"My first raid was on December thirty-first, over Ludwigshaven. Naturally, not knowing what it was going to be like, I didn't feel scared. A little sick, maybe, but not scared. That comes later, when you begin to understand what your chances of survival are. Once we'd crossed into Germany, we spotted some flak, but it was a good long distance below us and looked pretty and not dangerous: different-colored puffs making a soft, cushiony-looking pattern under our plane. A bombardier sits right in the plexiglas nose of a Fort, so he sees everything neatly laid out in front of him, like a living-room rug. It seemed to me at first that I'd simply moved in on a wonderful show.' I got over feeling sick, there was so much to watch.
We made our run over the target, got our bombs away, and apparently did a good job. Maybe it was the auto-pilot and bomb sight that saw to that, but I'm sure I was cool enough on that first raid to do my job without thinking too much about it. Then, on the way home, some Focke-Wulfs showed up, armed with rockets, and I saw three B-I7s in the different groups around us suddenly blow up and drop through the sky. Just simply blow up and drop through the sky. Nowadays, if you come across something awful happening, you always think, 'My God, it's just like a movie,' and that's what I thought. I had a feeling that the planes weren't really falling and burning, the men inside them weren't really dying, and everything would turn out happily in the end. Then, very quietly through the interphone, our tail gunner said, 'I'm sorry, sir, I've been hit.'
I crawled back to him and found that he'd been wounded in the side of the head - not deeply but enough so he was bleeding pretty bad. Also, he'd got a lot of the plexiglas dust from his shattered turret in his eyes, so he was, at least for the time being, blind.Though he was blind, he was still able to use his hands, and I ordered him to fire his guns whenever he heard from me. I figured that a few bursts every so often from his fifties would keep the Germans off our tail, and I also figured that it would give the kid something to think about besides the fact that he'd been hit. When I got back to the nose, the pilot told me that our No. 4 engine had been shot out. Gradually we lost our place in the formation and flew nearly alone over France. That's about the most dangerous thing that can happen to a lame Fort, but the German fighters had luckily given up and we skimmed over the top of the flak all the way to the Channel."
...
In early 1944 the number of missions required to complete his tour of duty was extended from 25 to 30. This meant that Lt. Hallock and his buddies, each of whom had been counting down each mission, now had five additional to fly. We pick up his story as he begins his 27th (and worst) mission:
"We had a feeling, though, that this Augsburg show was bound to be tough, and it was. We made our runs and got off our bombs in the midst of one hell of a dogfight. Our group leader was shot down and about a hundred and fifty or two hundred German fighters swarmed over us as we headed for home. Then, screaming in from someplace, a twenty millimeter cannon shell exploded in the nose of our Fort. It shattered the plexiglas, broke my interphone and oxygen connections, and a fragment of it cut through my heated suit and flak suit. I could feel it burning into my right shoulder and arm. My first reaction was to disconnect my heated suit. I had some idea that I might get electrocuted if I didn't.
I crawled back in the plane, wondering if anyone else needed first aid. I couldn't communicate with them, you see, with my phone dead. I found that two shells had hit in the waist of the plane, exploding the cartridge belts stored there, and that one waist gunner had been hit in the forehead and the other in the jugular vein. I thought, 'I'm wounded, but I'm the only man on the ship who can do this job right.' I placed my finger against the gunner's jugular vein, applied pressure bandages, and injected morphine into him. Then I sprinkled the other man's wound with sulfa powder. We had no plasma aboard, so there wasn't much of anything else I could do. When I told the pilot that my head set had been blown off, the tail gunner thought he'd heard someone say that my head had been blown off, and he yelled that he wanted to jump. The pilot assured him that I was only wounded. Then I crawled back to the nose of the ship to handle my gun, fussing with my wounds when I could and making use of an emergency bottle of oxygen.
...
One of the waist gunners was new, a young kid like the kid I'd been six months before. He wasn't a bit scared - just cocky and excited. Over Saarbriicken he was wounded in the foot by a shell, and I had to give him first aid. He acted more surprised than hurt. He had a look on his face like a child who's been cheated by grownups.
I grew up watching old WWII movies where B-17s would get shot to pieces and still fly. There was recently a contemporary series ( CGI-heavy) about a group of American B-17 pilots stationed in...
I grew up watching old WWII movies where B-17s would get shot to pieces and still fly.
There was recently a contemporary series ( CGI-heavy) about a group of American B-17 pilots stationed in England during WWII. What I was most impressed by was how fragile the planes were. A piece of flack and a plane never came home. Every single mission, bombers and men would be lost. Unlike the old WWII movie where the pilots just gritted their teeth and successfully flew through the flack.
Planes are really just a combination of moving forward at high speed and looking up at a certain angle. Because weight slows you down, you have to make them as light as possible, which means they...
Planes are really just a combination of moving forward at high speed and looking up at a certain angle. Because weight slows you down, you have to make them as light as possible, which means they largely end up being fragile tubes with engines and wings attached. It doesn't take much to take them out of the sky.
I think I know what show you're referring to: Masters of the Air. It was a decent watch, but very very Hollywood. Also it felt like they had no idea what to do with the plot fairly early onwards.
Yes I was quite disappointed in Masters of the Air. I remember hearing about it over 10 years ago, and expecting it to be the same quality as Band of Brothers because it was going to be produced...
I remember hearing about it over 10 years ago, and expecting it to be the same quality as Band of Brothers because it was going to be produced by Spielberg and Hanks. It turned out to be just OK. The biggest problem from my perspective is that it tried to tell too many stories at once. There are a few eps about the bombers, then a few eps about Tuskegee Airmen, then a few eps about a prison camp. There's only 9 episodes total so there are jumps of years between some. And then there is a typical shoehorning of romance and other drama where it isn't needed. Like I said, not terrible but just OK, and nowhere near the quality of Band of Brothers or The Pacific.
I feel like I've been waiting since I was a little kid for a very good movie or show about the air war in WW2. At least Masters of the Air is better than Memphis Belle 1990, which had a good cast but was pretty crappy and cliche-ridden.
I completely agree. It felt like they really wanted to show off the Tuskegee Airmen but didn't really have an idea of how to do it? If they wanted to establish them more as characters, then they...
I completely agree. It felt like they really wanted to show off the Tuskegee Airmen but didn't really have an idea of how to do it? If they wanted to establish them more as characters, then they should have gotten the first pilot cast locked up in a POW camp sooner. I think that's the consequence of wanting to do too much. No character really had time to shine.
Reminds me of Death of a Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell Awful, obviously, but honest. If you've ever flown commercial air today, it's already miles ahead of what military air is in terms of...
Reminds me of Death of a Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
Awful, obviously, but honest. If you've ever flown commercial air today, it's already miles ahead of what military air is in terms of comfort but I literally cannot imagine what being in a WWII era plane would be. Catch-22 is one of my favorites for a reason.
Interesting story, thanks! If anyone is interested in this type of stuff, I cannot recommend A Higher Call by Adam Makos enough, it is absolutely excellent and gives you a little bit of an idea of...
Interesting story, thanks!
If anyone is interested in this type of stuff, I cannot recommend A Higher Call by Adam Makos enough, it is absolutely excellent and gives you a little bit of an idea of what the air war was like, especially from a German perspective. It focuses very heavily on a German airman through the war, but you do get to hear a good amount from an American pilot of a B-17, Charlie Brown. It'll give you some insight into what life looked like for your average German airman and it's just...good. I don't know what else to say. If you even have a passing interest in WW2, it's absolutely worth reading. I'm much more interested in the ground war of WW2, but I couldn't put this book down.
I grew up watching old WWII movies where B-17s would get shot to pieces and still fly.
There was recently a contemporary series ( CGI-heavy) about a group of American B-17 pilots stationed in England during WWII. What I was most impressed by was how fragile the planes were. A piece of flack and a plane never came home. Every single mission, bombers and men would be lost. Unlike the old WWII movie where the pilots just gritted their teeth and successfully flew through the flack.
Planes are really just a combination of moving forward at high speed and looking up at a certain angle. Because weight slows you down, you have to make them as light as possible, which means they largely end up being fragile tubes with engines and wings attached. It doesn't take much to take them out of the sky.
I think I know what show you're referring to: Masters of the Air. It was a decent watch, but very very Hollywood. Also it felt like they had no idea what to do with the plot fairly early onwards.
Yes I was quite disappointed in Masters of the Air.
I remember hearing about it over 10 years ago, and expecting it to be the same quality as Band of Brothers because it was going to be produced by Spielberg and Hanks. It turned out to be just OK. The biggest problem from my perspective is that it tried to tell too many stories at once. There are a few eps about the bombers, then a few eps about Tuskegee Airmen, then a few eps about a prison camp. There's only 9 episodes total so there are jumps of years between some. And then there is a typical shoehorning of romance and other drama where it isn't needed. Like I said, not terrible but just OK, and nowhere near the quality of Band of Brothers or The Pacific.
I feel like I've been waiting since I was a little kid for a very good movie or show about the air war in WW2. At least Masters of the Air is better than Memphis Belle 1990, which had a good cast but was pretty crappy and cliche-ridden.
I completely agree. It felt like they really wanted to show off the Tuskegee Airmen but didn't really have an idea of how to do it? If they wanted to establish them more as characters, then they should have gotten the first pilot cast locked up in a POW camp sooner. I think that's the consequence of wanting to do too much. No character really had time to shine.
Reminds me of Death of a Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell
Awful, obviously, but honest. If you've ever flown commercial air today, it's already miles ahead of what military air is in terms of comfort but I literally cannot imagine what being in a WWII era plane would be. Catch-22 is one of my favorites for a reason.
Interesting story, thanks!
If anyone is interested in this type of stuff, I cannot recommend A Higher Call by Adam Makos enough, it is absolutely excellent and gives you a little bit of an idea of what the air war was like, especially from a German perspective. It focuses very heavily on a German airman through the war, but you do get to hear a good amount from an American pilot of a B-17, Charlie Brown. It'll give you some insight into what life looked like for your average German airman and it's just...good. I don't know what else to say. If you even have a passing interest in WW2, it's absolutely worth reading. I'm much more interested in the ground war of WW2, but I couldn't put this book down.