BRIAN O’NEILL HAS chosen my favorite subject, “the combat crew,” the lowest and the most important element of Bombardment Aviation.
The 303rd Bomb Group, activated just after Pearl Harbor, had the good fortune to be selected as one of the first groups to go into combat with the Eighth Air Force in England. Formed in January 1942 at Boise, Idaho, it was scheduled to move to England in June 1942. This gave it a high priority for personnel and aircraft, at the highest echelons of the Army Air Forces. Squadron Commanders on up were assigned from the most experienced senior people with bombardment and reconnaissance backgrounds.
Unfortunately, this proved to be the early downfall of the organization; with the rapid expansion of the Air Force, these senior people kept moving on to other forming units. A lack of leadership at the Group Commander’s level prevented the 303rd from ever becoming combat-ready. Squadrons with senior commanders fought for resources. Those who were to be the combat crews had to fend for themselves. Guidance and control from the top were sorely needed.
The Operational Readiness Test given to the 303rd in May 1942 was a total disaster, and the group was virtually broken up as key people were sent to other units that were scheduled for combat soon. The group was bounced from Boise, Idaho, to Alamogordo, New Mexico, to Munroc Lake, California, to Biggs, Texas, and to Kellogg, Michigan. It was fortunate for the crews who were left that the group’s ground echelon remained intact during this period. The ground echelon was made up of highly qualified enlisted men and professionals from the civilian world. They were the salvation of the organization.
Desperate to augment the Eighth Air Force’s attempts to get into the air war against Germany, the Air Force shipped the Group’s ground echelon to Molesworth, England, in September 1942. The flying echelon, without any readiness inspection, left Kellogg Field for England in October 1942. We began combat flying in November, far from being combat-ready. Many crews, including pilots, had not been formally checked out. This was a very agonizing period for the group, as our original crews had heavy casualties and replacement crews and aircraft were not available for many months. Thank God for that wonderful ground echelon. They hung in there and produced the best record in the Eighth as far as aircraft combat readiness went.
We began to get good replacement crews in the summer of 1943. Hullar’s crew was one of the first we received that had been properly trained in the United States. McCormick, this crew’s bombardier, taught me to be a bombardier. As the new Group Deputy Commander for Air Operations, I latched onto these people and can vouch for the tremendous contribution they and all the other replacement crews made not only in the 303rd but in all the other bomb groups of the Mighty Eighth.
The Hullar crew’s tour spanned the end of the survival period of the 303rd and the beginning of the real bombing phase of the air war. Brian O’Neill has realistically portrayed, through diaries, archival records, and authentic descriptions, what a typical crew thought and did during those days of fierce fighter attacks and flak, when thousands of crews were destined to go down. Those who lived through the experience, and those who made it through their missions, will attest to the accuracy of human behavior under tremendous stress that is portrayed here—and all readers will become engrossed in the story of this crew’s fight to survive.
Lewis E. Lyle
Maj. Gen., USAF, Ret.