TOP TURRET

No Greater Love

February 20, 1944 – Targeting Tutow, we encountered fairly heavy flak and few fighters.  The challenge that day had been the conservation of fuel since this was a ten-hour mission.  We had successfully hit our target and, with the mission behind us, we made our way over to the North Sea.  

A few enemy fighters still dogged the cripples.  Some planes had one engine feathered, which meant they were running out of fuel.  This could potentially be a death sentence if something more critical didn’t take them down first.  If the battered aircraft could make it out to sea, the English Rescue teams would pick up the soldiers.

These rescuers were absolutely fearless in the face of coastal gunfire, fighter planes, and the ever threatening North Sea.  They never failed to retrieve surviving crewmen after a Flying Fortress was ditched at sea.

Far ahead of us just such a plane and its crew had gone down in the dark waters.  Once a crew bails out or otherwise abandons their plane, the Geneva Convention forbids any further attack, but some Germans ignored this agreement.

The men were struggling to get into their rafts when the enemy plane which had ended their flight made a sharp turn.  As the enemy maneuvered into position to shoot the crew in their rafts, the anticipation of their impending doom was brief but horrific just the same.

We were an unwilling audience watching what we perceived to be a hopeless plight as the B-17 sank.  The Fortress took a nosedive into the North Sea, pulling the tail up out of the water.  The tail gunner had stayed at his guns and, miraculously, he was still alive.  As the enemy fighter came in a little closer, the tail guns of the battered B-17 blazed a long burst of .50 caliber shells at the Messerschmitt.

Though the B-17 had long since lost its power, these guns were hand held and didn’t require electric motors to move.  The enemy plane was about four or five-hundred yards away when it was riddled with bullets.  The Messerschmitt literally exploded before he was able to fire his guns.

This brave tail gunner with a calm spirit and steady hands saved his crew while he sacrificed his own life.  I later heard that he had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.  The medal was certainly warranted, but I believe that it gave no consolation to the family he left behind. 

After witnessing this bittersweet victory, we landed at Great Ashfield, England, where we would repeat the routine of interrogation, chow, and hopefully get some rest.  It was against human nature to shake off a mission’s tragedies, especially ones like today’s.  But there would be another day and another mission that would require everything we had.   We couldn’t be prepared for the next mission if we didn’t let go of the last.  It was only possible by God’s grace, which gave us the spirit and the strength to go on.

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