In their own words...

[bobbysocks]

A Few Words about Thomas McGuire
by Major General Franklin Nichols

When I graduated from flying school in April 1941, I was assigned to Wheeler Field, Hawaii to fly fighters. I was elated, as this was my first choice and I arrived there ready to be a gung-ho fighter pilot and enjoy living it up in Hawaii. Then in December 1941, the Japanese changed my life forever and we were playing a different game. It became a matter of survival--- kill or be killed.

In August of 1942, I volunteered for the Fifth Air Force in Australia and joined the 7th Fighter Squadron, 49th fighter group en route to Port Moresby, New Guinea, flying P-40s. Initially, I was a wingman, then a Flight Leader, and then Operations Officer of the squadron. I hoped that I would become the Squadron Commander of the 7th Squadron, but that was not to be.

In March of 1943, Colonel Hutchison, the Group Commander told me to pack my bags. I was going to activate a squadron, in a new twin-engine P-38 Fighter Group, being formed in Brisbane, Australia. Starting with experienced cadre from the 49th Group and the balance of the squadron, new personnel from the United States, we were to have the 431st Fighter Squadron combat-ready in three months. I was walking on air. This was a chance to form a squadron using my ideas and my objectives and this is when I first met Tommy McGuire. He had recently been assigned to the 9th Fighter Squadron, of the 49th Group, and was reassigned as one of my combat-ready pilots, and he joined me in Brisbane. McGuire had little combat experience and no victories, but he had been in the Alaskan theater. Though I didn’t know it at the time, he was one of the few pilots in the Pacific who had been trained to fly p-38s back in the States, and he was highly-qualified in this type of aircraft.

At first I thought he was just another fighter jock and I welcome him and turned him over to Captain John Hood, my Operations Officer. Two weeks passed before I had my first serious conversation with him. John Hood came to me with a problem of assigning McGuire. He should have been an element leader but none of the Flight Commanders wanted him. They all said that "he talks too much." It was strictly a matter of personality conflicts. I told John to send Mac to see me and I would try to resolve this petty personality problem. Mac didn’t know that there was a problem, so I told him I needed an Assistant Engineering Officer who was highly qualified in the P-38 to test fly all the new aircraft arriving in the squadron. He would okay each plane or recommend proper maintenance for it. Since I was beginning my flying transition into the P-38, I also told McGuire that I needed an experienced P-38 instructor pilot to check me out and get me combat ready in that aircraft.

We met the three month challenge of achieving combat-ready status and we proceed to Port Moresby the latter part of August and on the day after our arrival we flew our first combat mission. We were flying out of twelve-mile strip for a month, and waiting for our new strip to be completed across the mountains in the Buna area. In late September we finally got the squadron together as a complete unit. Our combat results had been outstanding. We had been on several successful air-to-air combat missions. and our number of confirmed victories was rapidly growing. McGuire’s talents as a fighter pilot were soon evident and he was one of the first members of the group to be an ace, shooting down five enemy aircraft. With long-range P-38s we were able to escort the bombers to new Japanese airbases at Wewak, Kabul, and Hollandia, and our air-to-air opportunities had increased considerably during the period and Mac became one of our leaders in confirmed kills
On 16 October 1943, I received a call in the evening from the Fifth Fighter Command telling me to report to General Wurtsmith the next day. I caught the courier early the next morning and arrived at his office about 10 o’clock. He explained that I had been selected to return to the states for one month’s leave and said another month would be approved if I wanted to stay longer. He wanted to award me the medals I was due, that day, so I could return that afternoon to make arrangements for change of command of the squadron and take care of details for my departure. I was elated but also sad that I was leaving the best job I ever had with the finest squadron any commander ever had.

Late that afternoon I caught the courier and returned to the squadron. I was met at the airplane with the news that my squadron had been involved in some heavy aerial combat defending American shipping in Oro Bay. The good news was that the 431st Squadron had made a big air-to-air interception of a large bomber and fighter force with great results. The bad news was that McGuire had been shot down after he had destroyed three enemy planes.

Later that evening we learned that McGuire had been picked up by a PT boat twenty miles off shore. He had "borrowed" my airplane, since his was in for repairs, and he had bailed out of the burning craft after being wounded. It was that he survived as his parachute had become entangled and opened just before he hit the water.

There were standing orders that no one would fly my airplane without my permission. McGuire had taken it anyway, knowing that a maximum effort was important to protect our forces. I was glad McGuire had survived but I was upset that he had taken my plane. The next morning I headed to the hospital where I planned to ream him out real good.

I learned that McGuire had been repeating over and over, "My God, Major Nichols is really going to be mad at me for losing his plane." He was right, but he had broken ribs, shrapnel wounds, severe burns, and his eyes were bloodshot, and when I saw how badly he was injured I could only console him. I told him how proud I was of him for shooting down the Japanese planes and surviving. I said, "To hell with it, I don’t care about the airplane." Of course I was lying about the airplane but it made him feel better.

I was convinced this was his last combat mission and he would not fly combat for a long time, if ever. In fact, when I left in a few days for my trip home to join my wife in San Antonio, I met Tommy’s wife, Marilynn, for the first time and I assured her that he would never fly combat again. I told her I was sure he would be coming home after his recovery. How wrong I was and how mistaken I was with his motivation to remain and fight the war to it’s very end. He would be one in a million and my hero.

I will never forget the last conversation we had when I visited Mac at Hollandia. I was a Lieutenant Colonel with the Fifth Fighter Command and he was now a Major and the Squadron Commander of the 431st Fighter Squadron. He told me, "Colonel Nichols, I remember when we started out in Brisbane in 1943, you had a goal to make the 431st the best fighter squadron in the Army Air Force. My goal is the same as yours." He gave his life making that goal possible.

[bobbysocks]

This account is the story of James Reasman's time in the 27th Fighter Bomber Group

Northern France

We landed at an airfield at St. Dizier. Our quarters were tents located on the grounds of a fairly large chateau. The senior officers and the Officer's Club were in the chateau itself. Some new pilots were there waiting for us. One said his name was Dave and that he had been an instructor in P-47s for two years. As we were talking and getting settled in our new quarters, a Jug from the 86th came over and buzzed us in a welcome wagon gesture of sorts. The plane had a shark's mouth painted on its nacelle. I suspected it was my Irish friend, Reilly. He did a pretty good job and he shook the hell out of our tents. But the new guy, Dave didn't seem to be impressed.
"What's the name of our Engineering Officer?" he asked.
"Captain "Pappy" Devin."
"I think I'll see him tomorrow. Maybe he has a plane that needs a test hop. Something like that requires an answer." My new friend and I took off for the chateau to eat dinner and forgot our conversation.
The next evening during our usual pre-dinner bull session, Dave said he checked out a plane and buzzed the 86th.
"They won't forget that buzz job for awhile," he announced.
"Oh, yeah" What did you do; blow a couple of tents over?"
"No," he replied, "I buzzed them inverted."
I thought maybe he went down the runway upside down or something like that. A few days later I visited Sgt. Ed Gregg and found out what Dave did.

"Honest to God, Jim. I looked up and saw this belly tank coming at me with an airplane hanging from it. He got everybody's attention then came back and did it again and to make sure no one missed it, he did it again."
"You mean here or out on the runway?"
"Here. I swear he pruned that tree there. Then he went into a sharp climb doing a couple of rolls and then he came back down the runway and did the prettiest eight point slow roll right on the deck that anybody ever saw."
That was the end of the buzz jobs and Dave had a nickname, Dangerous Dave.

The Germans were being compressed so their armament was denser. Captain Wasserman, our G-2, maintained a map to chart our missions and the map showed the gun emplacements. Each 88 gun emplacement was a red dot with a red circle of about 3" diameter indicating the range of that gun. The war front was an almost solid line of red circles. German 88's were a pilot's worse fear. It could throw a charge up to over 10,000 feet with a black cloud that looked like a figure eight. I don't know about the other pilots but, in my case, when I heard eighty-eight, I flinched. And I flinched for at least five years after the war was over.

Captain Wasserman's map showed a solid line of three inch circles, except for one area where the circles were close but didn't touch. That became our corridor to fly behind enemy lines. Maybe the circles didn't touch but we always received one single lone solitary shot going through that spot and it was always close. So close that we nicknamed it Annie Oakley.

Other outfits used the same corridor. On day as we approached it,, a flight in front of us got its welcoming shot. The radio crackled, "oh, oh. Annie got me. I am returning to based. Blue Leader, take over the mission."

When we went through, we received our one shot greetings, too.

At first, our missions were similar to our missions in Italy. Hit behind the lines at supply centers and distribution points. Every once in a while, we would get a peachy keen escort mission. Our air superiority was so overwhelming t this point there were seldom any problems. I had almost seventy missions and had not seen an enemy plain flying yet. That was soon to change.

THE mission was composed of four flights, sixteen planes. We were going on a dive-bombing mission and it was led by Major Joe. A short time after crossing the bomb-line and after receiving our ceremonial blast from Annie, one of the pilots noticed enemy aircraft circling overhead. It appeared they were about to sweep down on us. Major Joe gave the order to arm our bombs, drop them, then form a Luftberry. A Luftberry manuever is strictly defensive. The planes fly in a circle so that every plane's tail is covered. If an enemy plane is foolish enough to get on one of the planes, there was a plane in position to shoot him down. That the theory anyway.

I found myself looking back at my tail and each time I did, I was that big beautiful engine nacelle. SO I relaxed and looked around. Damn! 180 degrees from me was a Messerschmidt on the tail of a P-47. At the same time, Major Joe screamed over the radio, "Kill him. Kill him. Get that son ofa bitch."

Nothing happened. The ME peeled off and joined his friends. Soon they were gone and we returned to base.

At the de-briefing, Major Joe was furious. I never saw him so angry. And the sad part, no one saw the ME except Joe and I. Joe looked at me and asked, slightly incredulous, "You saw him, Reasman?"

"Yessir, but he was opposite me. You didn't want me to break formation, did you?"

"Hell, no." He looked at me with new respect. I think I emerged from the doghouse at that moment.

Search and destroy missions were on the increase, especially when there was an overcast at a few thousand feet. On one such occasion, our mission was composed of three flights and the overcast was about two thousand feet, a very dangerous height. At that altitude, the Germans were able to throw everything at us; 88s, 40s, 20s, rocks and mess kits.

One of my favorite flight leaders, Pappy by name, was directing the mission. By the way, anybody over 25 years of age was called Pappy or some other antiquated reference to reflect his ancient achievement.

We found a train in a wooded area with very discernible white steam coming out of the engine. Pappy sent one flight down and three 88s opened fire. I think it was a set-up with the train as bait. Two of the guns were at the rear of the train in a heavily wooded area. One gun was directly under meat the head of the train and was located in the backyard of a house. The gun was protected by a ring of sandbags. I asked Pappy for permission to put the gun out of commission.

"Roger, Blue three."

I told my wingman to wait until I pulled off the target before he came down and I would protect him when he pulled off the target. Down I went and poured those eight 50s into the gun emplacement. I pulled off to the left and watched my partner do the same thing. I circled watching the gun. It didn't move.

Soon Pappy gave the order to hit the deck and we buzzed back to our lines safely.

We moved again; this time to Nancy, France. Actually it was only near Nancy. Our airfield was on top of a little knoll. The runway was steel panels or mesh. The hump in the runway was so extensive that when you landed on one end you couldn't see the other end. On a mission we aborted, probably due to bad weather, we landed with our bombs. The tower was usually about a good third of the way down the runway. When I landed, the tower started to scream so loud that I couldn't understand them. As I passed the tower, I looked over at them and saw the reason for their panic. The 500 pound bomb on my right wing had fallen off and was doing a creditable job of imitating a porpoise. All I had to do was goose the throttle a little and get away from it. The poor guys in the tower could only watch and pray it didn't go off. If it had, the tower would have been blown to bits.

We heard of an incident of a P-47 landing with its bombs, the bombs dropping off and exploding; destroying everything of the Jug behind the canopy. I was told the pilot came out OK but was deaf for two weeks. I wonder how he is today.

Our whiskey ration came in and I was very disappointed. It was two bottles of Black and White Scotch. I didn't like whisky much and that applied especially to Scotch. So I took one of the bottles down to the line. I was climbing into the cockpit to get ready for a mission. The crew chief or the armament chief would stand on the wing and help the pilot with the parachute, the acrobatic straps, the safety belt, oxygen mask, etc. When I was all comfy, I handed the chief the bottle of Scotch. I looked past him at the armament chief and he had a horrified look on his face. What did I do wrong?

The next day, the armament chief was helping me into my outfit. "You know, Lieutenant, when he gave that bottle to the chief I just about shit."
"I noticed. What the problem?"
"The chief is an alky."
I groaned. "It turned out OK. I'm proud of him. He took it back to the barracks and gave everybody a drink. You are a popular man down there."

The plane I was assigned had seen better days. When I got back safely from a mission, I was not only glad the Germans had not shot me down but the plane was in good enough condition to get me back. The skin had scorched streaks on it and the aluminum was heavily oxidized. A beauty queen it wasn't. The next week, that plane was polished to a high gloss. It sparked. Major Joe complimented me on how good it looked. He was puzzled by my nonchalance. I told him I didn't know what happened. I guessed the crew decided to shine her up. He walked away, shaking his head. Of course, I didn't tell him about the Scotch.

We took our laundry top a nearby village. We drove up with dirty laundry (and soap) and picked up clean laundry. The village was a farming community. In France, the farmers lived together, a throwback to the fuedal days when they lived together for defense reasons. The barns were on the first floor or ground level and the living quarters on the second floor. It made for very odorous living quarters.

We were informed we were moving again; this time into Germany. We were to be the first Army Air Corps unit across the Rhine. We were cautioned that the move was "Top Secret."

The day before the move I went into the farming village to pick up my laundry. Of course, I had no dirty laundry to leave.

The young woman asked, "No lange?"

"No."

"Departe' Allemayne?"

I gave her a noncommittal shrug.

She wagged her finger at me and smiled, "No fraternize fraulien, eh?"

So much for top secret moves. She was right. In Germany we were not to socialize or otherwise with the Germans. I took my clean laundry and left.

[bobbysocks]

This account is the story of James Reasman's time in the 27th Fighter Bomber Group

Germany

On the return of one of our missions, we ran into a flight of B-17s circling. They wanted to know if we were their escorts and we replied no. They pleaded with us to take them in but our flight leader said he would call for permission first. Permission was granted and back in we went. The escort was uneventful. We landed. Two missions and one landing; a helluva lot better than one mission and three landings.

The German Wehrmacht was retreating rapidly. There was a problem, however. They would abandon a town but when our ground troops entered, the citizens of the town would use their weapons to snipe at our troops and kill a few. A tactic was developed of setting up loud speakers on the edge of town and requesting the major to come out under a white flag. Some of my missions involved flying over towns that were reluctant to send out the mayor. The town would be informed by loud speaker that the P-47s overhead would come down and strafe them if they didn't surrender. Sometimes they gave up and sometimes we strafed. They always eventually gave up with no loss to our troops. P-47s were feared. The German propaganda told their citizens that the American pilots were Chicago gangsters!

On these missions, we were always given a secondary target in case the town surrendered. One time, our secondary target was reporting to a ground communications unit for instructions. Another procedural wrinkle was assigning a pilot to the front lines to work with the ground troops and tell us what the ground commander wanted accomplished. Our troops were waiting on one side of the river getting ready to attack a very picturesque little town on the other side that was nestled between two hills. The liaison pilot instructed us to strafe the two hill tops because there were guns up there. One flight took one hill and the other flight took the other. I could not see the telltale wink of enemy guns firing so we just strafed the hills at random. It was getting dusk and we asked for final instructions before returning home.

"Yeah, give the town a good going over. We are going across pretty soon."

It seemed a shame to strafe that town. It looked like a picture postcard. We flew over our troops, went across the river and set a few buildings on fire.

Another secondary target was very interesting. We showed up at a fairly large town. There were a few multi-storied buildings. To the south of the town, on a hill were three of our tanks. We watched the tanks fire and looked at the town and saw a building disintegrate. And then we spied a German tank leaving town. It was huge and painted "bad guy" black. It tired to make it across an open field; a very bad mistake. Twelve P-47s did a round robin on that tank. Our efforts seemed futile. I know I made at least three passes myself. Then one of the armour piercing bullets rattled around inside that tank and set the ammo off. Whoom…whom…whom. It didn't go all at once but time after time. I am sure our tanks saw it from up on the hill. That made me feel very good.

I don't remember my 93rd mission but I remember landing and seeing the field encircled with A-26s. When I shut off the engine and the crew chief climbed up to help me out of the cockpit, I asked him what was going on. He told me the A-26 outfit could not land at their field because it was weathered in. As soon as it cleared, they would be taking off.

After the debriefing, I went out to look over the A-26s and their crews. When I graduated from Basic Training, most of the class went to single engine. I was hoping I would find an old Aviation Cadet buddy and I did.

Red Ramsey and I had boarded a troop train together in Pittsburgh, Pa. and had been together through Basic. I invited him up to the Officer's Club for a drink. We were sitting at a table recalling some of our Cadet good times when Ellis, the assistant Operations Officer walked up.

"Reasman, Joe wants to see you right now."

"What the hell for?"

"I don't know. Why don't you ask him!" And he gave me that crooked grin.

I asked Red to wait for me and as I approached Major Joe's office, I saw six other pilots waiting there. What the hell; a secret mission or what?

"Are they all here, Ellis?" Joe asked.

"Yessir."

Joe had a big smile on his face and announced, "Men, I am proud to tell you that you are now First Lieutenants." And then he handed out silver bars for our collars. He didn't need to bother with me, I had polished my gold bar so much and so long that it was already silver. At least, it wasn't gold.

I returned to the bar to a celebration. Promotions always meant a party and the drinks were on the promoted. At least, I got to share expenses with six other guys. I do not remember much after that. I just barely remember going to bed at two in the morning, very inebriated. Guess who was awakened at five by the German wake up call? You guessed it. Me and two other very hung over brand new First Lieutenants. The Operations Officer had to be sadistic.

I slept in my GI shorts, swung out of bed and put on my GI brogans. I walked around in the chilly morning air, I poured cold water over my head, I brushed the fuzz off my teeth and when I dressed, I walked to the briefing room. I hated coffee then but I crank a couple of cups. Somebody told me it would wake me up. I didn't.

My 94th mission was a three flight search and destroy. I really was beyond caring. I would just play follow the leader and hope to hell we didn't find anything. At least nothing noisey.

But we did. A train. Didn't they know enough to hide when it got light? Down we went with guns blazing. Oh, oh. The sides of two of the cars dropped away…Flak cars and they started to return fire. I head never seen flak cars before but when somebody shoots at me I have a tendency to want to shoot back. Soon the guns were not firing at us. I don't know what was in those cars to warrant two flak cars to guard them but nothing exploded or burned. We returned to base. At the debriefing, one of the new First Looies said he blacked out leveling off for a landing and I believed him! Thank God, I had no more missions scheduled and I hit the sack.

One day, a few of us were sitting around the Pilot's Ready room when Captain Wasserman walked in. "I need four volunteers…You, you, you and you, he pointed. One of the "yous" was me. We followed him into the briefing room.

"You are to go on an escort mission. You won't get credit for a combat mission but you can log combat time. You are to meet a B-17 full of VIPs here," he pointed to the map, "And escort it up to the front lines. Just go where they go." He didn't know who the VIPs were…political, military, entertainers or what.

The Old Prospector was leading the flight and when we joined up with the B-17, he put me and my wingman on the left wing and he and his wingman on the right wing. The front is very easy to see. It was a solid line of smoke and dust across the face of Germany. The B-17 headed Northeast. I very dutifully kept my head on a swivel. We were protecting a precious cargo and I didn't want any surprises. When we were about ten miles from the front, the B-17 did a 180 and flew back to where we came from. "Hey," the Old Prospector yelled, "The front is back that way." Then he ordered me to cross over and join up into echelon right. "OK, follow the leader."

He started to do barrel rolls round the B-17 and then we did a loop off the right wing and then a loop off the left wing. Oh, Lordy, I thought. I don't know who those VIPs were but sure as the Good Lord made little green apples there was a very high ranking officer aboard and he was probably flying that damn boxcar. We were going to catch hell when we landed.

We didn't. But we gave Wasserman a good laugh when we told him what happened.

The rumors were flying about the end of the war but there were a few scary missions in store. On one mission we caught a German convoy in a valley between three hills. The approach to a strafing run was difficult. We would pop up over a hill, give a quick squirt from our guns and pull off. We were in more danger of hitting a hill or each other in the close confines o that valley. One of the planes popped up and gave a quick shot when he realized he was shooting at an ambulance. But it wasn't an ambulance. It was full ammo and it damn near blew the pilot our of the sky. At the debriefing, he claimed his engine quit for a second and so did his heart.

The next mission was an escort, usually a milk-run but not this one. Our three flights met a large group of B-26s. Our leader placed one flight to the right of the group, one flight to the left and his flight at six o'clock high. Dangerous Dave was my wingman. After dropping their bombs, we started to return to our lines. Somebody called out, "German jets six o'clock low!" Right under us. I started flipping up on my wing, knowing Dave could take care of himself no matter what I did. I saw a wing fly off a B-26 and another bend away from the group. Parachutes came out of two planes. I still didn't see the attackers. Then Dave cried out, "Let's go, Reasman."

I did a split S and directly in front of me was a German jet. I fired. I missed. I dropped my wing tanks and pushed my throttle to the fire wall and hit the water button. That damn jet left me like I was standing still.

By this time Dave and I were below the cumulus clouds and we started to climb up through them. When we broke free, I saw a P-47 ahead of me and he started to turn toward us. I thought Maybe those jets were coming back. I turned for a quick look, saw nothing and, when I turned back, a parachute was floating down through the clouds. What happened? Who was it? Why was it? I saw no flak and there was no radio message. When I rejoined the flight, I saw it was the leader's wingman who was missing. Damn!

At the debriefing, we tired to spot the general area all this happened. Since I was lost most of the time I wasn't much help. I didn't know that when a pilot went down, a team was sent to that area when it was captured, to find out what happened. A few weeks later, the area was captured and Wasserman sent two teams to investigate. They found out nothing. But Wasserman came up with a brilliant idea. A lot of Polish DPs (displaced persons) were in the area, used by the Germans as forced labor. So he sent Lipiarz, our only Polish speaking pilot

The Polish DPs knew and led Lip to a Catholic church yard and showed him the grave. The pilot had been killed when he landed. A tragic story to end a tragic mission.