Big Week Page 3

  Once arrived in Britain, American fighter pilots had plentiful supplies of high-octane aviation fuel and, with just one operational mission every few days, plenty of time to hone their skills further. New pilots arriving to join the 56th FG, for example, were now entering an increasingly combat-experienced outfit. A rookie would arrive with a pretty good feel for his aircraft and with already decent flying skills; standards were high and it was all too easy to get washed out, as Major Francis ‘Gabby’ Gabreski, Bob Johnson’s flight commander, had discovered during his training.

  The son of first-generation Polish immigrants from Oil City, Pennsylvania, Gabreski began flying lessons while at Notre Dame University, but much to his dismay, and in sharp contrast with Bob Johnson, quickly discovered he lacked any kind of natural aptitude. After around six hours’ instruction he ran out of money, but then the Army Air Corps – as it had been at the time – recruiting team turned up on campus. Aware that Poland had already been consumed by Nazi Germany and the Soviets, Gabreski decided to do his bit to help and so joined up. The trouble was, as his flying training began, he struggled to overcome his heavy-handedness and was soon put up for an elimination flight. This was his final chance to prove himself; thankfully, he managed to scrape through and was given a second chance. He was lucky, as few others were given that opportunity, and by March 1941 he had accrued more than 200 hours in his logbook.

  From there he was posted to Hawaii, where he had plenty of time to increase his flying hours further. After surviving the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, life seemed a bit monotonous. It was all very well practising, but he wanted to get involved in the war, and with his Polish roots he was keen to get over to Europe to fight the Nazis. Aware of the Polish squadrons now in the RAF, he began wondering whether he might transfer to one of them and put in a request to do so.

  Much to his surprise, his application was taken seriously and he was sent halfway around the world to England with instructions to report to the embryonic Eighth Air Force Headquarters at Bushy Park in south-west London. After flying the full raft of Eighth Air Force aircraft, albeit with no specific role, he finally got his transfer to 315 Polish Squadron in the RAF. Nearly two years after being awarded his wings in the US, Gabreski flew his first combat mission in January 1943. A month after that, he was posted out of the RAF and back into the USAAF, to join the 56th Fighter Group, initially based at Kings Cliffe, a satellite of RAF Wittering in Cambridgeshire. ‘Remember, my friend,’ Tadeusz Andersz, a fellow pilot at 315 Squadron told him before he left, ‘don’t shoot until you’re close enough to make a sure kill.’1

  It was good advice, and when Gabreski reported for duty to Colonel Hub Zemke, the CO of the 56th, this pilot who had so nearly dropped out of training had been transformed. He still had a lot to learn about combat flying, but he had so many flying hours in his logbook, he no longer had to think too much about the actual flying part – that was pretty much second nature – and could focus on the combat element instead. What’s more, he’d been able to learn from hugely experienced pilots like Tadeusz Andersz and took that with him to the 56th.

  Gabreski was assigned to the 61st Fighter Squadron and given command of ‘B’ Flight. Each fighter group had three squadrons, rather like an RAF wing or a Luftwaffe fighter Gruppe. An American squadron, however, was much larger than either the German or British equivalent, with around forty aircraft and a similar number of pilots. This was roughly four times the size of a Luftwaffe Staffel and almost double the size of an RAF squadron. Admittedly, American fighter pilots joining VIII Fighter Command were generally flying longer combat sorties than their opposite numbers, but they were still flying a fraction of the number of sorties expected of Luftwaffe pilots. Rarely would an American fighter pilot fly on operations on two consecutive days, and often only once or twice a week. As it was, the 56th FG’s pilots did not fly operationally until 13 April – in other words, a further six weeks’ training after their arrival in England. Gabreski, for one, was not even on the roster to fly that mission; only sixteen out of the forty flew – that is, two flights of eight. Nor was he assigned to fly two days later on the 56th’s next mission. He finally flew on 17 April and then a harmless ‘rodeo’ – a fighter mission using bombers as bait – to the Belgian coast. They saw nothing.

  Gabreski found the slow start frustrating, but in every regard this nurturing of fighter pilots was a better deal for them than the approach of the Luftwaffe General Staff to their German counterparts. Combat flying was incredibly exhausting, both physically and mentally, so the fewer the combat missions, the fresher the pilots remained and the further their store of courage was likely to go. It also meant, of course, that there was more time to practise and hone skills, and to build up flying hours, which in turn meant their chances of survival in combat were greater.

  By the autumn of 1943, Gabreski had become Bob Johnson’s squadron commander in the 61st and had two Focke-Wulf 190s shot down to his name. He was, by this time, a fine pilot and, more to the point, a highly trained and skilful fighter pilot who was able to throw his P-47 around the sky to the maximum of its capabilities and had a wealth of experience that he could pass on. He was also part of an outfit that was growing in confidence and ability, and was about as physically fit for the task in hand as was possible. This meant that when rookie pilots arrived, once in the close and convivial environment of the squadron and group, there was ample opportunity to listen and to feed off the more experienced pilots like Gabreski and Bob Johnson. They could practise dogfighting, iron out gunnery skills and build up hours in their logbooks. There was time for them to improve. Even when first made operational, they were very unlikely to be sent on a long trip. Rather, it would be a ‘milk run’ to northern France, where the chances of meeting many enemy were slight and where they could get a feel for operational life without undue risk. This gave the growing US fighter force in England an increasingly large advantage over the enemy.

  Men like Bob Johnson might have arrived in England with some eight hundred hours in their logbooks, but there were also a number of American fighter pilots who had already been here in England flying and fighting the Luftwaffe long before the United States had even entered the war and who, when the Eighth Air Force was first considering how to build a fighter arm, were therefore on hand with a great deal of combat experience on which to draw – a huge asset for the new formation.

  The 4th Fighter Group lived down the road from the 56th at Debden, a former RAF fighter base during the Battle of Britain. South of Cambridge, and just a few miles from the north Essex market town of Saffron Walden, it was a well-equipped base complete with distinctive RAF-style brick mess buildings, officers’ quarters, hangars, workshops and ammunition and fuel stores. Many of the men of the 4th had been based there for more than two years already, as the core of them had earlier flown for the RAF, first in squadrons throughout RAF Fighter Command and then in a wing of three ‘Eagle’ squadrons made up entirely of American pilots. It was fair to say the men of the 4th thought of themselves as a cut above any other American fighter group in the Eighth, or any other air force for that matter.

  Executive officer of the 4th – that is, deputy commander – was Lieutenant-Colonel Don Blakeslee, already something of a legendary figure within VIII Fighter Command. Handsome, square-jawed and with pale blue eyes, he was a 6-foot, square-shouldered bull of a man, decidedly tribal and someone never known to beat about the bush. A superb pilot but a notoriously bad marksman, what he lacked in shooting prowess he more than made up for in his innate ability to lead others. He was gruff, bluff and never shy about swearing, but others were drawn to him and his magnetic personality that oozed confidence and self-belief.

  He also loved flying and had done ever since he was a boy watching the Cleveland Air Races near where he lived at Fairport Harbor, Ohio. With money he saved from working at the Diamond Alkali Company, he and a friend bought a Piper J-3, which they flew as much as they could. In 1940, however, his friend managed to cr
ash and write it off, and they had neither the insurance nor the funds to get another. Blakeslee didn’t want to stop flying, however, so took himself to Canada and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, having assured his mother he was being taken on as an instructor and would never go into combat.

  After training in Canada, he reached England in May 1941. Although the first all-American Eagle Squadron had already been formed within RAF Fighter Command, Blakeslee was posted to 401 Squadron at Biggin Hill, to the south of London in Kent. After two hundred hours of operational flying he was told he was being taken off ops and would have a recuperative stint as an instructor. Blakeslee was not interested in that at all, so applied to join 133 Squadron, one of the Eagle squadrons, which was then based at Great Sampford, a satellite airfield to Debden in Essex.

  By the summer of 1942, a number of the Eagle originals were eligible to be rotated back home to the US and that included the CO of 133, Carroll ‘Red’ McColpin. However, on an escort mission to France, their Spitfires got held up by excessively strong headwinds and eleven out of the twelve flying were lost, while the twelfth crash-landed back in England. This left a skeleton squadron, shaken to its core and with absolutely no esprit de corps; Blakeslee was charged with picking them up and leading them as their new CO. His approach, on his first evening in charge, was to forgo any speeches but instead to stand on the bar in the mess and announce that drinks were on him. ‘He was a great believer in the RAF tradition of hard drinking and high living,’ noted Jim Goodson, who joined 133 Squadron at that time and who also became a mainstay of the 4th Fighter Group, ‘and never permitting either of them to interfere with constant readiness to fly, and fly well, at any time.’2 At well after one in the morning, by which time the pilots were mostly semi-conscious, Blakeslee announced they all needed to be ready to fly at 6 a.m.

  It was usual for fighter planes to take off in pairs or, at a push, in fours, but that next morning Blakeslee ordered them to take off together – all sixteen of them – in formation. After the spontaneous gasp of horror, Blakeslee yelled at them to move and they all headed out to their waiting Spitfires. And somehow, they all managed to do exactly as he had demanded. ‘Tighten up!’ yelled Blakeslee.3 ‘Let’s show these bastards!’

  The bastards in question were the other Eagle squadrons at nearby Debden, and sure enough, before most of the 133 Squadron pilots had had a chance to think too much about what was happening, they were flying in perfect formation at 500 feet. And right over Debden. By the time they landed, everyone was talking excitedly, with a palpable, breathless pride. ‘That evening,’ added Goodson, ‘Blakeslee wasn’t the only 133 pilot with the belligerent swagger.’4

  Soon after, the Eagle squadrons were transferred into the US Army Air Forces – specifically the Eighth – and were given new squadron numbers: 133 Squadron became 336th Fighter Squadron in the newly formed 4th Fighter Group, and the old RAF rondels were scrubbed out and repainted with USAAF stars.

  Blakeslee had been happy to keep his Spitfires and was none too amused when, the following April, he was told they would be re-equipping with P-47 Thunderbolts. On 15 April 1943, he was leading the squadron on a ‘ramrod’ – fighter escort for a bombing mission – over Belgium when they spotted a couple of FW190s. The German pilots dived out of the way and the squadron followed from a height of around 20,000 feet. By the time Blakeslee pulled out and blew one of the Focke-Wulfs to pieces, he was at just 500 feet and almost flying into Ostend. It was, however, the first recorded victory ever in a P-47 and it was entirely appropriate that this victory had been achieved by a 4th Fighter Group pilot and by Blakeslee in particular.

  Back at base, Goodson, who before the mission had tried to persuade Blakeslee of its virtues, said to him, ‘I told you the Jug could out-dive them!’5

  ‘Well, it damn well ought to be able to dive,’ Blakeslee growled, ‘it sure as hell can’t climb.’

  Not long after, Blakeslee was made executive officer of the entire Fighter Group, although only on the condition he could keep flying – and that meant combat flying. ‘We love fighting,’ he once said.6 ‘Fighting is a grand sport.’ He continued to love drinking too. When the mess secretary complained that the pilots were smashing too many glasses, Blakeslee replied, ‘Good show. Shows their spirit.’

  Although Blakeslee’s personal score was gradually mounting, he never painted swastikas on his fighter plane like most others, nor did he get much better at shooting. ‘Hell, I can’t hit the side of a barn,’ he told a reporter. ‘There’s no sport in it for a guy who can shoot straight. The sport comes when somebody like me has to pull up behind ’em and start shooting to find out where the bullets are going.’ In a dogfight, he was everywhere – twisting, climbing, rolling, bellowing and blinding. Blakeslee swore like a trooper. But first with the 336th FS and then with the 4th Fighter Group, he was venerated as a fighting air leader par excellence – so much so that by the autumn of 1943 his fame had spread throughout the Eighth Air Force.

  In many ways, Blakeslee was the embodiment of the spirit of the 4th, but he was far from unique in possessing an obsessive love of flying combined with stubborn single-mindedness and an unshakeable thirst for adventure. Being both single-minded and stubbornly determined were also most certainly attributes that could be applied to Captain Duane ‘Bee’ Beeson. From Boise, Idaho, 22-year-old Beeson had decided to become a lawyer and so had sold magazines and newspapers until he had saved up enough money to hitch-hike to Oakland, California, where he took a job as a hotel clerk while attending law classes. Then came the war and he decided to forgo a legal career to become a pilot instead and do his bit in the fight against Nazi Germany. Since there was no opportunity for him to join the US Army Air Corps at this time, he, like Blakeslee, went to Canada and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force instead.

  Beeson was a young man with a fastidious attention to detail and, if he was going to do something, he did it properly. He regarded flying as something of a science, applied himself to the task in hand with zeal and, as had been his intention from the outset, by the summer of 1942 he was in England and a fighter pilot in the RAF. ‘In the RAF,’ wrote the 4th’s public relations officer, ‘he was always spoiling to go out and kill Germans, having picked up an unaccountable Hun phobia somewhere along the line.’7

  Beeson had barely joined the Eagle squadrons before they were transferred to the Eighth and became the 4th Fighter Group. From the outset, he applied himself to getting ever better as a fighter pilot. At Debden, he built his own gunnery gadget to help him practise deflection shooting – aiming ahead so that his bullets and an enemy plane would converge. Very few pilots mastered this, but those who did had a massive edge because it allowed them to attack at an angle rather than just from directly behind. Beeson, who was a small, slight fellow with the face of a boy younger than his twenty-two years, also made a point of carefully studying the legendary fighter pilots who had gone before and working hard to put theory into practice. It was perhaps not surprising, then, that on 8 October 1943 he became the group’s first ace when he shot down two Me109s to bring his score to six.

  Don Gentile, on the other hand, was another who was utterly obsessed with flying and who had, like Bob Johnson, decided at a very early age that it was going to become his life. ‘I can’t remember the time when airplanes were not part of my life,’ he said, ‘and can’t remember ever wanting anything so much as to fly one.8 Once I had started I had to keep flying.’ From Piqua, Ohio, Gentile – known to his pals in the group as ‘Gentle’ – was the son of Italian immigrants; he had a lean face and dark, decidedly Italian good looks. As a boy, he assiduously saved up for flying lessons and then, having earned some more by working as a waiter at his father’s club, he bought – without his parents’ authority – a beaten-up old plane for $300. Someone – Gentile never found out who – rang his mother and said, ‘Your son bought himself a death trap.’9 So it proved when the plane was checked over, but by then it was too late: the purchase had been made. ‘Okay,’
Gentile’s father told him, ‘You’ve learned a lesson.10 You’ve got $300 worth of experience now.’ Gentile eventually wore down his parents, however, and when he was seventeen his father bought him a $450 Aerosport biplane.

  Gentile was a naturally gifted pilot, but like many teenagers he believed himself immortal and developed an unhealthy lust for speed. That biplane got him into a lot of trouble, because he liked nothing more than flying low over the town, the church, the school and buzzing the people below. He was still at high school when Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939 and immediately he realized it was a war that he had to get into as a pilot. His parents wanted him to go to Ohio State University on a football scholarship – he’d never paid much attention to his academic subjects – and a university education would have helped him get into the Army Air Corps. Gentile, however, had learned that the RAF was taking young American pilots like himself, so he joined up, trained in Canada, got his wings with an ‘above average’ qualification, then shipped to England to join 133 Eagle Squadron.

  On joining the Eagles, Gentile quickly realized how much he still had to learn. ‘Flying an airplane is only a part of fighting with one,’ he said, ‘and most of the other part a man has to learn from his fellow soldiers, and from the enemy.’11 That was certainly true. He soon understood he had been very fortunate to reach the front line at a time when there was comparatively little operational flying and so was able to learn the ropes steadily and from others who already had a great deal of experience. His first few operational sorties were bewildering, but he learned, and slowly but surely his confidence grew. On 19 August 1942, during the air battle over the ill-fated Dieppe Raid, he had shot down first a Ju88 and then a Focke-Wulf. He also discovered he had superb twenty-ten vision. ‘Twenty-twenty is perfect,’ he said, ‘but twenty-ten is better than perfect … that half-second or one-second advantage it gives you over your enemy in picking the black speck of him out of a scud in the sky or the flecked-up greys, blues or blinding, bleached-out yellow is the difference, other things being equal, between killing or being killed.’12