PART III – OVERSEAS

GETTING THERE

In Georgia six crews from the Squadron in Greenville that we trained with, ours included, were given orders to report to Great Falls, Montana and from there we would proceed to Elmendorf Air Base in Alaska. Our first premonition of things to come was when they issued us our cold weather clothing. Among other items, we were given six different pairs of gloves. These started with silk and finally wound up with fleece lined leather mitten like things with a thumb and index (trigger) finger that fit over the other 5 pair.

We went from Georgia to Great Falls, MT by train. Every night they took off the round wheels and put on square ones. It was even worse than the usual miserable train rides in those days. When we got there we were told that we would be there until air transport was available and weather was good enough to fly to Alaska.

We hung around for a good ten days or so with nothing to do but relax, and play a lot of bridge. Finally we were told that the next day we would have C47 troop carriers available and, weather permitting, we would be on our way. We did get off and flew into Canada where we landed for refueling. From there we headed in the general direction of Alaska, but the weather closed in on us and the pilot had to take a non direct route to Elmendorf. This consisted of heading due North where we stopped again to refuel at a place called White Horse in Canada. By this time we were all a bit cramped from doing nothing but play bridge, and wanted to get out and go into the ready room and stretch our legs. We go to the door of the plane where the cold hit us like a wall and stopped us in our tracks. We looked out and saw a bunch of dog sleds and dogs by the ready room. We knew were not in Georgia any longer. We asked someone how cold it was, and he said it wasn’t too bad that day, just -40° .

Several hours later we re-boarded and four of us played bridge again all the way to Elmendorf. There we found out that our final destination was a place called Attu. Our reaction to that was, where the hell is Attu and what are we going to be doing there. After checking around, we found out that Attu was the western most island in the Aleutian chain, which didn’t tell us much since we had never heard of the Aleutians before, either.

While at Elmendorf, there were a bunch of us BS-ing in one of the pilot’s rooms one day. For some reason he decided to clean his .45 at that particular time. He pushed the button to release the magazine, and I noticed it didn’t drop out fully. When he pulled back the slide, it didn’t stay back like it should, but slid forward indicating it had picked up a round. I was just opening my mouth to tell him not to pull the trigger when he did. Fortunately it missed all of us, even though we were standing sort of in front of the bed where he was sitting. We all stood there a bit stunned, until we hear footsteps pounding through the barracks from men running around to see what had happened. We finally got our wits together, and decided to trace the bullet. It had gone through the wall of the room and into the closet of the next room, where my pilots were starting to hang clothes in said closet. Then into a third room near the ceiling, and might have gone into a fourth but we lost track of it. That was a serious lesson learned and we all double checked that the magazine was out before we proceeded with cleaning from then on.

We were at Elmendorf about a week or ten days, and finally got word that transportation would be available to Attu. However, when the transport came the six navigators got orders to go to Adak to train with the Navy on a new navigation device called the Loran, which we understood was a cross between a radio and radar. While on Adak we stayed at the Naval Officers Quarters and ate at the officers mess, and found out that we had joined the wrong branch of the service. When we first walked into the officers mess and saw the white linen, heavy silver service, and tasted the outstanding cuisine, we all decided we should have joined the Navy.

We were taught how to use the Loran by Naval technicians. This set, which was the first model of Loran, was about as big as the old time 12" black and white TVs, with knobs and dials all over it. The general idea was to switch onto a master and a slave radio station, which then showed up on the screen as two lines. The slave station broadcast a millionth of a second after the master station, and we would have to cross the two signals, which took about 10-15 minutes because there were a long of false readings. The screen was green and the false readings showed up as lines running up and down and we called it "grass". When we finally isolated the correct lines and crossed the two signals, we used the readout from the screen to calculate the longitude and latitude of our position. I recently saw a Loran navigation system in a modern plane, where the pilot had to basically punch a button and he got a readout of his position almost instantaneously. But where’s the challenge in that!

We spent about ten days in Adak learning the Loran system and eating very well, then got orders to report to Attu. We were finally going to see what "home" was like and learn what we were supposed to do there.

GETTING SETTLED

We finally got to Attu and were officially part of the 77^th Bomb Squadron (M), 11^th Air Force. The night we arrived, our crew and another had to sleep in a Quonset hut recently vacated by a crew going home. The others got assigned to their permanent small hut for the officers. The next day two new huts were completed and we moved in. Our new home consisted of three cots, an oil stove fed by oil from a tank outside the huts, and a telephone. That’s it. The Navy was beginning to look real good again. There was no place even to hang our clothes.

The facilities consisted of a shower room in the area with hot and cold running water, and flush toilets. However, we could only use it four days a week, the other three days it was for enlisted men. On the off days we had to use a two- hole outhouse up on a rise, and froze our butts off. We quickly learned that for the fast job it was better just to step outside the hut, but that it was important to keep your back to the wind. It was so cold up there we weren’t worried about bacterial infections. However, we did have some other amenities. Not far from our hut was the squadron theater, and a little officers’ club. The routine when taking over a new island was the first thing to build was the officers’ club. Second was the runway. There was also a little PX where you could buy toiletries and other necessities plus candy, 10 cent comic books and 25 cent pocket books.

We started talking to some of the men that had been there for awhile and going to their huts. They all had them fixed up differently, some bordering on luxury, at least for Attu. One had painted the inside all white, then put up strips of red tape to come up with a red and white striped effect. Many had closets, tables and chairs, and all smokers were using the empty bottom half of a 100# bomb as an ashtray. So we of course asked them where they got all the stuff and they told us that right across the way was a depot where they unloaded shipments, and threw away the crates, so we had our pick of plywood. This was fine as far as it went but what were we going to do with wood and no tools, so we were given a telephone number and told to ask for a guy named Ring, I think.

Now, one of the perks of being an officer is that we could buy beer, liquor and coke at next to nothing. Depending on how much was in any one shipment, we could wind up with 2-3 bottles of liquor at $2 to $3 dollars a bottle, a couple cases of beer, and a couple cases of coke in bottles. For those of us who didn’t drink, we would trade one beer for two cokes. And the liquor was bartered for supplies. This could be sold on the "black market" for $20 to $30 a bottle, by the guys who knew the ropes, which were the ones we traded the liquor for supplies with, not us.

So we called Ring and he asked us what we needed and what it would cost us a quart of liquor. We borrowed that first quart because we hadn’t been there long enough to have our own supply yet. The next day a CB (Navy Construction Battalion) truck pulled up to our hut and the driver asked us where to put a crate, which was about 6-7 feet long and a foot or two high and wide. We had him put it in the hut and gave him the bottle, then opened the crate. It was unbelievable what was in it. We found almost any tool a carpenter could possibly need (all stamped "Property of US Navy"), nails, and other stuff we hadn’t even thought of. The first thing we did was pound nails into the 2x4 beams so we could at least hang up our clothes. Then we built a table and chairs. For none of us being skilled carpenters, we learned fast and did all right.

We also learned that this guy Ring could supply just about anything, including sinks, and would even have someone install them, running a line from the shower to the hut so there would at least be cold water. And one hut had even ordered a toilet that they were going to install as an addition to their hut over some running water in back of their hut. We did order some 4x8 plywood sheets to cover the inside of the huts with to cover the open 2x4s and they were delivered as before. However, we had a problem of where to put them until we had a chance to install them, so we divided them up and put stacks under each of the cots. It was right about this time that we heard that the Navy was concerned about losing a lot of supplies and would be running an inspection of all huts to see if they could locate any of missing Naval property. So it was panic time, trying to figure out what to do with all the plywood piled under our cots. Fortunately, it turned out just to be a rumor but we had some uncomfortable moments.

There was a lot of off duty time in Attu due to weather and other factors, so there was a lot of free time to fill up with not much to do. The theater would be open evenings only for movies, usually a double feature, but not always new movies. It took me awhile to get accustomed, as an officer, to going to the front of the line to pay my 10 cents, even if there was a long line of enlisted men waiting. And we had our own section, which was center back of the theater, the best seats.

We played a lot of bridge, the same four would get together with the same partners and play for hours. Just for fun, no money involved. I would take most of my meals at the officers’ club where there was an enlisted man behind the bar who would make up sandwiches. Two steak sandwiches and a coke was my usual fare. Bob Hope came up once to entertain, and a lot of the men drank all night.

We were allowed to borrow a jeep if one was available, so we would sometimes drive up to the main officers’ club and have a really good steak. Several times we went to where the battlefields had been when the Americans were attacking the Japanese who had taken over the island. We brought our .45s and a supply of ammunition and amused ourselves by shooting at everything. The grounds were littered with the bones of the Japanese who had died there. There were also several caves in the area, but we knew enough not to go near them since they might have been booby trapped by the Japanese when they used them as hiding places.

But my guess is that we had it easier than the non flying personnel. The tour of duty for flying personnel was 1 year, regardless of number of missions. For ground personnel it was two years in what was considered a hellhole, with little or nothing to do for recreation. There were also infantry and artillery stationed on Attu with even less to do, but considered necessary in case the Japanese decided to return. And there was a squadron of Navy bombers about the size of our B25s on Attu doing the same as we were doing.

One day one of the navigators from another crew came over to our hut with three .45s and three trench knives and said, "Hey, Milt. Hold these overnight, will you?" When I asked why he said they didn’t have to fly tomorrow so his pilot and co-pilot were going to get drunk and he wanted the arms out of the hut so someone wouldn’t get killed. Looking back, I’m sort of surprised that never happened to someone.

We did find out that there was a reason for us being on that God forsaken island. We were going to be flying bombing missions to two of the Kuril Islands, Shumushu and Paramushir. The Kurils are an island chain extending northward for about 600 miles from the northernmost island of Japan. We would be bombing fisheries and canneries, and shipping and radar installations. The bombing would be done about 50 to 100 feet above the ground or water. The goal was to disrupt their food supply for both military and civilians.

The missions were a 1500 mile round trip, and would take around 9 hours to complete. The catch was the B-25 was built for a maximum of 6 hours flying time. So in order to accomplish our 9 hour missions, the planes were retrofitted to provide more fuel storage. Half the bomb bay was converted into a gas tank, which held about 225 gallons, and two droppable wing tanks were added, each holding about 110 gallons.

I personally felt that was a lot of time and effort spent to send out planes that could only carry four 300 pound or ten 100 pound bombs, double lashed together. Besides, the Army had a squadron of B-24s on the next island, Shemya, a few miles away from us that would be bombing the same installations we were targeting. I found out around 50 years later that these B-24s were doing low level bombing like we were, but were designed for bombing from 20,000 to 25,000 feet, as they did in Europe. Of course, we did not question the "wisdom"(?) of our superiors, but did our training and bombing as we were told.

The biggest problem on Attu was weather conditions. There would be days on end that we would be unable to fly due to wind, snow, fog or a combination of all the above. I was dressed for the weather when we did fly, though. My mission flight uniform consisted of we called a "teddy bear" suit, which was a padded suit with wires running through it with an outlet that we could plug into the plane’s electrical system and it became the equivalent of an overall heating pad. Along with this came slippers and gloves that could be plugged into the suit if we wanted. Over the teddy bear suit I wore a cotton flight suit, and over that an insulated flight jacket and fleece lined flying boots over the slippers, and a pair of gloves.

During our briefings, meteorology would give us the weather conditions in and around the island, and they were wrong 90% of the time. Because of the changeable conditions, it was virtually impossible for them to provide an accurate forecast, or even be accurate on current conditions, which was a real problem because two of the critical things for a pilot to know before takeoff or landing on Attu were wind velocity and direction. There was a story going around, no doubt an "island" legend, that after Attu was retaken from the Japanese , meteorology would send up weather balloons which would promptly disappear into the fog or snow, or just blow away in the wind, making them completely useless. So engineering was called in to help solve the problem, and they came up with a design that consisted of a 30’ stainless steel pole being sunk into the ground, with a chain attached to the top and the biggest anchor they could find attached to the chain. The wind velocity was determined by the angle between the anchor and the pole, and direction was obviously where the anchor was headed. When the anchor was at a right angle to the pole, all flights were cancelled.

We checked a list of names posted in the mess hall to see if we were flying, either a training flight or a combat mission. Weather permitting we would have training flights in the area and gunnery training missions over Agattu, a small island near Attu, where we pulverized a rock. But the real business was the bombing missions over the Kurile Islands. My first "combat" mission to the Kuriles was actually as an observer flying with another crew where my pilot was acting as co-pilot. I was understandably very tense and nervous, not know what to expect, but it turned out to be an uneventful mission, no anti-aircraft fire or enemy planes, so I figured this was pretty easy stuff. Actually many of our missions were pretty easy, since we had to turn back quiet often, sometimes even after 2-3 hours out, because of weather conditions. Meteorology couldn’t tell us what the current weather on Attu was, let alone what we could expect 750 miles out. However, we were still credited with a combat mission, even if we had to turn back.

One day, meteorology told us weather would be clear over Attu and decent along the route and over the Kuriles. So eight crews got ready and eight planes headed out the runway where they sat with engines running for over half an hour in a complete fog. The pilots were complaining about using up so much gasoline and begged to be able to shut down the engines, which they were eventually allowed to do. However, we had to stay in takeoff position because they were convinced the weather would clear momentarily, and we did eventually take off and wound up in one of the biggest snafus you ever saw. The weather was so bad we could not get above it, so there we were with eight planes flying around the same area trying to find their way back to the field, unable to see their wingtips, let alone anything farther out. By some miracle all eight planes did manage to land safely, but what little faith we had in meteorology’s predictions was completely gone after that.

One day our name was posted in the mess hall, and we found out that the mission was to attack ships in the harbor between Paramushir and Shumushu. This was to be a concentrated effort with the B-24s from Shimya, the B-25s from our squadron and, and the Navy bombers. The plan was that the B-24s would take off first, with our B-25s two hours later, then followed by the Navy bombers. The B-24s were to send us back a signal to let us know if there were ships in the harbor and, if so, how many. If the weather was bad, they could spot them with radar. When we were about two hours away from the target, we received a message that there were, indeed, ships in the harbor and we kept on toward the target area.

Our squadron had sent out two elements of four ships each to attack shipping in two different areas of the harbor. Frankly, I was hoping that the area would be fogged in when we got there and we wouldn’t be able to see the ships, but when we got there, there was a hole in the clouds and we could see the entire harbor. We flew toward a ship at low level, about 50 feet above the water, and I started strafing the ship before dropping the bombs. Looking down I could see flashes of light that seemed to be coming from the ship and I remember thinking the sons of bitches were shooting back at me. Then it dawned on me that we were equipped with armor piercing incendiary ammunition and it was my rounds hitting that was causing the fireworks.

As we approached, I opened the bomb bay and when everything looked good I hit the button to release the bombs, which I set to space about 15 feet apart. After we passed over the ship, I heard our tail gunner yell "Look at that son of a bitch blow up!" and guessed I’d hit my mark. I happened to look up right then, and about 100 yards in front of us I saw one of our own planes engulfed in flame. I asked the pilot if he knew who it was, and it turned out to be the crew in the hut next to ours, and whom we had trained with in the states. My automatic first reaction was to think I’m glad it’s not us, then I got hit by a terrible guilty feeling, like I had actually thought I was glad it was them, not us.

We turned around and headed back, and on our way back to base I happened to check the light that was connected to the rack where the bombs were hung. I almost had a heart attack. Four lights were on, which indicated that those bombs had not released and were still in the plane. The only thing I could think of right then was how I was going to explain this when we got back to base. I told the pilot what the problem was, and that I was going to salvo the bombs to get rid of them since I didn’t want to return and land with live bombs on board. I hit the salvo button, which automatically opened the bomb bay doors and released all the bombs at one. The four lights went off so that problem was solved, but there was still the concern about what to say when I got back to base. I had obviously not checked the lights during the actual bombing like I should have after hitting the release button. As it turned out, during debriefing I found out that the bombs hadn’t released on two or three other planes, so I felt better and stopped trying to figure out what I had done wrong. Apparently somewhere along the line either maintenance or the bomb release mechanism had screwed up, not the bombardiers. When we checked out our plane, we found one hole in the engine nacelle, which was out only damage. But the mission had managed to sink or damage several ships. This mission was on May 10, 1945, and turned out to be my next to last mission.

The next mission was on May 19, 1945. Again, our squadron sent out two elements of four planes, each element with a different target. Our target was radar installations and fisheries, depending on weather conditions. It might have been premonition or something, but because I was in the nose of the ship I could feel a vibration from what I thought was the right engine. I called the pilot several times to tell his something felt wrong and that we should go back. He said all the instruments were on green and showed nothing wrong so had to reason to turn back. In addition, one of our wing tanks would not drop after it had emptied and that was a concern. Years later I was told by another pilot that with a wing tank holding us up the pilot had full authority to turn back. However, I don’t recall ever having heard that before and doubt that my pilot had, either. In fact, that had happened before on a mission and no one had said anything of the sort after that.

The weather changed from bad to good back to bad, but we kept going. When we were a few hundred yards from the island that we were to bomb some Japanese fighter planes appeared. We were still over the water, but I noticed we were flying very low. Since I could see much better from my position than the pilot could, I was about to call him to tell him to pull up a few feet when it felt like the plane hit a brick wall. It sounded like both engines had cut out and then started again. I looked out to the right and did a double take. There was no propeller on the right engine. I hit the salvo button for the bombs, hoping that the loss of weight would allow us to gain altitude and keep flying at least until we could make Russian territory. But I knew that the plane was not going to go up any more, we were just too low, and I also knew I had to get out of the nose of the ship in a hell of a hurry.

I had always lined the nose of the plane with an extra flak suit, to protect the "family jewels" from flack from below, and was also wearing a flak suit and flak helmet. I pulled the red tab on the suit praying that it would fall into two halves like it was supposed to, so I could get through the crawlway into the pilot’s section. Getting through that crawlway wearing a parachute harness and a Mae West was a tight fit, and I was hoping to be able to get through without touching the sides of the crawl space. I started sliding through feet first. My throat mike was still on and it pulled out of its fitting, but I kept going. I made it into the pilot’s compartment and remember the co-pilot turning and giving me a sick grin, and the next thing I knew we were on the ground skidding in a crash landing.

Fortunately, there were two or three feet of snow on the beach, and no rocks, so we seemed to go on skidding on our belly forever. When the plane finally came to an abrupt stop, one of us, I don’t remember which, immediately released the escape hatch on the top of the plane and my pilot, co-pilot and I scrambled out, I don’t remember in what order but I don’t think I was last. We looked right away for the others, and found that the radioman and tail gunner, who had been in the rear, were already out. They had broken the machine gun window and climbed out that way. The engineer was the last to get out, since he was in the top turret and had to climb down from there then up into the pilot’s compartment and out through the same escape hatch we had used. Other than some bumps and bruises, no one was seriously injured in the crash. But the whole bottom of the plane was ripped out, and when I looked in my compartment in the nose, I saw it was full of snow. For some amazing reason the plane did not burn or explode, I have no idea why.

Our first instinct was to move away from the plane, but every time we tried a Japanese fighter plane flying overhead would point his nose at us as if to say "get back or I’ll shoot". Then we decided it would be a good idea to burn the plane so the enemy couldn’t learn anything from it. I had lost my lighter somehow in the crash, and we couldn’t find any other lighter or matches. The engineer started leaking fuel from the wing tank in the hopes we would come up with something, but we didn’t. (Years later I wondered why we didn’t think of going back into the plane for the Very pistol, which shoots flares, but we didn’t. Understandably, since we were rather confused and frightened.) The fighter plane was obviously keeping track of us and had radioed our position to ground forces, so we really didn’t know what to do at that point. We did come up with the crazy idea of walking to the northern coast of the island, then stealing a boat and rowing to Kamchatka in Russia, which was only a few miles from the northern tip of Shumushu where we were. Of course, even if the fighter plane hadn’t been keeping an eye on us, anyone could have easily followed our tracks in the snow. Desperate men come up with desperate solutions.

After awhile we saw off in the distance a company of Japanese coming toward us. When they were about 100 yards away or so they started shooting in our direction, and there was nothing left to do but raise our hands and surrender. It was the most hopeless, desolate feeling in the world, and I’ll never forget that moment. As they neared us, they stopped shooting and surrounded us, and stripped us of everything we had, including watches and all personal items, everything except our clothing. We were all now Prisoners of War!

 Milt's War - Index