Between the Missions

Flight Journal, Dec 2004 by Havener, J K "Jack"

The bad weather limited flying, and because of my status as copilot on a lead crew and the fact that a lead crew flew only about one out of every four missions the group mounted, I had barely flown at all and had a total of 59 missions. I needed 65 to go home, and, boy, did I ever want to go home! On February 5, 1945, we learned that all lead crews would be given one-and-a-quarter-mission credit for each one flown, so that gave me credit for 67.75. My buddies Balach, Curley and Healy all would have 65, so we began sweating out orders to go home!

We at last held the orders in our hot little hands, and I had a last photo taken after getting all the clearance papers signed. The next day, we four officers and a batch of enlisted men rode into Paris in a 6×6 GI truck, and we arrived at Le Bourget airport because we officers were scheduled to fly back to London on a C-47. The enlisted men were needed for crewing B-29s in the Pacific, so they stayed at Le Bourget to board a C-54 for a direct flight back to the States. Evidently, we twin-engine pilots weren't needed in the Pacific, so were slated to go home by ship, and that really browned us off!

After a night in London, we took a 6-hour train ride north to a "Reverse repple depple" (GI slang for a "going-home replacement depot"). It wasn't until March 9, 1945, that we traveled by train south to Portsmouth, where we boarded the C-3 cargo ship Sea Wolf. It took us 10 days to bob across the North Atlantic, and each day was worse than the one before.

The first meals aboard ship, while we still bobbed around the harbor and in the calmer seas close to shore, were sheer ambrosia after the Spartan fare in France and England, but as soon as the inevitable seasickness set in, even this luxury evaporated-not from deterioration of the menu but by our own choice. Sea Wolfs violent pitch and roll in heavy seas made the enjoyment of good food next to impossible.

Our ship was only 300 feet long and had been built originally as a tank transport, and the holds were filled with tiers of bunks. Our little group of officers was assigned bunks in the forecastle, and the only thing farther forward in that hold was the brig. Our bunks were stacked eight high, and climbing in and out of one of the upper ones took the place of daily calisthenics!

The revulsion of being forced to sail the North Atlantic in steerage was overridden by the joy of at last being on our way home. We, however, never forgave the logistical planners for subjecting aerial-combat veterans to such indignity!

It's a sad fact that this last sleeping accommodation prior to reaching the blissfulness of the good old USA was by far the worst of my entire overseas experience! C'est la guerre!

Story and photos by Lt. Col. J.K. "Jack" Havener, USAF (Ret.)