Victor Kramer

World War II Memories

It was two AM and the night duty Non-Com had just stuck his head in the door of our hut awakening the six of us who had just hit the sack less than an hour before after a night and ay of revelry in London.

We weren’t supposed to fly today but the mission called for a maximum effort for our squadron.

Our radio operator was really hung-over sick and couldn’t even stand up, which was a totally uncommon situation for him. He had always been the teetotaler of the crew but the girl he was with had gotten him to take a few drinks. As unused to alcohol as he was, it hit him so hard that he had passed out. Fortunately, the party was at her sisters (my dates) house and it was for the entire crew, officers as well, so we were all able to get him back to the base when we were ready to leave. It wasn’t easy because he is a pretty big fellow. Among the nine of us we managed. There was no way he would possibly be able to fly so we told the night duty Non-Com to get us a replacement radio operator for the mission.

At the mess hall we met our replacement radio operator, Steve Sherman. After a breakfast that, for us, consisted mainly of strong black coffee and dry toast, the bunch of us made it to the briefing room, struggling to appear fit for the mission. Steve didn’t know whether to laugh AT us or WITH us when he saw our condition, but our crew had a pretty good reputation so he did what he could to fit in.

From there, luckily, we had our rides to the plane, making our usual stops enroute a lot easier. The parachute shop. The bombsight vault, the armament shop. It was good thing it was a cold and windy night because it helped us get back to a degree of normalcy and do our regular preflight duties. Among mine were helping install the bombsight, checking to see that each man had installed his guns correctly and see that they were loaded properly; working with the ground bomb crew to see that the bombs were loaded and armed and placed in the bomb bays correctly; and checki8ng the gun turrets for proper ammo loading and maneuverability. This I did together with the flight engineer.

When we had finished our respective tasks, we all boarded the plane to await take off. The pilot cranked up the engines and, when told to by radio from the tower, taxied from our hard-stand to our place in the take-off line and awaited take-off orders.

The darkness was starting to fade but the wind was blowing quite hard and word came from the tower to wind down the engines as there was going to be at least a forty-five minute wait for the weather above to clear. This was very welcome news to us because we were all still a bit woozy and it gave us the opportunity to attach our oxygen masks and clear our heads and systems by inhaling the pure oxygen. (This was one of the “not listed in the manuals” ways to rapidly cure a hangover.)

There we were, eight of us. Stretch out on the floor of the plane holding our oxygen masks to our faces and gradually starting to feel human again while Steve sat at his radio and monitored the tower, and Shep and Fred took turns sitting in the cockpit.

After about almost an hour the call came to fire up. We all rushed to our designated positions for take-off and Shep, the pilot, would up the engines. That was when the flight engineer, checking everything out, found that we had used up so much oxygen that unless the tanks were refilled we wouldn’t have enough to last for the mission. He called the oxygen tank shop to get a truck out to our plane and refill all our on-board oxygen tanks in a hurry while Shep had to tell the tower that Owens had found a leak in one of the oxygen lines and they would have to hold up the take-ff till the oxygen crew could fix the leak and refill the tanks.

The entire squadron had to hold position while this was taking place and there was a lot of pure hell raised by the squadron commander and all the brass, to say nothing of all the other crews and pilots who were mad as the devil at us for delaying the flight and all the planes that were already in the air from the other squadrons and groups we were to rendezvous with.

Anyway, we finally got off, joined the entire air “armada” and headed for our destination target… the railroad marshalling yards at Aussig, Czechoslovakia. Once we were airborne we settled into our “slot” in the formation and prepared for what we expected would be a “not too bad” mission but definatley NOT a milk run!

As I had been doing from our second mission on, I was flying ball turret and Junior (the ball turret operator who wouldn’t go near the ball turret) was flying as a waist gunner.

(Here I must inject some background info .. To celebrate the crews’ first mission, Shep, the pilot had buzzed the field on our return to base without first alerting the crew. When Junior, , who was in the ball, saw the ground rushing up at him he got so scared he shot up and out of the turret. From that time on, he would never go near the ball again! Because he was a likeable kid and would have probably been grounded, if not worse, if it had become know, I said I would fly the ball turret for him and Junior could fly as waist gunner.)

After checking the front end; bombsight, chin turret and guns, top turret and guns, I went aft into the bomb-bays, checked the bombs, racks and carriers and continued thru the radio room to the ball turret. I removed my chest-chute, set it on the floor alongside the ball turret entrance as I always did because I was too big to wear it inside the turret (it was a tight fit for me even just wearing the chute harness) and prepared to climb down into it.

We had now been flying for a few hours with all that coffee sloshing around inside us making us very uncomfortable. Apparently all the relief tubs had been removed by the ground crew for some unknown reason so, with no relief tubes on the plane, the bomb-bays were the only place we could relieve ourselves. With nature calling loud and clear, each one of us had made at least one trip to get rid of that coffee. (That was the only place on the plane where any spilled liquid would flow down and out of the plane through the apertures where the bomb-bay doors met, since they were not sealed in any way and just fit together when closed.)

When I got into the turret and tried to look out, all the glass and Plexiglas surrounding the turret through which I was normally able to see everything outside the plane, was coated with frosting and impossible to see through.

All that coffee had to wind up somewhere.. and the ball turret being situated just aft of the bomb bays, was the recipient of all the liquid that flew out of the door apertures. As it sprayed onto the turret the sub-zero temperatures turned it into an ice coating covering all the windows on the turret.

When I got settled in the ball turret I tried to look out of the heavy round glass in the floor that I would normally look through to see the other planes and enemy attackers. Instead of windows, I was looking through coated, frosted glass. I was, to all intent and purposes, blind. I bemoaned my inability to see with every epithet I could think of… not just silently to myself but over the interph0one to every member of the crew!

About that time we were “jumped by Jerries” and the air was thick with the machine gun fire that was lacing the air all about us from the German fighter planes, from our fighter escorts, and even from the other B-17s in our squadron, because we were flying as tightly as we could, trying to keep the formation to maximize our fire power.

Amidst the furor I heard the tail gunner call to me that he thought he had hit a Jerry but that the Jerrys as angling down into my line of sight, I should get him! Using a stream of expletives I advised all that I was going to blast away and I didn’t care who I hit! That’s when I heard the waist gunner shout, “I think you hit him too, Ball.” The German plane did go down, but I never had the pleasure of seeing it.

Suddenly there was a loud explosion within the plane! The whole plane shook! Then the pilots voice came over the interphones with the dreaded words…

Pilot to crew…pilot to crew! Prepare to bail out. Prepare to bail out. But do not bail out till I give the word.

Reacting as trained with guns pointing straight down I rolled my turret to the exit position. I reached up, twisted the entry-escape hatch locks, stood up on my seat and propelled myself up and out of the turret and reached for my chest-chute. As I was about to clip on my’chute Steve (the replacement radio op) came running past me to the rear door of the plane and started kicking it, trying to get it open. He was too crazed with fear to just reach down to the handle and twist it open… (which, in the long run, saved his life).

I was the first to see what he was doing and it registered on me that he didn’t have his chute on. As I ran to him the door swung open. Just as he was about to jump out the door I shoved my right hand thru one of his ‘chute harness straps and jammed it onto the door frame. By that time the waist gunner and the tail gunner were there with me and Steve was dangling outside the plane, unable to fall because my wedged arm was holding him to the plane. Junior grabbed my ‘chute from my other hand and between Vaughn and himself, managed to clip it on Steve’s harness. Try as we did tho’, we just couldn’t pull him back into the plane because the slip stream was so strong. With both of them holding my chute harness I reached down and grabbed his ‘chute ring. With their help we were able to dislodge my right hand from the door frame and out of Steve’s harness strap. As my hand came out, Steve was instantly pulled away by the wind. When they got me away from the door my right wrist was bleeding from the deep gash the metal door frame had made, but in my left, my fist was firmly holding the ‘chute ring.

Looking below and to the rear of the plane we could see an open ‘chute and Steve’s body swaying below it so we all felt a sense of accomplishment in knowing that no matter what followed, at least Steve was kept from plunging to his death from our plane!
In the brief time that all that had taken place, the flight engineer had found that the explosion occurred when the emergency life raft, which was stored in the roof of the radio room directly over the radio operations head had been hit by enemy gunfire and the inflation canister inflated the raft which then EXPLODED out of its hatch, was ripped away from the plane and took part of the radio room roof away with it as it flew away from the plane. It was easily understandable why Steve reacted the way he did. Anyone would, with all the explosion, roar and the ripping and rending accompanying noises directly over his head.

Fortunately, that was the worst thing that happened to us. We sustained several bullet holes about the aircraft but nothing serious.
Our fighter escort and the combined firepower from our formation drove Jerry away and we were able to complete our mission.
Returning to base, and after all the debriefing, etc. someone had to go into Steve’s hut and gather his things for sorting, packing and shipping and that job befell me and was done. At that time I learned that he was from New York City, Brooklyn, to be exact. Before being drafted he worked with his father in small machine shop business in the canal street area of Manhattan. We subsequently learned Steve had landed safely on a German farm and was rescued by a small group of resistance fighters and eventually spirited back to our base in England, where he heard what had actually happened that eventful day.

But the story doesn’t end there, for me.

In 1948 my Dad and I had a wholesale automobile supplies and parts business on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn that we had started together soon after my discharge from the Air Force. As the nutty inventor I have always been, I had an idea for an under-the-hood light that could be used on any type of automobile or truck. It was a very simplistic type of item that entailed only three or four basic parts. Since the parts would be constructed from flat steel strip, there were certain “jigs” needed and then the parts stamped out in a machine shop. Thinking about finding a machine shop that I would be sure would not divulge my idea to someone who would produce and market it before I could, I remembered what I had learned about Steve Sherman when I was gathering his belongings that day. I looked up machine shops in the yellow pages and sure enough, there was a listing for Sherman and Son. I phoned them and the man who answered said, Sherman and Son, Steve speaking.. Yes it was the same Steve Sherman! When he heard my name I could hear his shout without the phone all the way out in Brooklyn. He was so overjoyed and surprised. We made an appointment to meet at his place of business the following week. When I got there his father met me at the door, hugged me and with tears in his eyes thanked me for saving his son. It was truly a joyous meeting. For a while all business in the shop was halted while they had all their employees come into the office and they recounted that experience amid drinks from a few bottles to whiskey. We didn’t get into the business end of things that day but made a date for the following day.