The wild blue: the men and boys who flew the B-24s over Germany by Stephen E. Ambrose
Author:Stephen E. Ambrose
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: 20th Century, Political, Fiction, Aerial operations, War & Military, Transportation, B-24 bomber, Commercial, Aviation, 1939-1945, Bomber pilots, United States, American, Military, World War, Regimental histories, History, Flight crews, Aerial, Modern, B-52 bomber, General, Biography & Autobiography, World War II, Bombing
ISBN: 9780743203395
Publisher: New York : Simon & Schuster, c2001.
Published: 2001-08-13T23:00:00+00:00
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
likely it was that they would have a fatal accident. Death or the possibility of captivity was all around
these young men.
Whether in the officers club or the airmen’s club for enlisted men, the newcomers would sit quietly and
listen to the talk of the veterans who had just returned from a mission. McGovern listened hard and
thereby picked up tips on flying a B-24 in combat. The talk was about what had happened, how the
plane performed, what the German flak was like, and other details. Always they discussed how many
parachutes they had counted coming from a plane going down, but not about who had made it out of the
doomed craft and who had not. They assumed that a parachute meant the man had landed safely, but
they had no idea whether he had escaped and was on his way back to Italy or had been made a POW
or had been killed on the ground. Shostack’s name never came up. Sgt. Mel TenHaken, a radio operator
in the 455th Bomb Group, remembered the talk as both enlightening and frightening. It was unlike the talk
one usually heard from young men after an examination or a football or basketball game. “There was no
pride of individual accomplishment here, or boasting about comparative achievements.” Further, “There
was no jesting about those [like TenHaken, McGovern, and the other recent arrivals] who hadn’t been
up yet because everyone knew that would happen tomorrow or a day after.” Ten-Haken also noted that
“there was no overt elation by those who had completed thirty-four missions,” because everyone
remembered “the one who got his on his thirty-fifth.” No one talked to impress. Experiences were shared
only because better understanding of techniques and tactics would improve the odds for survival.36
Sergeant TenHaken had arrived at Cerignola with two other crews. One of those crews was the first to
go on a mission. It was a long one. Their plane returned safely, but with holes caused by flak in its wings
and fuselage. That evening, after they had finished their postmission interrogation, they were withdrawn
and did not want to talk. “They felt it might be better if we discussed feelings later, maybe after we had all
completed some combat missions.” As for TenHaken and his crew, “We wondered if they’d ever again
have the optimistic, cheerful, normal personalities we had known.”
A day later the second crew flew its initial mission. The plane was two hours late getting back to base.
Suddenly, in the darkness along the row of tents, one of the gunners appeared, panting, with some of his
parachute gathered over his arm and the rest of it dragging behind. He was frightened. He demanded to
know where the rest of his crew was. Told that no one knew, he explained that his B-24 had been hit
over the target. He could not assess the effect of the damage but related that his pilot had gotten the
plane to the airfield, where he circled to test the controls and to burn the remaining fuel - crash-landing a
B-24 was always hazardous, but especially so when there was fuel in the wings.
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