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Wayne Allen remembers the European Air War
At the end of World War I the United States was generally considered to have the mightiest military force in the world. Yet, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, our Army, Navy, and Army Air Corps had been allowed to deteriorate, to the point that recruits were forced to train with wooden rifles, the Navy vessels were outdated and worn out, and military airplanes were still primarily on the drawing boards. In early 1942 the Army Air Corps and the Navy had only a total of some 1200 aircraft, and the entire aircraft industry was capable of producing only 2000 planes per year. Yet, in what must be considered something of a miracle, in only 18 months, by mid 1943, Boeing plants in Seattle and Wichita were producing some 4000 B-17s each month to the Army Air Corps. The B-24, considered the other essential US plane in the European Theater, was still on the drawing board when the war began, but by 1943 these planes were rolling out of a converted Ford plant in Michigan, Willow Run, at the rate of one finished B-24 every 45 minutes, 24 hours a day.
These B-17s and B-24s, along with a great many fighter planes were destined for Northeastern England, making up the 8th Air Force. They took part, along with the RAF, in the air offensive on Continental Europe, the greatest air assault the world has ever seen.
A McCook man, Wayne Allen, was a young Air Force Captain in England during the time of the great air offensive. Wayne was not a pilot, but trained crews in the use of the automatic guidance systems and bombsights. He was also one of four officers in charge of security for the 445th Bomber Group.
Wayne remembers that in 1943 there were some 60 airfields in Northeastern England, in a space no larger than the three Southwestern counties of Nebraska. To each of these airfields was assigned an Air Force Group, B-24s, B-17s, or fighters. RAF units were assigned to airfields in other parts of England. For months the RAF would hit Nazi targets on the mainland at night. Mornings, up to 50 planes would take off, at one-minute intervals, from each of the 60 airfields of the 8th Air Force, to take part in the massive bombing raids on military targets, B-17s on the closer targets, B-24s on the more distant targets. With the sheer number of planes involved in these raids, there were naturally many traffic problems. Coupled with this was the English fog in the mornings, which complicated the traffic problem. And yet the raids went on, often under weather conditions that would have grounded commercial flights. Planes from each Group circled in a tight spiral until they broke through the overcast, when they could join in a formation around a lead plane for the trip across the English Channel.
One of the most frequent targets for Wayne's 445th Bomber Group was the huge tank factory at Kasl, in Germany, which was fiercely defended by the Germans with anti-aircraft fire and fighter planes. This was nearly a monthly target for the 445th, because the Germans were so resilient. Our bombers would hit the target---The Germans would rebuild, almost immediately. Kasl was also the scene of the 445th greatest tragedy.
In 1943, 36 B-24s, each carrying a 10-man crew, from the 445th along with planes from a number of other Groups, made a saturation-bombing raid on the Kasl factory. For some reason the Navigator for the 445th made an error of some 18 degrees in the Group's course back to England, taking the 445th away from the relative safety of flying with other Groups. Packs of German fighter planes were just waiting to catch planes away from the protection of the large force. They attacked the planes of the 445th en masse, shooting down 32 of the 36 planes. (Of note: Though the 445th had been all but destroyed in that one raid, there was no time to grieve. The war must go on. By the next morning, 30 new B-24s, with crews, arrived at the airfield from a replacement depot in Scotland ready to take their places in the continuing bombing raids.)
The English Airfields, occupied by American planes were of great interest to correspondents covering the war for the American public. Walter Cronkite began his broadcasting career covering the giant bombing raids, and the men who manned the planes. The United States Government also used the missions of the 8th Air Force for propaganda purposes from time to time. Clark Gable, the reigning movie star of the day, was brought to England and assigned to one of the planes of the 445th. Many pictures were taken of Gable, mingling with the men. Then Gable was assigned to the side turret gun of one of the planes embarking on a bomber run. Apparently this was more than Clark Gable had bargained for. That one bombing mission was his last and he went back to raising the morale of the troops---behind the lines.
Another Hollywood idol was assigned to the 445th, under much different circumstances. Jimmy Stewart came to the 445th as a pilot, putting his movie career on hold. He was popular with the other airmen. But he was also tremendously popular with the English girls who came to dances at the 445th and wanted to be able to say that they had danced with Jimmy Stewart. He was a willing dance partner, but the girls literally overwhelmed him and he invariably left the dances early. Stewart completed his 35 bombing missions, after which he was promoted to Squadron Commander, where he completed his wartime service. Of the four Squadron Commanders of the 8th Air Force, Stewart was the only one who was not shot down in combat. Stewart eventually retired from the Air Force Reserve as a Brigadier General.
In one isolated area on each airfield was the Revetment, where bombs, stacked 3 deep, were stored prior to loading the airplanes. Unloading bombs onto this storage area was dangerous work, and caution was urged on the crews at all times. Some of the bombs had extremely sensitive fuses. One day, at the 489th BG, just a few miles east of the 445th, a 6-man crew was unloading bombs. No one knows for sure what happened of course, but apparently one of the bombs slipped off the truck, striking another bomb. There was an explosion, setting off all the bombs in the Revetment, resulting in a mushroom cloud explosion, not unlike that seen in the Atomic Bomb blasts. The cloud could be seen for many miles. The accident occurred at noon when most of the men were in the mess hall on the other side of the airfield. No trace of the 6-man crew was ever found, but there were no other casualties. All of the 489th planes, B-24s, however, were ruined. The heat from the blast wrinkled the metal on the wings and fuselages, warping the planes so badly that they were relegated to the salvage heap. Instead of providing the men of the 489th with new planes, the men were sent back to the US, to train in the new B-29s, the plane, which was to alter the course of the war in the Pacific.
Wayne Allen made it a habit to carry a camera with him during his stay in England with the 445th , and recorded many of the events, the places, and the people he met on film. After D-Day, June, 1944, the planes of the 8th Air Force supported the Allied advance across Western Europe, to Berlin, destroying Ruhr and Rhine bridges all the way to Cologne in Germany. Wayne Allen was privileged to accompany planes of the 445th on many of these missions, with camera, of course. Though Wayne had numerous rolls of film he learned that many of the pictures he had taken were of subjects that were not authorized, and he should turn over the film to the authorities. He compromised the order. He chose to keep the film, but he did not have it developed----for 50 years. Finally, before attending a reunion of the 8th Air Force Veterans years later, he developed his film and made a scrap book of memories of his time in England---bombers in flight over Germany, with anti-aircraft flak bursting around the planes, the aftermath of the tremendous explosion at the 489th the layout of the 445th airfield, his fellow airmen from the 445th. The pictures in that scrapbook stirred up old memories among the veterans of those long ago days---and settled a lot of arguments.