WW II Stories of Courage
WE WERE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE NORTH SEA
For over 50 years he believed our plane and crew were at the bottom of the North Sea.
That is for Hubert Whitlock of Charlotte, N.C. a WWII bombadier who saw us shot down and heading right for the North Sea. It happened on 18 Nov. 1943 on a mission to bomb Norway then occupied by the Nazis.
However , we survived and it was not until many years later Whitlock learned the truth.
Whitlock then a young bombadier on his second mission, saw our bomber pursued bv three enemy German fighters heading down for the icy waters of the North Sea. Even the Germans were sure they had shot us down. But how wrong they were.
What happened. We went into a cloud bank and then enemy fighters lost us and broke off their fierce attack. The last they saw of us we were going into the choppy water of the North Sea.
The pilot Lt. R.C Griffith struggled on with two good engines a third sputtering to quit and a fourth knocked out by intense enemy fire. Three hours later we spotted the English coast but could not get the landing gear down. It had been shredded by enemy fire. So we bailed out and the pilot chose the risky business of landing the badly damaged bomber. He did the best job he could and saved his life and the wounded gunner.
However, for Lt. Hubert Whitlock for many years he thought we were all dead in the sea. Until he saw a story of one surviving crew member seeking others who had been on that mission many years ago. He called that crew member and confirmed the crew had survived. He thought we were dead.
Whitlock is a successful builder in Charlotte and a member of the 8th Air Force Historical Society. He told this story at one of the society meetings.
The tail gunner who asked for information was none other than the writer of his column T/Sgt Forrest S. Clark of Bristol, TN. The two friends have corresponded and are still in contact after all these years. They will never forget. Two unexploded German shells were in one of the good engines. God had been with us. We saw our friends go down to their deaths, 62 of them on that mission. Courage, God, and skill got us back.
By Forrest Clark. He was a tail gunner and radio operator on his missions with the 44th Bomb Group, 8 AF.