Sears - World War II: Air War

Groaning and grumbling, 280 American airmen dragged themselves out of bed in the early morning darkness at a United States Army Air Force heavy bomber base in England. They washed, dressed, ate their usual bland army breakfast, and then assembled in a big Quonset hut to be briefed on their target for the day. The date was April 17, 1943; World War II was in its fourth year.

The commander of the bases bomber group mounted a platform at the end of the hut and quickly ended the suspense. The target of Mission Number 52 (that is, the fifty-second mission to be flown by the U.S. Eighth Air Force) was the big Focke-Wulf aircraft factory at Bremen in northwestern Germany.

Here was a real chance to hit Nazi Germany where it would hurt, the group commander said. The Bremen factory was the leading producer of the Luftwaffe s Focke-Wulf 190 , the best fighter plane in the German Air Force. As usual, the bombers would attack by daylight; as usual, in attacking a target so far from England, they would be flying beyond the range of friendly escort fighters. They would be entirely on their own over Germany.

The commander stepped aside, and his place was taken by the group intelligence officer, who filled in details on the mission and its target. This was to be a maximum effort, he said - four bomber groups, well over 100 planes in all, the Eighth Air Forces biggest raid so far. The Focke-Wulf factory, was a juicy target, and the airmen could expect the Luftwaffe to be up in force. Intelligence estimated that at least 100 German fighters were based near the route the bombers would follow to Bremen.

The weatherman came next, predicting cloud and wind conditions to be expected over England and the Continent. Then came the flak officer, warning at what points on the route the heaviest German antiaircraft free would be found. This officer added his usual remark about flak being only a nuisance. The fliers laughed hollowly. They hated and feared the ugly black shell bursts that knocked down bombers or crippled them so that they became easy prey for enemy fighters.

After detailed briefings on bombing tactics, navigation, and radio signals, the crews dressed in their flight gear and climbed into trucks to ride out to their planes. The Boeing -17 Flying Fortresses squatted on paved hardstands around the edge of the airfield, widely separated in case of enemy air attack. Ground crewmen had been at work most of the night loading bombs and ammunition and repairing battle damage from the previous days raid on well-defended enemy submarine bases along the coast of German-occupied France. The sergeant gunners checked over their 50-caliber machine guns and lifted them into the Fortresses. As the gunners went to work mounting their weapons, the crew officers ran through a detailed preflight check to make sure everything in these complex airplanes was working right.

Bombardiers carefully lifted bombsights into the noses of the B-17s. The Norden bombsight was a vital part of the mission; in the hands of a skilled man this precision computer was supposed to be able to drop a bomb into a pickle barrel from four miles up. That, at any rate, was the theory. Under combat conditions, with German fighters whipping past, exploding flak shells rocking the plane, and the bombers guns chattering around him, the bombardier had a hard time living up to the pickle-barrel boast.

The bombardiers had another task to perform before their ground duties were finished. They crawled into the yawning bomb bay of each plane and fitted fuzes into the ten 500-pound bombs hanging there. Guns and bombs in place, the Fortresses were now weapons of mass destruction.

The fliers waited nervously, clustering around the bombers, smoking and talking and trying not to think of what lay ahead. At last it was time to take their stations. As a flare shot upward from the control tower, each pilot and copilot began the complicated operation of bringing a twenty-seven-ton Flying Fortress alive.

Engine cooling flaps, fuel valves, carburetor controls, propeller settings - these and scores of others were checked or adjusted. Then, each copilot pushed the button to start his number-one engine (the four engines were numbered from left to right and started in that order). As the electric starter turned the propeller, fuel was pumped into the engine; then the copilot flipped the switch to mesh propeller and engine - like putting a car into gear - and number one caught with a roar and a cloud of exhaust smoke. The operation was repeated for the other three motors. All around the edge of the field, Fortresses coughed into life, a hundred or so engines blending into a ragged and deafening chorus.

Bottom turret gunners locked their guns facing rearward, clear for taxiing; the wheels were unblocked, and the B-17s began to trundle off their hardstands. It took a full hour to get the twenty-odd planes of a bomber group lined up for takeoff, which meant more nerve-racking waiting. Each pilot attached his plane in turn to the procession. Outboard engines racing and brakes squealing, the Fortresses lumbered along nose-to-tail like circus elephants.

Finally, at 9:30 a.m., came the flare signaling takeoff. Thirty seconds apart, the B-17s roared down the runway and climbed into the morning sky. They tucked up their wheels and began to assemble in formation for the 350-mile flight to Bremen.

The air armada grew as the three other bomber groups assigned to Mission Number 52 slipped into position. Exactly on schedule, climbing steadily, 115 Flying Fortresses crossed the English coast and headed out over the North Sea. At 10,000 feet, each crewman donned a rubber mask and plugged his air hose into the planes central oxygen supply.

Just as a porcupine rolls itself into a ball to present a compact mass of sharp spines to its enemies, the bomber formation tightened up as it neared the danger zone. Smoke spurted briefly from the planes as gunners test-fired their machine guns, the single guns stuttering abruptly, the twin guns in the turrets pounding in steady rhythm. A smell like that of spent fireworks drifted through the ships.