December 13, 1943
Mission #19--- Amsterdam Schipol Airdrome. Take off 13:05; landing 15:40. Time 2:35. According to everything real, we should have “had it” today. This is the hottest spot in enemy occupied territory for flak and enemy fighters. We made our landfall OK leading the group making heavy evasive action as planned. Everything went nicely until we settled down on our bomb run, then all hell broke loose. They fired everything they had at us. Just as we released our 4x1000lb bombs, they got a direct hit on our left engine and sprayed holes through the entire ship with other bursts. I called Gould that it was on fire and he feathered the left engine while doing an 80’ bank right into it. She started into a spin as they shot our rudder cables away. We lost 7000ft before finally leveling her off. They fired at us all the way to the coast. We had completely lost the few ships still in formation. I jumped out of the turret and stuffed Capt. Wilson’s handkerchief into main fuel line to the good engine and tied mine around it. It still leaked like hell but that was the best we could do. Pete and Lt. Green threw all the guns, ammo and everything else out to lighten the load. I tried everything I knew to get the rudder cable back together, but she just wouldn’t hold. We were over the North Sea some 40 odd minutes and that English Coast looked like Heaven. I set the fuel pump to right main, but as fast as I’d transfer in from the other shot-up tanks, it would leak out our main fuel line. About two minutes from the English Coast, the air-sea RAF boys came flying out to meet us in case of a sea crash. The engine was smoking more and more and all the instruments on the panel were out. So, Gould decided to crash-land. Immediately right on the coast was the RAF emergency strip. So we started for it. We couldn’t circle and call the tower because our good engine was cutting out. So, we let our wheels down and dived in. The ship began banking into the feathered engine and started to turn over on her back again. Gould, somehow, managed to keep her right-side up, but, we hit the runway sideways. The left main tire was flat, so we tipped on over on that wheel with the right tire way off the ground. From then on, God took over. We had no brakes or rudder, so we rolled off the runway where the nose wheel folded and collapsed under. We bounced in a pile of dirt, nose-first. We were pretty badly shaken up, but all OK, except Pete who was hit in the head pretty hard. We went into RAF operations and called in to our home field. The RAF wanted to move the wreckage as soon as possible in case of another emergency landing. Besides, there was gas everywhere. They wanted to draw all of it so there wouldn’t be a fire while they were moving it. So, I went out with them. I had turned the gas off and all the switches off before we hit so the ship wouldn’t blow up. I crawled in the ship with an English boy and switched the gas on. The whole bomb bay blew up in my face the instant I turned it on. The tail end of the ship blew about 50ft and it blew him and I up in to the pilot’s compartment. We dived out, but both of us were burnt badly. About two minutes later, the gas tank blew up and the ship burnt all night. An RAF doctor fixed me up and later on in the evening, they took me over to the P-47 Thunderbolt Base Hospital for a few days.”
Dad's next mission was Dec 24th, flew 45 more until sent home Dec, 1944.
Mission #19--- Amsterdam Schipol Airdrome. Take off 13:05; landing 15:40. Time 2:35. According to everything real, we should have “had it” today. This is the hottest spot in enemy occupied territory for flak and enemy fighters. We made our landfall OK leading the group making heavy evasive action as planned. Everything went nicely until we settled down on our bomb run, then all hell broke loose. They fired everything they had at us. Just as we released our 4x1000lb bombs, they got a direct hit on our left engine and sprayed holes through the entire ship with other bursts. I called Gould that it was on fire and he feathered the left engine while doing an 80’ bank right into it. She started into a spin as they shot our rudder cables away. We lost 7000ft before finally leveling her off. They fired at us all the way to the coast. We had completely lost the few ships still in formation. I jumped out of the turret and stuffed Capt. Wilson’s handkerchief into main fuel line to the good engine and tied mine around it. It still leaked like hell but that was the best we could do. Pete and Lt. Green threw all the guns, ammo and everything else out to lighten the load. I tried everything I knew to get the rudder cable back together, but she just wouldn’t hold. We were over the North Sea some 40 odd minutes and that English Coast looked like Heaven. I set the fuel pump to right main, but as fast as I’d transfer in from the other shot-up tanks, it would leak out our main fuel line. About two minutes from the English Coast, the air-sea RAF boys came flying out to meet us in case of a sea crash. The engine was smoking more and more and all the instruments on the panel were out. So, Gould decided to crash-land. Immediately right on the coast was the RAF emergency strip. So we started for it. We couldn’t circle and call the tower because our good engine was cutting out. So, we let our wheels down and dived in. The ship began banking into the feathered engine and started to turn over on her back again. Gould, somehow, managed to keep her right-side up, but, we hit the runway sideways. The left main tire was flat, so we tipped on over on that wheel with the right tire way off the ground. From then on, God took over. We had no brakes or rudder, so we rolled off the runway where the nose wheel folded and collapsed under. We bounced in a pile of dirt, nose-first. We were pretty badly shaken up, but all OK, except Pete who was hit in the head pretty hard. We went into RAF operations and called in to our home field. The RAF wanted to move the wreckage as soon as possible in case of another emergency landing. Besides, there was gas everywhere. They wanted to draw all of it so there wouldn’t be a fire while they were moving it. So, I went out with them. I had turned the gas off and all the switches off before we hit so the ship wouldn’t blow up. I crawled in the ship with an English boy and switched the gas on. The whole bomb bay blew up in my face the instant I turned it on. The tail end of the ship blew about 50ft and it blew him and I up in to the pilot’s compartment. We dived out, but both of us were burnt badly. About two minutes later, the gas tank blew up and the ship burnt all night. An RAF doctor fixed me up and later on in the evening, they took me over to the P-47 Thunderbolt Base Hospital for a few days.”
Dad's next mission was Dec 24th, flew 45 more until sent home Dec, 1944.
