Bremen, November 29, 1943
THE EIGHTH’S LEADERS pressed their assault on Bremen again on November 29th. This time the plan called for blind bombing by 360 B-17s from the First and Third Divisions with 314 P-47s and 38 P-38s providing escort. The 303rd contributed 20 B-17s from the 358th, 359th and 360th Squadrons, so Hullar’s crew got to stay home. It was just as well for them, for this trip was to prove every bit as rough as the mission three days before.
The 384th Bomb Group was leading the 41st CBW, with the 379th flying high group and the 303rd flying low. As on some prior missions, lack of coordination among the groups in the Wing would again make a big difference in how the 303rd fared.
The 303rd formation was led by the 358th Sqdn., with Major Kirk Mitchell as Group lead in No. 865, B-17F 42-30865. The 359th Sqdn. was flying low, and the 360th Sqdn. was high. Flying as Deputy Group Lead at the head of the 360th Sqdn. was the experienced crew of Lt. Pharris Brinkley, aboard B-17F 42-5859. They are introduced by Guy Lance, the crew’s left waist gunner, this way:
“I was assistant engineer and left waist gunner. This was our twelfth mission…Because we were flying lead our regular bombardier was replaced for this mission by a lead bombardier [Lt. F.T. Clark]. The other nine men aboard had been together since our flight training began in Ephrata, Washington about six months prior to this jaunt. [They] were: Pharris Brinkley, pilot; John Parrott, co-pilot; Sylvester “Red” Becker, navigator; Arthur Worthington, engineer and upper turret; Richard Snyder, radio; Charles Ferguson, right waist; Harold Reid, ball turret; and William Rein, tail gunner.”
303rd Bomb Group Mission Route(s): Bremen, November 29, 1943. (Map courtesy Waters Design Associates, Inc.; mission route added by author.)
Flying above and to the left of Brinkley’s crew in Dark Horse was Lt. Carl Fyler and crew. As Fyler recalls, “This was to be my 25th mission. I was so battle weary that I hardly functioned, but I acted. I did what I thought was right. Maybe, subconsciously, I knew it would be over, one way or another.”
In addition to having on board Lt. John Petrolino, the regular bombardier on Brinkley’s crew, and an aerial photographer, Sgt. N.P.S. Egge, Fyler’s men included many regulars who had been with him from the beginning: Sgt. Bill Addison, engineer and top turret gunner, on his 25th raid; Sgt. Ray Ford, ball turret gunner; and Lt. George Molnar, navigator, both on their 24th raid; and Fyler’s two veteran waist gunners, Sgt. George Fisher with 23 missions at the right waist and Sgt. Martin “Marty” Stachowiack with 21 missions at the left. Also aboard was an experienced copilot, Lt. Robert Ward, on his 13th raid, and a new radioman, Sgt. Raymond O’Connell, on his second mission. Last but not least there was Sgt. Joseph R. Sawicki, a Polish American from Detroit with 14 B-17 missions to his credit who had joined Fyler’s crew after transferring to the 303rd from the RAF’s Free Polish Air Force.
Flying off Fyler’s right wing in the No. 5 high Sqdn. position was the rookie crew of Lt. F.B. Brumbeloe, in Red Ass, all of whom were on their third raid.
Major Mitchell’s Group Leader’s Narrative chronicles the mission up to the enemy coast: “Took off on time at 1116 hours. The Group assembled over the field at 1500 feet. Departed field at 1500 feet for Eyebrook. Rendezvoused with 384th Group over Molesworth and the 379th Group fell in on us 10 minutes after leaving Molesworth. Went to Splasher #4 and began climb as scheduled. The climb was terrifically fast. For 35 minutes I indicated from 155-158 MPH at 400-500 F.P.M. [Feet per Minute].
Lt. Pharris Brinkley’s crew standing before the 360th Squadron’s Red Ass, B-17F 42-5483, PU
F, lost with Lt. F.A. Brumbeloe’s crew on the 11/29/43 Bremen mission. Note “kicking jackass” nose art under cheek gun window. Pictured L-R, Top Row are: Lt. John Petrolino, bombardier (shot down with Lt. Carl Fyler’s crew on 11/29/43 Bremen mission); Lt. John Parrott, copilot; Lt. Sylvester “Red” Becker, navigator; and Lt. Pharris Brinkley, pilot. L-R, Bottom Row: Sgt. Richard Snyder, radioman; Sgt. Harold Reid, ball turret gunner; Sgt. Charles Ferguson, right waist gunner; Sgt. Guy Lance, left waist gunner; Sgt. William Rein, tail gunner; and Sgt. Arthur Worthington, engineer and top turret gunner. (Photo courtesy Hell’s Angels Newsletter.)
Lt. Carl J. Fyler’s crew late in their tour posing in front of the 360th Squadron’s Alley Oop, B-17F 42-5854, PUC. Note the unconventional cheek gun and window just behind the aircraft’s nose. Pictured L-R, Top Row are: Sgt. George Fisher, right waist gunner; Lt. George Molnar, navigator; Sgt. Bill Addison, engineer and top turret gunner; Lt. S. Gibson, bombardier (not on 11/29/43 mission); Lt. P. Tibbits, copilot (not on 11/29/43 mission); and Lt. Carl J. Fyler, pilot. L-R, Bottom Row are: Sgt. Joseph R. Sawicki, tail gunner; Sgt. G. Crowder, radioman (not on 11/29/43 mission); Sgt. Ray Ford, ball turret gunner; and Sgt. Martin Stachowiack, left waist gunner. (Photo courtesy Carl J. Fuler).
Crossing the North Sea and still were dropping behind. When the lead Group turned into the enemy coast, we cut them off on the turn and closed on them indicating 155 IAS at 26,500 feet…We had dense, persistent ‘con’ trails from 17,500 feet on up over the North Sea and on over the continent. East of us at this time lay altostratus clouds up to about 23,000-24,000 feet. Below this layer was a deck of strata-cumulus of 7/10-9/10*s. We closed into low Group position about the time we crossed the enemy coast at 26,500 feet and after catching up to the lead Group we were indicating about 140-145 and overrunning. The P-47s picked us up about the time we crossed the enemy coast. Our course took us right along the top of a thick but not too dense cloud layer and at least twice we went through wisps of cirrus tufts of cloud at 27,500 feet. We were flying just above the cloud layer and if we had been in proper Low Group position on the Lead Group, our formation would have been down in the clouds.”
The Group suffered a 25% loss in strength from aborts before reaching the enemy coast, due in part to the “terrifically fast” climb to altitude Major Mitchell reported. The first abort occurred in the 358th Sqdn., some 30 minutes after leaving the English Coast. Capt. Merle Hungerford took Connecticut Yankee, B-17F 42-29629, out of the No. 6 slot in the lead squadron after becoming sick to his stomach following takeoff. “I went on to midchannel hoping to get over it.”
The low 359th Sqdn. lost its No. 5 and No. 7 ships—B-17F 42-3448, piloted by Lt. H.J. Eich, Jr. and Nero, B-17G 42-39807, piloted by Lt. W.M. Goolsby—three minutes off the enemy coast and right off the enemy coast when both “couldn’t catch formation” because “during the climb, the last element of the Low Squadron was forced to enter the clouds, causing them to string out their element and also due to the Group Leader losing contact with the Wing formation and using excessive MPs [manifold pressures] and RPMs in an attempt to catch up with the Wing.”
In the high 360th Sqdn. Lt. W.M. Cavanaugh took B-17G 42-39781 home when he “was unable to maintain place in formation without using excessive manifold pressures and RPMs.” Excessive vapor trails which caused a heavy buildup of ice on the pilots’ windshield and on the ship’s turrets also contributed to his decision. Lt. W.C. Heller took Alley Oop, B-17F 42-5854, out of the No. 7 slot and back to Base after the No. 4 engine started losing oil pressure and began to smoke badly. “Excessive manifold pressures had been used and there was every reason to assume the trouble indicated.”
Had the Wing’s progress across the Channel been better, at least four of these five B-17s could have continued on. How much of a difference their defenses that would have made can never be known.
The next leg of the trip went better. Major Mitchell wrote that: “We continued on to the I.P. without experiencing any flak or fighter attacks having excellent fighter support with us.” However, “‘Con’ trails were very persistent. Windshields and nose iced up and guns froze up. At the I.P. a left turn was made and bomb run was set up.”
It was at this point that the Group formation suffered another loss, causing Carl Fyler to believe that “as I approached the target there were only two of us left in the top formation.” Guy Lance explains what happened, and the narrative will follow Brinkley’s crew and ship to the end of their mission before returning to the main formation.
“Flak was heavy from the IP. Goering had his bunch up in force. The combination knocked down several of our B-17s in the immediate target area. As we approached the target we lost an engine which the pilots feathered. Because we could no longer keep up to the formation Brinkley turned the lead over to the deputy leader and we headed for cloud cover en route back to England.
“Except for occasional flak bursts we encountered no opposition until we broke into the clear near the Frisian Islands. Several FW-190 fighters were waiting for us and they hit us from 12 o’clock. The B-17 fell into a near vertical dive from about 22,000 feet.
“The pilots and the engineer together, hanging onto the columns, finally persuaded the airplane out of the dive. As they fought for control I lay on my side facing the waist door. I vividly recall looking at my chest pack laying about three feet away. Centrifugal force kept me glued to the floor. Even if I had reached the chute I would have been unable to overcome the gravitational pull to bail out.
“As we were leveling off the fighters pressed for the kill, coming in on our tail from between four and seven o’clock. Worthington had not yet reentered his turret when a 20-mm exploded between his twin 50s disabling his gun position. My gun was now inoperable. Ice and frost had built up on the receiver and I could not budge the charging handle, which left me helpless to assist in our defense. Ferguson at right waist and Rein at the tail were getting most of the action. The plane was being torn apart by 20-mm cannon and 13-mm machine gun fire from the FW-190s.
“In the initial attack Rein was hit in the left shoulder. During the dive his gun sight glass frosted over and he continued the fight without a sight. He was then hit in the left leg and left arm. Meanwhile Ferguson was bleeding profusely from the nose and mouth. He had taken 20-mm fragments in the face but kept firing throughout the ordeal. I was hit in the left forearm by 20-mm shell fragments and had taken a 13-mm machine gun slug in the left thigh. Snyder at the radio was hit in the wrist as he worked at his position. The ball turret glass was obscured with oil and Harold Reid could not see to fire, which was rather inconsequential, because the attacks were from the high positions. Reid spun his turret and opened the hatch into the waist just as a 20-mm exploded with shrapnel hitting him in the arm. He ducked back into the relative safety of the turret and snapped the hatch shut.
“The fighters repeatedly attacked until suddenly we saw an orange flash behind us and the attacks ceased. In all probability Rein blew an FW-190 out of the air and the others, for whatever reason, decided to go home.
“Our B-17 still flew but her ordeal was not yet over. As we flew over one of the Frisian Islands at almost ground level, German machine and flak gunners opened up on us. Rein returned the fire. The plane had so many holes in it by this time we had no idea whether the ground fire did further damage.
“We were now over the North Sea free from enemy fire. I went back to the tail and assisted Rein to the radio room where we were all now assembled with the exception of the pilots. Those of us who could still function did what we could to administer first aid, tearing up a parachute for bandages and compresses. Ferguson, though badly wounded, took over the radio to send SOS messages. Assessment indicated that cables were damaged which made control difficult. The life rafts were destroyed. Number 1 engine had been lost over Bremen. Number 2 was maintaining power. Number 3 caught fire and the prop was feathered. Finally the fire went out. Number 4 engine was running rough requiring constant throttle manipulation. The pilots dared not feather it because whatever assistance it could offer was badly needed. We were fighting for altitude.
“Except for the radio everything that could be pried loose was thrown overboard to lighten the plane. That included guns, ammunition, oxygen bottles, parachutes, flak suits, helmets, and boots. Gathered in the radio room, we sat braced against the forward wall in ditching position. It was now almost totally dark. Following Brinkley’s instructions, Reid and I moved back to the waist windows to watch for a friendly ship we might ditch near. We passed within a few hundred feet of a freighter but could not identify it and Brinkley opted to go on. The seas were rough for ditching and with less than two good engines it would have been extremely hazardous to attempt turning to look over the freighter.
“When finally we cleared the English Coast, we were directly over a new air base at Ipswich. Worthington had to crank down the main landing gear. The tail wheel refused to come down. The pilots made a two-wheel, near-perfect landing. As the plane stopped we pushed and pulled one another to safety as quickly as possible, fearing the plane would burst into flames.
“John Parrott kissed the ground. Reid noted, ‘This is enough to make a man think about giving up flying.’ Every gunner flying to the rear of the bomb bay was wounded and hospitalized. All recovered to resume flying status…Our original bombardier, John Petrolino, was not as lucky as we were. He was flying with Carl Fyler.”
Fyler’s ship was flying with the rest of the Group formation into Bremen’s “intense and accurate flak” and then into a hornet’s nest of German fighters, who were aided by particularly dense, persistent contrails. The Group met between 50 and 125 enemy aircraft—FW-190s, Me-109s, Me-110s, Me-210s, Me-410s, Ju-88s, and even Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers, firing machine guns, cannons, and the air to air rockets the B-17 crews called “rocket guns.” Carl Fyler picks up the narrative from here:
“As we dropped our bombs on the target the flak hit us [and Red Ass]. The copilot, Bob Ward, was wounded in the face. Another burst hit the tail section. My ship lurched up violently. Both waist gunners had been thrown against the roof, and then slammed down on the floor, which was littered ankle deep in empty shell casings. The two engines on our right wing were damaged. Bob shut them down and feathered the props. I did not know that the right stabilizer and part of the right wing were gone. Later, the third engine caught fire. I was flying on only one engine, on the left wing. The ship nosed up, turning to right. I ended up putting both feet on the control to hold the nose down. I knew we were in deep because I could not steer to the west, and home.
“Then the FW-190s hit us. One came past very close, and I thought he had hit me. He was still firing as he passed our left wingtip. S/Sgt. Bill Addison, the top turret gunner, was hit in the thigh by a 20mm shell. He was slammed out of his turret and onto the flight deck. He looked dazed, as he lay bleeding on the floor alongside me. Other shells passed through the cockpit and the navigator and I were hit. There was blood running down my back and puddling in the bucket seat. I did not know the condition of the rest of my crew because the intercom had quit working. I motioned to Bob and Bill to get out. They went…I continued to try to fly west. No luck. I could hear one gun in the nose still firing, though it was firing very slowly for a machine gun. By now the ship was in a downward spiral to the right. I could see things on the ground, rotating. At last I decided it was time for me to go!”
Carl Fyler was on his way to a rough landing in Nazi Germany, where he was to spend the rest of the war in very difficult conditions of captivity. Bombardier Lt. Petrolino parachuted safely and escaped injury, ending the war as a POW. Navigator Lt. Molnar recovered from his back wound and also survived as a POW, as did engineer Sgt. Addison. Copilot Lt. Ward survived too, though he lost an eye from the 20mm wound to his face.
Less lucky were the men in the middle of the aircraft. Though Sgt. O’Connell, the radioman, reportedly bailed out the bomb bay, he is listed as KIA, as is Sgt. Egge, the photographer. Sgt. Ford, the ball turret gunner, was killed by gunfire at his battle station: His remains were found in the wreckage of Dark Horse where it crashed 25 miles SW of Bremen. The same was true of Sgt. Sawicki, the tail gunner, whose body was found with his left arm missing from the elbow down.
Therein lies a tale of true heroism, which Carl Fyler learned of first hand from Sgt. Marty Stachowiak, the left waist gunner, when Fyler met him at a repatriation camp at the end of the war. For it was only due to Joseph Sawicki, who looked first to save his comrades rather than try to save himself, that Stachowiak and George Fisher, the other waist gunner, did not die in the aircraft along with the ball turret gunner. The story of what happened is well related by Robert A. Hand, Sr., a 303rd veteran and artist who interviewed Carl Fyler for a painting of the incident and who also prepared an account of it under Fyler’s guidance. Part of Hand’s account is quoted below:
“A burst of flak hit the plane, tearing off the right horizontal stabilizer, part of the right wing, and kill[ing] both right engines…In the tail section, S/Sgt. Joseph Sawicki was struck by the flak burst that tore away his left arm below the elbow and that also inflicted mortal wounds to his mid-section. Bleeding profusely and in unimaginable pain, he crawled forward to the waist section to find both waist gunners, Sgt. Fisher and S/Sgt. Marty Stachowiack, wounded and dazed on the floor of the aircraft. They had suffered multiple wounds and each had a broken arm.
“With his last ounce of energy, he managed to buckle a chest pack chute on each and drag them to the waist door. Pulling the hinge-pin cable, he kicked out the door and wrestled both gunners to the exit, literally booting them out of the faltering aircraft into the minus 50°C air outside. They were able to pull their own ripcords and safely parachuted into enemy territory. Sgt. Sawicki collapsed from his wounds and went down with the flaming Fortress.”
The end of Red Ass was similar, but less well documented. The ship was damaged by flak and finished off by fighters, and came down near the town of Renslage, Germany. Four of Lt. Brumbeloe’s crew were KIA, and the rest became POWs.
Major Mitchell’s Group Leader’s narrative ends this mission account: “After we bombed, the 384th Group dropped down 1,000 feet and were in the top of the overcast which would have put us down in it. We went down into it but since the fighters were working us over, I climbed back up on top of the overcast. I did not see the Lead Group again but came on home letting down over the North Sea without difficulty and arrived back at Base at 1717 hours. The friendly fighters stayed with us until we left the enemy coast.”
It had not been a good mission, for the Group or the Eighth as a whole. The 303rd claimed three German fighters destroyed, one probable, and two damaged, but the lead navigator believed that the Group’s bombs “fell about 12 miles west of Bremen after the formation had passed over the City.” Less than half the total bomber force—a mere 154 B-17s—managed to unload at all. Many groups were stymied by cloud tops running to 29,000 feet that seriously disrupted their formations, and when the day was done there were 13 missing B-17s.
November 29, 1943. Despite loss of his left arm at the elbow and grave abdominal wounds, Sgt. Joseph R. Sawicki, tail gunner on Lt. Carl J. Fyler’s crew, boots the two wounded and disabled waist gunners, Sgts. George Fisher and Martin Stachowiack, to safe parachute landings over Nazi Germany. Sawicki then collapsed of his wounds and was found dead in the wreckage of Dark Horse, the crew’s B-17. Up to the present day Carl Fyler has been unrelenting in his efforts to secure a posthumous Medal of Honor for Sawicki’s extraordinary actions “above and beyond the call of duty” On this mission. Illustration reproduced from an original color painting by Robert A. Hand, Sr. Copyright © 1997 Robert A. Hand, Sr. (Used with Permission).
The fighter escort fared even worse. The 55th Group was savaged by the loss of seven Lightnings, and nine Thunderbolts fell. German losses were put at 30.
The Battle of Bremen was proving to be a bloody affair.
