Tail gunner - part I

Air Classics, Jan 2003 by Mitchell, Henry J

The days spent between these failures were aggravating. Hours hung heavy on our hands. After sleep and meal times there were eleven or so hours to kill. You got more used to the cold, so that if it hovered near freezing in the sunlight it felt almost summery. We would walk around outside to the PX, the Rec-Hall and back to the barracks several times a day. I can't recall watching movies (forget Hedy's; I hurried off to breakfast) but there must have been some. We had probably seen them before in the US. There were two records on the Rec-Hall's juke box that were played about a half dozen times an hour. It eventually got to you. There were some special Christmas and New Year events that took up some time. I was not a reader then. I spent some time writing letters home but it all dragged on and was boring.

Failures to takeoff due to engine troubles were one thing but the several times we actually got airborne and had to return were something else. After several "no-takeoffs" we finally got airborne on 4 January, headed for Iceland. Then after three and a half hours, near the tip of Greenland, radio orders put us in a holding pattern while the powers that be debated if we should change course and head for Prestwick, Scotland. Weather had changed and Iceland was out. Eventually a high ranking officer directed us to return to Goose Bay. Flying against our previous tail wind, it took nearly 58 hours. Nine hours over the Atlantic, then back up to our hips in snow. (Actually, walking on the cleared paths it was snow high overhead.)

The next two lift-offs occurred around the 17th. As we went down the runway a plume of white stuff emitted from the end of one wing. Davis saw it first and raced up to warn the pilot, but we were airborne in a few seconds. As Waite circled around the base, five of us in back hovered at the waist door with our parachutes on, despite being only at about 1500 feet and soon descending. Hardly room for chutes to open - I wondered how soft that snow was. On the ground, a check of the plane indicated that fuel was leaking out of a fuel tank cap. On a second try some days later, the same thing occurred and we returned. The plane was towed into one of the few hangars for the ground personnel to have a good look.

During this examination of the plane, the officers of our crew were called on to act as pall bearers for members of a crew of a B-24 that had crashed just after takeoff some days before. All but one member died at the crash. I had just met the survivor in the barracks a few days before. His name, Robinette, was stenciled on the back of his work suit. I remembered it from a wedding Muriel and I had attended when I was on leave in Chicago. We had met his young wife, a friend of the bride. He was still at gunnery school in Texas. It was an odd coincidence that I would run across him here. I spoke with him, and learned his wife had told him of our presence at the wedding. I say he survived, but he remained in a coma, according to information I got from the chaplain of the base. They flew up some specialists, but he died some days later.