin walk in. He was a few days behind me getting away from Ridgewell.

“When did you leave the 381st?” I asked.

“Yesterday. Got here this afternoon.”

“I read that the January eleventh mission had high losses. How did the 381st come out?”

“There was a mixup and the planes were called back. Some of 'em didn't get the message and went on and got clobbered.”

“How many did the Group lose?”

“Quite a few. I didn't get the exact number, but it was bad!”

“You know Jim Counce and George Balmore.”

“Sure, I know 'em.”

“They were with Crozier and Klein on that mission. Did both of those ships get back OK?”

“The loss startled Colonel Nazzaro because it was unexpected.”

“How about Klein and Crozier?” I sensed he was avoiding my question.

Ferrin took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. “Crozier and Klein both went down, Comer.”

I listened in a state of shock and disbelief. For a minute I could not say anything.

“Were there any chutes — either plane?”

“Crozier's plane was seen to explode.
²³
There was hardly any chance for a survivor.” There was an icy feeling in the middle of my chest. When I recovered enough, I asked almost in a whisper, “And the other plane?”

“Klein's ship was last seen badly damaged and engines burning — it is not known if any of the crew got out. No chutes were observed.”

At least there was a chance that Jim had time to jump but I knew well how fast the explosions came after engines caught fire. If anyone got out, surely Jim would be one of them, for he was close to the waist escape hatch.

“Have you seen Shutting?”

“Yes, I ran into Carl an hour ago.”

I turned away from Ferrin and stumbled blindly from the crowded bar. He followed and told me the meager details that were known. But I had quit listening. My mind was in shock. Right then I could not talk to anyone. The night was bitterly cold and it was raining. I walked blindly in the rain without cap or raincoat for a long time because a man does not cry in front of other men; I walked until I was soaked and shaking with the cold. What Ferrin said kept coming back. “The 533rd Squadron was almost wiped out — lost six ships! The mission was called back but First Division did not get the message so it went on to the target and was hit by a devastating fighter attack. One squadron all alone so far inland was unbelievable!”

There was no possible sleep for me! All night I stared into the blackness and groped for the means to accept the inevitable. At such times the mind tries to find ways to avoid the truth when it is too bitter to accept. There is some mistake! They will turn up! The word will seep back that they got out and are prisoners of war.

It was a bad day for me. The weather was cold and rainy. I kept thinking about Jim and George. I supposed that it was futile to keep trying to delude myself that George got out in time. I had to accept the facts, and they were that the aircraft was seen to explode and no chutes were reported. But surely Jim had a chance. He was in the closest position to an escape hatch. No one saw the aircraft explode and it was under control at the last report. Yet, I had a strange feeling — some extra sense — that Jim was gone! It was the same psychic premonition that I often felt about combat crews and was almost always correct. No matter how I tried to rationalize his escape, I knew there was no hope.

In a state of depression I looked up Shutting. I had avoided him the day before because I could not talk to anyone about it until I accepted the facts.

“I tried to find you yesterday, John,” he said. “That was terrible about Balmore and Counce. They were the best.”

“It hit me hard. One of them would have been bad enough, but both the same day on different planes!”

“Maybe Jim bailed out.”

“No! He's gone. Don't ask me how I know, but I do. I'll try to see Mary Balmore if we land in the vicinity of New York and the Counce family later when I can.”

“John, we were just lucky that we made it. Think about how many we knew who didn't.”

In the dim predawn light, I stood high on the stern deck of the S.S.
Frederick Lykes
and watched the shoreline of England dissolve in the distance. As I stared into the dark swirling mists, memories began to cloud my vision. Once again I saw the Forts flying in perfect formation with long trails streaming far behind them in the sky. Once more I heard the distinctive drone of Fortress engines. And I saw faces — unforgettable faces I would never see again: Herb Carqueville, Pete Ludwigson, Major Hendricks, Feigenbaum, Pope, and many others. All lost over Europe. More than anything, I saw Jim and George. I could almost hear their voices, those comically contrasting accents of the Bronx and Mississippi. We had shared a unique and special brotherhood, forged by circumstances and tested by adversity. It was a gift of friendship beyond anything I had experienced before. And I knew it could not be replaced.

As I remembered them, I felt an overwhelming sadness, and turned away from the others nearby to hide the tears that I could not blink away. At that moment I experienced an intuition of startling clarity. Suddenly I realized that we would meet again. I did not know how or when, but I knew! “Death is not the end, but only the beginning of a new dimension.” How many times had I heard that Christian refrain? But I suppose that I had never fully accepted its meaning until that moment. There was no longer any doubt. I felt a certainty and a peace. The sense of gloom lifted and I was a different person.

Yes, we would meet again. And until we did, I vowed to keep my memories of them from fading. I named my firstborn son James Balmore Comer. And because of them and their families, I wrote this book.

I have often been asked: Why did you volunteer for more combat? The story is that when I returned from England to the U.S. I had no idea I would soon be on the way back overseas. I was assigned as a flight engineer instructor at a new combat crew training base at Gulfport, Mississippi. They put three of us together as a team: an excellent instructor pilot, myself, and a veteran radio operator. Each day we would get a new group of four or five new copilots and radio operator students. The radio people did their thing back in the radio room. I took these green kids out to the aircraft and gave them practice starting engines. Then the major came out and we gave these youngsters landing and takeoff practice for four or five hours. None of these men had ever been in a big airplane before so they were confused about the controls and instruments. I would stand over them and tap their hand if they made the wrong move or got confused over which control the pilot was talking about.

A B-17 has a large horizontal fin that tapers quite high as it gets to the tail. A crosswind blowing against this very large surface will push the tail crosswise on landing unless the pilot exerts extreme rudder pressure. We always had a crosswind at that field so those kids were in trouble on almost every landing. You would not believe how often we had to suddenly pull up and go around for another try. And you would not believe how often we came sliding in with the nose fifteen to twenty-five degrees angle to the runway. I got to where I would yawn if it was only fifteen degrees.

One day after an extra-hazardous landing and two shaky takeoffs I ran into an instructor pilot I knew well at Operations and complained, “One of these days one of those kids is going to wipe me out! It would be safer back in combat!” He replied, “I have been trying to get transferred to combat — if you could find some more gunners that want to go back I think they would let us make up a new crew.”

That night at the barracks I passed the word around and six of us agreed to give it a try. Sure enough it worked! Within a week we were on our way across the Atlantic, flying a new B-17 to Italy.

And it was safer over there than waiting for some green kid to end my days.

Paul Gleichauf
, Pilot: Remained in the Air Force and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. When I located him he was living at El Paso, Texas. When I finished the first rough draft of
Combat Crew
, I took the first copy to him. I was very sad to learn that he had a brain tumor and could not last much longer. He died two months later. We keep in touch with his wife.

Herbert Carqueville
, Copilot: M.I.A. No trace of the aircraft or crew was ever found.

Carl Shutting
, Navigator: Became a therapist and worked in the schools of Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he died of a heart attack in the mid-seventies.

John J. Purus
, Bombardier: After a 1951 reunion in New York with the Comer and Balmore families all contact was lost.

George Balmore
, Radio Operator: K.I.A. January 11, 1944.

John Comer
, Flight Engineer-Gunner: Was a sales manager, then a zone manager, for Sherwin-Williams Paints for twenty-five years before retiring in Dallas, Texas.

James Counce
, Waist Gunner: K.I.A. January 11, 1944.

Carroll Wilson
, Waist Gunner: Completed his missions as a radio operator on another crew. He retired as a Master Sergeant in the Air Force with some rough later experiences. He was an air attaché with army that was hit by that devastating attack by the Chinese and had to fight their way out under difficult conditions. We visited with him a year ago at his home at Nashville, Tennessee.

Nicholas Abramo
, Ball Turret: Was wounded, recovered, and resumed combat action. He was wounded again, had to bail out, and became a P.O.W. He died in 1968 at the age of 45 having never fully recovered from wounds received in battle.

Harold Harkness
, Ball Turret after Abramo was wounded: He is now retired from the U.S. Post Office and lives at Aztec, New Mexico.

Buck Rogers
, Tail Gunner: He was grounded when he did not recover from severe injuries early in his missions. After the war no contact.

John Kels
, Copilot after Carqueville became a first pilot: No contact.

George Reese
, original Copilot: Operations officer during the action and once in a while our Copilot — a lawyer in New Orleans.

Raymond Legg
: After I left England, Raymond was shot down with another crew. All of the crew got out of the aircraft safely but were killed by enraged German civilians in the vicinity of Berlin.

Mitchell La Buda
, Waist Gunner: He is retired and lives at Northfield, Illinois.

Bill Brophy
, Radio Operator: Presently lives at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

I kept up a long relationship with the Balmore and Counce families. Both of the Balmores have passed on. I attended Mr. Balmore's funeral in New York. I have visited the Counce family many times. Last year we saw Mr. Counce at Corinth, Mississippi, just three weeks before he died. We still stay in touch with Jim's younger sister, Amy.