Never Will We Forget: Oral Histories of World War II by Culpepper Marilyn Mayer

Author:Culpepper, Marilyn Mayer [Culpepper, Marilyn Mayer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History
ISBN: 9780313344787
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 3139891
Publisher: Praeger
Published: 2007-12-30T00:00:00+00:00

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Never Will We Forget

After two flights as a co-pilot, Wayne Adgate had been given command of his own plane and successfully flew his first mission over Germany.

In celebration of their first mission, crews were traditionally awarded a 24-hour pass to go into London, and Wayne and his men jumped at the opportunity. As they emerged from the Underground in the center of London, they were greeted by the “Picadilly commandos” (the prostitutes) who were lined up eager for customers. Without hesitation Wayne’s crew passed up the “girls” and spent their time in traditional tourist fashion, checking out Westminister Abbey and St. Paul’s, taking in the theater, and looking over the Tower of London. It was a wonderful relaxing time, and 24 hours later the men reluctantly headed back to St. Edmunds.

At first it seemed like a letdown from their London trip, but for some reason, there was an ominous stillness about the base. Everything seemed almost deserted. There were no planes. All too soon came the sickening news that their squadron had suffered disastrous losses during the previous night’s raid over Germany. Eight out of their twelve planes had been shot down. Wayne and his men were in a state of shock. How incredibly close they had come to death. While they had been cruising around London, having a jolly old time doing the town, dozens of their comrades had met death face to face. (From that moment on, close associations with other crews at the base came to halt. The death of friends rocked one to the core. Better to empathize with vague names on a roster rather than to suffer the gut-wrenching loss of personal friends.) Wayne Adgate’s crew suffered yet another death defying experience when on November 2nd, 1944, Wayne and his men took off from St. Edmunds on their twelfth mission over Germany. That day, “the pilots had the sky to themselves,” and there was almost no anti-aircraft action.

“It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky,” Wayne remembered. Coming down on their way to their target, the oil refineries near Leipzig, the crew watched in terror as the plane directly in front of them, Peterson’s plane, took a direct hit and blew to pieces. They were flying in formation and, of course, there was no possible way to get in or out. Even so, the crew took what minuscule evasive action was possible in a supreme effort to avoid the flack from the Germans and the rain of debris from Peterson’s plane. Thanks to prayers and grit, the crew finally made it back to the base where they counted 72 holes in their plane. Years later, crew members put in yearly calls to each other across the country in commemoration of their survival: “Remember what day this is—November 2nd?”21

Some of their most frightening experiences? On several occasions, Paul Niland and a patrol from the 10th Mountain Infantry who were inching their way through Italy were ordered to go ahead of the lines to recon-noiter. It was

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