Left to right: my dad (bombardier) Frank, co-pilot Joe, pilot John and navigator Peter.
Joe is 91 years young and he talked my ear off with tons of stories. He and his wife of 60+ years live in Ohio.
Joe told me before they went overseas they were in North Carolina, then New York, then Florida. From there they flew to Brazil. From Brazil they were to fly to North Africa on a B-24. But the plane had something wrong with it, and a typing paper-sized piece of paper was taped to the side with red tape all around the edges of the paper. The message was "DO NOT FLY THIS PLANE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES". So they were delayed a day in leaving. Now I'm not sure if it was the same plane that got fixed or a different one, but the next day the B-24 they were leaving in had problems. Un-noted changes had been made and it wouldn't fly level and it took an extra 3 hours to get it to fly right.
Basically the story was they left Brazil at 8:30 pm to cross the Atlantic to North Africa. When they were approaching the airbase at Dakar, French West Africa, they got a big scare. Now, Joe explained, when you land a plane you fly in a pattern and you land into the wind. The pattern is divided into legs. There is a downwind leg, a short leg and the approach (into the wind). The B-24 has 4 engines. Number 4 engine stopped on the downwind leg. The number 3 engine stopped on the short leg. So they had engine 1 & 2 but they are on one side of the plane, which makes it want to fly in circles. Joe thought they would crash for sure. But the flight engineer was able to restart them so they could land safely.
After they landed they taxied over to refuel. Joe said that the fuel gauge on a plane is the same as on a car, they aren't all that accurate. Joe asked if I knew how they checked the fuel level. "With a stick?" I asked. Yes, he said, and there wasn't even enough fuel left to wet the end. The extra three hours added to the trip ran the tanks nearly dry. The flight engineer found enough reserve to restart the engines. They came close to ditching in the ocean.
Other miscellaneous things Joe told me were:
It took an hour for squadrons to all get into the air, into formation, and then up to the altitude they were to fly at for the mission.
The targets were heavily guarded with anti-aircraft guns. The puffs of black smoke were so thick at times it looked like you could walk across them. He said they called him "Holy Joe" because he prayed so much.
The oil pressure on a B-17 engine could drop suddenly for no apparent reason. You had to keep it at 80. If it dropped below 40 the propellers would loose their trim and would "windmill". (I don't understand that one yet LOL)
My dad was assigned group leader bombardier because he always did an excellent job at destroying his share of the enemy targets. I'm not sure exactly how Joe described the groups, but each squadron had groups of planes and the lead plane had the bombardier. The following planes had other crew members that weren't trained as bombardiers. The bombs were released by flipping toggle switches, so when the lead bombardier located the target and began dropping the bombs, the "toggle flippers" in the following planes would also drop their bombs.
Well, that's about it for the stories right now. At least they are getting written down this time! Today I took the crew photo above and made a copy at Walgreen's. It turned out well, much clearer than my printout. Now, tomorrow I am going to make more, because Joe wants to send one to the pilot John and the navigator Peter! And I have to make one for the archivist for the 99th Bomb Group Historical Society.
Wow. What a day.
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