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Yalta Pilot List |
The
Prelude
Bucky had
long before really impressed on all of us how important it was to maintain
radio silence on combat missions. He took great pride in how disciplined we
were in this area. He had concluded our briefing with "I can tell you no
more at this time, I have sealed top secret orders, which I cannot open until
we reach Africa; now get your flight assignments and good luck tomorrow".
©
2001 H.Eberhardt
I was
assigned to White Flight #3 position
(element leader in the 2nd flight); Capt
Walter Gonring was my flight leader. It was a relatively clear day, for this
time of year, when I climbed up the abbreviated 2 step ladder that folds into
the P38 cockpit pod---always a bit of a struggle in full flight gear with my
.45 pistol, knife, survival kit, Mae West, parachute, and life raft pack---- a lot of heavy appendages
for my skinny frame to lug on board. I settled into the cockpit of my new P38L
"Liberty Belle" (I'm from the Philadelphia area). What a great gal
she was, complete with a
Varga
Girl collaged on a painted liberty bell for nose art. I went through my
pre-flight check (for the umpteenth time) in preparation for a 10:00 hrs
take-off.
I was # 7
to crank up and pull out on the steel mat taxiway; I said my usual prayer as I
pulled out and took up my position on the runway for a two ship formation take-off. When my wing man returned my thumbs up signal, I "poured the
coal" to her and felt that
"rush of excitement" as those big 1725 HP Allisons smoothly responded
to my throttle controls. After about 2000ft. of runway flashed by, I eased the
wheel back and pulled the gear lever up while glancing at my wingman.
I was
watching my flight leader with only occasional checks on my wingman as we "formed up" into our usual
formation. Bucky was flying a large radius circle, gradually climbing while the
White and Blue Flight Leaders were
making "tighter" turns to put the 3 Flights in a loose trail
formation. Bucky "leveled off" on a southwest heading for our
Mediterranean crossing to North Africa.
This
loose formation was a nice restful way to fly for a change (only used in non-combatant
areas) giving us a great opportunity to observe some interesting geography such
as smoking Mt. Vesuvius and the beautiful Isle of Capri as we crossed the SW
shoreline of Italy on our slow climb to 20,000 ft. After about a half hour of
flying we could no longer see any land.
By now I had the fuel mix pretty well leaned
out. Then I began to think how big the Mediterranean was and how much I hoped
those engines kept purring smoothly. At
about the midpoint of our flight I could just see Sicily in the haze off my
left wing. We were now crossing the
Tyrrhenian Sea
portion of the
Mediterranean
. In the hours of loneliness on such
a flight, one hungers for a human voice. But the Colonel would permit no radio
chatter unless, of course there was an emergency. The dead silence meant all
engines (and their gages) in our 12 plane formation flight were performing satisfactorily and that we were far
away from any air bases or other source of voices----lonely, but yet not alone.
All the
time we were crossing the
Mediterranean
, I'm wondering, "Where are we
really going and what are we really going to be doing? " Seemed like we're going the wrong way if
we're starting a ferry flight to reassignment in the Pacific. With all this water
around us, I had the gut feeling, that somehow whatever we were about to do
involved the U S Navy. It was a very pleasant and uneventful flight in good
weather to our first stop at the American Air Transport Command Base, El Aquina
Aerodrome at Tunis on the coast of North Africa.
North
Africa
As we
approached landfall, after gradually dropping down to a couple thousand feet,
Bucky finally broke radio silence "OK lads we're near the field, let's
echelon right". We were probably
too low and too far away for any enemy
listening posts to pick up the transmission. He then asked the
Tunis
control tower for permission to
make a combat approach and land the squadron.
About now
I had the feeling the colonel had been there before and we were about to put on
a little show for their base. As we approached the runway several of us in that
formation were flying lower than some of the nearby structures, each plane
flying close to and a couple feet lower than the plane he's following. We
screamed onto this air transport base in our tightly packed echelon formation
with Bucky "coaching" us in.
My left wing tip was nearly touching White Flight 2's tail section as the edge
of the airfield flashed by about 30 ft.below me.
"C'mon
Gonring, bring your guys up, that's it-----tuck 'em in tighter---OK, lookin'
good---hold 'em right there----nice and steady-----b r e a k i n g l e f t---NOW !! " With that the colonel shot up out of the
formation and banked a hard left. A few seconds later the plane I was flying
formation on shot up out of my view, two seconds after that, I pulled the wheel
into my gut and did the same Chandelle type "U" turn to the left.
While
everyone does the same basic maneuver, the Colonel's was the most violent. He "peeled-up" hard the instant he
passed the control tower, only missing it by about 60 ft.
Then made
a "dead stick" landing after a tight 360 turn and touched down in
front of the tower, then cleared the runway quickly. One by one, every plane
peels up and out; "Tail End Charley" gets to "whistle his
butt" about 20 ft off the field. When he reaches the end of it he
"breaks up and left". This maneuver, which we ran to perfection, gave
us our spacing (about 400 ft apart) and put all 12 planes on the ground in
about 2 minutes flat !!
Our crew
chiefs in their C-47 would arrive
shortly after us to service our planes before the next leg of this venture. In
normal combat operations, 3 men were assigned to look after a P-38, a crew
chief, an assistant crew chief , and an armorer (for the guns and bombs). These
men were all well trained and skillful in their assignments, At our home field
near
Foggia
(the Salsola Air Base) they had a good supply of tools and fixtures to use on the engines
and air frames. Whatever they lacked at home base, they made up for with
their ingenuity. They were a great bunch
and looked after our planes with pride and affection as though they were their
own personal property. In nearly all cases there was a good bond between the
pilot and his crew chief on whom he was so dependent.
This
secret mission proved to be an extremely difficult situation for them because
there were only about a fourth of the regular ground crew personnel available
to do all the work required. Additionally they had to function hundreds of miles from home base with
very limited spare parts, tools, etc. These men worked diligently for long hours under very difficult circumstances;
they did a magnificent job of keeping our fighters airworthy. I was
fortunate indeed to have my own crew
chief selected for this mission, Staff Sgt. John Michunovich from
Billings
,
Montana
(one of the best) was looking after
my P-38 “LibertyBelle”. Mich's skills enabled me to fly 39 combat missions
without an "early return".
After parking our planes in
the designated area, we
were shuttled to the local mess hall for a "G. I. Tin Tray" lunch
which was a big improvement over our standard "mess kit fare" at
Foggia. During our brief stay here, a young "overly eager" Air
Operations Officer of the Day got into a hastle with our crew chiefs over the
condition of our planes' battle-scarred landing flaps. Several of them had been slightly dented and cut during
previous missions, mostly from releasing "belly tanks" at high speed.
When he announced these planes were now "grounded" Bucky went into a
"purple rage" and sought out the base commander, Col. Evans, who
promptly rescinded the order.
After spending
the night in the
Tunis
barracks, we assembled back at the
flight line, Bucky told us our next leg would be about 500 miles to
Algiers
where we would spend the night at a downtown hotel taken
over by the military. This sounded great. As we flew to our next destination
many of us were thinking about the possibility of some female
companionship. Just anticipating the
creature comforts of hot and cold running water, a bath tub, decent food and a
regular bed lifted our spirits as we flew over Tunisia and Algeria glowing
golden in the bright mid-day sunshine of North Africa.
We
arrived at the Maisson Blanche Aerodrome near
Algiers
in the early afternoon; the
Brits' RAF 210 Group (Group Captain
Keddy, AOC) was based here. They seemed to be our communications "nerve
center" in this part of Africa for this widespread secret mission. They
were assisted by radio relays from a communications ship code named Disraeli
parked in the middle of the Mediterranean.
A couple
of waiting 6 x 6 army trucks hauled us into the city and to a former first
class tourists' hotel which was now a very comfortable (to us) Bachelor
Officers' Quarters (BOQ). After all Algiers had been through in the battle for
North Africa, the surviving opulence of my room was most impressive. I even had
my own private bath room complete with porcelain tub and bidet (the first one I
had ever seen)----quite a contrast to our "tent life" winter in
southern Italy where our steel helmets doubled as wash basins for shaving and
bathing.The colonel declared an early curfew, talked about a bed check, and
promised an early wake-up for an 0800 hr take-off. This put a dampener on our
evening plans. However, a good dinner and hot bath helped the morale; it was my
first real tub bath since "rest camp" at the Hotel Excelsior in Rome
two months before.
Years
later at a squadron reunion, I heard the story of how one of our crew chiefs
and his buddy had tried to set themselves up as "tailors" to the
local populace who were in desparate need of clothing. Seems our guys had
expropriated several sturdy cotton mattress covers from our supply tent back
at home base. A slit in the closed end for the head and a
small slit on either side of the mattress cover for the arms produced a
complete "cover all". This garb was fast becoming the "uniform
of the day" for the impoverished locals. Our guys were soliciting their
"customer base" on a main street sidewalk when the local MP patrol
came on the scene. The operation
disbanded rather quickly with the crew chiefs abandoning their inventory and
"high-tailing" it through a labyrinth of narrow alleyways back to
their quarters.
Next
morning at our briefing, just before take-off, Bucky told us we would now cross
the western end of the Mediterranean and land at the British base on Gibraltar. Ah hah, part of the secret was out !! We took off as scheduled, picked up our western heading over the beautiful
blue
Mediterranean
toward
Gibraltar
--this time at a lower altitude.
The
Rock
As we
approached
Gibraltar
from the southeast, the scene on
the horizon became more and more interesting-----absolutely no mistaking this
spot with that magnificent Rock jutting straight up out of the azure
Mediterranean
for over 2000 ft. For years the
Prudential Insurance Co.had used a picture of this scene in their advertising
with the slogan "solid as the Rock of Gibraltar"; consequently, most
of us knew what it looked like. From our altitude and distance on this clear
day, it seemed awfully close to Africa, even though it was nearly 20 miles from
that continent across the deep blue Strait of Gibraltar.
Bucky had
warned us before take-off about violating Spanish air space in our landing
pattern. He asked for and received permission to land our squadron, using code
names for both the tower and us. Nearly below us was a lot of
Spain
but only a tiny little speck of ground attached to it
and known as the British Protectorate of Gibraltar. This landing would not be
like our last one; Bucky knew the Brits would not tolerate the Yanks showing
off. Besides, with the many "ack
ack" guns manned and possibly aiming at us, we were not in a very good
position should there be a misunderstanding by the gunners on our
identification and intent Consequently
we made a normal approach in loose trail with an enlarged landing pattern--right turn onto
final, landing to the East.
Their
runway ran East & West and was tucked away close by the Rock with water at
each end; it reminded one of landing on a large aircraft carrier permanently
moored against a wall that seemed as high as the length of the landing deck.
All of us had the same idea--- that we would have to "touch down" on
the very end of the strip or we'd find ourselves in the drink !. I made a
smooth landing ("greased 'er in" --in our parlance) and much to my
surprise was able to clear the runway at the first taxiway, only using half of
the runway.
We
followed the colonel and taxied into assigned parking spots on the tarmac, I
climbed out leaving my chute and stuff in the cockpit (there were British MP's
all over the place). We all gathered at
the colonel's plane; shortly a jeep drove up and a British Officer with 3 pips
on his epaulets stepped out and stiffly exchanged salutes with Bucky. From what
I could hear of their conversation, we had been expected but they didn't know
why, yet they were determined to give us full support for whatever. I think the
Europeans are better than Americans at keeping secrets so maybe the British
Captain did know something, but he sure didn't let on that he knew. We were
escorted to the Visitors' BOQ and assigned our rooms----very comfortable,
freshly ironed clean sheets and all !
Bucky
gathered us together in the adjacent hall and told us our B4 bags would be
arriving shortly and put in our rooms. We would have evening mess with the
Brits at 1800 hrs and that we were to get to bed early for a pre-dawn briefing
on tomorrow's mission. He told us our British hosts were going to have a Formal
Officers' Mess that evening in our honor. I guess to avoid any embarrassment,
he felt obliged to "coach" us on the event. We were advised not to
touch any food or beverage on the tables until the completion of the necessary
toasts and the chaplain's invocation. After each toast, we were to sip our wine;
after the final toast (to our mutual victory), and not before, we were OK to
drain our wine glasses.
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