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Get your own Free Home PageJune 16, 1944 - One more mission to go on to the hottest target in Europe--Vienna, Austria. Our 22nd mission (when we returned). We took "Repulsive Raider" (II) on its first combat mission. B-24H - a brand new airplane.We who fly are all superstitious to a degree and here is how the cards stacked up against us that day:
We were not supposed to fly. We did not want to fly. We all had a feeling it wasn't our day. "Rick" lost his "lucky" baseball cap on formup and told Eddy to turn back - it wasn't our day. I wore a new summer cap I wore for the first time. My "lucky" character hat I didn't wear, that was the first time I never wore it. June 16, 1944 was my anniversary in the Army. June 16, 1944 was also Reimer's Birthday.
Well we went! Twenty minutes before the target our No. 3 engine prop governor failed. Engine was feathered. Over the target the oil line on No. 1 engine broke so we had to feather it. Might have been mechanical failure or flack. We'll never know. We unfeathered No. 3 engine. So with one engine out, we limped off the target.
We dropped behind the group and our wing men (Lt. Tudbury on our right wing (down July 8,1 944) and Lt. Judy on our left wing (down July 6, 1944) stayed with us. Sometime after the target fighters (Me 210's and Me 410's - twin engine devils) hit us. The gunners had been ordered to abandon turrets before that to prepare to jump. So if it were not for Judy and Tudbury we would have been shot down right there. The tail turret was absolutely riddled immediately after the tail gunner got out.
Anyway they were beaten off. Deck, the armorer having downed one. The navigator meanwhile had been heading for the island if Vis, so we "sweat out" the Drava River, then the Sava River and finally the coast line. Just before the coast line we hit flak again over Imotsky, Yugoslavia. This was my fault, but it was more important we save all time possible. We were flying through Valleys, because we didn't have the altitude to go over them. The No. 3 engine had been feathered right after the fighters hit us and we were limping along on two engines. Also I was trying to keep over Partisan territory in case we had to bail out.
We threw out guns, ammunition, flak suits, flak helmets, etc. Everything that was loose we threw out to make the ship lighter. At 12:04 the third engine, No. 4 engine, failed and we bailed out. We had just sighted the coast a few minutes before we could see our objective, Vis, in the distance. It was heartbreaking to go out then, but it was jump or stay and die.
All ten of our men got out. I was the first and Eddy was the last. Eddy delayed his jump and landed first and smashed his ankle. Seven landed near one another and were picked up immediately and two more (Deck and Madigan) landed together and were picked up in 30 minutes. I landed alone and was not picked up for three hours.
When I was picked up, the Germans (there were 150 of them looking for us) knew where we were and a fight started. During the fight, I and a fifteen year old boy tried to escape up the side of a mountain and half way up we were spotted at and fired at by the Germans. Machine gun bullets and rifles, etc., On the first burst I received a nick on the ankle. We were fired on every time we moved. This kept up for a half hour and we finally escaped.
I met Eddy, "Arky" and Reimer the next afternoon at 2:00. They were hidden away by the partisans. Leet had broken his ankle badly and Vaughan and Reimer had bad sprains. They were to stay until the sprains healed and then drag Ed out. Meanwhile, the other six Rick, Madigan, Deck, Waldrop , Stai and Hickson (a boy substituting for Parker that day) had gone on ahead. I saw Ed and the others only about fifteen minutes when we started on to meet the others. I met them at six that night and we started out at seven. That was June 17.
We left the Yugoslavian coast for Vis June 21. June 22 Vis. We stayed there a few days and left there June 25 to Bari by C-47 (1 hour Form 1). We were interrogated and reached camp again by June 28, 1944. July 8, 1944 Leet, Vaughan and Reimer returned to Bari. Vaughan and Reimer are to be released from the hospital tomorrow but Leet is to be operated on Monday. He will be in the hospital at least three months. He will never fly again, I guess.
Anyway, we are all back. And alive that's the important thing. Myself, Vaughan and Reimer say we won't fly again. Waldrop has flown since then and the others are undecided.
Lt. Leet, Lt. Hollmann, S/Sgt. Stai, T/Sgt Reimer all received the Purple Heart for wounds received on this flight
The Yugoslavs and the partisans are wonderful people They think the American Flyer is wonderful and treat him that way. They will five you anything and everything they have with no returns expected. They are clean, both morally and physically. Tough and brave fighters both men and women.
James's Waldrop's personal note:There are no more flight records of my missions because our old crew never got to fly anymore together. I flew the rest of my missions with Captain Shad's crew after his tail gunner was killed.
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