Dear Mom & Dad,
I don't know how to start this letter, but I know that it must be written. It's been a long time since we've exchanged more than pleasantries, but the truth is that I feel my luck cannot hold out much longer... I want you to know what my life has been like, for it may well be the end of it soon. You should know how I've been spending my days.
We've been flying missions two out of three days for the past weeks. The missions have become longer and harder, and we're hitting tougher targets, that are more well protected by planes and anti-air.
If we're lucky, we know we're going to be flying the next day. If not, we're just woken up at around 0500 for breakfast. On the days we are to fly, we get eggs for breakfast, though we can barely stomach them. Then we head out for the briefing, where we get information on primary and secondary targets, the routes in and out, expected defences in anti-air batteries or fighters, and all of that stuff.
The navigators and bombardiers then get their own briefings, and I tend to head off to the plane with the remaining crew and start pre-flight checks, and just talk with the gunners. They're just kids, not one of them above 20, and the missions are taking a toll on them. They get sick before flights, or start shaking until the plane is finally up in the air.
To be honest, I feel like being sick too. I keep remembering the Forts going down, burning, and can only imagine how hard it must be to get out. The only thing keeping me from breaking apart is the weight of responsibility over these kids.
Anyway, a while back we went to Rotterdam, to bomb the shipyards there. We were worried because all of the way is over water... very cold water. If we're hit and have to bail out, the chances of us surviving are slim...
Luckily, it turned out to be a milk run - an easy mission. We were clear until we reached the target. The weather was bad, so there wasn't much flak. We were attacked by a few fighters, but none of them hit us. Steven, our starboard waist gunner thinks he got a 190 which was smoking bad, only those 190s are sturdy. He was real sad, and kept complaining he should've gotten credit. We had good fun teasing him. He's a nice kid, Steven.
Anyway, because of the poor weather we missed our bombs, and got attacked twice on the way back. The Germans have been favouring the boom and zoom tactics, where they drop from very high, come very fast (faster than our fighters can catch them), shoot at us, and zoom back up.
Fortunately, these guys were going so fast they missed. But they're very hard to spot, since they come from the sun, and only our top and radio turrets can hit them.
The very next day, we flew to Paris, to bomb out some factories there. This time it wasn't a milk run. This will be hard to read, but I do want you to know what the bomber boys go through.
Paris is just outside the range of our fighters, meaning that once we are approaching the target and need to go straight and level for the bombing run, like sitting ducks, there's nothing protecting us but our gunners. Fritz can come at us any way he likes.
We were clear almost all the way to target. Then, two planes used the boom and zoom technique on us.
One of them gets past the fighter screen, and some of his shells smash right through the waist into the bomb bay doors, which start groaning and clattering as we fly. That's in addition to some new holes on our port wing.
And then we're past the fighter screen, above Paris. We didn't have time to look for the Eiffel tower, because Jerry was expecting us... they were waiting for our little friends to turn back, and have us all for themselves. They had a field day.
They were everywhere. A formation of three 190s came at us hard. Steven, who was so miserable the day before, definitely shoots down the 190 coming from 3o'clock. He was so happy I had to tell him to shut it over the intercom - the other gunners couldn't coordinate!
Luckily for us, the concentrated fire from all the B-17s threw off most of the other fighters on our way to target. Many others in our formation weren't so lucky... the fighters were swarming in the air, and we at least seven bombers go down (that's 70 people killed, wounded or made prisoner). The damaged ones that dropped out of formation didn't stand a chance.
I don't know if Calvin, the bombardier is having a bad run, but he sure needs to get his game on. We've been missing far too often and that day was no exception, even though the weather was good and the flak was light.
But Fritz isn't going to let us off the hook so easily. From this point on, the mission became a blur for me. What I do know is that the enemy fighters did not let us go. For the better part of one hour, they swarmed and buzzed around us, piercing through the formation and our newly returned escorting fighters.
It was tough. We were hit again, and again, and again, from all sides. The tail was hit, the wings were hit, one aileron stopped working, there were holes everywhere... then they hit the #3 engine on the starboard wing, and it caught on fire.
I was then sure we wouldn't make it out, but Gage, the copilot, worked the extinguishers. He kept activating them, but the fire just wouldn't stop. I was about to order the crew to prepare to bail out when the fire suddenly fizzes out, and somehow the engine keeps working. We were lucky, because we were all out of extinguisher charges too... We reduced the load on the engine, and managed to stay with the formation somehow.
We were attacked again as we were nearing England. We'd had enough, but Jerry didn't seem to think so... and they hit us yet again, but as long as damage wasn't too bad we'd be able to glide out to England. I just had to keep the boys alive.
During all of this, the gunners are doing their job, shooting guns left, right, forward, back, and up and down. Their feet were buried in 50cal casings at the end of the mission. The top turret had jammed from enemy fire, and Cruz, the engineer in charge of working that turret was miraculously not hit.
At the end of it all, we claimed 3 enemy destroyed and 5 probables. Steven, the starboard gunner was real happy to get one, as was Ryan at the tail guns, and Cruz got a kill and two probables. He's turning out to be one hell of a shot!
I can't believe we made it through all that without one of us buying the farm. And the poor Dame, she was so beat up... The #3 engine was replaced, as was a lot of the armour plate on the wing, which had burnt away from the fire.
It took about a week to get the Dame back into shape. You'd think that'd give us some rest, but no. The 8th Air Force kept flying every day, and every day some bombers wouldn't come back. We just sat there through the day, and tried to figure out who we had lost this time around. The waiting is unbearable, and I think our nerves were even more frayed than if we'd been on those missions.
Finally, the Dame was back up, and we were ordered to Rotterdam again. After take-off I was shaking so badly that I found myself checking the instruments to find an excuse to turn back. I couldn't, but was real close to turning back anyway. I think the only reason I didn't was that I rationalised we'd be under fighter cover the entire trip.
It almost turned out to be a milk run, since only a few fighters engaged us and missed. The weather over target was abysmal - I don't know what weather intelligence is doing, but this was a fiasco.
All of a sudden, as we were lining up for the bomb run, this 190 appears from out of the clouds and gives us a real pounding. And I mean a
real pounding - he strafed the ship from bow to stern, as they say. Ryan yells he's hit over the intercom, but thinks he'll make it, so we keep pushing. Fortunately, it seems none of the exploding shells hit anything critical.
The fighter tried the same stunt again, but Cruz, our engineer and top gunner, was ready for him and and shot him down. That's his 4th kill. He might become an ace soon!
The weather put off our bombs, so we missed again - that's the 4th time in a row - and head for home. The formation is tight enough that no other fighters try to intercept us, and we make it home safe.
Our morale is at rock bottom. We can't see how we're going to make it out of this if noone else seems to be. The frustration of missing our targets so often is grating on all of ours nerves - we're flying over half a dozen hours, under fire all the time, only for our bombs to miss. We might as well have not made the trip!
We're trying to live off the little things, like Cruz becoming an ace, or making fun of Steven's complaints about not getting credit for his kills. But I never know whether I'll be up to flying the next mission... I've seen some pilots break down, and I think I'm getting close to it. I hope not.
We're scheduled to fly again tomorrow. We're going to Brest. Not only is the route entirely over water, but we will also be outside the fighter screen again.
I have a bad feeling about this mission... heck, I have a bad feeling about every mission now. Perhaps it's nothing, but in case it is, I wanted to thank you for everything.
I'm going to catch some shut eye now, since I need to be well-rested for tomorrow. I will write again as soon as I can.
Always your loving son,
Cpt. Angel Harris,
327th BG, 8th Air Force