Becoming The Bloody Hundredth

I play Lea's to the flag the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty justice for all I ask those that have served in a uniform to remain standing arrest baby student thank you thank you for Wow so here we are today approaching the 75th anniversary of the end of World War two with the group of distinguished individuals how many how many original members do we have with the city just [Music] today thank you for all you've done not only the what you did is is young folks giving everything that you did but also for continuing on and perpetuating the history so that I've got a four year old so that the generations that come after appreciate what it is that you sacrificed and did for us so thank you thank you for this organization thank you for sharing your history with us I just I don't have the word so how about one more big hand for all that work [Applause] so of course we're gonna hear today from John and lucky like ado who's here with us but we also get to hear today for from Chris Barrett that 104 on group foundation director I'm going to turn things over to Chris site well Chris thank you so much for being here today and sharing with us that the pumps bring their museums mission is to preserve educate and honor we've had a b-17 the whole purpose of having it here is not to have a shiny thing that people don't know about can't learn from thank you guys for doing what it is that you do and perpetuating your family's history and sharing it with us so want to come on up and then you tell us tell us some things that everybody needs to know [Applause] well while Greg is setting up the first slide deck I just want to say on behalf of the one hundredth longer booth Foundation welcome to Palm Springs air museum we are pleased that you've made this part of your day it's a fun thing for us to gather here year after year as part of our veterans group but to see that there is this larger community of folks who are willing to turn out and hear our stories we are more than eager to share and if you saw any of our preliminary advertisement or even if you are just happy to sit down after you've spent the morning looking at airplanes we're glad that you're here we're going to share a few of our favorite stories and we chose this idea of explaining the name that's associated with the hundredth Bomb Group probably more than any other name becoming the bloody hundred we'd like to unpack a little bit of that story seventy seven years ago there were four squadron leaders there were 36 combat crews and they took off from the United States on Memorial Day weekend headed for Europe a lot of those young men most in their early twenties thought they'd be home by Christmas that really wasn't the reality that they encountered but by Halloween by mid October of 1943 they had acquired a new nickname and that's what you see up there on the screen so while I am excited to be sharing this floor space today with with John Mike was one of those original fellas and we probably have at least one other original fellow who was there on those initial crossings that we'll see here today too so we'll get into this and tell a little bit of our story first of all I have to do some acknowledgement there's my wife covering your eyes in the back full disclosure I married into one hundredth Bomb Group it was a very feminine connection that I have my wife and her grandmother told me about there her grandmother's younger brother it took me nearly 35 years to unpack some of that story but somebody I need to especially acknowledge his man Russ Engel who was another one of those original hundred crew members that's Russ up there five years ago that photo crossed my computer screen and I was amazed because I knew what that gravesite was that's the American Cemetery in mattingly near Cambridge England and I know who's very big it's my wife's great Uncle Harry anybody I had seen Russell's name in the history books had no idea that Russell angle was still alive so I looked up his number I took a deep breath called and his son David I answered and I explained I'm a family member of one of the hunters rock group early crews from squawking off and I have some letters that mention you that you might like to have it and his son Davis that you have the right place they invited me to my very first gathering here at Palm Springs air museum it's it's it's a trust I want to say thank you Russ left us quietly just five months ago 801 but he has shared stories my friend lucky has filled in a lot of the blanks we had a big missing chapter in our family history and maybe the same is true for many of you out there you're trying to understand what was that all about or maybe you are just after a curious thing you know World War two make it ended 75 years ago as Frank said in many ways our world still is wrestling with and coming to terms with all of that meant we want to share a little of the story of the men of the hundredth and I'm going to do it the crew really too cruised what is the Spock and Hawk crew officially they were crew number nine of those 36 that were sent over in May of 1943 this is a composite image my friend David Engel headed mate because so far we just haven't found an illusive actual photo of the full crew three of the guys are photoshopped in there but this is taken on heart stand number fourteen over thar babbit's England in October 1943 the other crew is what we could call the sunny crew it's Lucky's crew and that tall gentleman over on the far right is none other than mr. luckabee crew number 25 yes [Applause] just to give you some perspective because you can start throwing out a lot of dates and a lot of stories and to help you connect the dots I just put this up there to give you some sense of the stories we're sharing largely took place between November of 1942 when the hundredth Bomb Group really first came into being the first personnel were assigned and started their training 1943 was a very pivotal year where they entered combat after seven months of training seven months it's a very unusually long time or group to be trying to come together and then we want to wrap up sort of the rest of the story of those original crews close to May of 1944 a little background though in 1942 particularly in the summer of 1942 I'd like to borrow a phrase from my friend Captain John Clark who is another member of hundreth Bomb Group who's here today who served as a co-pilot a little bit later in the war he uses the phrase that these young men of the hundredth Bomb Group were the air minded generation I think that's a wonderful phrase that describes boys who grew up with Charles Lindbergh as a hero and the bright shiny new technology of the day represented in the b-17 bomber and the b-24 Liberator but Hollywood was in the picture we were gearing up as a nation for war Warner Brothers was out there helping make recruiting films promoting the war one of the things I found in the personal effects the crew that we've accumulated was this little newspaper clipping from Chicago that said local youth some the reader appears in one of these Hollywood Warner Brothers movies men of the sky you probably haven't seen it it's actually out there on DVD not on the Internet if I can tell but you'd have to be very quick to find out which person in their summer it was filmed at the California Air Base where Sumner was training in the summer of 1942 as a pilot and it's interesting because of the letters I have I know that Sumner was living in one of those little pyramid tents the length of pilot trainee went through a number of phases and the final phase ended up being assignment to a combat unit and you hit in a new phase I guess what was called combat training and if everything went well the plan was that you spent your first 30 days at one base learning some things the next 30 days and another base stateside the third set at night of 30 days and another base and then you were sent overseas that was the plan a quote John Clarke again because he has some good analogies he said you know in 1943 the Army Air Force really was learning as you go he says is a little bit like writing a play rehearsing it and performing it all in the same day and that's what was going on and I think you're going to hear from John Walker do as he tells what it was like to be in that learn as you go mode so here we are 1942 November and the first cruise of a hundredth long group have been assembled at Boise I know they were transferred out of the main sort of feeder group called the 29th Bomb Group and the 100th Bomb Group came into being just a few or November of 1942 two of the pilots that were assigned during that first 30-day period that they were coming together were Sumner reader you see him on the left with his bride of about a month Emily on the other side you see Glenn died was already married and the father too in the original pilot of the hundredth laundry and they were assigned crews who began training and remember the goal was to get through training in about 90 days ago to combat at the same time in February of 1943 close to the end of that 90 days when the hundreds of all group should have been getting ready to cross the Atlantic and go to England we had Harry any burn on the left and John Locke a dude down in Georgia near Valdosta an army train that a pilot training field getting ready to earn their wings they were members of the class of 43 B and lucky if there's anything you'd like us to hear a little bit about the class of 43 B I've been privileged to hear a few of your stories if you'd like to take the mic and offer us some perspective of what it was like to be a student in pilot training I know these folks would enjoy them as much as I have enjoyed which month 16th of March I will be 98 years old [Applause] and to help live that long and misfortune enough to be here today with you there's a joy of privilege my nickname is Bucky and when I look back over my 90 almost 98 years I think I should be called dawn because of the good fortune that I have experience in being a member of the original 100 Bomb Group who had fought the great battle of the European air war and survived because our survival rate was one of the major reasons why we became known as the bloody wonders now many of you know that the British to the British the word blade meets a lot of different things but in this play that usually it's good hopefully that's what they meant when they started refer to us as the bloody hunters but when we arrived at in late May and early June of 1943 we were just kids Harry headed college bills in our early twenties and we didn't really care whether it's Google kept or not but believe you me when we joined the Army Air Corps learn to fly and were thrust into combat to defeat the Germans Nazi regime and to prevent that to help the British from being invaded we sobered up and mature overnight this picture you see was me in primary school and 1942 and they brought Park Florida and went from primary and to basic and Sumter South Carolina and then as Christmas all rendered totally when I graduated in last 43b which meant in feted where the B stood for the second month of the year 43 B and from Valdosta Georgia buddhafield strangely enough 40 of us from my twin engined flight training and about us were immediately sent to join the 100th Bomb Group heavy b-17 outfit and Carney depression this did not happen in any other group ever they took 40 of my classmates in me Wade out of client school now and assigned us to this group as full pilots now the group in the meantime if you follow the chronology had already been come through combat training which was called famous training they went through three phases navigations instrument fly formation flying night flying all of the other things gunnery they've already been through that and prior to being sent overseas they were given the final check ride which was to be consist of a mock raid over San Francisco from training information to prove to the inspector general as they were qualified and certified for combat experience in route they encountered heavy weapons and the group split up to managed to make it one that managed to make it to Virginia the other two Tennessee and the commanding officer landed in Las Vegas this is to say faithful but my classmates and I were suddenly plucked out a predecessor to kill planets were plucked out and checked out and sent to different groups with new crews and we were put into at least 17 we'd never been we never won anything look larger than a twin-engine aircraft when we were suddenly flipped for this position well the Inspector General said you're not certified for combat you guys had no air discipline so we split the group up and set each squadron to a different air base to be instructors for those who were going over that lasted about three weeks the press for heavy bomber groups in Europe was so heavy and we were called back together again to reassemble and Barney issued brand-new b-17 and said you're going overseas read the darkness you're going to be killed anyway so might as well go yeah so I think that I had perhaps 25 hours going to be 17 when we left the states we departed from my crewmate flew to Denver Lake Newfoundland where we had to wait a favourable tailwind in order to make the nonstop 12-hour flight from Denver to pressbooks colonies in the winds eventually changed and the group started taking off in the meanwhile the pilot to whom I had been assigned him Flynn died and in the what our group our proof was number 25 out of the 36 and some readers readers number 9 but my pilot got itchy and he went across the base and shacked up with a wet and got a raging case of reading so they threw him in the hospital the rest of the group was seated and my crew simply sat and cooled our heels for two weeks while he heals now in those days the only thing they treated had the treatment for their ill disease with result by the time he was released he was so weak he couldn't stay flat on his back for two weeks in so weak we had to load him into the air so he said lucky gonna have to fly because I can't so I flew us to comment this did experienced as I was I was thrust in that position and you never know what you can do until you have to do it right so we eventually got Presley meanwhile the group that landed in England and the clubs for Alex future home was not completed it was built especially for Allegra partner but had not been completed by the British they were set temporarily to an alternative base and puttings but by the time we finally caught up with them they were in two spots at for rabbits and so we joined the group there to explain this was in June of 1940 axis Sally came on the radio immediately and welcomed us by name European Darrell ward that said we know that credit Turner has brought you here but this isn't your lure you don't have any business here your girlfriends and wives back in the states are being romanced by for efforts and you're going to be darn sorry you came but as long as you're here we're going to teach you a lesson I'm here to testify my idea fearless we were on one of our first practice dishes gone out over the English Channel and were jumped by the level of water and lost 3 crews 30 min and we hadn't even entered combat we soon learned that when we did ever come back that we were confronted by an extremely experienced highly qualified airforce the German air force had been in operation for four years prior garbage their backs to the wall they were fighting for their homeland we were 6,000 miles away brother wasn't our war but brillhart of course we were involved Bigley they love the Pacific and the European tables so the airport became power and I think the if I were to capsulate encapsulate what word that our experience exemplifies it's a four-letter word C ou LD a high altitude in broad daylight and mass formation we were experiencing temperatures of minus 50 to 60 degrees below zero Fahrenheit you have never been that cold you could see the heavy equipment that we had to wear on a mannequin under the wind hero to be 17 we did everything we could to withstand but very bitter cold which severely impacted our capabilities of function and a high altitude many of you were aware that we were flying around so in order to survive at those altitudes we had to be on oxygen we usually have done it about 10,000 feet as we continued on our plumber so that had given to us to some extent from the get-go and it was not only uncomfortable but it was very very inhibited one of the ironies was there was a pilot and the heat of battle when you're flying formation that they're trying to maintain your relative position watching all the instruments the Fleck is coming up in the sheets and it bothered the look whoppers flying through the formation of the planes are going down all health curriculum you suddenly discovered that your sweat perspiring and that perspiration that moisture under those conditions freezes it so you suddenly find your oxygen mask being blocked by ice crystals and you're having to crack those up with one hand lie there with the other politically but they're so lucky has just put you in the cockpit of the b-17 and let me give you a little interlude to just point out a couple of things that lucky describe to you those new airplanes that they received on the States ironically at least two crews were sequentially serial number squawking Hawk was 88 and Sonny was 89 and when they came over and landed the the crews and the planes were typically assigned a permanent part stand location where they part the red arrow shows where squawking Hawk parked along the eastern border of for bats airfield the yellow arrow shows we're lucky and Glen dies crew had their aircraft park adjacent to the control tower museum into our pallets this have been time for me to put in a plug to say that in many ways for Abbott's is the is the heart of the hundredth story these days it's a place where you can go and visit Ron and Carol badly are here they have dedicated their life to be curators of the museum the 100th Bomb Group memorials Museum of Art Alex and we're grateful to them they have embraced us like family so this is a few of the scenes of floor babbit's during wartime zooming in just a little bit this is the the sort of configuration of huts the the nissen hut where the men lived it bunked there was sort of commentary that said you know those those Air Corps guys have it nice they get to come home and sleep in clean sheets and have warm meal I don't know one of the stories I've heard is you had to ride your bike just to get a shower because they didn't have shower rooms and things near where the men live this is a picture of us standing outside the front door of his barracks at the site where the 349th 349th squadron officers bucked and you can see the the ubiquitous bikes are everywhere the story was that whatever bike you rode and parked among the dozens and dozens outside the mess hall wasn't necessarily the same way one other little interesting customer that is a big airman and I think there's an exhibit here in the museum short snores if you look you'll find it money Harry Eddie Burns memorabilia from World War two I found this this silver certificate dollar bill with names written on it and it said short snorter you might want to look that up if you want to really understand the original original intent of a short snort it did predate the Army Air Corps in World War two but the young Flyers of 1943 use these short snorters as sort of an interesting artifact Harry's was just this one bill there are 14 names on it but lucky I know you have something looks different all of your teammates sign it dated to others as you will and you had to carry this on your person and all that or else you had to buy the drinks for the wrap so we made a little habit of trying to catch guys in the shop but this was one of the any of SiC receipts that we practice we find some solace in any kind of thing that could lighten the mood a little bit from a very serious business engaged in a few of these still exist Jonathan you're still here so I just wanted to add that to your best fun of useless information now what he did allude to was the serious business of what between June 1943 and really October 1943 was one of those experimental rehearsal periods of the air war strategy maximum effort missions unless sported into German airspace one of the most prominent of the maximum effort rates that the hundredth one group participated in occurred on August 17th it was the mission to schweinfurt Regensburg the hundredth through flew the leg that went to Regensburg and the objective was to knock out ball bearings production the whole strategy was based on let's bomb strategically we're not just trying to wipe out the population we're trying to disable their ability to practice and wage war Regensburg was a was a hub of ball bearing manufacturing in Germany at the time from headquarters one of the staff officers lieutenant colonel bernall a flew as an observer with the hundredth law group on that Regensburg mission Lucky's group didn't fly the reader through in swaggin Hawk did go up but they were to spare that meant the 21 plane one-hundredth group were you know the morning formation chart scheduled across the English Channel and hit to Regensburg but typically if by you the time you got to the English Channel and you found that we're having with mechanical difficulties and had to drop out of formation or also some spare aircraft assigned to be ready to fill in so you can have your maximum effort force your group with all the other groups this maximum effort rate in the hundredths history stands out because nine of the 21 fortresses develop the hundreds enough that they were lost and it actually took days before everybody knew that was coming back because this was not a train to Germany and back they went to Germany and then they kept going they crossed the Mediterranean and went down into Africa and landed reconfigured refuel and the remaining planes came back there are notes out on our hundreth Baccarin foundation website that you can read some of the first-hand accounts of what it was like to be waiting there at the base or what it was like to participate on that mission but because our topic today was becoming the bloody hundredth this is one of those stepping stones that earned a hundredth our group the reputation is said the Luftwaffe must have it in for this group and there were certain legends and myths that have been debunked lucky I checked with you the other night I said tell me was there any truth to this idea that the Germans fighters could look for the big square D on the tail of the b-17 and say aha it's the hundredth Bomb Group we're going to get their mission one of the crews left the formation due to battle damage and there was sort of an unwritten agreement between us and the wolf walkers that if you realized you could not make it back to your home base you could give up you could surrender and by lowering the landing gear this was a signal that you were surrendered so the German fighters instead of shooting you down then would come up on either side of you and escort you to the nearest airport you would land and be captured and become a POWs and swap the myth about our 100 bomb group is on this mission one of the crews did Lord Schneider year and did signify that it was the Lord surrender and when the German fighters came up on either side the gunner Shanda that never happened it has been proven by a British Martin middle bike that the crew that supposedly did that committed that awful sin wasn't even in that area and couldn't have done this but the story goes that because it was the 100-pound airplane that we were marked forever as targets when they lose one little opera has admitted the fighter pilots that we were publicness have admitted that they couldn't tell the difference from one group to the other and they didn't care they were out to knock down bombers and the closest bomber are the one that was most vulnerable because they had believed the formation was going to be there for his target why because knocking down the bottom took 10 min out of the war whereas knocking down a fighter when it took that one that'sa quickly they flew until that were killed they didn't have chores so they went after the Bombers and got double credit for every bomber that they killed but they did not focus but rarer to believe war so we just wanted to dispel that part of the myth if you came here thinking oh he's just going to tell us about the myths that that earned us does anything not so you've already seen that there was some irregularity in the formation the training the long period and what he talked about how the original original crews actually weren't combat ready he said they flunked and they had to have those replacement co-pilots brought in it's interesting I just wanted to give credit because I don't know if I'll create this this year he's one of our under other hundredth original cadre bomb crew members and we were at dinner and then roundtable last night with Alec he recounted his his big part of this Regensburg mission let me fast-forward a little bit because as as lucky said they think goal was to knock down bombers and you already know that lucky flew sunny over there and here we have a picture of sunny looking decidedly under airworthy by September 3rd the Glen die crew was not on the schedule to make a raid which was headed near Paris another fellow named Richard King took up sunny it was an available aircraft the goal is as many aircraft as you can unfortunately sunny took a flat first right and midships and the story is that they were able to make a wheels-up landing this another pie educate but as soon as the plane came down on the ground in France it exploded it's amazing that three people ended up in prison camps and one successfully conveyed that means that person somehow escaped capture and through the underground network was able to return to base in England September 6 was another maximum effort grave and this one was to Stuttgart it was going to be a lot like that Regensburg great and this was the briefing route now they didn't have Google Maps like I did but you know this was part of the the routine of a mission day you got up and you went to the bathroom and you went to breakfast and then he went to the briefing the route for the mission to Stuttgart which lucky in the Glen died crew also were information fly was was this they essentially formed up a little to the east of the red dot up there the represents Thorpe habits and then they flew south to Dungeness weather the closest points of land across the English Channel and their route was going to take her across France and then they were going to take a right turn and get to Stuttgart unfortunately that day the weather did not cooperate and the farther they flew across France the more the clouds accumulated until the time the very first planes in this huge 333 group Armada reached Stuttgart the ground was totally obscured some of the groups went around three times before they found an opportunity to fall the hundreds of Agra that they was further back in the bomber trailer a decision was made at some point to go secondary target however at that point the squawking Hawk crew ran into trouble in the nose of their farm aircraft because squawking Hawk was down for meetings that day so they took up an unnamed aircraft it was just a new plane that come across the ocean his replacement the Rita crew climbed in beat delaio as the Bombardier the plexiglass no stress angle the navigator right behind him and as they were attacked by swarms of war fighters fighters near Stuttgart their blazing away with their guns the top turrets going the ball turret at the bottom was going forward and suddenly somebody hears through the Interphone here they come the fight German fighter said swung around and then turned they were coming head-on at the reader group lucky was flying in the same formation houseware and as he said it was it was an opportunistic sort of attack by the Germans they knew they could he's not got that whole formation but their objective was to get as many bombers as they could cannon shells from the focke-wulf they were they're shown on the next slide they were bigger than what we were firing at then we fired 50 caliber I think they were firing 20 millimeter right one of the two of the cannon shells entered the nose exploded both Pete and Russ were so severely wounded you know bleeding profusely both of the men lost right eye Pete was partially paralyzed stunned russ was pricing the mobile he told me that even though his eye was gone he had shrapnel all through his body the thing that really hurt worse that's a little piece of shrapnel that had gone through his thumb nail crazy he managed to make sure the Pete was bundled up band each while this 45 degree below cold air is rushing through that broken nose and thrust fit decided I better see what's going on on the cockpit up in the cockpit there was mayhem Harry and Eve and the copilot was sitting there next to the window the red arrow shows where the 20 millimeter cannon shell went through his psychic big window he was right on the other side of that Plexiglas sumner reader was on the driver's side if he will to the aircraft and he saw Harry slump against the control wheel you see the the German shell here on the right to bigger one that went through Aries shoulder gave him a compound fracture exploded against the armor plate that was there for protection behind his seat and over the enormous wound in his chest what Harry did though a stay of the controls he knew that you kinda need two guys to fly these b-17s it's an exhausting job and they were only halfway they hadn't even made it to the target he knew his duty was to stay at the controls some of the reader asked the engineer to come and help Harry out of the copilot Stephen put it down in the hatch which is a opening down between the seats of the b-17 if you if you tore this one you'll see it you'd have to climb up through that little hatch way Harry was laid down the plywood board there he got up three times to return to his position until so weak from loss of blood he didn't move Russ angle climbed over Harry he came up and took a seat to that mangled copilot seat and he called out the readings he helps Sumner make sure that they were doing everything they could to stay in formation as long as they could Sumner was faced with the difficult realization that their oxygen had been shot out too so flying at 25,000 feet over Stuttgart and now following these other airplanes that are heading to a secondary target back near Paris but face the tough decision of I'm going to have to leave formation and like you would tell you that b-17 away from the formation as straggler is usually a lost cause nevertheless they had their choice they dope down to 13,000 feet where there was breathable air and they spent the next three and a half hours fighting their way back to England being chased by the Luftwaffe the whole time it must have been a real battle not only was it long no it was something they're having to wrestle the plane by himself at one point the the Germans came so close that the Sumner flew into a cloud he managed to make a complete u-turn and come back the other way and his invasive maneuvers were so extreme that at one point and this is debated by some the the b-17 executed what is called a split s and came out of it Russ by that time had been removed from the cockpit it was back in the radio room if you go through the b-17 you know something interest about the radio room is that the top is open the top was open but the plane goes over Russ who survived this basket actively goes help the Hope at the top of the radio room you know these stories were incredible at the time they were verified - enough of the extent that carried some there in rust all awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for their actions that they because some the reader is actually able to bring this airplane back to England he was in outbreaks without oxygen almost without fuel and he had to find a place just across the English Channel to let down he landed on a grass strip that was be prepared as a practice field with a d-day invasion something long enough to put a b-17 down that was the story of this welcome hot cruise last maximum effort you know if you picked up a newspaper in September 1943 you would see headlines about forts great this the fort's pounded this town for it's knocked out these airfields it was the squawk of hot crews turned to be in the headlines that day this one was a write-up from summers debriefing that was turned into a newspaper article published in stars and stripes picked up by the whereas United Press International and what worldwide the same day that news article was published Harry's mother received a different piece of paper at her front door Western Union telegram saying the Secretary of War regrets to inform you that your son has been killed in action fortunately not all the news in September was bad here's sunny we now have sunny too because we saw what happened to the original sunny and here is the glint I grew with John Lucas do again on the lower right end but you were a rare you introduced yourself as a rare breed if somebody who's not only here today and survived the war but to be part of this experience put you almost almost to being part of that first crew they completed 25 missions same time the simple reason that we got to practice when your crew was designated as the lead crew of the formation the copilot was removed and replaced by command pilot who was in charge of the entire formation the co-pilot then was designated to go back and fly and the tail gunner position so the first time by the device crew became the lead crew I was replaced and told to go fly and the tail cut position now mind you I had never fired a 50 caliber I had no training no inkling of what I was to do when I was designated as the fire control officer for the entire formation in the rear what somebody who thought this idea up would cook forgot the table ever could only communicate with the pilot over the intercom he has no connection or communication with anybody else and they formation so innocently a minute we were under attack I thought we're down on the triggers I guess I froze on the triggers I don't know but I burned out both barrels so for the rest of the mission i sat there with a nominal law just able to report their times as they came in and they did come in because at that point we were experiencing me1 tanks twin-engine fighter bombers from Walker that were armed with rockets and all they had to do was sit out in the rear the formation out of gun range and lob these rockets through our formation and they were devastated the Germans took quickly develops our vulnerable attack positions and the first was from the rear with rockets but the second was because in the F model which we went over with and flew originally and this isn't everybody here even sunny - was an F model the top turret gunner could come down to level and the ball turret Gunners guns could come up level but it left this boy that the Germans could get out and mine abreast in front of the formation 30 or 40 other everyone reminds FW 190s and fly directly through the formation you would look up suddenly and see them with the wings lighting up register Kenneth 20 middle of millimeter cannons she guns and the Rockets that they were equipped with the name sprayed through the formation they would proceed right on through with us out come back reform and do it again that was such an effective maneuver that it prompted us to develop the G model of b-17 which had a chin turret with twin caliber Nifty's underneath the Bombardier is known and that stopped that type of attack but their main mission and objective was to to have the black or the bumper of the fighter attacks inflict the sufficient amount of damage so that we forced out of the formation and when you could not keep up the formation to have a mutual protection of the other airplanes then you were a sitting duck your chances of survival receiver quite oddly it so happened many times we would go out and mass formation and parts of the same sweater would be unscathed untouched by black war fighters and prevented that was available as well another point of the exact same collection would be devastated maybe the full water of literally for the portraits of war and that's a great lead-in to what really was one of your most defining missions we talked about how maximum effort was a strategy maximum effort ended its first freeze phase of strategy in October largely during a period of seven days what's that is now remembered as black week began on October 8th of 1943 and lasted for the next seven days until October 14th lucky you were you were flying there at the beginning of black week you were in king bee that day I believe if all the records showed correctly and you had mentioned that one of your other die crewmates also was was sort of behind the mission count and that was elder Dickinson and he was flying ahead view in Piccadilly Lily on the mission to bread with that right and you were in what was called here beside its 24th mission up but I managed to corral the rest of the formation we lost we didn't lose but seven airplanes out of the entire formation of course of the mission but plan we turned on the bottom rod on this particular mission twelve airplanes out of the eighteen late formation were knocked out of the formation I was the only black was blinded this new crew as a command pilot instructor teaching them would like to be in combat I was the only flight leader left arrow so I fired a flare on the other five ships that were still flight formed on me and we tacked on to the ensuing wave of bombers from the ninety-fifth group who had lost an entire squadron and that's the only way that we got back but on that particular mission the nose of the aircraft that I was flying was struck by an any aircraft of charge just like the picture of this book and Hall and I sat there for five and a half hours with the cold wind blowing through and sustains they'll only physical damage that I endured and my entire tour frostbitten feet we had what we call four enemies black and we lost almost as many aircraft in flight as we did to fighters we of course had a fighters which were devastating and we had freezing and freezing was the other black flavor since reason those were major enemies if we could not identify the target visually under the rules of engagement we weren't permitted to bother after having fun are they all the way into the target for Alice suddenly to get to the target defined it was obscure the Bombardier wasn't allowed to drop we had to go to a secondary target if that was also close and it often was then we'd have to come back and drop our bombs in the chat so we wouldn't be landing because landing with about alarm was a very dangerous practice so we think that the English Channel today is literally paved with unexplored ordnance so now you can see a little bit this black week beginning with what the loss is lucky just described and just a couple days later perhaps the hundreds most notorious mission where 13 planes went out and only one paint back those sort of losses by the end of October were earning that money under threat mutation that idea that somehow this group was cursed that somehow this group being singled out it wasn't true but after October it did changed the way those maximum effort missions were scheduled and the philosophy from the top was we can't keep doing this because the losses are unsustainable I have a few statistics I'll show you here in just a moment sort of the rest of the story is squawking hawk it's more offices were out of commission because Sumner reader even though he was the pilot he had to get by shrapnel that exploded shelf in the cockpit he was unable fly for over four months but the enlisted man of squawking Hawk said we want to stay together and they were assigned to other pilots on November 5th their fate was sealed when four of them were up not his squawk and hop in another plane and that plane was battle damaged and the pilot bailed them out over German territory one evaded one died Connor Brewster on the lower left wearing a bandage he had a bicycle accident lived a few more weeks only to succumb to his parachute not only when he bailed out to James morasco and Frank Dolson ended up guests of the German Luftwaffe you know stall up just to sort of close up a little more the story Sonny to became a victim of a wheels-up landing fortunately lucky wasn't in that one either another crew had taken it up as a one time flight they had made it back from their bombing mission in Germany but were so they couldn't make it the whole way to thwart babbitt's they came in wheels up at near another base in England and the plane was salvaged for parts but soon there was a happy day there was one man from the squawking Hawk crew bought Loven waist gunner who completed his 25 missions lucky what he had an interlude from his flying of missions as a co-pilot and became an Operations Officer before reaching the 25th and that may be the last member of Glen dice crew right to complete your tour of duty Thor baths Presidente they dose their operations officer because my senior position as having more missions that they might have on the base but others crewmen were flying on their 24th so you never knew until the last mission was over but you could come back and shake hands kiss around and thank God that you were still alive there was seven as the as the war resumed in 1944 and this is wrapping up the story of the original crews that went over there in May of 1943 by March less than a year asked you had those new East b-17g models that lucky talked about you had a new man in charge of operation that was Jimmy Doolittle and the new policy that said we are sending our b-17s not by themselves in the German airspace but escorted by the powerful p-51 Mustang fighters and that made a lot of difference right after the first raids on Germany because the hundredth was one of the first groups that got the Germany Berlin that is the top brass general spots general Doolittle general LeMay kibble is that the third there's a fourth general they were all there lots of grass showed up a third bab and said one of the things they did was to present Sumner with his Distinguished Service Cross in person Russ ankle by that time was already back home States got the new glass eye he was training other navigators to go over he received his Distinguished Service Cross rather I'm ceremoniously one day by his commanding officer he said here this came for you in the mail Harry any Byrnes family was given a Distinguished Service Cross they gathered the little American Legion Hall in Harrison town for a ceremony and then squawk and Hawk had its own sort of high point it became the first b-17 in the hundreds ball group to have survived 50 combat missions and the day after it finished its 50th combat mission they put up a sign and said if you pay one British pound you can paint your name on that aircraft that's going back to the United States for a bond tour and I've told that a lot of people from our hundredth group could tell you exactly where these are their name on the fuselage that day a lot of the locals pinna their names on the aircraft and it did fly back here and it did make a bond tour Arrietty Burns family was able to see the plane but Harriet flood the ground crew sometimes gets overlooked as we tell stories from the cockpit and the Gunners every person I've met in the hundreds who was an officer said the ground crew deserves our undying thanks and praise and attention this was the ground crew that proudly kept squawking Hawk going during its 50 combat missions and all the practice points and you see that as part of the tribute the names of the original crew were painted on the weather for the trip home so let us let us you have been a wonderful occasion audience I hope you have enjoyed hearing Lucky's first and stories and maybe you've had a few dots connected in what you knew or didn't know about the operation of the Flying Fortress Bomb Group in combat England what I can tell you is if we look at just the reader through through the 20min the win over there that Memorial Day weekend 1943 a year later there were nine other who would be able to say they completed their tour and came home the ovens were attachments they were out of the war including submariner he eventually was rotated out sent home was being groomed as a ferry pilot in a c-54 according to legend he was being groomed as the personal pilot for general LeMay who was headed to the Pacific general LeMay was one of those generals and attendants that they his Distinguished Service Cross was being God remember that short story that little short story of Ares 14 names a hundred percent of them in five and a half months four casualties no longer fly and you wonder when you see the overall statistic of those original crews why would the name bloody hundred be applied and when you look at it just by the numbers just by the stories you've heard from lucky making that makes a little more sense today we are proud to still be remembering those sacrifices I talked about Thor babbitt's being a place you can go and experience today it's in the upper right hand corner the control tower museum has exhibits of some of the big battles and aircraft that you heard about today there's an entire exhibit our friends have put together for squawking Hawk lucky is our tireless spokesperson most recently appearing on this channel right around Thanksgiving time I know you're coming up in something else soon you've been interviewed you're on tape so are other veterans who are here today and ask us on the air if you haven't heard about it Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks and their production company are in the process of creating yet another miniseries very much like Band of Brothers was this one tells a story of the Army Air Corps and it is happening and it is real lucky do I've heard it said that you still have a mission that you want to complete and I put together this little collage and what I thought I've heard you talk about can you call it homefront heroes day I'd love to it seems very very strange to me that we have more today to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice in war we have veterans day where we celebrate the service of all of those involved branches who were they gonna form we have the fourth of July where we celebrate our freedoms that we think those of us should participate more preserves but we have never ever publicly recognized the tremendous contribution made to the war effort and still be made by civilians those who stayed long and went into the factories and the offices and out produced the world they kept the home fires burning why don't we honor that why don't we have a day where we set aside and big tribute to the F solutely remarkable contribution that they made to the Warriors otherwise we would not have prevailed in victory we would never have made it so I won't let you in your individual capacities and locations around the country will perhaps support our efforts to get a congressional day of proclamation of appreciation for a hometown hero [Applause] to complete the story of those 40 of my classmates that I who went to your third wedding members as bullets for us completed a tour that will give you some idea of our love Spectre 10% survivors so I am proud to have been a member of this organization from this origination or in the combat zone products have served my country but I want to tell you in all honesty we are not happy with the way the present generation is treating every freak [Applause] helper now now look this way [Music] [Music] you you

Channel: 100th Bomb Group Foundation

Views: 18,895

Keywords: World War II, 100th Bomb Group, Aviation History, WWII Veterans, Bloody Hundredth

Id: 3-vsW4uhXm8

Length: 74min 55sec (4495 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 22 2020