What Philip Dreiseszun remembers most clearly is the reactions of his crewmates. Some were downright despondent, but once they had all had time to digest the news, the main emotion seemed to be grim determination:
Our bombardier, James H. Houck, gloomily expressed feelings of foreboding. The rest of us, I believe, were in a state of numb awe, of mixed feelings of fear and wonder, and facing unknown qualities in ourselves. How would we react in confrontation with the might of the German Luftwaffe and the formidable anti-aircraft fire we surely would meet? The bonds, fortunately, that held a crew together were a subconscious factor in helping us set individual concerns aside long enough to concentrate on the tasks that lay ahead. 6
* * *
After lunch the crews went to get their gear: rations, escape kits, flight clothing, parachutes. Just as the RAF had done the evening before, they milled around nervously, some cracking jokes, others communing silently with themselves as they waited for the personnel carriers to take them out to their planes. The only difference was that this was not taking place at twilight but in the hazy sunshine of a hot summer’s day. By the time the trucks came, everyone was overheating, particularly the gunners in their heavy, wool-lined suits. Out at dispersal they would busy themselves inside the plane, but once everything was ready they would shelter in the shade of the wings, leaving off their flight jackets until the last possible moment as they waited for the signal that it was time to go.
It was not until after one o’clock that they climbed on board and the B-17s’ engines roared into life. Edward Piech flew as a bombardier with the 351st BG during this time, and remembers the thrill he always felt as the line of bombers prepared to leave the ground: ‘There was a green flare and then the first, the lead ship would take off. And then a few seconds after that each one, one by one, lined up in a column… I will never forget the sound of those B-17s taking off. They just sort of leave a thrill up and down my spine: no matter where I am and I hear those sounds, I can’t escape from it. It is actually, to me, a beautiful sound.’ 7
As the planes took to the air, the first task was to gain height and assemble into formation. This sounds simple, but in fact it was one of the day’s most problematic tasks. Slotting each plane into its correct position in the formation was time-consuming – it could take an hour or longer to get it right. 8Veteran Donald Hillenmayer explains:
These airplanes climbed at the rate of five hundred feet a minute when they are fully loaded so to get up to, say, twelve thousand feet to form, that’s pretty close to half an hour just to get there… So, the lead crew, he’s up there, starts to circle and here comes the second plane and he cuts him off and gets into formation. Here comes the third one, he cuts them off, he gets into position. Now, you do that, say, eight or ten times… It took us an hour and a half to form. 9
This was only the start of the problem. Once each individual group had arranged themselves into the proper formation they had to find each other so that they could fly together across the sea. The combat wing bound for Blohm & Voss assembled without much trouble, but the Klöckner wing had major problems. The 91st BG, which was supposed to be leading two of the other groups, was unable at first to find either in the haze. In desperation, the lead plane made the whole group circle back over England, firing flares to attract attention to themselves. In this way they eventually picked up the low group in their formation (the 351st BG), but the high group (the 381st BG) was still nowhere to be seen. It was only after the formation leader gave up and set course for Germany that they spotted the 381st BG ahead. This group doubled back to fall in behind the leaders thus losing more time. 10After all the delays the wing was in a woefully ragged formation, and it was still struggling to close up two hours later as it crossed the German coast.
While all these complicated manoeuvres were going on, there was little that the crews could do but sit and wait. Conditions inside the B-17s were far from comfortable, especially for those in the extremities of the plane. They were climbing to an altitude of between 26,000 and 30,000 feet: at these heights the temperature regularly drops to less than –40° C, and despite wool-lined boots and electrically heated suits it was not uncommon for airmen to come home with frostbite. ‘The warmest I ever flew on a mission was thirty below zero,’ says Albert Porter Jr, who served as a ball-turret gunner later in the war, ‘and the coldest was close to sixty below. When we finished the mission, the whole front of our outfit was solid ice from the condensation of your breath.’ 11
Flying at any altitude above 10,000 feet meant they were all reliant on oxygen, for which they plugged their face masks into one of the plane’s central outlets, but spare bottles were stowed throughout the plane in case of emergency. These could make the difference between life and death. If the crew’s air supplies were cut off, a lack of oxygen to the brain (anoxia) would lead eventually to unconsciousness. It was important to react to any cut in oxygen immediately – after a minute or two, the airmen would be unable to perform even the simplest task. The worst thing about anoxia was that those affected often did not realize it. As their reactions slowed they often believed they were behaving normally, and by the time they were fumbling with the oxygen bottles it was too late – they were incapable of saving themselves. Experienced airmen kept a constant watch on their fellow crew members to make sure that everyone was conscious.
Of all the members of the crew, those who were under the most constant stress were the pilot and co-pilot. They might not suffer the cold, like the gunners at the back, because the cockpits were heated, but the pressure of holding the bomber in close formation with twenty other aircraft for several hours on end was physically and mentally exhausting. The other members of the crew – the navigator, the wireless operator, the bombardier – were also obliged to undergo prolonged periods of intense concentration. They had to keep a constant log of their position in case anything went wrong, and all crewmen were supposed to keep a look-out for fighters whenever they were not otherwise engaged.
Of the 123 planes that took off for Hamburg that afternoon fourteen were forced to turn back, mostly because of mechanical malfunctions. Unlike the British night bombers, who often got away with flying to a target and back on just three engines, many B-17 crews were understandably reluctant to fly over German territory in anything but a fully functioning machine. After the fourteen had returned to base, the remainder of the force continued their climb. It was imperative that they attained their bombing altitude before they reached the European coast.
As they rose through the haze they found themselves flying in the deep azure of the infinite sky. Soon even the haze melted away, and they were left with the perfect flying conditions they knew as CAVU – ‘ceiling and visibility unlimited’. For a short while the heavens seemed a peaceful place: there were no enemy fighters to worry about just yet, and nothing broke the eternal blue but the vapour trails of a hundred Flying Fortresses. Perhaps some of the crew took a few moments to sit back and admire the view. Others swapped jokes and teased each other over the intercom in voices that were just a little too loud or too merry, but as
they approached the coast of Europe they lapsed into silence, as all eyes concentrated on combing the heavens for the tell-tale glint of German metal.