In their own words...

[bobbysocks]

I havetn found a good stroy in a very long time and just fell onto this one...and it is GOOD!

W.Budd Wentz and his incredible story:

"On the morning of my wife, Bette’s, birthday Saturday, April 7, 1945, we set out on a mission to bomb a ME-262 jet airfield at Parchim, Germany. We took off from Lavenham, England (station 137) flying the B-17G-105-BO (#43-39126) we were assigned in March in position #4 under the Group Leader’s plane. The 838th Squadron was leading that day. The weather was excellent with only a few puffy clouds at about 20,000 feet. At approximately 13:10 hrs, I took the controls from the co-pilot while continuing to monitor the Group radio channel. The talk was relatively quiet with no calls announcing any German fighters or flak at that time. [NOTE - The 486th Bomb Group Association indicates that the 486th BG (H) dropped incendiaries on the Me-262 jet base over Parchim, GR at 1357 LST, 7 April 1945.]
Suddenly, while on route to the IP, we received a terrific jolt and bang. I tightened up on the wheel to prevent it from swerving. The waist gunner reported over the intercom that our plane had been hit in the tail by an ME-109 diving down from 4 o’clock high.
The tail gunner, Sgt. Jewell, was shoved forward 4-5 feet, but was only banged around. The plane was functioning okay so I held position for a few moments. The crew reported pieces of the tail and rudder were coming off. The engineer in the top turret reported that the vertical stabilizer was severely damaged. From the left side of the plane the crew observed that an ME-109 had severely damaged its right wing and was spinning down out of control. No parachute was seen while the crew had the ME-109 in view.
Not wanting to damage any other planes, I increased speed and planned to dive forward out of the formation. Unfortunately the plane didn’t dive when I pushed the wheel forward. I flew ahead of the formation and then cut the throttles back and let down in a flat aspect. After leaving the formation, I found that kicking the rudder didn’t turn the plane either. We couldn’t climb, dive or turn; it was apparent that I had no rudder or elevator control. Keeping the airplane level, I let down and turned by cutting the throttle on the outboard engine on that side and skidded around.
To prepare for emergency landing we dropped our bomb load in an open area then headed in a westerly direction while making a large circle to keep a flat attitude. The crew continued to report pieces falling off. I felt I had better get the plane on the ground. The navigator and bombardier found an airfield to the north with a single light gray runway. It could be worn asphalt or concrete. Low trees and cut grass surrounded the area. I approached in a northern direction and touched down. It had been only about 20 minutes since we were hit. It was odd that we hadn’t see any other fighters near our plane on our descent. We didn’t know if any other B-17s were hit.
On the right side of the runway, in the southeast quadrant, there was one or two small 1-story low buildings. Several new looking ME-262s were lined up under the trees. It was definitely a small facility in a very rural location without much fanfare. In 2005, I learned it was Wernershohe.
We were in Germany and expected to be in a Stalagluft as POWs in short order. At least we were on the ground unharmed. I came to a stop and taxied toward a building. To my surprise American soldiers came running out to the plane. “What the hell are you doing? You aren’t supposed to land here.”, shouted an American Army Major standing in his jeep. We learned that the Americans had just occupied the airfield only 2-3 hours earlier that day.
Upon examining the plane we saw the movable rudder was completely gone and the vertical stabilizer was damaged. The right horizontal stabilizer was reduced to less than one third its size while the left and right elevators were completely gone. The tail of the fuselage was crushed including the tail turret. The tip of a ME-109 wing was embedded in the fuselage. We pulled the tip of the ME-109 out and kept it as a souvenir. [NOTE-A piece of the ME-109 wing section is on display at the Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah, Georgia.]
Under some trees at the edge of the runway was another B-17. It was an old camouflaged plane with no markings and no chin turret, probably a B17-E or F. It was in rough shape, but no FLAK holes. The plane was pretty beat up, but after inspecting it we ran up the engines from a jeep generator then we took off and flew back to our air base in England. We flew at 3 - 4,000 feet keeping watch for airfields along the way just in case we needed to land again quickly.
We landed at our home airbase in Lavenham several hours after the group had returned. By now it was late in the day and starting to get dark. Somewhat reminiscent of our earlier landing that day an American officer came racing out to our plane, “What the hell happened to my new 17? You were supposed to be here hours ago.” I told the Major that we left his new plane back in Germany and traded it for this one instead.
We were driven to the mess hall but were never officially debriefed or interrogated. Later that evening I was taken to the Squadron Commander, Capt. “Pete” Riegal, and gave him a short version of our events that day. He told me that we would not have to fly any further combat missions in this war, but he would not ground us. We had crash landed 2 times in 28 missions as well as returned 5 times on two engines."

If they made that into a movie noone would believe it!

[McQ59]

I took the liberty of posting this story by Andrew George Linsley, July 2007

Black Thursday 13th June 1940.
As I stood amongst the 131 Gravestones in the churchyard at Stavne, Trondheim, at lunchtime on the 13th of June 2007 I was in good company. I was amongst the Allied personnel who died defending Norway after invasion in 1940. None of the men buried there were over 30 years of age and indeed the majority were only 18 or 19 years old.
As I stood there in the peace and tranquillity of that poignant scene I thought to myself “what a Bl…..dy waste!” 7 of those graves are Fleet Air Arm men; who died together on Thursday the 13th of June 1940, referred to as “Black Thursday”. This is their story… To understand the events we must go back a little further in time. On 7th June 1940, HMS Glorious landed on three Hurricanes from Bardufoss, and so skilfully did the RAF pilots, with no previous deck-landing experience, put them down that it was decided to recover the remainder of the RAF in this way. Thus ten Hurricanes of 46 Squadron and ten Gladiators of 263 Squadron were embarked in Glorious from Skaanland and Bardufoss, as well as the ship’s own nine or ten Sea Gladiators of 802 Squadron and some Swordfish of 823. There then followed a calamitous decision to detach Glorious, escorted only by the two destroyers Ardent and Acasta, to proceed independently to Scapa Flow. It was not known at the time, but the German battle-cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were patrolling between Jan Mayen island and the Norwegian coast, looking out for British carriers. On the afternoon of 8th June, 180 miles WNW of the Lofoten islands, Glorious and her escorts were sighted. At 1630 the Germans opened fire, and within ninety minutes Ardent was sunk, and Glorious, set on fire, and capsized. Subsequently in the freezing northern waters, all but 43 men perished out of a total of 1474 of the Royal Navy, and 41 of the Royal Air Force. Acasta doggedly and coolly launched a torpedo attack on Scharnhorst before she, too, was sunk. Scharnhorst was damaged, and had to return to Trondheim for repairs. On the 13th of June HMS Ark Royal launched, at 0002 fifteen of 800 and 803 Squadrons’ Skuas to attack her. It was a disastrous sortie; carried out in broad daylight, with no cloud cover, intense and accurate anti-aircraft fire, and the Messerschmitts from Vaernes waiting for them above the target. The formation was broken up before it could attack. Only one hit was obtained, and the bomb failed to explode. Eight of the 15 Skuas were shot down. 7 aircrew were killed, and 9 were captured.



Roll of Honour. 803 & 800Squadron
Fleet Air Arm Raid on Scharnhorst at Trondheim 13 June 1940
Lieutenant Robin Southey Bostock Lieutenant George Edward Desmond Finch-Noyes Midshipman Leonard Henry Gallagher Petty Officer Wallace Crawford
Sub-Lieutenant John Anthony Harris [died 14 June 1940] Naval Airman Stuart Rex Douglas Stevenson [died 31 May 1941] Leading Airman William James Tremeer

We SHALL remember them.

[JRHOODY1]

nice hot cup of tea with the great reads here highly recommended gents keep them coming great stuff

[whoarmongar]

John Wray 137 sqdn

"We were the first squadron to become operational on the Hurricane 1V, carrying eight 3 inch rockets with 60lb explosive warheads or, as an alternative two 40mm guns. We opted for the rockets as principle armament becouse they were so devastating. However we were not allowed to take the rockets overland into enemy territory as the air ministry wanted to keep them as a surprise for the invasion when it came,so we kept six aircraft armed with the 40mm cannon just for "Rhubarbs". These weapons were very accurate and really sorted out trains,the 40mm would blow the boiler right off.

Four of use set off on a "Rhubarb" in an area near Le Touquet. The Hurricane IV had no defensive armament the two remaining brownings being used to keep heads down when attacking ground targets with our primary weapons to which our gunsight was harmonised. Moreover with all the weight we now carried, the poor old Hurricane never the quickest climber had a pretty poor rate of climb. On the instrument panel was the boost overide toggle a red knob you could pull out to give emerency boost if required. However if you used it for more than two minuites the engine was liable to blow up. The red toggle had a piece of wire which extended through the instrument panel to the boost control on the engine.

We had just attacked a train when the air was suddenly full of Fw 190s. We had a big turning match, the Hurricane still retained its amazing manouverability and one by one we managed to make cloud cover. We landed back at base individually but more or less at the same time. As we walked in I said "That was a bit of a dicey do, by God". A canadian said "I wasnt the least bit worried, I didnt see any problem." I noticed he was clutching something in his hand and asked what he was concealing. Unknown to himself, he was clutching the red toggle of the boost overide, with a couple of feet of wire attached. He had pulled it right out of the instrument panel !