On the ground, the sound of the Pratt & Whitney engines grew fainter and then disappeared entirely. For Ben and the hundreds of other 93rd men left behind, the vigil began.
AT 9:25 A.M., A LITTLE MORE THAN NINETY minutes after Teggie Ann took off, Timberlake’s bombers made a successful rendezvous with seventy-five B-17s over East Anglia. With the Flying Fortresses leading the way, the strike force headed east over the English Channel. As the bombers climbed to twenty-four-thousand feet, the temperature outside the aircraft plummeted to minus fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit. Freezing winds whipped through the rear gunports of the B-24s and B-17s, punishing the waist gunners as they stood at their positions. Half-frozen men test-fired their weapons to make sure they were working and reported the results to the copilot.
The pilots had been instructed to turn back to base if any gun malfunctioned or a serious mechanical issue arose with the engines or hydraulic system. Ten miles from the French coast at Dunkirk, two of Timberlake’s Liberators dropped out of the formation and turned back to Alconbury. Over the next few minutes, another five B-24s aborted for various reasons. With his force now down to seventeen B-24s, Timberlake pressed on.2
Most of the pilots had never flown a B-24 at maximum weight, and their heavily loaded aircraft presented a nerve-racking challenge. In their weeks of training in England, the pilots had practiced flying tight triangle-shaped formations comprised of three aircraft to concentrate their machine-gun fire against enemy fighters. Now the pilots struggled to tighten their formations without causing a midair collision.
As the B-24s arrived over the French coast, the sky erupted with black puffs. The men were so unprepared for aerial combat that the smudges puzzled many of them. “It was eerie and weird,” said a 330th pilot from Iowa named John “Packy” Roche.3 It was only after hearing a sound like gravel being tossed onto their bomber’s aluminum skin that some of the men realized the puffs were exploding antiaircraft shells. In a 329th Squadron bomber named Thunder Bird, the twenty-three-year-old tail gunner shouted with astonishment over the crew intercom: “Hey, they’re shooting at us!” Some of his crewmates at first thought he was joking, but the gunner was so shaken by the experience that he would never fly another mission.4
Within seconds of crossing into enemy-controlled airspace, the 93rd had learned the first of many hard lessons they would absorb in the weeks ahead: The bombers at the rear of a strike force faced greater peril than the vanguard as German gunners adjusted their fire. The black puffs had seemed harmless, and then two shells slammed into a B-24 named Big Eagle. Flames erupted from the number four engine and bomb bay, and Big Eagle fell into a death spiral. Five men parachuted from the crippled aircraft and five fell to their deaths. Among the survivors were the pilots, who were blown free when the bomber exploded. The pilots and two other men were taken prisoner by the Germans. Gunner Arthur B. Cox evaded capture and became the first American airman to escape to neutral Spain with the assistance of the French Underground.5
About twenty miles from Lille, Timberlake’s group linked up with RAF Spitfires and RAF-operated P-38 Lightnings assigned to protect the B-24s from German fighter attacks in the target area. The escorts took up a position slightly above and behind Timberlake’s force as the Fortresses began their final sprint to the target ahead.
The German fighter attacks began anew as the B-24s neared Lille. Six enemy fighters darted into Timberlake’s formation and attacked the trailing B-24 formations nearly head-on. German Messerschmitt Me-109 and Focke-Wulf Fw-190 fighters swarmed the B-24s from all angles. B-24 gunners fired belts of .50-caliber rounds at the fleeting targets as the Spitfires and P-38s did their best to drive the enemy aircraft away from the bomber formation.
Bomber crewmen had been taught aviation shorthand to identify the relative position of threats using clock-face bearings and the vertical position relative to the horizon. Now the intercom system used by bomber crewmen to communicate with one another during flight crackled with shouts. “Me-109 at twelve o’clock high! Two Focke-Wulfs at six o’clock low!”
Timberlake’s orderly formation disintegrated in the face of the attacks. Adding to the chaos, the B-17s that had dropped their bombs on the target were now on a collision course with the incoming Liberators. Timberlake banked to the south to avert disaster, and the B-24s sprinted to the target on an improvised route. Finally clear of the fighters, Teggie Ann’s bombardier toggled his load of bombs, and the other Liberators followed.
Suddenly six thousand pounds lighter, Timberlake banked hard to the west, and the battered Liberators fought their way home.
BACK ON THE GROUND, THE 93RD MEN described a harrowing battle that included forty to fifty clashes with German fighters. Under questioning by intelligence officers, the raiders claimed six enemy fighter kills, five probable kills, and another four enemy aircraft damaged.6 The bombing had been excellent, the 93rd men reported, but strike photos revealed most of the group’s bombs missed their targets—in many cases by hundreds of yards.
Allied press officers in London issued an exuberant communiqué that claimed a “devastating attack” and severe German fighter losses: a staggering forty-eight fighters shot down with certainty, with an additional thirty-eight probable kills and another nineteen enemy aircraft damaged, the communiqué claimed. The claims turned out to be grossly exaggerated, a common occurrence in Army Air Forces communiques in the months ahead.
While some men mourned the loss of the Big Eagle crew, many others celebrated the 93rd’s combat blooding over beers and shots of whiskey on the base and at nearby pubs. There was a sense that the enemy fighter claims were inflated, but that didn’t stop some of the men from predicting they would decimate the Luftwaffe fighter force in one or two more raids.7
The boasts belied the raid’s sobering truths. Ten of their comrades had been blasted from the sky, and many others had narrowly avoided the same fate. Lille had proven that the big B-17s and B-24s, even in massed formations, were vulnerable to enemy flak and fighters. Some of them were going to get hurt, and some were going to die. In their hearts, the 93rd men knew they were in for a hard fight.
Chapter 10
“LOOK AT ME NOW”
The stories of courage, sacrifice, and survival that swirled through the enlisted ranks following the Lille raid intensified Ben’s hunger to join a combat crew. Each of the squadrons still had a thin reserve of trained gunners who could fill losses, so Ben’s appeals for a gunnery assignment went unanswered. For the time being, the closest Ben would come to combat was watching crews take off and land and listening to stories of comrades.
While Ben sought to put himself in harm’s way, the Eighth Air Force received an urgent change of orders in mid-October. The directive came from General Dwight D. Eisenhower after a surge in Allied shipping losses from U-boat attacks in the North Atlantic. Eisenhower ordered the American B-17s and B-24s in England to shift their focus from industrial targets in France to German U-boat pens and maintenance shops along the southwest coast of occupied France.
Eisenhower’s concerns went beyond the mounting shipping losses. D-Day for the Operation TORCH landings in northwest Africa was set for early November, and Allied convoys were preparing to head south from British ports with men and materiel. To shield the convoys from potentially devastating attacks, Eisenhower needed Ira Eaker’s Eighth Air Force bombers to keep the German marauders bottled up in their French bases.
The onset of fall rains and fog complicated the Eighth’s efforts to carry out Eisenhower’s orders. Inclement weather put the 93rd out of action for twelve days following the Lille raid. Finally, on October 21, twenty-four 93rd Liberators took off to bomb the German submarine pens at Lorient. The B-17s leading the strike force bombed the target as planned, but a narrow weather window closed and the 93rd men made it only as far as the English Channel before they were ordered to return to Alconbury because of poor visibility.
Subsequent 93rd missions didn’t even get that far. Four times in the final ten days of October the crews were briefed for missions that were canceled because of weather. The B-24s weren’t equipped with radar, so the men could only bomb what they could see, and the autumn weather made it impossible to see much of anything from twenty thousand feet.
Four attempts were made to bomb the German submarine pens at Saint-Nazaire in the final days of October. Ground crews toiled all night in chilly, wet conditions to load the B-24s with bombs, and the crews were roused before dawn for final briefings, only to be told to stand down before takeoff. Another attempt was made to bomb Saint-Nazaire on November 1, with the same result. Frustration gnawed at the 93rd men.
On November 7, Ted Timberlake’s crews again set out to complete only their second mission. Their target was the U-boat pens at Brest. Many of the fifty-six B-17s leading the strike force began experiencing mechanical malfunctions, and more than half eventually aborted the raid because of engine problems. Of the twelve 93rd B-24s that took off from Alconbury, only eight reached the target.
The Liberators faced intense antiaircraft fire in the seconds before and after they dropped their bombs, and as they turned for home, they were attacked by eighteen German fighters. The B-24 crews had no sooner fought their way out of that threat than twenty unidentified fighters closed on the formation near the French coast. The Liberator gunners opened fire and braced for a pitched battle. Suddenly, the leader of the fighters rolled into a vertical bank and revealed his RAF insignia. The Liberators had mistaken a group of friendly Spitfires for enemy fighters. No harm was done in the brief encounter, and, in the gathering twilight, the fighters led the 93rd crews to an RAF base at Exeter, in southwest England.1 The 93rd men were disappointed to learn from strike photos that their aim had been poor, but at least they didn’t lose any men or planes. For the 93rd, mission number 2 was finally in the books.
93rd Bomb Group, 1942–1943 operational area, Western and Central Europe
On November 8, Allied troops stormed ashore in northwest Africa in the opening act of Operation TORCH. With the invasion underway and convoys carrying more troops and supplies through the North Atlantic waters off France and Spain, the Eighth Air Force stepped up its suppression raids on the German submarine pens. Twelve 93rd Liberators took off for Saint-Nazaire on November 9, and nine bombed the target. A scheduled raid on Bordeaux the following day was aborted due to weather, but nine 93rd bombers and five Liberators from the recently arrived 44th Bomb Group attacked Saint-Nazaire. Three B-17s were lost over the target. Once again, the 93rd avoided casualties.
As if the weather hadn’t complicated his life enough, General Eaker now faced the loss of much of the force he had only recently acquired. Eisenhower had requested 1,698 planes for TORCH. About 1,200 of that number were to be drawn from Eaker’s existing forces and the reinforcements supposedly headed his way. Among Eaker’s losses to the TORCH diversion were his two most-experienced B-17 outfits.
The grim reality for Eaker’s remaining bomber forces was they were expected to keep attacking German targets, no matter how small their numbers. Ted Timberlake’s 93rd Liberators had enjoyed remarkably good fortune thus far, losing only one bomber on three raids against German targets in enemy-occupied France. Now a reckoning awaited Timberlake’s B-24 crews as they prepared to mount even smaller raids against hardening German air defenses.
ALTHOUGH HE CHAFED IN HIS ROLE AS A CLERK, Ben reveled in the thrill of waking up each morning in England, with a front-row seat to the historic air campaign that was front-page news back home. He wasn’t experiencing the alternating thrill and terror of combat, but Ben’s daily life at Alconbury involved other adventures. There were quaint villages, ancient towns, and soaring cathedrals to explore, and the venerable university city of Cambridge lay only a half hour away. An even greater allure was London, only an hour’s journey by train. For a farm boy from rural Nebraska, an exotic world beckoned.
On Friday, November 13, Ben and his comrades were ordered to assemble by squadron to await the arrival of a mystery guest. At 10:00 a.m., a black Daimler limousine rolled through the main gate of the base and eased to a halt. To the astonishment of Ben and the others, King George VI emerged from the back seat.
His Majesty had been escorted from the nearby train station by the commander of the Eighth Air Force, Major General Carl Spaatz, and Eaker, his bomber chief. Timberlake now ushered his distinguished guests into his office for conversation, a cup of tea, and Camel cigarettes. There was an awkward moment when the 328th Squadron commander, Major Addison Baker, climbed onto a table to snap a photograph and gave His Majesty a fright when the camera’s flashbulb popped like a pistol shot.2
Afterward, Timberlake escorted King George to a waiting jeep for a guided tour of the flight line. The British monarch wore a royal-blue greatcoat to ward off the damp chill, and he and Timberlake perched on an elevated rear seat as a sergeant from Detroit drove them to Timberlake’s Teggie Ann. Climbing from the jeep, the 93rd commander and Major K. K. Compton escorted the monarch into the open bomb bay of the B-24. The king chatted with some of Teggie Ann’s gunners and asked questions about the various crew positions and responsibilities during a mission. Pointing to the twin .50-caliber machine guns in the top turret, the monarch quipped, “So that’s what the Jerries don’t like?”3
Emerging from the bomber, King George chatted a few more minutes with crew members and the ground crew chief. “How do you like the English weather, sergeant?” the king asked one of the men. Without missing a beat, Sergeant Norman Tussey, a twenty-eight-year-old sawmill worker from Blair County, Pennsylvania, replied, “I don’t like it, sir.”
Among the journalists on hand to document the king’s first visit to an American base was Life magazine photographer Margaret Bourke-White, the first woman US authorities had accredited to work in a combat zone. For Ben and the 93rd men watching from a distance as King George and the other American and British dignitaries made their rounds trailed by Bourke-White, it was a day they would never forget. “If someone were to tell me I would be in England, I would have thought they were crazy,” Ben wrote home. “But look at me now.”4
