MOLESWORTH, HOME OF the 303rd “Hell’s Angels” Bomb Group, was a typical Eighth Air Force bomber base. Taking its name from a nearby English village, it was officially known as Station 107 and was situated about 70 miles north of London in the midlands of East Anglia. It was surrounded by hayfields and contained within its spacious confines all the facilities and support units necessary to service the Group’s four B-17 squadrons—the 358th, 359th, 360th, and 427th. The Base also served as Headquarters of the Eighth’s 41st Combat Bomb Wing, comprising the 303rd, the 379th Bomb Group located at Kimbolton four miles to the south, and the 384th Group at Grafton Underwood, some eight miles to the west.
From the air, Station 107’s dominant feature was its triangle of three runways. The field had a long, 7000-foot east-west main runway intersected at its western end by a smaller north-south runway. A third northwest-to-southeast runway intersected the other two and formed the final triangle leg. Ringing these in an irregular pattern were multiple taxiways joining 50 heavy bomber hardstands. The base’s heart was a large “technical site” of buildings situated northeast of the runway triangle and adjacent to the center section of the main runway. The site contained the control tower, a huge J-type aircraft hanger, two smaller T-2 hangers, and a complex of smaller structures east of these buildings that included 41st Wing Headquarters, Group HQ, Base Operations, officers’ and enlisted mess halls, and the buildings and barracks that belonged to the men of the 427th Squadron. It was here that Hullar’s crew began to settle in.
George Hoyt remembers those barracks well. “Some squadrons had steel Nissan huts, but most of our barracks were long, low, drab-looking wooden buildings with crude doors that had antique hinges and hardware. Inside we were assigned beds which had RAF ‘biscuit’ mattresses that came in three separate pieces. You needed a blanket under you as well as over you to keep the cold air from coming in between the ‘biscuits.’ For heat we had two pot-bellied stoves with a four-day ration of coal per week. Out the back door of our barracks stood the latrine in a separate building, and to the left was the ‘bomb shelter,’ a dugout with a mound of sod-covered dirt rising to about six feet.”
Molesworth Airdrome, Station 107, home of the 303rd “Hell’s Angels” Bomb Group. (Map courtesy Waters Design Associates, Inc.)
Merlin Miller recalls that there was no privacy in these accommodations. “The enlisted men’s barracks were just one big room with a small room at the end for the barracks chief. We shared our barracks with the enlisted men from another crew.”
The nearby officers’ barracks were built just like the enlisted men’s, but they were divided into four-man rooms. Elmer Brown remembers that “the officers of our crew shared one of these rooms with a single pot-bellied stove. There was another stove in our building, but we had the same coal ration as the enlisted men.” Everyone soon resorted to “midnight” coal requisitions. Brown recalls that this job was handled for the officers by Mac McCormick, while the Hullar crew’s enlisted men relied on two stalwarts from the other crew that shared their space: Sgt. Bill Watts and Sgt. Charlie Baggs, who flew with Lt. Edward M. “Woodie” Woddrop.
Though creature comforts were important to the crew’s well-being, far more vital was the ability of the group they were joining. The day they arrived, an exuberant Elmer Brown wrote: “The men were swell here, and have an excellent combat record. Have only lost 33 Forts in about 57 missions.” His instincts were right on the mark, for the crew’s new unit was one of the four “new” B-17 groups sent to General Eaker when his original bomb groups were reassigned to North Africa in late 1942. By this time the 303rd was one of the most able and experienced bomb groups in the entire Eighth Air Force.
Elmer Brown’s impression of the group was shared by almost every new bomber crewman who joined the organization. They included Lt. Paul W. Scoggins, navigator of Lt. Jacob C. “Jake” James’s crew, who had joined the 427th Squadron the previous May. Scoggins was from Tioga, Texas—“a very small place 65 miles north of the Ft. Worth-Dallas area,” and his pilot, “Jake” James of Valliant, Oklahoma, was “a good old country boy, heavy on the country.” Scoggins kept a diary, and when his crew reported in, he felt that “Everyone is so nice to us—it seems like they’d do most anything for our good.”
Lt. Bud Klint poses outside the Hullar crew’s officers’ quarters. The 427th Squadron’s enlisted barracks were virtually identical on the exterior. (Photo courtesy Wilbur Klint.)
An early photo of Hell’s Angels, B-17F 41-24577, the famous Flying Fortress from which the 303rd drew its name. A part of the 358th Squadron, she carried the Squadron code VK and the aircraft letter D, VK
D. Note the early. 30-caliber machine gun ball sockets in the Plexiglas nose, and the absence of the “angel on roller skates” nose art seen in many later photos of this aircraft. The 358th Squadron’s CO was Major Kirk R. Mitchell (seated in jeep). Mitchell was one of the 303rd,’s most accomplished formation leaders. (Photo courtesy John W. Hendry, Jr.)
When Lt. David Shelhamer arrived in the second week of June 1943, he likewise recorded that, “Frankly, from all indications as far as the loss of personnel, I think I’m in the best group, in the best damn squadron, in the whole ETO.”
The CO of the 427th Squadron was Major Edgar E. Snyder, Jr., of Van Wert, Ohio. A prewar officer who was with the 303rd from its inception, he was very “mission-oriented” and believes “the fact that I never had a crew of my own may have made a difference in the way I looked at things over there.” He describes the 427th as “a real ‘can do’ outfit with a tremendously aggressive and positive attitude. We had a lot of heavy depth in both the air and ground crews. The enlisted personnel in the 427th were practically all regular Army people, very experienced. The guys were awfully nice to new crews, and we tried to always indoctrinate them real well, despite the fact that we moved them along real fast to get them into things.”
These 427th Squadron veterans add much to the story of Hullar’s crew, but there were other combat men in the Group when they arrived whom they never met or barely knew, and their experiences are also an important part of this book. Brief introductions to them are in order now.
Most senior was Capt. Louis M. “Mel” Schulstad, a self-described “country boy” from North Dakota. Schulstad was one of the Group’s original cadre and served as Assistant Group Operations Officer in August 1943. Another member of the Group’s original cadre serving as part of Group Headquarters staff was Capt. Kenneth W. Davey, who was also Assistant Group Operations Officer and who served as Group Gunnery Officer, responsible for gunner training and “to see that the guns were operating at all temperatures.”*
At far right is Capt. Louis M. “Mel” Schulstad, Assistant Group Operations Officer of the 303rd, photographed after returning from one of the Group’s early missions to Wilhelmshaven. Fifth from left in the top row is Major Lewis E. Lyle, CO of the 360th Squadron. (Photo courtesy Louis M. Schulstad.)
The 359th Squadron had an excellent gunner in Sgt. Howard E. “Gene” Hernan, from the Peoria suburb of Creve Couer, Illinois. He manned the top turret and was flight engineer on Lt. Claude W. Campbell’s crew, ETO veterans since April 1943, with 19 missions behind them. Lt. Darrell D. Gust, from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, was the navigator of Lt. John V. Lemmon’s crew in the 358th Squadron. They had likewise been in the ETO since April and had 18 raids in. Also from the 358th Squadron were Lt. John W. “Jack” Hendry, Jr., a 21-year-old “loner” from Jacksonville, Florida, cast in the role of pilot and crew commander, and his right waist gunner, Sgt. John J. Doherty, from a farm 35 miles south of St. Paul, Minnesota. Hendry’s crew had been in the ETO since early July, had flown a number of missions, and had not come home without loss: on July 30th raid to Kassel, their ball turret gunner had been killed.**
The 360th Squadron included a number of replacement crews which had joined the 303rd in June 1943. Among them were Lt. Robert W. Cogswell’s crew, whose radio operator was Sgt. Eddie Deerfield, from Omaha, Nebraska; and the crew of Lt. Carl J. Fyler, another Midwesterner who hailed from Topeka, Kansas.
There was a final 358th Squadron crew whose presence will pervade these pages because of the large number of raids they flew with Hullar’s crew, and the number of crewmembers who kept diaries. Their pilot was 26-year-old Lt. Donald Gamble from Chickasha, near the heart of Oklahoma’s Indian Territory. Don Gamble kept a first-class diary distinguished by its use of the present tense. His navigator was Lt. William D. McSween, Jr., a 23-year-old who was born and raised on a northeast Louisiana farm; he also maintained a revealing mission notebook. Finally, there was the crew’s bombardier, Lt. Ralph F. Coburn, from Springfield, Massachusetts, who had a steady English girlfriend in the WAAF named Beryl, and the habit of noting the “significant” events which occurred on his missions.
At bottom left is Sgt. Howard E. “Gene” Heman, flight engineer of Lt. Claude W. Campbell’s crew in the 359th Squadron. Standing behind him is Lt. Campbell Sitting at far right is Sgt. Kurt Backert, the right waist gunner, and standing at far right is Lt. Boutille, the bombardier. The ship is The Old Squaw, B-17F 42-3002 BNZ (Photo courtesy National Archives (USAF Photo)).
Gamble’s crew had joined the 303rd in early June, and had five raids behind them when Hullar’s men reported in. Bill McSween closes this chapter with some comments about the 303rd in mid-1943.
“I will say without hesitation or qualification that we equaled or surpassed any other bomb group in the Eighth Air Force when it came to morale and leadership. Our Group CO, Colonel Kermit Stevens, was something else. I called him ‘Cussin Kermit.’ After each general mission briefing he took over as a one-man pep rally, and he let it all hang out! My Squadron CO, Major Kirk Mitchell, led 15 straight missions as group or wing lead without losing an airplane! Ed Snyder and Lewis Lyle were also outstanding air leaders.
“We trained hard and we had experienced crewmembers, particularly pilots, to do the training. My pilot and copilot each flew five combat missions with a seasoned ‘Instructor Pilot’ before we flew together as a crew.* You need to compare this to the story of a new crew that had joined our squadron around the time of Blitz Week in July of 1943. As usual, everybody who heard the news ‘fell out’ to greet the new troops.
Lt. Don Gamble’s crew in the 358th Squadron with their experienced “Instructor Pilot,” Lt. Dave Rogan. Pictured L-R, Top Row are: Lt. Walter Kyse, copilot; Lt. Dave Rogan, Instructor Pilot (Note the RAF uniform); Lt. William D. McSween, navigator; Lt. Don Gamble, pilot; Lt. Ralph Coburn, bombardier. L-R, Bottom Row, Sgt. Vaughn Norville, left waist gunner; Sgt. Richard Scharch, ball turret gunner; Sgt. William Gilbert, tail gunner; Sgt. Charles Schmeltzer, right waist gunner; Sgt. Hugh Bland, radio operator; and Sgt. Clyde Wagner, engineer and top turret gunner. Photo taken 20 July 1943. (Photo Courtesy Dave L. Rogan).
“When they got off the 6x6 truck we could see they were in a bad state, just as if they had survived a rough combat mission. They explained that they had been misposted to another group that had a high casualty rate, and that the CO had greeted them saying he wanted to be sure to meet them and to shake their hands, because some crews had come through that he had never had a chance to know. We calmed and reassured them that they had found the right outfit, telling them that “We flew 25 and went home.’”
Hullar’s crew would not have the luxury of an Instructor Pilot and not all 303rd crews “flew 25 and went home.” But the experience and esprit de corps of these Group veterans were critical to the Hullar crew’s prospects.
As they settled into their new home, it’s clear Hullar’s men had a fighting chance in the 303rd.