Bill Chapman had a choice. Headquarters MAAF (Mediterranean Allied Air Forces) offered him command of either the highly successful 321st Bomb Group or the “Unlucky 340th” Bomb Group.
It was March 1944, two months before Joseph Heller's arrival on Corsica. The 340th Group had been suffering. Its morale was at a low point due, in part, to the fact that it had lost two of its past three commanders, one shot down and killed on a mission and the second shot down and taken prisoner for the duration of the war. Its lack of bombing accuracy was notorious. Their B-25s were desert war-wearies complete with desert camouflage. They were C & D models of the B-25 and were outfitted with outdated, manually released British Mark IX bomb sights that were preset and allowed no fine-tuning. Only one aircraft in the outfit sported the highly desired and fanatically guarded American Norden Bomb Sight, the king of accuracy.
Bill chose the 340th.
On 15 March 1944 I assumed command of the 340th Bomb Group, and on 16 March lava started flowing down from the north side of Mt. Vesuvius. It was predicted that a church steeple in a small town, in the path of the lava flow, would fall down at 1606 hrs. on 21 March.
Major Joe Ruebel, assistant operation officer, and I drove on the 21st from our Pompeii base, on the south foot of Vesuvius, around to the north slope just in time to see the church steeple collapse exactly as predicted. We watched, for a short time, the town being slowly engulfed by a molten wall of slow-moving lava about 100 feet thick. The lava wall was black except for when the front sheared off as it moved, revealing a red molten interior, which rapidly turned black as it was exposed to the air. The power required to move such a mass is unbelievable.
As Joe and I returned around the east side of Vesuvius, toward our airdrome, Vesuvius blew her top (1725 hrs.). Black crud and corruption rose to what we estimated as 20,000 feet before it spread, severely restricting visibility in all directions, particularly toward our base. The wind coming from the northwest blew the airborne debris to the southeast, over the 340th and on for 200 miles, toward Bari on the Adriatic side of Italy. It created its own fog and darkness under this stream of lava dust and clinkers up to basketball size. Within minutes any thought of getting aircraft airborne was impossible. We couldn't even find them. It was also impossible to assess accurately the damage, which was accumulating rapidly.
In addition to keeping the staff of the 57th Bomb Wing advised of our deteriorating situation and needs, I called my old office at HQ MAAF in Caserta about 2300 hours, and by daylight we had US Army trucks streaming in from many places. Some even came from the front lines at Monte Cassino.
.We managed to salvage just about everything except our now-worthless shredded canvas and our aircraft. They were severely damaged and mired in 18-20 inches of ash. We moved our operations to the Guado airfield at Paestum, Italy, south of Salerno. With the B-25s borrowed from the 321st, the 340th flew a 24-ship mission just four days after Vesuvius erupted.
In hindsight, this violent and scary event was a blessing in disguise. No one was hurt. We got rid of all of the desert camouflaged B-25Cs and Ds fitted with British bomb sights, and received rapidly from the Replacement Depot in Tunisia new B-25Js with the supersecret Norden sights, which were immensely more accurate.
This was a big turning point in the fortunes of the 340th Bomb Group.1
General Robert Knapp recalled how the Norden was so highly protected that in class, instead of a manual on its operation, the students took notes and sketched from the blackboard. At the end of the class, the instructor retrieved the notes. The next day the was scenario repeated. By the end of the course the students had memorized its operation. Bill also offered a memory, that of the B-25. It was to describe that aircraft as” the noisiest, the damnedest, the coldest, the hottest. But it was the sturdiest. It was the best.”
The famed and highly secret American Norden bombsight made pinpoint bombings possible, 1944.
Bill Chapman was the right man for his job. His birth, 21 years after his brother, Carl, died in babyhood, came as first a shock, then a blessing. Arriving so unexpectedly, and in truth, somewhat embarrassingly, to parents in their forties, Bill was doted on. His father, William Henry Chapman, was a Michigan railroad engineer who, although he dealt with a powerful coal-fed, black-soot-producing locomotive on his runs, always returned to their charming Victorian home on the corner of tree-lined Orange Street, meticulously clean after showering and changing into fresh clothing before leaving work. His white nails belied his occupation. His mother, Minnie Lee, of Robert E. Lee ancestry, often taught piano. Their genes combined to give this handsome, dark-haired son a creative mind with an enviable ability to focus.
Bill set his goals and then accomplished them. From a young age he shouldered five years of a paper route in his Jackson hometown. He became an Eagle Scout, a summer camp counselor, and he attended Jackson Junior College. He worked in the library after school, where he honed his lifelong passion for reading (at his passing, his fifty-two current magazine subscriptions affirmed this fact) and, in the stacks, discovered the West Point Military Academy. Bill's many military ancestors stretched back to America's Revolution and Civil War so, even though he had no personal knowledge of anyone who had followed this path, his pairing with West Point was, perhaps, destined.
Entering West Point, with its unbending traditions and expectations, he found that the instructors provided ample opportunities to round out their cadets. He set goals. One became the men's chorus. Bill saw how the West Point chorus took trips to perform. He wanted trips.
When the try-outs for the chorus opened, he joined the long line of waiting cadets, each dressed with painstaking fastidiousness in his pin-neat, grey-black-and-gold wool uniform, to audition. The choir director, Mr. Myers, sat at a piano, and each auditioning cadet would sing “Glory to God!” Four brief syllables and the pronouncement was either Yes or No. OK or Next.
As Bill recounted, “I had been in the church choir several years. I hit my best note and I thought this was a breeze. There would be no problem. There was a problem. I got thrown out. The guy behind me had the biggest voice of all. He was a bass and I was a second tenor kind of thing. He let out a beller — didn't sound like any tune at all but he really made a lot of noise and Myers said, ‘OK.’ I thought this was a hell of a note, so I went around to the back end of the line again and this time I let him have it, and he said ‘OK’.”
That second time around, Bill's resounding, full-throated, strong voice boomed it out — volume they wanted, volume he would give them, and a spot in the chorus they gave to him. And those two weekend trips to New York.
The choir also permitted Bill a bit of independence. Instead of joining the required formation that marched cadets to their seats in church and, again, marched them out after the final Amen, he, now being a chorus member, had privileges. “I could walk up like a human being. And I could walk out.”
Then there was the football team. “Years earlier I had injured my knee and the doctor said I would not be able to do running any more and he recommended swimming. So I swam for a long time — at camps, intermediate school, high school, and junior college. Then I discovered I was doing better at running. West Point did not know I had that injury or they wouldn't have admitted me in the first place. I got word from upperclassmen that if you got on the football team, you got to eat at the training table. Sold me on that. You did not have to sit at attention and could eat all you wanted. I could eat five, six, seven steaks at a time. If I worked hard at it during practice, I could knock off thirteen, fourteen pounds. On the field all that water sweated out and we would come in ravenous.” He maintained his trim build and played a mean football tackle for four years to have access to that coveted training table.
This young man, with his supposedly wounded and limiting knee, also took in stride four years of swimming and track as well as the less physically challenging Chess Club and Cadet Orchestra, while becoming a rifle and pistol sharpshooter. A striking, engraved presentation saber for ranking first in engineering drawing attested to his attention to academics. It was a fast course, he remembers. “You didn't stop to sharpen your pencil.”
As his 1935 West Point Howitzer yearbook inscribed, “In Bill you see a man who accomplishes what he sets out to perform. Give him enough time to make out his ‘poopsheet,’ and he asks odds of no man.”
The 340th Bomb Group was fertile ground for such a commander, and its turning point accelerated as he began initiating necessary changes to the performance of missions as well as to the men's confidence in their abilities.
Bill immediately recognized the need in this somewhat shaky “Unlucky 340th” for an extreme morale makeover. He would start at “home.” He had a large, bold, and emphatic wooden sign built on site and installed near the base entrance, which read in spine-stiffening and prophetic letters:
Operations
340th Bombardment Group
(Medium)
The Best Damned Bomb Group There Is
Product of the USA
Reminiscing about this structure, George recalls, “He knew when a visitor came to see us, that we would strive to live up to those words, and he knew when we were out in front of that sign, on a mission or whatever, we would do our darndest to make those words true — and we did!”
Bill quickly swung his attention to improving the group's bombing accuracy. This was where success was imperative and efforts could not be lukewarm. Germany had to be put on a defensive rather than offensive stance. The 340th's piercing focus had to be on how to break the vital lines of supply and communications with the German army and its allies and then to continually keep them broken. Germany could be crippled, but not without solid work, increasing talent, and a passionate drive to succeed, which would require of each man maximum effort. The focus was to keep Germany off balance and struggling to repair, to catch up.
The 340th tightened its belt as Bill honed in on improvements. He started by assigning extra schooling to the lead crews. They were to practice dropping Blue Bombs on an island off Corsica. Blue Bombs were sand-packed practice bombs weighing 100 pounds each. Lead crews were now required to drop twelve Blue Bombs after every mission. Accuracy improved.
Two years previous, the 340th had provisions for a skeet range in their aerodrome; however, those provisions had never been implemented. Fodder for Bill. Shortly after his arrival, he set it in operation. As with the Blue Bombs, the purpose of the skeet range, now a weaponry device, was to increase accuracy. Up to this point only fighter pilots had access to practice training, while the gunners had virtually nothing.
The now-functioning range gave these gunners a vehicle to increase their familiarity with some of their weapons in a non-combatant situation. This range served multiple purposes. The men found it interesting and pleasurable as their skills increased. They enjoyed the mixing and competing together — pilots and gunners, enlisted men and officers. During this period the 340th skeet range served as an enjoyable yet competitive supplemental means to a deadly end. And accuracy improved.
Now, this was just too good for Joe Heller to pass up. In Catch-22's version, Joe indulges General Dreedle, who defined the words of Mark Twain, “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” and cheers on Catch-22's Lieutenant Dunbar, “A true prince,” says Yossarian. “One of the finest least dedicated men in the whole world.”
General Dreedle had thrown open Col. Cathcart's private skeet-shooting range to every officer and enlisted man in the group on combat duty. General Dreedle wanted his men to spend as much time out on the skeet shooting range as the facilities and their flight schedule would allow. Shooting skeet eight hours a month was excellent training for them. It trained them to shoot skeet.
Dunbar loved shooting skeet because he hated every minute of it and the time passed so slowly. He had figured out that a single hour on the skeet shooting range with people like Havermeyer and Appleby could be worth as much as eleven-times-seventeen years.
For Dunbar his perilous life seemed to stretch if it were filled with periods of boredom and discomfort. (pp. 37-38)
With its eye still on the accuracy prize, the 340th's increasingly creative mind fashioned the homemade “Squirt Gun Turret,” another war toy. The squirt gun turret worked like this: A post, anchored in the ground, carried a 5- to 8-foot arm with a model airplane attached to its furthermost end. A grease gun with a firing range of 15 to 20 feet was filled with water and mounted on a pivot. To enable the gunner to determine direct hits, the water was tinted green. To increase the degree of difficulty, the airplane's speed was continuously altered and a cam was added to the arm to infinitely vary the flight pattern. The object of this exercise was to emphasize the importance of leads: how much advance lead to give an aircraft flying at certain heights and speeds to insure a direct hit. And accuracy improved.
The squirt gun turret soon became a competitive diversion, generating an intersquadron competition in the midst of the war. It was but another example of the continually stressed importance for the men to keep their minds turned to improving, improvising, and inventing survival techniques. Always they were encouraged to do the best they could with what was available, to keep minds open to new ideas; to try it — it might just work.
Bill now stepped into more difficult and much more dangerous waters, waters that could suck under the very lives of him and his men. He originated a military strategy that was referred to as the “straight and level bomb run.”
Earlier on, pilots, after a short turn toward the target, had relied on their maximum evasive and protective maneuvering skills — the banking, climbing, dropping, and rolling — to confuse enemy anti-aircraft units, before leveling out for the 5-10 seconds needed to drop their load. This, of course, was safer — but not effective. Now change was in the air.
As a mission took flight it was composed of from 6 to 78 aircraft destined for a specific bombing site. These aircraft were clumped tightly in boxes of six ships. Following the lead aircraft, the other planes would dip, by the thickness of one plane, below the one before it. This enabled those pilots to better see ahead and made the target considerably more difficult for the enemy.
Full view of two men on Squirt Gun Turret.
Sighting the target. The unique “Squirt Gun Turret Trainer” was invented by the 340th Bomb Group.
Here is where Bill's innovation came into play. In this box of six, one of the ships was designated the lead or command ship. Now, for up to five minutes before the target was reached, the lead bombardier's duty, as he took control of the plane from the pilot, was to fly level and steady. These were men like Joe and Red and Chief. For these perilous minutes he had to hold this ship on course, remaining on that site continuously and precisely in this tight pattern. This extra undisturbed period gave him valuable time to adjust and fine-tune. He was instructed to fly this level and steady pattern once the sights were fixed and take out the target no matter what the danger. And accuracy improved.
The aircraft were flying on those three different levels to increase the difficulty of being hit, but it took close teamwork and steady, controlled nerves because, most often, the dreaded flak — those jagged chunks of iron fired from anti-aircraft German ground crews defending the target — was in the air and eager to indiscriminately maim and kill en masse.
The planes were tucked so closely together that the faces of the crews in adjacent planes were clearly visible to each other and, even in the realm of huge danger, these air crews often felt the thrill of flying in a tight and imposing formation to and from their target.
George's 96th mission became intimate.
96TH MISSION — DEC. 30TH, 1944
Flew as Flight Leader with 488th Sqd. on target at Galliano. R/R Bridge #1. Lots of ack-ack and when I broke off the target I looked back and had to laugh at Jinks* who was heading the 2nd box. Capt. Myers (Chief) was my bombardier and he hit the 120 ft. bridge dead center from 12,400ft.
The Group became known as “The Bridge Busters” because of their accuracy. For his heroic piloting on this mission, George was awarded the Silver Star.
For gallantry in action. On 30 December 1944, Major Wells led an eighteen-plane formation in an attack upon a heavily defended railroad bridge near Calliano, Italy. Upon the approach to the target, intense anti-aircraft fire enveloped the formation, heavily damaging his airplane and ten other B-25s. Determinedly maintaining his crippled plane in lead position in the face of this accurate barrage, Major Wells enabled two flights in his formation to register many direct hits, heavily damaging this vital bridge. To insure maximum effectiveness of his mission, Major Wells then guided the formation on a perfect run over the alternate target, thereby enabling his third flight to release its bombs with devastating effect upon the objective. An Assistant Group Operations Officer, formation leader and staff observer, Major Wells has participated in 100 combat missions during his present tour of duty. His exceptional ability as pilot and his outstanding leadership have made a marked contribution to the efficiency of his unit. His gallantry in action and steadfast devotion to duty reflect great credit upon himself and the Armed Forces of the United States.
Mission 99 notes Jinks presence again:
99TH MISSION, FEB. 21
Command Pilot with 488th on the R/R Bridge at Bressenone on the very top of the Bremer Lines. Jinks was flying as Flight leader in the same ship. We had bad weather and finally had to turn around after a hard time through the weather. Got shot at from Vicenza.
Fortunately Jinks survived the war, as well.
Heller wryly exaggerates in Catch-22 the progression of the bomb run, first before the straight and level requirement was introduced and then, later, after it was implemented.
Catch-22's evasive bomb runs —
before
the straight-and-level bomb runs were implemented
Havermeyer was a lead bombardier who never missed. Yossarian was a lead bombardier who had been demoted because he no longer gave a damn whether he missed or not. He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive.
The men loved flying behind Yossarian, who used to come barreling in over the target from all directions and every height, climbing and diving and twisting and turning so steeply and sharply that it was all the pilots of the other five planes could do to stay in formation with him, leveling out only for the two or three seconds it took for the bombs to drop and then zooming off again with an aching howl of engines, and wrenching his flight through the air so violently as he wove his way through the filthy barrages of flak that the six planes were soon flung out all over the sky like prayers, each one a pushover for the German fighters, which was just fine with Yossar-ian, for there were no German fighters any more and he did not want any exploding planes near his when they exploded. Only when all the Sturm und Drang had been left far behind would he tip his flak helmet back wearily on his sweating head and stop barking directions to McWatt at the controls who had nothing better to wonder about at a time like that than where the bombs had fallen.
“Bomb bay clear,” Sergeant Knight in the back would announce.
“Did we hit the bridge?” McWatt would ask.
“I couldn't see, sir, I kept getting bounced around back here pretty hard and I couldn't see. Everything's covered with smoke now and I can't see.”
“Hey, Aarfy, did the bombs hit the target?”
“What target?’ Captain Aaradvaark, Yossarian's plump, pipesmoking navigator would say from the confusion of maps he had created at Yossarian's side in the nose of the ship. “I don't think we're at the target yet. Are we?”
“Yossarian, did the bombs hit the target?”
“What bombs?” answered Yossarian, whose only concern had been the flak.
“Oh, well,” McWatt would sing, “what the hell.”
Yossarian did not give a damn whether he hit the target or not, just as long as Havermeyer or one of the other lead bombardiers did and they never had to go back. (pp. 29-30)
Catch-22's evasive bomb runs
after
the straight-and-level bomb runs were implemented
He [Yossarian] came in on the target like a Havermeyer, confidently taking no evasive action at all, and suddenly they were shooting the living shit out of him!
Heavy flak was everywhere! He had been lulled, lured and trapped, and there was nothing he could do but sit there like an idiot and watch the ugly black puffs smashing up to kill him. There was nothing he could do until his bombs dropped but look back into the bombsight, where the fine cross-hairs in the lens were glued magnetically over the target exactly where he had placed them, intersecting perfectly deep inside the yard of his block of camouflaged warehouses before the base of the first building. He was trembling steadily as the plane crept ahead. He could hear the hollow boom-boom-boom-boom of the flak pounding all around him in overlapping measures of four, the sharp, piercing crack! of a single shell exploding suddenly very close by. His head was bursting with a thousand dissonant impulses as he prayed for the bombs to drop. He wanted to sob. The engines droned on monotonously like a fat, lazy fly. At last the indices on the bombsight crossed, tripping away the eight 500-pounders one after the other. The plane lurched upward buoyantly with the lightened load. Yossarian bent away from the bombsight crookedly to watch the indicator on his left. When the pointer touched zero, he closed the bomb bay doors and, over the intercom, at the very top of his voice, shrieked:
“Turn right hard!
. . . just as eight bursts of flak broke open successively at eye level off to the right, then eight more, and then eight more, the last group pulled over toward the left so that they were almost directly in front.
. . . turn left hard!” he hollered to McWatt, but the flak turned left hard with them, catching up fast, and Yossarian hollered, “I said hard, hard, hard, hard, you bastard, hard!”
And McWatt bent the plane around even harder still, and suddenly, miraculously, they were out of range. The flak ended. The guns stopped booming at them. And they were alive.” (pp. 144-149)
With the inevitable losses occurring, Chapman employed the use of chaff.2 These were strips of metal foil released in the atmosphere from aircraft to obstruct and confuse radar detection. The highly inventive mind of Benjamin Kanowski, pilot and mess officer, upon whom Catch-22's enterprising Milo Minderbinder was lightly based, was involved in its creation for the 340th. Since the flying of missions was critical and mandatory, everything was done to try to safely shield the B-25s’ crewmen. Sometimes there were escort fighters. Chaff, and then phosphorus bombs, were deployed. All were designed to aid in a successful and safe mission.
As the Germans retreated to northern Italy, the Brenner Pass became their most important resupply route. The Battle of the Brenner, begun in November of 1944, continued to be the prime target area for these B-25s of the 57 th Bomb Wing. The Brenner also became one of Germany's most heavily fortified areas, with anti-aircraft guns, principally the dreaded “88.” As the Germans were being defeated in battles of northern Italy, they placed more and more anti-aircraft guns into position to protect their marshalling yards, bridges, transformer stations, and rail lines. Towards the end of the war they were estimated to have over 1,200 heavy anti-aircraft guns in stationary positions along the Brenner line, plus the capacity to bring in many more that were designed to be mobile and placed upon railroad cars to move from one target area to another. Any crewmember of the 57 th Bomb Wing who flew missions against enemy targets in the Brenner could attest to the severity of the enemy anti-aircraft fire encountered.
Chapman pressed on. To protect his men he employed a new anti-flak technique that used highly effective phosphorus bombs against the enemy gun positions. This risky decision was made by the command with full consideration, and despite the Germans having declared that the use of phosphorus against their gun positions was a war crime, and that any members of antiflak crews who were shot down would be summarily executed. The shoul-der-holstered .45 carried by the American fliers took on a new importance.
(From 2nd Lt. Art Curry, a pilot in the 445th: “I remember the news with two feelings: one — while we did carry ‘45s in shoulder harnesses, that's true, it is also true that it took me three attempts to get my Marksman badge; the second was that the phosphorous bombs must be pretty effective and potent to make the Nazis squeal. Oh, and one other feeling: I sure didn't want to be shot down and if we were, I sure didn't intend to just let them shoot me, bad shot or not.” Brave thoughts from a still-twenty-year-old.)
The new plans called for a flight of three planes to precede the main formation and drop phosphorus bombs over the anti-aircraft guns. This solved many problems. Results proved that more lives were spared than lost because of these increased measures; the stunning increase in accuracy reduced the double jeopardy of crews having to return, once again, to a target missed.
The mission successes flourished dramatically. Strikes became pinpoint and consistent. The 340th was becoming a well-oiled machine of dependability and skill. Bill strove to instill justifiable pride in his men. They were laboring hard; their skills were improving — no, soaring — and they were bombing the hell out of the German defenses.
With these dramatic changes, Bill sent his Deputy Group CO “Mac” Bailey to Rome to invite well-known Gill Robe Wilson, The New York Herald Tribune's top correspondent, to visit the 340th. Most articles being written glorified only the glamorous fighter outfits. The resulting periodic publicity, such as the following for the 340th, helped to heighten morale and instill justifiable pride in the men of this bomb group. This was another thread that the ever-alert Heller wove through Catch-22 as Col. Cathcart tried to court the Saturday Evening Post.
White phosphorus bombs on enemy AA positions at one of the Po River crossings, 1945.
The 340th Bests Cyclones, Vesuvius and Hitler
By Gill Robe Wilson
New York Herald Tribune
One of the toughest, happiest outfits I have ever hitchhiked a ride from is the 340th Bombardment Group, commanded by Colonel Willis Chapman. They have no doubt but that they are the best outfit on earth and after studying some of the targets they go after, it is possible they would reach the finals in an elimination match. They fly Mitchells, which they assert are the direct linear descendants of the sweet chariot.
Up to here the same idea prevails in every group but from here on the story is entirely different, for the 340th rejoices in the name of the “Unlucky 340th.” What this outfit has survived and surmounted has become the foundation of such a confidence as amounts to fanaticism. Black cats, graveyards, three on a match and such normal tokens of ill omen are powerless with the 340th.
Back in the dark ages, just after Pearl Harbor, this outfit was formed for training. Just as they were going well, a cyclone struck their field and stripped them of airplanes. They moved from the wreckage to set up at another base and the same thing happened again. Finally re-equipped, they started for the war and hit the worst weather the South Atlantic had produced in years. Some were lost but most of them straggled into Africa and finally made their bedraggled way to Montgomery's army. When finally they got set for action and went on their first raid, the Germans were waiting for them as they do for every new outfit.
The group commander, navigation officer, bombing officer and one squadron commander were lost on the first raid. The group received a new top echelon and dug into its job. From Tunisia up through Pantelleri and Sicily into Italy they bombed and strafed with fierce determination to lick their jinx. They ranged into Greece and Albania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria making accuracy a fetish. Then another commanding officer was shot down to become a prisoner of war.
One of their missions from Tunisia had been to bomb a famous country club sort of airport in Sicily. It had a swimming pool and luxurious hanger and crew quarters. Gleefully they took the place apart and drove the Germans out. Next week they were ordered forward to occupy the field themselves and had to rebuild what they had destroyed. Cussing their own accuracy they put the place in order and immediately afterward were sent forward into Italy.
Here they took on a new type of work with strange instruments and different procedures. Just as the 340th was getting good at the fresh assignment, Vesuvius erupted and cleared the works. Ashes and brimstone [covered] airplanes, tents, equipment and trucks. The squadron escaped with the shirts on their backs and nothing else. But were they licked? Not they!
Four days later from another base and with borrowed airplanes, the “Unlucky 340th” was out against the Germans in full strength. They went through the long months before Cassino and when that show came off put every bomb into the target area. From Cassino to Rome they hammered bridges and transport and finally moved to Corsica to participate in the coming invasion of southern France. The night they moved to Corsica the Luftwaffe made its one effective counter-attack and, of course, the 340th had to be underneath when it came off.
Once again they re-outfitted and went back at the Nazis without losing more than a day of combat. Acting on a long target mission, their luck started to change and the gods smiled very broadly. Many of the group made dead-stick landings at home base, so narrow had been the gas margin. But no ship was lost.
Since that day the 340th has been hot as a firecracker and nothing seems able to go wrong. And, like good polo players, the group is pushing its newfound fortune. Bombardiers are racking up hits with monotonous regularity and nobody around the place seems the least bit war-weary.
But there is something behind this conquest of fate and newfound smiling fortune that is very solid. It is the percentage of sweat. I saw a dozen homemade gadgets which the crewmen were busy perfecting to improve bombing, shooting and navigation. They are never content. The charts show they pass two hours practicing for every three of actual mission time. The chaplain and flight surgeon are like rooters at the big game. Colonel Chapman is the coach and everybody gets in the game at one time or other.
With sweat and tears and the sand of character for mortar, out of the stepping-stones of misfortune the 340th has built itself a great foundation. Nothing can happen to it anymore — both Vesuvius and Hitler have become incidental.”3
To the men of the 340th's great credit, in thirty days thirty missions were flown over the deadly, heavily defended and prepared Brenner Pass and thirty successful strikes were made. The Germans, fully cognizant of Allied intention, had vainly tried to defend this twisting and turning supply line by moving in considerable anti-aircraft batteries. As mute evidence of the effectiveness of these medium bombers, these B-25s manned by their increasingly skilled and determined crews, there was not a single day in February 1945 that the Brenner Pass line remained unbroken. The unbelievable accuracy of this daily aerial pounding continued. The numbers soared as seventy-seven consecutive hits were made on targets. These targets were bridges, the most difficult of all targets to hit, and all were destroyed with pinpoint accuracy, thus earning the outfit the nickname of the “Bridge Busters.” This group set a world's record for bombing accuracy when it scored better than 90 percent accuracy over a 3-month period. As well, it destroyed more bridges with less tonnage than any other bomber outfit.
The “Unlucky 340th” Bomb Group had risen, like prized cream in milk, to the top.
The Best Damned Bomb Choup There Is!
Yes, damn, indeed!
It was 1984 and the 340th members were gathering for one of their highly anticipated annual reunion banquets. The room, prepared for its expected good turnout, was large, and the tables, covered with white linen cloths and fresh, brightly hued flowers, marked the importance of this day. Members, maintaining the formality and manners of earlier times, were continually arriving, men in suits, and women, usually, in glamorous cocktail dresses. The steadily increasing hum and buzz of voices, punctuated with hearty exclamations of joyful recognition, permeated and echoed about this spacious, inviting gathering place. The pleasure was tangible.
This year George was Master of Ceremonies. His talk from the wooden podium centered on the four commanders of the 340th Bomb Group and, primarily, on one man who, with Charlotte, his elegant, gracious wife and sweetheart from age 15, was also in attendance.
George L. Wells as Master of Ceremonies during an annual 57th Bomb Wing Reunion.
“Then came Chapman, commander number four. Mr. 340th himself. I knew we had a new commander because he hadn't even unpacked his B-4 bag, when on the night of March 21st, he must have lit the fuse to get our attention — boy, did he know how to get our attention — the whole top blew off Mt. Vesuvius. With that blast Chapman and the 340th really went into the history books: the only combat unit in history to be put out of action by a volcano.
“He instilled pride of unit in us,” George continued later. “He taught us how to do the job and led us on to greatness with loyalty and patriotism. Our Len Kauffman, 489th Squadron Commander once said to me, ‘It isn't for a junior to rate his commander, but on a scale of 0-10, Bill Chapman gets a top 10.’ All of us agree with Len.
“In addition, he did something that has had a lifetime effect on my life: the most important thing that ever happened to me. I don't think he knew he had a part in it, but I'll tell him tonight.
“In the middle of May 1945, just before I was scheduled to return to the group after my 45 days rest in the States, he sent me a message saying, ‘The group's being returned to the States for redeployment in the Pacific. Don't let them send you back. I'll pick you up when we hit the States.’ At the Atlantic City Redistribution Center I ran into Dr. Nestor from the 489th. He solved my problem by prescribing 30 more days of rest for me to await the return of the Group. The Group never went to the Pacific, but during those extra 30 days I met a beautiful young girl by the name of Shirley whom I later married — just a little thing, as that message from him charted the rest of my life.”
George concluded:
“You all have known certain bosses, commanders, or leaders who stood out to you. Yes, Bill Chapman, even though I originally resented you for your long cigarette holder, your three- to five-minute straight-and-level bomb runs, and the denial of the Group's stay at Capri after Vesuvius erupted, you quickly changed my mind. You were and always will be ‘My Colonel.’
“I think these words apply to Bill. I understand they are inscribed in bronze in the Library at West Point, where he may have seen them while he was a cadet:
Let us remember that ‘tho the paths of glory lead but to the grave,’ if when the sun lies low in the West, and the light grows dim, we can look calmly back over the years and see a path straight and clean, unscarred by acts of weakness or dishonor, a path along which the only visible evidence is a fight well fought, a faith well kept, and a race well run; then we may know that by the years of our service our life has justified itself, that through keeping faith with our dead we have kept faith with ourselves, with our corps, with our country, and with our God.”
“Let's look in your West Point trunk, Dad,” I said. I am always drawn to this trunk and it had been many years.
Upon graduation every cadet left The Point with one of these large black and brass wardrobe trunks designed for military transport vessels. My father's class of '35 was no exception. There was a place for everything. It offered multiple openings that gave access to the hanging wardrobe of military jackets and pants hanging on wooden hangers. There was storage for riding boots and spurs and sabers, shelves for caps, small drawers for miscellaneous small items.
I placed his tall, black-plumed “Tar Bucket” hat, used for formal dress and parades, over my long hair. The formal jacket to be worn with this hat displayed impressive large, round brass buttons embossed with USMA. The informal jacket had no brass buttons and was worn daily paired with a hat bearing the West Point insignia.
“What is this white fabric?”
“Parachute silk,” he replies.
There is his Sam Brown belt with brass buckle; his watch; an issue canteen; W.P. wool blanket; patches; buckles; ashtrays and lighters; a large, folded and brightly painted piece of an Italian airplane skin; the bomber jacket for warmth, and the long, green canvas one for milder temperatures.
And here, my favorite — custom-made, richly smooth and pliable British Peale leather riding boots. Drool-worthy (but too large) for a daughter whose totem since forever has been the horse.
Long ago I was confirming that, of course, his favorite activity was riding. “Not exactly,” was the reply. “I never saw a horse I wouldn't just as soon shoot.”
Yes Indeed stood a formidable 18 hands and my 6’2” father had to drop the stirrup leathers to the longest length just to mount, then shorten them from atop, much like pulling up the ladder after oneself. “I don't think that damned horse ever walked a step in his life. Just jiggled and joggled and pressed the horse in front. Every once in a while that horse would give him a couple of hooves. And that always stirred the pot up.”
The yearly cavalry field trip was not anticipated, and Grizzly raised his head. “Grizzly was not as big but also never took a walking step. We were out five days and it rained four.” Sadly, here was a candidate for the second chamber.
Don't get him started about his mount for the jumping ring.
He would start running and I couldn't get him to quit. I had gone through the hurdles all right and tried to get back in line but the horse had his own mind and went through the jumps again. I thought, I can't keep going through this damn thing again, and besides, my tail was getting sore. So I figured I’d swing wide around and aim for the rumps of the waiting horses. He wasn't that big, not like Yes Indeed, but he was just a mean bastard so I hung on for dear life. He put all four feet down and I put in a flying block into the rump of that front horse. I almost knocked the horse down. Funny thing was, it bounced me back on my feet so I didn't fall down on the ground. It stood me on my feet and, if I could have kicked high enough, I would have fixed him up too.
“Dad, are you sure this is parachute silk?” I asked, returning to the white fabric. I gently began lifting the silky fabric from the drawer. As tiny covered buttons were appearing, then a bit of lace, I focused in on what slipped out to reveal my statuesque mother's very slim, bias-cut, Queen Anne collared, satin and very elegant, long-trained wedding gown . . . rising like the phoenix from its unbefitting dwelling. Or, on reflection, perhaps exactly where it belonged.
Bill was a career Air Force officer, which included commanding the USAF's first jet bomb wing and being instrumental in the success of the British Harrier Vertical Takeoff aircraft. He retired as a Brigadier General and become Ling-Temco-Vought's aerospace director in Europe. He held a patent for dealing with oceanic oil spills.
At Bill's funeral service at Arlington National Cemetery, this author's son, Jason, gave the difficult eulogy that well described his grandfather. A segment follows:
Granddad was an eternal learner, an eternal student, a curious man with broad interests, but he was also a practical man who could not only see the big picture but lived it as well. Through Granddad, I grew to be of a spirit that anything is possible. If I weren't to be a general like him, I’d be something equivalent. No dream would be unobtainable. He was always there for everyone. Even in Granddad's last days, he maintained his unique wit, and he never complained about anything.
Granddad was a best friend of mine, and he was a hero. Optimism, curiosity, the passion for a cause, and motivation to “turn the blinking crank” and do something about it — these are the greatest gifts that Granddad gave to me, and, no doubt, gifts he shared with all of us.
* Pilot John ‘Jinks” Turnbull, and George had been friends since their National Guard training days. Jink's direction took him to the amphibious planes but he found he did not like it and George was able to get him transferred. After the above incident, Jinks wrote to George's parents describing how George had laughed at his getting shot at. They admonished their son, lightly scolding him in their next v-mail, that he really should not do that. George ribbed Jinks, “This is what you wanted.”
