Blood and Fears by Kevin Wilson

Author:Kevin Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books

Each cross on the map represents a bomber crew, the great majority USAAF, lost in the North Sea in one six-month period. There are eighty-four, seven times more than the dot symbol for rescued crews. The chart, using figures to the end of September 1943, was prepared by the British Air Ministry in answer to what was seen as general tardiness by the 8th Air Force to adopt the lessons the RAF had learned in the Battle of Britain about saving airmen from drowning. A year later improvements that included a specific US rescue-control station at Saffron Walden and assigning one bomber from each 8th AF Group to search along the routes of its missions on request from Air Sea Rescue meant 90 per cent of AAF crews forced down at sea in the ETO were recovered – usually by RAF or RN special launches. By March 1945 a collective total of 1,972 American airmen had been saved by British and a few US rescue units in the waters around Great Britain.

It wasn’t just the weather which could make the patrols dangerous. One day in 1944 the crew of RML 512 were returning from a fog-bound standing patrol off the Dutch coast when they came across elements of the Kriegsmarine.

By dawn the fog had turned into a fine mist and after about an hour’s sailing time the sun started to break through and then to everyone’s amazement three German E-boats came into view ahead of us. The action stations was sounded and everyone scuttled to their positions not knowing what to expect as each E-boat could outgun us at least six times over and we fully thought we would be blown out of the water. What a scare! But simply nothing happened. We sailed through their ranks one on the port side and two on the starboard side.20

Apart from taking on board survivors rescued by other craft there was an incident weeks later when the crew saved USAAF airmen from the waves directly. The B-24 Mizry Merchant of the 493rd BG ditched in the North Sea after flak damage to a gas tank and engine caused a massive fuel loss on the bomb run to Russelsheim’s vehicle works. The crew of RML 512 had been on station thirty miles off the Suffolk coast waiting for more than three hours in the summer sunshine for the bombers of the 3rd BD to return. They had tuned into the emergency-band radio which all USAAF aircraft were now equipped with, as gunners stood by on the small craft looking out for German fighters. The launch’s skipper Lt Don Mackintosh related years afterward:

Around noon, the first Mayday calls came over the radio – far away, faint and confused. Gradually they died away. We never found out why. Many possibilities went through our minds, some we preferred not to dwell on. However, on this occasion , there was one call that persisted, and grew stronger and clearer. Control headquarters ashore responded with course instructions that

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