WWII Stories of Courage
“LET’S GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE”
In advance of D-Day, the U.S. 8th Air Force flew many missions to soften up German airfields, military sites and troop concentrations. On the morning of April 13, 1944 my crew left Shipdham Air Base in England for Augsburg, Germany, to destroy the Luftwaffe air base and its experimental ME 262 jet fighter facilities. I was the tail gunner and radio operator for a B-24 Liberator assigned to the 67th Squadron, 44th Bomber Group, known as The Flying Eightballs. Our pilot was Lt. Rockford “Rocky” C. Griffith, an exceptional flyer who had already won the Silver Star for bringing our heavily damaged plane back from a mission to Norway. Hours later, a massive formation of American bombers converged on the Lechfeld air base near Dachau south of Augsburg. We were deep inside Nazi-occupied Europe, about 700 miles from our bases in England. At first we ran into heavy flak and, closing in on Augsburg, a swarming attack by some of Hitler’s best fighter staffels. In a fierce firefight over the target area, our B-24 was hit in the fuel supply and we limped out of German air space in the direction of the Swiss border. We could not keep up with the formation and were a target for the enemy fighters and flak that filled the skies. German fighters were closing in on us for the kill. “They’re coming after us!” I shouted into the intercom. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
We had been warned not to come down in German territory. The last the formation saw of us we were heading toward Switzerland with a steady stream of fuel coming out of our tanks. They thought an explosion would blow us to bits. As we neared the border three or four bursts of flak hit us, Lt. Griffith put us into a steep dive to the left and down. Just at that second, four more bursts of flak exploded where we had been. It was touch-and-go with death or capture waiting at the final turn. We crossed the shores of Lake Constance at 15,000 feet in a downward spiral vectoring in on the Swiss base at Dubendorf north of Zürich. It was going to be a bumpy landing and we knew it. Our desperate race was to beat the pursuing German fighters to the border. It was a race of life and death for us.
In Swiss air space we were met by Swiss ME 109 fighters who came in close to make sure we were not going to bomb the Swiss cities. This was right after the American bombing of Schaffhausen, Switzerland, and the Swiss were very nervous about bombers entering their air space. I went back into the rear to flip the detonator switch on the IFF, secret radar, and blow it up. On landing our B-24 sheared off a lot of low trees and ran out of runway. After we landed I lowered myself out of the bomb bays to find myself surrounded by armed soldiers who looked like German troops. As I started to walk away from the aircraft, a soldier came up behind me and touched me in the back with his automatic rifle. I stopped, raised my hands and gave up. We were taken to a base operations headquarters under armed guard and interrogated by Swiss military intelligence, we answered only with our name, rank and serial number.
Girls from the neighborhood around the base lined up and shouted to us to set up dates with them. Later we learned that some of the girls were informants for the Germans. After a few days we were taken under armed guard to the main railroad station in Zürich and put on a train to Adelboden in the Alps. It was to be our home for the next several months. As we marched through the station one or two Swiss civilians raised their hands in menacing gestures, but others showed the V for victory sign. Our guards were all young Swiss recruits and we wondered if they really knew how to shoot. Later we learned that all of them were expert shots and skiers and they made up the best ski troops in Europe.
To this day some critics claim that American aircrews diverted to Swiss territory to avoid combat but that is totally false. An official investigation by the Air Force following the war found not one case where an aircrew went down for no justified reasons in Switzerland. But you still hear the reports and they do a great disservice to the men who survived and those who died. It is to them I dedicate this story and to them I pay honor and tribute even 60 years later.
By Forrest S. Clark B24vet@aol.com. Kissimmee, Fl.