Forgotten Fifteenth Read online

  Weather recon flights fell into three categories. Most common were “general area missions,” in which P-38s launched on a staggered schedule over the next day’s flight paths. With full route coverage spanning hours, staff planners had a good idea of likely conditions for the forthcoming missions. The same information was useful to the Royal Air Force for that night’s operations.

  “Target checks” were launched before the bombers’ scheduled takeoff. Weather scouts provided updates on conditions not only along the route but in the target area as well. If necessary, the mission could be canceled or diverted to secondary targets, saving fuel as well as airplanes and crews.

  Finally, in especially heavy weather, the 154th probed clouds and storm fronts for a way through or around the worst conditions. The scouts radioed cloud cover, icing conditions, and winds aloft—vital information, especially for fuel-starved bombers homeward bound from a deep penetration mission.

  “Recce” pilots were necessarily multi-taskers. Apart from flying a complex airplane, they had to do their own navigation, communication, and observation, all the while evaluating the weather and reporting it accurately. Most flew with a clipboard strapped around one thigh with a form for recording desired data. A map grid enabled the pilot to identify areas of troublesome weather and to define the location, orientation, and progress of a front. Specifics included cloud base and height, wind direction and velocity, and temperature in two-thousand-foot gradients. Visibility, precipitation, icing, turbulence, and contrail levels also were noted.

  Meanwhile, assets arrived slowly. By early March the 154th had only seven operational aircraft. To save weight, most weather recon P-38s reduced their armament to two .50 caliber machine guns, leaving room for an additional radio and, sometimes, a camera. At month’s end Lieutenant Pittman, who had been first over Rome, photographed the proposed route from Foggia to Budapest, using a K-24 camera installed by the squadron engineering shop.

  The recce pilot’s greatest assets were speed and altitude, but some encounters with the enemy were inevitable. In late March, Lieutenant Robert Zirkle was intercepted by Messerschmitt 109s, one tackling him head on. Zirkle recalled, “Noting that the tracers from the Me were passing below me, I raised the nose of my plane to keep above his fire. As the Me approached, I stalled my ship and dropped down so one of my belly tanks hit him. The enemy plane spun out of sight and I saw a parachute open.”4

  Nonetheless, the Luftwaffe and Italian Air Force were persistent. In late March they chased down two weather scouts over northern Italy on consecutive days, killing one pilot. But it was no easy task for the defenders, requiring an astute radar controller to discern a blip’s likely course, then position fighters for the intercept. At high altitude a P-38, with its turbos thrumming, was seldom an easy mark. An alert pilot was always watchful, and he could trade altitude for airspeed to evade the threat. If, however, the defenders forced the quarry to turn away, the controller could issue a cutoff vector to complete the fatal geometry.

  Few of the twenty-eight Lightnings lost by the 154th fell to enemy action. The large majority succumbed to weather, including high winds over the Alps, mechanical malfunction, or pilot vertigo. The squadron’s eighth and last fatality occurred four weeks before the war ended when a second lieutenant prematurely retracted his wheels on takeoff for his first mission.5

  SNOOPING PLOESTI

  On April 5, four 154th pilots provided pre-attack scouting for the first Ploesti mission. Another event three days later, however, aroused more excitement: “Another red-letter day—the first bottle of ice cold Coca Cola in eighteen months is issued by the PX!”6

  Weather scouts were not fully integrated into the Fifteenth’s operations until the late spring. The 154th absorbed the original Weather Reconnaissance Detachment in May 1944, resulting in the 154th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron (Medium) under Captain James H. Fuller.

  Single-ship flights gave way to four- and six-plane missions integrated into the Fifteenth’s field orders, not only for on-scene reports, but for radio-relay flights beyond range of most VHF sets. On Ploesti missions, recon pilots referred to each refinery by an assigned identification number. Any defenders eavesdropping on American radio channels, therefore, could not easily discern the target of a particular bomb wing, though AAF investigators later learned that the defenders often guessed correctly on the basis of a few initial points. As in football, offensive predictability worked in favor of the defense.

  In longer-range missions, reliable communication became more important. First Lieutenant Russell Field Jr. tested an improved very high frequency radio in July, achieving an effective range of nearly four hundred miles. The older equipment was good to no more than two hundred miles and usually required radio relay flights. Captain Albert Adell and Staff Sergeant Forrest Clark boosted a standard VHF radio to long-range VHF “by finagling parts, remaking old ones, and modifying new ones.” Their expertise and diligence paid off, and the experimental set received nineteen endorsements up the AAF food chain from Bari to Dayton, Ohio, home of the Wright Field test section. The radio men were subsequently decorated for their contribution.7

  The August 10 field order contained a cautionary note for fighters: “Watch for lone P-38 weather ship preceding bombers into target area by 20 min., remaining during bombing and preceding bombers back to base.”

  Radio procedure was standardized for Ploesti missions: “Hello Firtree leader, this is Retain. I say again, this is Retain. Over.” After each transmission the weather pilot paused for questions before repeating or updating his information. At that point the bomber leader broadcast an authenticator. Two weather aircraft would orbit some fifty miles from the target—usually west—prepared to relay information from 154th pilots over Ploesti to the inbound bomb wing.8

  Following hard on the RAF night mission of August 9 (eleven losses from sixty-one bombers), more than four hundred planes from all five of Twining’s wings went for Romana Americana, Unirea, Xenia, Astra Romana, and Steau Romana. Weather recon P-38s flew twenty minutes ahead of the bombers, radioing updated information to each airborne wing commander. Armed with current intelligence, the COs could select the best target for visual bombing.

  It worked. A thinned-out smoke screen permitted accurate bombing. Concordia Vega was smothered beneath 210 bombs, bringing production to a halt. Two inactive refineries—Steaua Romana and Romana Americana—were knocked out of business.

  August 17 was the first “special assignment” at Ploesti, providing continuous coverage of five targets. The field order stated, “Three P-38 recon a/c will cover Ploesti area in three periods. First a/c will contact 47 Wg leader bet 0930 and 0935. Second a/c will contact 49 Wg leader bet 1000 and 1005. . . . Information transmitted include direction and force of surface wind and smoke and assigned NBR [number] of target or targets which can be attacked visually. Wg leader will decide which target he can attack and will take proper heading to respective IP.” If communication could not be established or was lost, the wing commander decided which alternative target to attack.

  The scouts were back the next day, six aircraft reporting in clear voice from a point over Ploesti: cloud cover, cloud height, direction and approximate velocity of ground wind and smoke screen, and visible targets by assigned numbers. The mission annex added, “Weather pilot will identify himself to bomber wing leader by beginning and ending with his VHF call sign, each recon plane having two report periods fifteen minutes apart. All recon aircraft be prepared to report ten minutes before scheduled first time.”9

  When the Fifteenth flew its last Ploesti mission on the nineteenth, the weather scouts again led the way. Several months later General Twining affixed the royal-blue streamer of the Distinguished Unit Citation to the 154th’s guidon. The citation specified the unit’s excellent work in the last three Ploesti missions.

  The joint nature of the Mediterranean air campaign was more evident in September, when twenty-three RAF and Canadian fliers in de Havilland Mosquitoes were assigne
d to the 154th. Constructed out of plywood and known as “the wooden wonder,” the Mosquito was designated F-8 in American service and made a superb recon aircraft. Its twin Merlins—the same engine that powered the Spitfire and Mustang—yielded speeds over 400 mph, rendering it nearly invulnerable to interception by conventional fighters. With a two-man crew to handle the workload, the Mossie was an international favorite.10

  Additional new equipment arrived as the year wound down. In November experimental tail-warning radar was installed in some P-38s to alert pilots to unseen threats. As German jets became more active—and more aggressive—a high-speed attack from the rear was a serious concern.

  In December the squadron received some Droop Snoot P-38s with radar bombsights to brief heavy bomber crews on H2X imagery. Intended to simplify navigation through almost any weather, the timing was either good or poor, depending upon one’s perspective. The squadron diarist explained,

  What with a piss-poor breakfast and the prospect of a morning’s routine work down on the line, we rise on the Christmas morning and can yet sense no difference in the day. Down on the airfield we dispatch our first radar-equipped P-38 on an operational flight. As the delicate radar equipment becomes “ineffective” shortly after the plane leaves base, pilot [William R.] MacVittie and radarnavigator [Thomas J.] Watson are not able to put the “droop snoop” though its paces.

  Dinner was a surprise. Major William R. Dinker, the new CO, arranged for the officers to serve the enlisted men turkey dinner and all the fixings. Guest of honor was Louise the Red Cross lady, prompting some men to nudge their dining partners none too gently. Earthy GI language drew an admonition, “Pipe down, there’s a woman here!”11

  For many men of the 154th, it was their third Christmas overseas.

  The winter of 1944–1945 was one of the coldest in recent years. The Foggia fields often were carpeted with snow, but missions continued with their now accustomed help from the weather scouts. Operations were erratic through much of January, but on the twenty-fifth First Lieutenant Robert V. Clifford flew to Bruck, Bavaria, on the squadron’s one thousandth weather mission since joining the Fifteenth.

  More missions followed. On March 12, 1945, the 154th supported the heaviest attack ever launched by the Fifteenth: 1,667 tons of ordnance on Vienna’s Florisdorf refineries. Three days later three pilots logged the squadron’s longest mission—seven hundred miles north to Dresden. The Lightnings led the heavies to the initial point barely ten minutes beyond the city, still smoldering from a round-the-clock pasting by Anglo-American bombers supporting a Soviet offensive.

  Despite attrition, by mid-April the 154th achieved its peak strength with twenty-four aircraft. It was almost an embarrassment of riches, considering the shortage of Lightnings a year before. Near the war’s end, Fifteenth Air Force’s A-3 (operations) officer stated that the weather recon unit “had slashed at least six months from the length of the war in the Mediterranean by making it possible to carry out continuous bombing strikes and thus thwart the German efforts to repair damage to key factories and military installations.”12

  PHOTO JOES

  No air force can function without accurate intelligence, and Twining’s command relied on a variety of sources for targeting information. At the upper levels, Anglo-American code breakers monitored enemy communications for both specific information and overall trends in their attempts to predict future capabilities. Unit movements, aircraft production, and fuel supplies were all frequent subjects for electronic eavesdropping.

  More immediately, however, the Fifteenth needed target folders with current photos of vital facilities such as the Ploesti refineries and Messerschmitt plants in Augsburg and Vienna. Combining decrypts and overhead imagery, intelligence analysts provided mission planners and bombardiers with detailed information.

  Enter the Fifth Photographic Reconnaissance Group. Originally part of the Twelfth Air Force, the Fifth Group had flown in Tunisia under Lieutenant Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, the fourth of President Franklin Roosevelt’s six children. The group moved to Italy in late 1943 and was based at San Severo, north of Foggia.

  The group was reassigned to the Fifteenth Air Force on October 1, 1944. The transfer brought Twining’s command to the full complement of twenty-one bomb groups, seven fighter groups, and one photo group authorized by the War Department a year earlier. Fifth Group headquarters moved to Bari on October 11, where it could coordinate directly with the strategic arm of MTAF, reducing response time to daily intelligence flights.

  The primary photo recon aircraft were the F-4 and F-5 variants of the P-38. Between them, Fifteenth and Twelfth Air Forces owned about sixty photo Lightnings, spanning the Mediterranean Theater.13

  The CO was an unusually experienced officer, Lieutenant Colonel Wilbur Stratton, an Oregonian who had joined the Marine Corps before the war and flew combat with the First Fighter Group. After a stretch as the First’s operations officer, he was selected to take over Fifth Photo.

  Stratton’s command was composed of two Lightning squadrons with another inbound. On April 20, 1944, however, Luftwaffe bombers from southern France had attacked a ninety-ship convoy off Algiers, bound for Bizerte. A torpedo struck the SS Paul Hamilton, setting off her cargo of explosives. Under a boiling mushroom cloud the transport sank with all 580 aboard, including most of the Thirty-second Photo Squadron. Another transport and a destroyer also went down in one of the Luftwaffe’s last consequential anti-shipping missions.

  Most of the Thirty-second’s non-flying officers survived on another vessel, but when they debarked in Naples, the unit had to rebuild from the ground up. The squadron became operational again only in mid-November, benefiting from pilots and planes transferred from other units and some de Havilland Mosquitoes.

  Like Wilbur Stratton, some photo pilots were transfers from fighter units, and many pursuit fliers were dragged into the new job with the proverbial door knob in each hand and skid marks on the floor. But the large majority of Photo Joes soon appreciated the importance of their assignment and enjoyed the independence that came with their mission. One newcomer, who resented leaving his P-38 with four machine guns and a cannon, changed his mind when he saw the fruits of his work. After his first mission, his commanding officer took him to the shop to watch his film being processed. The flier recalled, “I’d never seen a photo lab. But there was an army brigadier general and a British air vice marshal looking at the wet negatives, then laying on missions from a field telephone. Wow!”14

  There was more to a photo recon unit than airplanes and cameras, however. Initially the Fifth totaled some 1,150 officers and men performing a multitude of specialized jobs. For instance, Stratton owned the Fourth Photo Technical Squadron and an engineer company that produced topographic maps and mosaics and maintained a print library.

  For maximum efficiency, each squadron was permanently assigned to a geographic area. Toward war’s end the Fifteenth Squadron photographed eastern Germany and the Balkans. The Thirty-seventh Squadron filmed eastern Italy, central Austria, and Germany. And the long-delayed Thirty-second covered most of Italy, central Germany to western Austria, and part of France.

  The group usually flew four missions a day with a “time over target” between noon and 1:30 for the best sun angles. A typical schedule for early October has sorties photographing bridges in Italy and Yugoslavia, a Trieste rail yard, a marshalling yard in Zagreb, and airdromes in Greece.15

  Photo planes typically flew at twenty-five thousand feet or higher, depending on atmospheric conditions. Pilots avoided altitudes that produced contrails, though they were unavoidable if the ambient temperature was lower than forty degrees below zero Fahrenheit.

  Even with heat ducted from two high-performance engines, the Lightning cockpit could be a bitterly cold place to work. Lieutenant Tom Follis described the well-dressed recon pilot:

  Whenever we were going on a mission we wore many layers of clothing not only to keep warm at 30,000 feet . . . but also for survival in case we wer
e forced down in the snowy Alps. The long wool underwear that I had been forced to buy earlier was now very welcome. On top of all the clothes I had put on, a baby blue electric flying suit was added. This suit had small electric wires similar to those in electric blankets and was helpful in the cold weather even though it did tend to burn elbows and the rear end while other parts of the body were still cold. This suit made me look like an oversized four-year-old ready for bed on a frigid night. Two pairs of gloves helped keep hands from freezing. All these layers of clothes did create a problem when it came time to relieve oneself after several hours in the air. The relief tube in the cockpit had the annoying habit of freezing up at high altitude and spilling the contents over the pilot’s hands.16

  Over the long johns, electrically heated suit, wool uniform, and fleece-lined leather flying suit, the pilot struggled into his mae west and, once seated, his parachute harness. To sustain himself in the thin air and to communicate with the rest of the world, he wore a leather helmet with oxygen mask, earphones, and polarized goggles. He was an airborne contradiction: pudgy and semi-immobilized yet capable of four hundred miles per hour.

  The AAF preferred a photo scale of 1/10,000, requiring missions flown at twenty thousand feet over the target using cameras with a twenty-four-inch focal length. At thirty-five thousand feet, the desired scale required a forty-inch lens. Weather or tactical conditions, however, sometimes confined photo pilots to lower altitudes. Mission heights of five thousand and six thousand feet dictated twelve- and six-inch focal lengths, respectively. At those altitudes the Photo Joe was within range of medium flak, and his mission became a roll of the dice. The RAF called low-level missions “dicey shows,” leading to the Americanized term “dicing missions.”17