Well, you say, how's he going to pull this subject line together.
Last week while poor Tom was being unfairly vilified (sorry I wasn't
here to pour boiling oil on your detractor Tom) I was in Las Vegas
attending my father's 80th birthday party. Since this was such an
important event I wanted photographic coverage better than my own. I
hired Gary Reese and Susie to do the honors. They did a fine job and
charged me very little. They even surveyed the banquet room days ahead
of time and stayed an extra half hour. All over and above the 2 hour
shooting time agreed upon.
Now to weave this altogether. One of my father's birthday presents was
a book; the story of his own life. He had previously written this all
out in longhand and my magazine editor daughter put it all into softcopy
and cleaned up the text. Meanwhile I had been scanning about 50
photographs which also went into the book. Chris's story of the crashed
B-24 Liberator at the very end of the war instantly brought me around to
a similar story contained in my father's book which is quoted below.
Note that "Honington" is the still active RAF base at Honington which is
a bit north of London. My father was a Tech Sergeant and did 2nd
echelon repair of P-38's and P-51's while he was there. He's now a
retired Lt. Colonel.
......................................................................
During the following months, the Air Corps made many aircraft available
to take people out over the continent to view those areas that were
fought for so hard and the destruction caused by aerial bombardment and
artillery. I had the opportunity to ride in a B-17, once again in the
bombardier's compartment. We took off from Honington from the
west-to-east runway, which is an almost direct line to Berlin. We flew
over the white cliffs of Dover, across the channel to the European coast
and then over Belgium, France and into Germany at Aachen, the first
German city taken by the Allies and completely destroyed. From my
vantage point in the nose and at a 1,000-foot altitude, I could see
many, many square miles of rubble. There was not a single roof to be
seen anywhere below us. That scene was repeated time and again as we
proceeded into the heartland of Hitler's Third Reich. Military
equipment lay smashed and burned to little more than ashes. We reached
the beautiful city of Cologne, our flight plan terminus. I was
particularly interested in seeing the famous Cologne Cathedral because I
had heard from a couple sources that the Allied bombers were not to
endanger the beautiful structure and to use all means possible to avoid
damaging it while still accomplishing their mission. That was certainly
a stressful condition to place on pilots, bombardiers and particularly,
navigators, on night bombing missions.
The twin spires stood tall, proud and undamaged. Our pilot circled the
cathedral a couple times so we could all have a good look. We returned
to Honington without incident, getting a second and much better view of
Dover's white cliffs. Other aircraft were used for these sightseeing
flights over the continent, and left from other bases in England. B-24s
were used just like the B-17 because it, too, was a bomber and you could
truthfully say that you flew over Germany in a bomber. The most popular
means was in a C-47 because it could carry 20 people, there were plenty
of windows and it flew more slowly for longer viewing. One of my
friends in the 467th had an opportunity to take a flight in one of the
C-47s. I don't know his full name, but I do remember his first name was
Adelbert. Adelbert was most fortunate in that he missed the flight for
some long-forgotten reason. Most fortunate he was, indeed. The skies
that day were overcast, but the top of the clouds was only between 2,000
and 3,000 feet. No problem. The loaded C-47 took off from Honington,
climbed through the cloud cover and passed over a P-51 base not far from
us. At this critical moment, a P-51 took off, climbed through the
clouds and cut off the tail of the C-47. All aboard were killed -
surviving two years of war and losing their lives on a sightseeing tour.
Chuck Norcutt
Woburn, Massachusetts, USA
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