Emden, October 2, 1943
THE EIGHTH ATTACKED the U-boat supply ship at Nantes again on September 23rd, when the First Division launched the 303rd and a number of other groups against it. This time the smokescreen made it hard to see the aiming point, and the bombing was no better than on the previous raid. Afterwards, the enemy eliminated any chance of a further attack; Bud Klint wrote that “The Germans moved the ship farther up the river, according to Intelligence, and as far as I know it is still afloat.”*
By this time, however, the Eighth’s leaders were already looking to the next series of attacks against Germany itself. By September’s end, 200 new crews had arrived in the ETO to replace the 104 that had been lost on the month’s operations, and General Eaker now had 450 crews to fly 604 heavy bombers. This disparity would create hardships for the combat men, but it wouldn’t prevent the offensive from going forward.
September was also a time for new tactics. The always-cloudy skies over Europe had finally convinced the daylight bombing advocates that the Norden bombsight was not the only answer. The Eighth’s leaders borrowed from the British, and began to establish a “PFF” or “Pathfinder Force” built around the RAF’s H2S downward-looking terrain radar, a primitive device whose cathode ray tube was able to “see” terrain along rivers and coasts, where the contrast between land and water stood out sharply.
In August 1943 the Eighth formed its own PFF unit, the 482nd Group, composed of one B-24 and two B-17 squadrons. They would employ the same tactics RAF Bomber Command used over cloud-covered cities at night. The PFF ships would locate their target cities with H2S, and the other bombers would drop on “sky marker” flares released by the PFF ships at their aiming points over the city centers.
On September 27th, VIII Bomber Command ordered the first operational use of the PFF tactic on an attack against the port area and dock facilities of Emden, Germany. The mission netted good results for the lead wing of the First Division, which dropped in unison with the pathfinder lead, but it was not a good mission for the 303rd, flying as high group in one of the follow-on wings.
Lt. Bill McSween wrote: “We were going to do PFF bombing. P-47s were all over the sky as well as B-17s. The lead outfit ran off and left us. We made a turn approximately ten miles around with the target on our left. The target had 10/10 cloud cover. No bombs were dropped.”
303rd Bomb Group Mission Route(s): Emden, October 2, 1943. (Map courtesy Waters Design Associates, Inc.)
Yardbird-II, B-17F No. 42-5260, PU
A, lost on the October 2, 1943 mission to Emden. Note the .50-caliber machine gun in the reinforced .30-caliber ball socket in the Plexiglas nose. Note also the relocated right cheek gun. (Photo courtesy Melvin T. McCoy.)
Five days later, on October 2nd, the stage was set for a second PFF attack on Emden. Hullar’s crew would go on this one, and the men would witness a sight impossible to forget.
The Eighth sent 196 B-17s from the Third Division (the old Fourth Bomb Wing) and 161 from the First Division under the command of General Travis. Each force flew with one PFF B-17 from the 482nd Group. Hullar’s crew was in the First Division’s lead wing, flying Luscious Lady in the No. 6 position of the high squadron, low group. Flying above and to their right in the No. 7 slot was Lt. P.S. Tippet’s crew from the 360th Squadron in Yardbird II, B-17F 42-5260, a veteran Fort on its 43rd trip. Lt. Tippet had 18 raids under his belt and his bombardier had 24. The other eight crewmen were rookies on their third raid, and there was a photographer aboard on his very first combat flight.
The Group got off between 1305 and 1315 and the flight into the target was roundabout but relatively uneventful. Elmer Brown wrote that “P-47s escorted us all the time over enemy territory. It was a very long trip for them. They used extra gas tanks at first, and salvoed them. We flew around via the North Sea, then went south to the IP, then easterly, released the bombs, and then went northward out to sea again. Bombs were released on pathfinders for the first time. We had 10/10 undercast. They threw up barrage-type flak, but it was inaccurate.”
When the bombs went, Bud Klint couldn’t help but wonder where they would hit, but there was little mistaking what happened some six minutes after the target on the northbound, homeward leg. He described it this way:
“Our squadron had only one concentrated attack by enemy fighters. A FW-190 and an Me-109 broke across our right wing, so close that I could almost read the serial numbers on the ships. They took the No. 7 man with them as they broke away—shot his number three engine completely off and almost severed his right wing.”
Elmer Brown saw very much the same thing: “An FW-190 closely followed by an Me-109 made a head-on attack on our squadron. They got our No. 7 plane (tail-end Charlie). His No. 4 engine was on fire at first and it must have gotten to his gas tank because the whole right wing was aflame. Within a few seconds the No. 4 engine dropped off and the plane started down. A few parachutes came out but we don’t know the exact number.”
The rearward visibility in a B-17 was poor from the nose and equally bad from the cockpit, and it was the enlisted men in Luscious Lady’s rear who saw what really happened as Yardbird II began her final dive. George Hoyt remembers that “Right after the two German fighters slipped through, the next thing I saw was a B-17 just a few feet behind us with the No. 4 engine and wing engulfed in flames. He climbed a little behind us and I saw two guys jump out the open bomb bay doors. I saw their parachutes open immediately after they cleared the open bomb bay doors. One chute was burning. I saw it, very close. I knew what it meant, but I had no analytical reaction, no emotional qualms. I thought simply, ‘That’s the way it goes; get very alert on your gun, and don’t let that happen to you.’ Then the plane plunged downward out of my field of vision toward six o’clock.”
In the Lady’s tail, Merlin Miller saw everything to the very end: “We were flying along under fire, with another B-17 in the diamond position. All of a sudden one of his engines started flaming. I believe it was the right inboard, which is No. 3. There were flames in the engine and quite a bit of black smoke, and I could also see a white misty spray coming out from the trailing edge of his right wing. The plane pulled up and over to our left, a little above us and even ahead some till it was about 100 yards behind, close enough for me to get a real good look.
“A gunner stuck his head out the right rear door in front of the tail. He took a quick look and then jumped. He was hardly underneath the horizontal stabilizer when his chute popped open and he started to float way. He couldn’t have been more than about 20 yards behind the plane when the chute disappeared in a puff of smoke. I couldn’t believe it. It just vanished in a puff of smoke. Then another guy jumped out the waist and the same thing happened to him, almost exactly.”
“It was startling. I’d seen guys jump before, open their chutes, have their shoes fly off and be sagging in their harnesses from the speed they were going, but I’d never seen chutes pop open and then just disappear. I guessed when these guys pulled their ripcords, they were in that white misty spray of gasoline from the wing, and that it was burning, though I couldn’t see any flame. I made a mental note that if we ever got on fire and I had to jump, I would wait before opening my chute. The only other thing I could do was take a deep breath, swear to myself that fate would play that kind of a trick on a couple of fellows and then forget it!
“After that, the plane pulled away from us in a shallow dive to the left, with the wing burning more all the time. All of a sudden it was gone. There wasn’t enough left to stick in your hip pocket. It was amazing how a plane as big as a B-17, with a 104-foot wingspan and a 75-foot fuselage, and four giant engines, could all of a sudden be a big ball of fire and smoke in the sky. Then all I could see was just a little trace of smoke going toward the ground. It looked like paper fluttering down.”*
The Group continued up the northbound leg out to sea, then turned to a southwesterly course toward Cromer on the English coast and Molesworth. Nothing of consequence took place during the overwater flight, and the Group landed back at Molesworth between 1838 and 1858. Of the 18 ships that returned, six had suffered minor damage.
For the Eighth as a whole, the mission ended with mixed results. Yardbird II was the only B-17 lost by the First Division, and the Third Division only lost one as well, but the bombing had not been good. One of the 482nd Group’s H2S ships had released too early and many bombs fell short. The aim of the other was nullified by high winds in the target area, which scattered the smoke of the sky markers.
A month would pass before the Eighth would resort to PFF tactics again, but in the interim the Flying Fortresses would press their assault against the Reich in the bloodiest aerial battles of the Second World War. Hullar’s crew and the 303rd would be in the thick of them.