MY MOST SECRET MISSION - page 5 the untold story of Yalta by Al Eberhardt |
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Middle East Influence On the morning of Feb. 11th, after the cumbersome de-icing procedure, Lieutenants Frank Mc Hugh and Othel Kilpatrick flew cover for General Marshall back to Bari, Italy. Also, that same day, Lieutenants Dick Hanford and Warren Danielson escorted Admiral King in his C-54 all the way from the Crimea to Tunis by way of Athens (a distance of 1490 miles). The next day Lt. Joe Demkovich, and another 27th pilot, escorted Admiral King to Cairo. At the conclusion of the Yalta Conference, on Feb. 12 the President flew once again in his "Sacred Cow" nearly due south across the Black Sea, over Turkey (near Ankara), then over the Eastern Mediterranean to the Egyptian Aerodrome at Cairo, again escorted by Begley, Coury, and Haring. This flight was led by our Group Commander, Col. Agan. Near Cairo, the President re-boarded his cruiser, the USS Quincy (anchored on Great Bitter Lake). Prime Minister Churchill left the Crimea a day later, escorted by Col.Pope and Lts.Coury, Hanford, Lucietich, Tappan, and Youtz from the 27th. It's interesting to note that they flew southwest to Athens and then southeast to Alexandria (instead of flying south, directly to Cairo as FDR had done). The next day Churchill reappeared aboard the Quincy; apparently he and FDR preferred to have their post-conference critique in the privacy of the President's cabin on the Quincy and to keep it secret from the Soviets. While the Conference had been in progress, the Quincy had completed, without its VIP complement, its crossing of the eastern part of the Mediterranean to Ismalia, Egypt, through part of the Suez Canal and anchored in the Great Bitter Lake where it refueled. Captain Senn then dispatched one of his escorting destroyers, the USS Murphy, through the southern part of the Suez Canal and across the Red Sea to Jeddah to transport King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia to the Quincy. At Jeddah, on the Arabian coast near Mecca, King Ibn Saud came aboard the destroyer with his party of 48 including personal staff, his princes and tribal chiefs wearing their swords. The party’s supplies were loaded on board including tents, rugs, pillows, food, firewood and, to the surprise of many of the crew members, several live sheep. It was a very unusual trip back up the Persian Gulf to the Great Bitter Lake for the crew of the USS Murphy. The King and his staff stayed above deck. They tethered the sheep, erected the tents, and then built a fire on the aft deck of the ship. The sequence that followed was a little difficult for some of the city-bred sailors. The King’s staff proceeded to cut the throats of the live sheep, in the Muslim tradition, drain and skin them. They then roasted them on spits over the open fire they had built near one of the ammo lockers. When the Murphy returned to the Great Bitter Lake, the King and his party were taken aboard the Quincy where the President held a reception for them. The fine relationship initiated by FDR with the Saudi's royal family 57 years ago is undoubtedly a factor in our good relationship with this country today. While anchored in the Suez, the President and his staff further enhanced our relations in this part of the world by entertaining King Farouk I of Egypt and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia at two additional lavish receptions aboard the Quincy. Consequently, all three monarchs, individually and personally, received an early "update" from FDR on most of the accords reached at Yalta. "Take-Off" Problems On Feb. 16 our 94th Fighter Squadron was ordered to return to Tunis, Oran, and then Gibraltar to escort the President's naval task force during their recrossing of the Mediterranean and exit into the Atlantic. On that same day pilots of the 27th, led by Major Paul Ash, initiated the task force's daylight escort about 100 miles southeast of Tobruk, Libya. One of the few negatives about the P-38’s unique design was the possibility of one of the engines failing during the critical “lift-off” phase in the take-off run. When this happens, the tremendous thrust of the good engine will flip the plane over in an instant and kill the pilot. I saw this happen back at Foggia shortly before Argonaut started. When flight leader Lt. Guy Casey was taking off from the aerodrome at Tobruk with Joe Demkovitch on his right wing, his right engine exploded just as he left the ground. Casey’s reflexes must have been excellent that morning; in a fraction of a second he closed both throttle levers preventing a flip-over. Joe narrowly missed him as he suddenly overtook him. Casey “belly’d in” the smoking plane, left the cockpit quickly with his parachute and life raft. To the amazement of the ambulance crew that picked him up, and the 27th’s ground crews, Casey had the guts and temerity to jump right into Begley's “warmed-up” plane and take-off. He caught up with his flight and led them in carrying out their escort of the President’s task force as planned. A few days later Lt. William Dougherty of the 94th would have a similar engine failure while taking off on the wing of Cpt. Lyle Baker. In Dougherty’s case the left engine exploded before he was airborne and the right engine took him across the runway behind Baker, narrowly missing his tail. These pilots were currently accustomed to flying the new P-38 L model ; during Argonaut some of the older P-38 J models were pressed into service. There was an important difference in take-off procedures. I remember this well because a few weeks later I wrecked our Colonel’s J model piggy-back (a special 2 passenger) P-38 when my right engine blew up just as I was leaving the ground. There were a pair of toggle switches that controlled the position of the oil cooler shutter flaps which determined the amount of air going thru the cooler and consequently the engine oil temperature. The new L Model had a thermostatically control position “auto” so we generally flipped the switches up and left them there. The older models only had the manual control toggles--up to open, down to close, they would always spring back to neutral or middle position. In the normal progression from J model to L model there was no problem; however when the pilot transitioned back from L to J, look out !! In the heat of the moment, prior to take-off, the pilot’s eyes and mind are focused on dozens of other higher priorities. In a J if he forgets to look at the oil flaps' position he was in for trouble. If the oil shutter flaps are not wide open at take off, the length of time to get a heavily loaded P-38 J off the ground, using full power, can be enough to “cook” the lubricity out of the oil and blow up an engine from the resultant piston seizure. The engine stops immediately and usually catches fire----always an unnerving experience when sitting in the middle of hundreds of gallons of high octane avgas. The President's Return Cruise After Casey's crash and mechanical difficulties with another plane, 11 P-38's of the 27th took off from Tobruk that morning in patchy fog and provided daylight escort in three sequential flights and landed at Malta for servicing. These same pilots continued to protect the task force the next day (landing at Tunis afterward). Begley was stranded at Tobruk and "hitch-hiked" in a military transport to Sicily and eventually back to Foggia. The escort duty was then picked up by the 71st Squadron flying out of Bone (now Annaba); Algeria, again escorting the naval task force along the Algerian coast. Then our CO, Col "Bucky" Harris with his 4 plane Red Flight, flying out of Algiers, found the President's task force at daybreak and flew cover for them into the harbor and refueling at Algeria. General DeGaulle had been invited to join FDR in Algiers for a debriefing on the conference. Still smarting from France not being represented at Yalta, the petulant general declared he was too busy, infuriating President Roosevelt. My White Flight took off from Algiers on the afternoon of Feb.18th and escorted the task force just north of the coast between Algiers and Oran. After 4 1/2 hrs of escorting, we returned to the base at Algiers landing at dusk. Next day we flew over to Gibraltar and again landed at "the Rock". The other flights in our squadron, flying out of Gibraltar, were now completing the escort duties of the First Fighter Group. They escorted the President's task force about 100 miles back into the Atlantic. It was the 19th of Feb.and the President would arrive back in Washington a week later. Also on the 19th of Feb., Churchill took off from Cairo in his C-54 shortly after midnight and without escort. Major Ash took off from Malta with 6 other P-38's including Demkovich, Hanford, and McHugh. At daybreak they rendezvoused with Churchill's plane 35 miles southwest of Malta and escorted the Prime Minister and his party across the Mediterranean, over the island of Sardinia to Marseilles, France. Here they were met by 4 RAF Mosqitoes that continued the escort to an airfield near London. Gibraltar Visit After completion of our escort duties we were anxious to visit the town of Gibraltar, which seemed more like a village in England than a town on the Mediterranean. Bucky advised us we were free to go touristing in groups of 3 or 4, and to minimize any conversation with the locals. In my opinion, this was one of the many ways Bucky showed his true character for handling his pilots. It would have been easy and riskless for him to confine us to quarters; he knew that most of us would never come by this interesting place again and he put his trust in us not to "screw up" and blab about what we had been doing. So Lyle Finley, RG Gillen and I headed for town. Right about now I was longing for my camera. The colonel had warned us at our initial briefing-------no cameras. No pictures; and this little ancient Moorish town of Gibraltar was so very picturesque! It lay basking lazily in the warm Mediterranean sun in repose against the base of the rugged Rock. Over the centuries, this place had been the target of many battles. The last one the British had won in the 17th Century and it has been their fortress ever since. The civilians, in this seaport village, nearly all spoke the King's English but looked like the Andulusians they descended from. They seemed stern and stiffened by their austere life. For them, the war must have seemed like serving an eternal prison sentence; people were just not free to come and go to this isolated little enclave. We walked down the main street past bistros, closed cafes, and little shops whose inventories were long since depleted. The street ended at a large iron gate. The gate was a 40 foot interruption in a 15 foot high wall that separated Gibraltar from Spain. There were guard houses on both sides of the gate, and at both ends. There were numerous Spanish border guards on the north side and even more British guards on the south side---seems everybody had an automatic weapon. Like small, curious children we walked to the iron bars, closely watched by both sides. I impulsively reached thru the bars and touched the ground of Spain, which was, of course, one of the few non-combatant European countries. It gave me a strange, calming feeling to touch the soil of a country now at peace. I guess the psychologists would say it was the manisfestation of a deep personal yearning for the end of this damn war that had been the focus of my life for the last three years. Although Spain was officially a "neutral" country, we thought the Franco regime was more friendly to the Nazis, and somewhat hostile to us; we reasoned that this was because of the assistance the Franco regime got from Hitler when they were defeating the Loyalists during the Spanish Civil War. Many of us felt the Nazis had used Spanish Blood to test the effectiveness of their new war machines (ten short years before). Several of us were curious about the fortifications and the interior of the Rock so a British non-com MP was assigned to give us the "Cook's Tour" which proved most interesting. I strongly suspected our guide was not just an ordinary MP but an officer in the British counter intelligence corps. This little British stronghold, adjoining Spain and commanding access to and from the Med, had to be a favorite target of German spies and saboteurs. Consequently, I imagined many of its inhabitants were skilled counter intelligence personnel. The interior of the Rock was bristling with dozens of 6 in. gun emplacements.These heavy artillery batteries gave the Brits total control over the Straight of Gibraltar and ingress to the Mediteranean. The Rock contained a labyrinth of tunnels, elevators, communication rooms, water and fuel tanks, munitions, armament, and canned food storage rooms, etc. all very, very impenetrable. It was a small subterranean city and a beehive of lift cart activity along miles and miles of corridors carved inside hundreds of feet of solid granite. The southwest face of this rock mountain had been plastered over with millions of pounds of concrete, like smooth caramel icing on the side of a cake, to form a rainwater catchment. Apparently, most of their water came from rain draining off this steep cement slope and stored in a giant cistern---seemed primitive for such an otherwise modern facility. One of the surprises was the vast number of large monkeys roaming free everywhere; they can be found nowhere else in all of Europe.The locals called them "Barbary Apes" and they are unique to this tiny country. It seems they were encouraged to live in this fortress.. I surmised there must be a reason for this madness; perhaps they could have served as some kind of early indicator of trouble------if they acted sick, maybe the homo-sapiens would be alerted to take caution such as putting on their gas masks. To this day, I have not heard another plausible explanation for their proliferation there during World War II. The next day, 14 of us climbed into our P38's; reluctantly, we took off from Gibraltar and flew back to Algiers where we spent the night. On the morning of 2/22/45 our squadron returned on an uneventful trip across the Mediterranean to our home base at Salsola, completing this historic assignment. On 2/27/45 the President and his party arrived back at Newport News, Virginia; the President appeared in a very frail condition before Congress on Mar. 1 and reported on the Yalta Conference. Reflections Overseeing this entire widespread escort while operating in somewhat of a void, but still under the close scrutiny of so many important politicos and military brass, placed Colonel Agan's budding career on a "hot seat". He remained at Cairo until the last meeting had ended and the last VIP had been safely escorted out of the area and back to his home base. Only then was he able to relax and take due credit for a job well done without a single casualty. After 57 yrs., when I reflect back on this very secret mission, I realize what an excellent job the military did. To bring Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin safely together in the Crimea during World War II, and to get them all back to their respective capitals, after several days of meetings and without a major incident, was rather miraculous. It's success was a real tribute to its planners and all the servicemen who made it happen. Everything about our Yalta escort was kept TOP SECRET, both before and after our mission. Afterwards, I was surprised and pleased to hear that I had received credit in my log sheets for my 19th mission (toward the 50 combat missions required to rotate back to the States)--- it was probably the least risky of the 39 missions I flew before Germany's surrender. The Yalta Conference was the first time Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin sat together and jointly agreed to establish "a general international organization to maintain peace and security--ensuring the rights of nations to amity, self determination, and democratically elected governments". It was President Roosevelt who proffered the name "United Nations". Also, following up on the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington 4 months earlier, General George C. Marshall clarified his plan for rebuilding Europe to the ultimate benefit of both victor and vanquished. Many people, especially a few of my strongly conservative Republican friends, felt that the Yalta Conference was a total disaster. Some of my generation can only think of the State Department's Alger Hiss influencing the President and the strategic post war advantages these negotiations gave the Soviets. However, this conference was also where the seed for the UN's framework began to take root---to blossom in New York two years later. I prefer to think of it as a major contribution to world orderliness, as we know it today. Over the years, I have asked myself "why us ?", why were we chosen for this extraordinary experience? Was it tradition and record ? We were America's oldest Fighter Group and had received three Presidential Citations. Was it equipment ? Our P38 was generally accepted as America's best (and most expensive) fighter plane in WWII; it had the most kills by America's leading aces. It also had a distinctive appearance from underneath, easily identifiable by gun crews on the warships and air bases. Was it our location in southern Italy ? We were considered a part of the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations. I guess the answer is "all of the above". My fellow pilots agreed, as in life, it's just "being in the right place at the right time with the right equipment" that really counts. Occasionally I drift back in thought to some of the toasts that were made that night in Gibraltar "long live the Queen"----fifty-seven years later, Queen Mother Elizabeth died in her 101st year, and "long live the President"------unfortunately, two months later, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was dead at 63 ! Sadly, about a third of the fifty pilots that participated in this Argonaut mission were shot down by ground fire during the final two months of the war. I hereby dedicate this article to their memory, especially my former tent mates-- John D. Felsinger of Buffalo, NY and “RG” Gillen from Granbury, TX. Like so many brave young men, these fighter pilots gave their lives in combat for the freedom we all enjoy. H. A. Eberhardt 5/20/02 |
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