Evening star., 1944-04-21

OH early III JIlS
morning and we
few across the Channel and over
the French coast before the sun was
up. 1t was quiet all the way to the
target, too damned quiet. There
were no fighters and hardly any flax
at all. We were actually on our
bombing run when disaster hit us.
They came into us high and didn't
see them. The one who got us let
60 with his cannon just as our en-
gineer caught him with the top turret
gun at 400 yards. The German blew
up in front of us and parts of his
plane smashed into our tail and
knocked part of the stabilizer away.
That wasn't bad. 1t was what his
cannon had done that mattered.
Tore Planes Nose Off.
One shell had torn the nose out
of the bombardier's compartment.
Another had come through the win
dow beside the co-pilot. A third
went througha a wing tank and gaso-
line was squirting out in streams.
My co-pilot was lying across the
controls, covered with blood. He
pulled himself back into his seat
and stayed there by holding the
right edge of the chair back with
his left hand. The 20-mm. had gone
through his right shoulder and ex-
ploded against the armor plate be-
hind him. Most of the fragments
bounced back and hit him again. I
found that some of the pieces had
sprayed across the aisle and hit me
in the right. arm. After I landed
found there were some pieces in my
right leg also. I must have been
leaning forward little when the
shell burst, and most of the pieces
went behind me. They tore away
the metal back of my seat.
The navigator, Second 1t. Russell
w. Engel of Clarissa, Mimi, was
bleeding from other wounds. The
bombardier, 1t. Peter F. Delao of
San Antonio, Tex, was wounded in
the face, head, arms and legs and
couldn't do anything for himself.
On top of that, the oxygen system,
which feeds the bombardier. the CO.
pilot and the top turret gunner. was
shot away. We were at 24,o00 feet
and fighter attacks were going on
all the time.
There was nothing to do but peel
out OF formation and take evasive
action as best we coulds~ LgaSe the
Fortress everything I had In the wav
of acrobatics and some way it STAYED
in one piece ALI the gunners were
black and blue from being thrown
against things. At one time the
waist gunners were lying on the roof
OF the fuselage trying to climb back
up to the floor. The copilot sat
there, holding himself together.
Then Sergt. Harold L. Pope of Emer-
son, Nebr., came down from the top
turret when he got free of fighters
for a minute. I told him to take the
copilot out of his chair and lay him
down. He finally got him out of his
seat and laid him down in the
hatchway. The copilot wouldn't stay
there. He got up three separate
times and tried to get back to his
seat to help.
Didn't Use Oxygen.
THE third time he almost made
1t and then fell back into the hatch
way, / didn't see him move again
All this time Pope was fixing UP
an emergency oxygen line for the
wounded bombardier. He didn't
have any oxygen himself. He would
work until he felt himself blackine
out, then take few whiffs from my
system which was still working. He
had to go back several times to fix
the line he had rigged up for Delao
Delao didn't know where he was OF
what he was doing most of the time
and he kept breaking the line. Then
Engel climbed into the copilot's seat
to help me. There wasn't any nose
gun for him to work-in fact there
wasn't any nose and the blast of all
that came through the hatch made
1t almost impossible for a man to gel
down there. Yet Pope made the TRIP
dozen times, without oxygen.
"Engel was a terrible sight with
the blood pouring from his wounded
eye. I had taught him to fly the
ship back in the States and he sal
there doing what he could to help
Finally Pope persuaded him to &c
back in the radio compartment ano
lie down. He was getting very weak
from 1OcS pf o1OaS Ind roic otl,ar nv.
had Swelled shut. Pope helped hin
over the hatchway and somehow
Engel managed to crawl through the
a. u a.