Info About 2,000-bomber Raid, Dec. 24, 1944

[kamakiri B-24 Dad]

Hi everyone . . . I'm the new buck private around here.

I'm writing a rather unconventional bio about my dad, who was an R/O with the 467th BG out of Rackheath, Norfolk, but the structure of the narrative is formed around just one mission—the raid of the title, otherwise know as Mission 760, with the codename (I think) Cobra, from the moment he wakes up to the moment his feet touch the ground. That's the gimmick. It's currently at 36,000 words.

I'm not an author—I just like to write, but much worse, I'm no research fellow. It's a bizarre task (at least to me) that I've had trouble getting used to, but since I want all the details to be as accurate as I can make them, I have to know the facts. I'm using Gemini Advanced for help, but it hallucinates a lot and has to be watched very carefully. I of course don't ask it to write anything for me—I would never let a machine do that.

But some stuff she (sorry—I've created an instruction set to personalize the entities) just doesn't know—like, what altitude did the Group form up with the various squadrons? Obscure stuff like that, but central to the narrative (when do they go on oxygen? Yeah, 10,000 feet, but is that the altitude where the squadrons all meet and form the Group?)

And most times, Google Search is just pathetic . . .

At any rate, I was looking for a group of people who might know these obscure things . . . I hope I'm in the right place!

Cheers,

Nick

 

[fubar57]

K kamakiri B-24 Dad You've been here? 467th Bombardment Group Research - Home

 

[fubar57]

....and here.... https://digitalarchive.2ndair.org.uk/digitalarchive/Dashboard/Index/46

 

[kamakiri B-24 Dad]

K kamakiri B-24 Dad You've been here? 467th Bombardment Group Research - Home

Yes . . . many, many times. But compared to other bomb group sites, it's extremely difficult to navigate, sometimes the info needed is on physical documents that are unsearchable, etc. But yes, I've gone to it many times.

I have a book on the 467th, but it's scarce on the details I need—this mission alone only gets 10 or 12 paragraphs . . . I've been relying on other bomb group sites that sometimes feature crewmen's recollections, but my obstinate need to dig deeper (what was the name of the medical kits issued to the R/Os? How many syrettes of morphine were in them? Were there any stations for other crew to access morphine?) sometimes just result in dead-end streets. But yes, and thanks!

 

[kamakiri B-24 Dad]

....and here.... https://digitalarchive.2ndair.org.uk/digitalarchive/Dashboard/Index/46

Wow! No . . . I've seen some of the stuff elsewhere, but I'll have to explore the site more extensively! How come this site never came up in Google Searches? It might have saved me a ton of time! And I assume the 57 is the year? If so, me too! Thanks, fubar. It's saved me many snafus . . .

 

[kamakiri B-24 Dad]

Excerpt:

The poor, poor gunners . . . the roaring winds coming in through their gun ports, which they can't close—the manufacturers briefly tried overhead metal shutters, but gunners complained that they just got in the way, and tended to fly off while the plane was plummeting to Earth.

There were supposedly windbreaks on the hull, but they just slowed the plane down. They were planning pup tents like what mountain climbers use, but these proved too difficult to zip shut.

So it was just hoped that acute frostbite and marble-solid trigeminal facial nerves would actually help in the dentist's chair . . . all said and done, a positive benefit-loss ratio.

But it was Pilarski, in the tail, who reaped the temperatures from all these screaming winds . . . sometimes you needed ice picks to haul him out. Thank goodness he was an imperturbable soul, laughing through adversity and shrugging off three-inch mantles of ice with casual flair.

"I don't mind, Robbie. I'm from Minnesota."

 

[fubar57]

You've probably been here as well, they have records of the BG... 467th Bomb Group (Rackheath) - ONLINE VERSION

 

[kamakiri B-24 Dad]

You've probably been here as well, they have records of the BG... 467th Bomb Group (Rackheath) - ONLINE VERSION

Nope! How are you finding all this stuff? I have a lot of clicking to do.

 

[kamakiri B-24 Dad]

Heh . . . I'm from Canada too. Montreal . . . a transplant, but now happily Canadian.

 

[fubar57]

Left coaster now living in Central BC. Lots of times, when I look up Squadrons, Groups and Wings, I add PDFs at the end. The first link I posted that you didn't have, I searched 467th "Bombardment Group". The one above I searched 467th "Bomb Group"; same Group but I got different results

 

[kamakiri B-24 Dad]

Left coaster now living in Central BC. Lots of times, when I look up Squadrons, Groups and Wings, I add PDFs at the end. The first link I posted that you didn't have, I searched 467th "Bombardment Group". The one above I searched 467th "Bomb Group"; same Group but I got different results

Watch those wildfires! And wow, it never occurred to me to add .pdf to the search. Someone told me to include "reddit" with the searches, but I'm not a huge fan of Reddit. Like getting a swimming pool with 100 other people.

But thanks, fubar!! It's an incredible tip . . . and I have so far to go . . . now looking for how the Radioman tested his Morse code key-thingie. It's all so obscure! A lot of it isn't specific to the 467th or this mission, so just "wwii b-24 late 1944 blah blah blah" will get the result I need. But the whole task is overwhelming. I quit!

Nah, I don't. Every thousand words typed in is a victory.

 

[Kaibutsu]

Hello Nick,

You might check this Facebook group for some help.
This is a great group.

Facebook

www.facebook.com

J. Peter Horne, may be of help to you.

Good luck!

 

[kamakiri B-24 Dad]

Hello Nick,

You might check this Facebook group for some help.
This is a great group.

Facebook

www.facebook.com

J. Peter Horne, may be of help to you.

Good luck!

Kaibutsu! アレ？日本人なんでしょうか？ Facebook . . . sadly, I created an account long ago with an alias (no sense in giving Zuckerberg anything more than I have to) that's stupid name—Durknit Pentex—that I made up at the time.

So when I joined that very group and tried to explain my alias, and that I was really Nick Robinson, father flew in the 467th, I was roundly ignored. They don't do that in Colonel Shower's outfit!

I used to know Andy Wilkinson back in the day, but an expert would likely go through my pathetic narrative and slash it to ribbons. ("Squadron Leader was NOT the Conley Crew! Are you deficient?")

Still, since I actually belong to that group, I might try again . . . "Umm, Durknit here . . . might you gentlemen know the thickness in angstroms of the nosewheel outer skin?"

Thanks, Kaibutsu!! It's worth a try.

Nick

 

[kamakiri B-24 Dad]

Excerpt 2:

Shite . . . gotta concentrate.

You straighten up the stuff on your desk—pads, pencils, cigarettes, lighter and so on—and decide to check out the Morse code keypad that you would have to use if somehow the radio went out. Which, of course, would mean that you would not be able to tell any planes what you were doing, and ditto for them. Or tell the tower that you need priority because the entire crew bailed out over the Channel and it's just you and the bombs.

Flares and Morse code; that was your arsenal if the radio died.

Not to worry—you were pretty fast on the draw with the Morse code transmitter. Dit-dit-da, dit-da-dit till the guy on the other end shouted over the non-existent radio for you to goddamn slow down, ya prick!

Yep . . . you can hear it in your earphones, through your dandy Radio Operator's Communication System, which is only for you.

When you start to really get the screaming meemies, you can talk to yourself and hear it in your headphones. Or better yet, sing some Verdi. That'll drown out the flak and improve your vocal chords—you're actually looking forward to it.

Actually, I'm not fucking looking forward to it, you rebut the constant chatter in your head. The buzz is really getting serious, but it hasn't even put its boots on.

When those black puffs begin appearing, the buzz will completely disappear, to be replaced by a continuous, unremitting, incomprehensible terror, bordering on panic.

Encountering flak is like walking though a minefield, blindfolded, but there's no such thing as flak being scrubbed. The Hitler Youth manning the batteries don't have days off. That flak is in your future is as sure as the sun will—

If it rises, will I see it? If I'm not around, it will still rise. No days off for Mr. Sun. Just, a permanent day off for me. How can that be? How? Flak doesn't judge. It doesn't admonish. It doesn't choose this plane. It's completely and implacably random. Like drawing a pair of fours one hand and a straight flush the next. And NO ONE BUT ME WOULD GIVE A SHIT.

I'm just a statistic. A crew listed as KIA on someone's log.

But no. NO. It won't get you this time. You have a free pass, to obliv—

Getting the rising panic under control gets more difficult the closer you get to Armageddon—the Dutch coast. Sure, you've done it five times already, but it doesn't get easier—it gets harder. Because you've seen what flak can do to a plane and it's just impossible to believe.

That guy who got a direct hit to the wingroot . . . wing falls off and he's just hurtling in a spinning, end-over-end deathdive; that is, until the gas in the fuel tanks mercifully cuts the trip to Eternity in half. Of course no chutes. Why did the flak choose him and not me?

Stupid question, but that doesn't stop you from asking it. And dreaming it. Over and over and over again, the wingroot guy, tumbling through your days and nights.

You're never gonna unsee that.

 

[GrauGeist]

We had a friend of the family who was a B-24 pilot and he had mentioned that the most stressful part of the mission was not the Flak or Luftwaffe, but the climb through the English weather to the assembly point.

He said it was the stuff of nightmares, the odd glow of colored flares illuminating the dark, occasional shadows crossing their path (sometimes along with the momentary glow from the shadow's exhaust) and once in a while, a bright flash created by two bombers colliding.
In one such climb, he and the crew could hear another set of engines growing louder and everyone was looking to find it's source.
Suddenly, one of the crewmen yelled over comms "Jesus Christ! Look up!" and sure enough, there was a B-24 directly overhead, the bombers were so close that the ball turret was clearly visible through the murk.

Just thought I'd add this often forgotten part of a bomber's mission.

 

[cammerjeff]

I also knew a Pilot that flew 12 Missions over Europe in B-24's. He was one of my High school teachers. And he basically said the same thing. He was injured in the crash landing of his plane after a midair collision. And sent back to the States to rehab. That was in the spring of 1944 if I remember correctly. He was training on B-32's when the war ended.

 

[kamakiri B-24 Dad]

We had a friend of the family who was a B-24 pilot and he had mentioned that the most stressful part of the mission was not the Flak or Luftwaffe, but the climb through the English weather to the assembly point.

He said it was the stuff of nightmares, the odd glow of colored flares illuminating the dark, occasional shadows crossing their path (sometimes along with the momentary glow from the shadow's exhaust) and once in a while, a bright flash created by two bombers colliding.
In one such climb, he and the crew could hear another set of engines growing louder and everyone was looking to find it's source.
Suddenly, one of the crewmen yelled over comms "Jesus Christ! Look up!" and sure enough, there was a B-24 directly overhead, the bombers were so close that the ball turret was clearly visible through the murk.

Just thought I'd add this often forgotten part of a bomber's mission.

Heh . . . this is a section in which I *hope* I convey just this horror (note: "Mose" is John Moseley, the actual pilot in my dad's crew. The point of view—the "you"—is my dad's perceptions and thoughts, which I render in italics. This was an actual mission—December 24, 1944—and I'm trying to imagine it as it would have seemed it it were ME there instead of my dad. Obviously I don't know what was going through his mind at the time, but I can reconstruct it from memoirs and other stuff that I've been researching now for almost six months. I want the end result to give a reader not just an ordinary standard historical account, but to actually be experiencing it through the thoughts of someone who was there.

It's a really tough narrative style, but I'm now stuck with it. 37,000 words in, well, ask me about any terror inducing event and it's probably already in there! Anyway, here it is (note—all crew names, even of other aircraft, are actual ones from the 467th):

——————
"Red Leader, this is Green Lane Red 94, do you copy?" Mose's voice crackles in your headset. You're almost at your two minutes and Mose is calling the lead plane of your squadron—in this case the 790th, code name Red—for instructions for the climb-out.

"Red 94, loud and clear. Go ahead."

Mose: "Red 94, airborne and climbing to angels one-zero, heading zero-nine-zero. Any ideas how long in the milk?"

Leader: "Red 94, anticipate popup at 7 or 8-zero, climb power 14 minutes at this time. Watch your corners, John."

Mose: "Copy, Red Leader, out of angels one-zero, left turn heading one-one-six. Corners clear, chicken wire fence'll keep 'em away."

Leader: "Red 94, them chickens got wings, remember? Next left in six-oh minutes, heading two-niner-niner."

Mose: "Copy, Red Leader, watching chickens on the corners. Left turn six minutes, heading two-niner-niner. See you on top."

You know that today, the lead plane is Homeward Bound, flown by Ted Conley—a superb pilot and good friend of Mose. The "corners" they're talking about are simply the four corners of the plane. In this vast, unsullied whiteness that you equate to being inside a giant ping-pong ball, you know that dozens and soon hundreds of planes are all flying solely on instruments, trying to follow predetermined headings and altitudes that theoretically will result in the formations that need to be assembled before heading out to the target.

Except some pilots are much better than other pilots. Which is a polite way of saying that some pilots are, well, not good pilots.

You know who they are, if not personally, then their names, because Mose tells you.

And you know that they're all around you, even now—maybe one just a hundred feet below you. An updraft for him or a downdraft for you, and . . . well, that would be the way to go, wouldn't it?

In a double fireball, your bombs and fuel exploding with his bombs and fuel, in a fraction of a second billowing to (you mentally run down some figures) what, 500, 600 feet wide in all directions? If any other planes were closer than that it would take them down too.

You'd seen what a B-24 loaded with bombs and fuel looked like exploding on the ground, and the fireball was huge. You actually had to raise your head to see the top of it.

Now imagine said collision in said cloud and said fireball. At 160 mph you'd be travelling the equivalent of two whole city blocks every second. If you were travelling in the same direction—which, of course, you were—and were a half a mile behind the explosion, you'd reach it in five seconds. Not enough time for your pilot to see the explosion, decide what to do, and do it.

Vapor trails, people . . .

 

[kamakiri B-24 Dad]

I also knew a Pilot that flew 12 Missions over Europe in B-24's. He was one of my High school teachers. And he basically said the same thing. He was injured in the crash landing of his plane after a midair collision. And sent back to the States to rehab. That was in the spring of 1944 if I remember correctly. He was training on B-32's when the war ended.

Good god . . . luckily, my dad did all 26 missions and came back without a scratch. No crew injured, no emergency landings, no nothing. But I describe all the possible scenarios in as gruesome detail as my mind can envision.

It was HELL up there. How my dad came out of it, quiet, capable, talented and not a gibbering wreck I'll NEVER understand.

 

[special ed]

Being pedantic, I don't think the term "copy" was used in WW2, rather the word "affirmative" was what I remember reading in the books published after the war. I can't remember the term being used in the1950s. I believe it came from the Vietnam era. Other older members may remember better.

 

[kamakiri B-24 Dad]

Being pedantic, I don't think the term "copy" was used in WW2, rather the word "affirmative" was what I remember reading in the books published after the war. I can't remember the term being used in the1950s. I believe it came from the Vietnam era. Other older members may remember better.

EXCELLENT! Finding examples of actual conversations between airmen in late WWII (I didn't look at YT, but I'm sure there would have been some there) was near-impossible, but I'll take "affirmative"! I had to make most of it up as I went. Being a Pan Am brat, I've probably been exposed to "Copy" or maybe it was Apollo . . . my memory doesn't serve. But feel free to correct anything! Good editors are hard to find.

Great nickname—I love double-entendres/puns.

Thanks, Ed! —Nick