Baptism over Hamburg
By
David C Holtby

"Gentlemen, you're a target for today is a big H!"

You could have heard a pin drop. Even to my inexperienced ears the words which our intelligence officer, Major Moriss, had just ordered and sounded like the practical and doom. Although this was to be my crew's first mission, we all knew that Big H was short for Hamburg, Germany. So we were to get our baptism of fire on the second most heavily defended city in the Reich! We glanced quickly at each other and leaned forward to catch the rest of what S-2 was saying. He was holding a long pointer in his hand with which we know he now indicated a spot on the large map at the front of the room.

"Targets in this area will be attacked by several Groups from the Third Division. Our particular assignment is this synthetic oil plant which is known to be turning out a high percentage of the gasoline that is keeping the Luftwaffe in the air. Slides please."

As pictures flashed on the screen showing the target area in more detail, my mind was racing- filled with a thousand unanswered questions. So this was it! After long months of training in the states, here we were in England. One heavy bomber crew about to embark on our first mission as a part of the 835th bomb squadron, 486th bombardment group of the 8th Air Force. With my training be enough to enable me to measure up is navigator of this crew? And how about the others? We had flown together in the States, but how were these men going to react to combat?

There was Dale Wallenbrock from Terra Haute, Indiana, our pilot. He was only nineteen, but already airplane commander of a Flying Fort. Next to him sat Jim Martin, copilot, of Effingham, Illinois. He had left a trail of broken hearts behind him and the U.S. that spanned the continent. Now, as he listened to the briefing officer, he looked for the first time as though he might have something else on his mind besides women. Our bombardier was Alexander Walker from Yonkers, New York, variously called "The Moose" or "Slewfoot." His hair was already getting thin on top, but in training he had shown that he could drop bombs with the best of them.

In another room, getting special instruction on the types of enemy aircraft we were likely to encounter on this mission, were out re-enlisted man. They were:

Chris Greene, engineer and top turret gunner. Chris was an old Armored Division man who had forgotten more about engines than most of us would ever know. Billy Barrett, radio operator, was a youngster who took a lot of kidding from the rest of the crew about his amours.

Tom Mulcahy and Georgia Emerick, waste gunners, were always scrapping between themselves, yet they presented a united front to anyone who sought to intrude upon their private quarrels. Our ball turret gunner was Manuel Najera, possessor of one of those sunniest dispositions we ever met. �Poncho�, as we called him, was to cause us all some very nervous moments later by passing out when his oxygen mask froze up.

In that loneliest spot on the plane, the tail gun position, we had Walter Dupre. At thirty three he was easily the oldest man on the crew. Walt had a capacity for hard liquor that defied belief. He would drink anything, yet he was never offline status for illness all the time we're all overseas! And How good were these men? How good was I? We had flown the North Atlantic crossing together but that had been child's play compared to what we were confronted with now. Would the ten of us together be good enough when the time came? We had asked ourselves these questions many times in the past weeks. Now, before this day was over, we were to know the answers.

Briefing over, we hurried into out flying clothes and then out to the ship. Dawn was just beginning to break and we still needed flashlights as we moved around the plane. Dale and Jim were giving it careful preflight inspection inside and out. Walker struggled with the installation of the chin turret guns while I put two flak suits up in the nose section. If we can believe what S-2 had said about there being three hundred fifty guns in Hamburg, we were going to need all the protection we could get. Somewhere close by a gun roared as it was accidentally fired while being loaded. We jumped, then loudly curse the unknown gunner for his carelessness.

Finally we were in takeoff position, Dale gunned our engines for the last check, we had the green light from the dispatcher and went roaring down the runway, picking up speed as the throttles were jammed full forward. This was like any other takeoff in a lot of ways and yet it was different too, because in our Bomb bay for the first time hung a capacity load of 500 pound demolition bombs. With all gas tanks topped off and that bomb load on the racks we were pulling 68,000 pounds into the air when we left the runway and became airborne. We all leaned back and breathed a little easier as trees flash by underneath us and we realize that we�re actually in the air. We were free, this monstrous thing called a B17 was going to fly!

Our position in formation that morning wasn't calculated to improve our morale. We were Tail-end Charlie on the low squadron, in what was very aptly known as a Purple Heart Corner. Ask anyone who has ever flown that position on a combat mission and they will tell you why they would rather fly any other spot in the formation than that one. As one of the last planes in the Low Squadron, we are in the spot most vulnerable to enemy fighter attack. Also, we would be the last ones over the target and thus exposed to anti-aircraft fire longer than the rest of the formation. On that morning we were what the insurance companies would call "a bad risk."

Once the group was formed and we had found our place in the bomber stream, we headed out over the North Sea, climbing on course. Our bombing altitude was to be twenty five thousand feet and we wanted to be up there before we turned in toward the German coast. It was a beautiful day for flying but we weren't particularly interested in the weather. There was a lot to be done. Guns had to be test fired and the results reported over the interphone to Walter who, in addition to being bombardier, was our armament officer. Pins were pulled from the bombs and Chris Greene checked our gas consumption. That was a lot of water we were flying over, and it would make a particularly soft landing field if we ran out of gas on the way back.

Several hours and some odd minutes later we were nearing the point at which we were to turn in toward the coast. Over the interphone I notified the crew:

"Better get on those flak suits. We have a tight corridor to make good as you cross the coast, and if we aren't right on course we're going to catch it."

"Tail gunner, roger."

"Ball turret, roger."

Their rapid response told me that everyone had heard and understood my message and were scrambling for those steel helmets and suits. As we crossed the German Coast we were going to have to squeeze between the two towns of Bremerhaven and Wesermunde, both of which had strong defenses. If we were more than 1/2 mile off course to either right or left we would be within range of the guns, but if the formation here just right as two said they would be a flag freak word or there where we could slip through. My reverie was broken into by that Air Leader's of voice which came crackling over the interplay and radio:

"Bandits in the area. Close it up."

As if pull together by some magic drawstring, all planes immediately closed up the gaps. Now the formation was really tight. You're flying with scarcely more than wingtip clearance between planes. Enemy fighters had been reported in the area and the air leader, Major Uhle, was telling us to close in. This brought our maximum defensive fire power to bear in case we were attacked. Those Jerry pilots weren't dumb, by a long shot. They always picked out the group which was flying the poorest formation and swooped down upon it. We fervently hoped it wouldn't be us this time.

We made our turning point good and then, suddenly, there was ahead of us.

"Flak! At twelve o'clock, level."

So that was what looked like! Black puffs of smoke about the size of a basketball that began exploding quickly at our flight level, but still ahead of the formation. There was a sky full of potential death where a moment before there had only been clear air, sunlight, and an occasional cloud. They had our altitude perfect, but were still leading the formation with their fire. Apparently they were firing four gun tracking bursts, for now black puffs started to walk through the air, coming closer to our plane. Ahead, the lead squadron was crossing the coast and was right in the thick of it.

"My god, they got Harvey!"

It was a spontaneous cry over the interphone. Harvey Walthall and his crew, flying ahead of us, had taken a direct hit and now they were spinning down in flames. We had gone through phase training with Harvey and his gang back in the States and they too were on their first mission. It just didn�t seem possible that they could be out of it already! We watched their plane, praying for 'chutes. Part of their left wing snapped off and then something else happened which transferred my attention to ourselves.

We were right in it now, over the same spot that Hervey and his crew had been in only a moment ago. Poof! A burst so close that we could have reached out the nose and touched it, jarred the ship. I heard the sound of Plexiglas tinkling as it broke peculiar whining noise of ricocheting of flak, saw Walker slump forward over his bomb sight. For a split second I was petrified, afraid that I would get no answer when I asked him if he had been hit. I pressed my mike button.

"Walker, you OK?"

He nodded his head, then turn slowly around to face me. Blood was streaming down his face and the first impression I got was that he was going to cash in his chips any minute. When we got the blood swabbed away however, we could see that all he had was a small cut between the eyes where a piece of flying glass or flak had nicked him. At the sound of the explosion Walker had ducked to the right and this had saved his life, for the fragment only grazed him instead of hitting him squarely. It wasn't serious, and he was soon patched up and back at his position.

In the few seconds which had elapsed since we had seen Walthall go down, we had run the gauntlet of anti-aircraft fire and now we were out in the clear again, over Germany and speeding toward our target. Our flight plan called for us to approach Hamburg from the southeast, making our bomb run into the northwest with the wind at our back. This route would take us over the heart of the city on the way out. We heard Major Uhle say over the radio:

"I lost an engine back there to flak, but we're going to try to stick in here on three and hold the lead."

That's the kind of a guy he was. Any of the Fellows would have followed him to hell and back because they respected his air judgment and knew that he would stay in there and pitch us long as he possibly could. A top notch pilot in the air, he was equally popular on the ground and now his stock jumped another 10 points with all of us as we heard him announce his decision. Plenty of bomber pilots might have turned and run for home when they lost an engine, but not Dick Uhle.

We hardly had time to count or flak holes before the fighters jumped us. We're getting close to the target now, and they were all over the place. I heard Dupre's voice from the tale say:

"Fighters at six o�clock level, coming in. FW's and ME 109's."

Then his guns and barked and the ship took a second series of sharp stacato jolts as Poncho opened fire from the ball turret at almost the same instant. Those Jerries broke away under the formation and we never even got a look at them up there in the nose! All we could do was to stand there at our guns, wondering whether the next instant would bring 20 millimeter shell whistling through our fuselage from the rear. That is quite a unique a sensation, guaranteed to produce a new variety of goose pimple. We didn't have long to wait for the next fighter pass. Walker said:

"Here they come again, from one o'clock high."

It was a single ME 109 diving at us from out of the sun, but it wasn't firing at us! Then we saw why. Two P51's were right on his tail and he was going to dive through our formation in an attempt to shake them off. That plane flashed by a so close that we can almost see the expression on the pilots face! We got in a few burst at him from point blank range as he went by the nose and an instant later Pancho's voice from the ball said:

"Scratch one Messerschmidt! One of those P51's nailed him right underneath us at six o'clock low. He just blew up!"

Instead of breaking off their pursuit as they reached our formation, the P51 pilot and his wingman had followed the Jerry on through. We were suddenly and acutely conscious of the wonderful fighter support those boys were giving us. They had come up spoiling for a fight and they were certainly getting one on this trip. Dogfights were swirling on all sides of us now, and only a few of the enemy fighters were able to break through our screen of fighter cover for a pass at the bombers.

A red flare fired from the lead plane told us that we were approaching the initial point and were about to turn on the bomb run. We could see the city plainly now, and that meant that their gunners could see us just as easily. Hamburg lay off to our left like some sinister giant, poised and ready. We swung into our turn.

"Good lord, look at that stuff!"

It was Jim Martin, talking about the curtain of flak smoke that hung over the target, now directly ahead of us. They were laying a barrage over the city and defying us to fly into it. Instead of the spotty, tracking fire of the coastal guns, we now faced what looked like a solid wall through which no living thing could hope to fly and emerge unscathed on the other side! Had the intelligence officer said three hundred and fifty guns? It looks more like a thousand! It was one of the worst barrages we were to encounter on any of our missions.

That was an eight minute bomb run that seemed like an eternity. Flying straight and level to permit the bombardier to make an accurate run, we could take no evasive action whatsoever and were completely at the mercy of the anti-aircraft batteries. Ahead of us two planes were going down out of the lead squadron but we couldn�t tell who they were. We saw some chutes pop out, and I remember wondering what kind of a reception of those boys would get from the people of Hamburg.

A sharp explosion under our own right wing threw us into a steep left bank, and we could feel Dale give her hard right rudder and stick to bring us back on an even keel. He was handling that big ship like a master! We had a hole in or right wing this size of a man's head and the whole plane was shuddering, as if undecided whether or not to stay in the air. Around a smaller hole in the flaps, the control surface was peeled back and now whipped savagely in the slipstream.

"Bombs away!"

At last! We heard Billy Barrett say:

"Bombs clear, sir."

He had been watching from the door in the radio room to see that or bombs fell clear of the plane. Sometimes there was a last minute malfunction of the bomb racks or the whole mechanism froze up and the bombs didn't go out. Then someone had to kick them out or pry them lose by hand, a very nasty job with the outside temperature at fifty six below zero, as it now was!

We were in a hard turn to the left now, losing altitude to throw the gunners off our trail. Still holding a loose formation, but taking individual evasive action as was necessary, we made a good rally point and were on our way back toward the German Coast almost before we knew it. When full realization of what had just been through dawned upon me, I broke out in a cold sweat. Pinching myself to make sure that I was still in one piece, I sat down and looked at my maps once again. There were five good holes in the nose section which housed the bombardier and myself, not to mention numerous small ones. We look like a flying sieve! I was very glad to be alive. Life had never been sweeter than it was at this moment.

"Boy, oh boy! We sure splattered that place!"

It was Najera from the ball turret again. He had been able to see our bombs hit the target. He said that fighters had jumped one of the other squadrons while we're on the bomb run. We learned later that Blackie, copilot of the crew which shared our Nissen hut with us, had stopped a 20 millimeter cannon shell in one leg during the attack. He would have bled to death in a matter of minutes but prompt and efficient first aid administered by Joe Yacksick, his bombardier, saved his life. For this Joe later received the Silver Star, and the gunners of the crew were credited with three and one half enemy planes destroyed, including the one which had nailed Blackie.

Our flight back to the base was almost an anticlimax. We made good the flak corridor on the coast and, once out over the North Sea, we shed the cumbersome flak suits and helmets. Those things were heavy and awkward, but no one doubted that they might have saved our lives. Or plane was riddled with holes and we knew that some of the stuff had been ricocheting around inside, even though we hadn't been able to see it.

We swept in over our base, trying to close up the gaps in the formation and make it look good but not quite succeeding. We were just too tired to care what the formation looked like, and Dale and Jim were exhausted after grueling hours at the controls. As our wheels touched the runway, I glanced at my watch and made a final entry in the log. We had been in the air eight hours and thirty two minutes. It had been a long day.

After we were out of the plane and a climbed into the truck which was to take us to the interrogation that followed every mission, I looked around at the faces of these men I had flown with. Their dirty, sweat-stained faces and some of the eyes were bloodshot with an indescribable weariness. I wasn't thinking about that, however. I was thinking:

"They may have been kids this morning, but they are men now. This is the best damn crew in the whole world, and the mighty lucky to be part of it."

Aloud, I said:

"Well, they broke us in on that one, but at least we know the rest of them can't be any worse."

That was what the all fought then.

The next day we went to Berlin.

[Editor's Note: The crew first shot down was the Adler crew, 835th, all crewmen were taken POWs and survived the war. The second crew was the Harvey Walthall crew. Their ship collided with that piloted by Leland Harper. Two crewmen from each crew survived, became POWs and returned home. The remainder of the Harper crew died when their plane crashed. Walthall got his ship under control and made an attempt to return to England, but only got as far as Borkum, Germany. The seven that remained aboard were murdered by their captors.]

[Editor's Note: The story was donated by Mark Wallenbrock, son of Dale Wallenbrock. The author was LT Wallenbrock's navigator, David Holtby, who hoped to become an author. David provided Dale with a copy of the story, which he had hoped to have published in a magazine. David passed away in 2000. Dale Wallenbrock passed away in 2016]

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