Or Go Down in Flame: A Navigator's Death Over Schweinfurt by W. Raymond Wood

Author:W. Raymond Wood [Wood, W. Raymond]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War II
ISBN: 9781612001784
Publisher: Casemate
Published: 2013-07-19T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

BAILOUT OVER BAVARIA

Lieutenant Wood had already left the aircraft when Bettinger ordered the rest of the crew to bail out, but by this time the intercom was shot out and the message did not reach the crew members, nor could they call in. Neither was there a bell signaling a bail-out order; it too was disabled. Bettinger trimmed the plane so it was flying nearly level, set the auto-pilot, attached his parachute to his harness and dropped through the bomb bay. Block was badly hurt before he left the co-pilot’s seat. A 20-millimeter cannon shell fragment had struck him in the shoulder, and he broke his collar bone as he dived out of the bomb bay.

Fortunately—especially considering his broken leg—Dowden’s parachute dropped into a tree on a hillside beside the Sportsplatz south of Kälberau. He was picked up by soldiers and a group of civilians and taken into town and placed in an animal barn behind one of the houses. It was dark and he could only guess it was about 7:00 that evening when he was carried out of the barn and placed in a large stake-bed truck. Several newly captured airmen were in it, including Bettinger. Wood’s body, his parachute wrapped around him, lay next to Dowden on the drive to Michelbach, where the dead navigator was taken from the vehicle and left on the sidewalk of the main street. The truck drove on to take the injured men to a hospital for medical attention.

Adalbert Simon, twelve years old, saw the Wicked WAAC coming down, and walked through the woods with his father to the crash site on the Omersbach-Geiselbach road, about six kilometers from his home in Brücken. Meanwhile, a wounded airman walked to Simon’s grandmother’s restaurant in Brücken with the help of some local men, as it was the only place with a telephone. He was pale, with medium to dark wavy hair, handsome, and about 30 years old. He was wounded on one hand, and his back also was badly scraped. During his stay at the restaurant he was attended to by a Dr. Klug.

After two hours or so, a detachment from Langendiebach came for him. Before he was taken away, he gave the restaurant owner “a thin scarf” and an aluminum ring with a red stone in appreciation for her kindness. Donald Williams recalls that radioman Gordon Lewis was the only crewman on the Wicked WAAC to have a scarf made from a parachute, which may be the “thin scarf” he gave the woman.

Events in the air happened too quickly to recall clearly, but Williams believes that his gunfire from the left waist hit at least one enemy plane and left it smoking, but he has no idea whether he scored a kill. Early in the attack he was struck in the head by shrapnel and lost his oxygen mask, but Montana put another one on him and Williams continued firing. He was then shot through the left hand, and a piece of

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