...I'm all alone this weekend because Rhoda went to NJ for a Bar Mitzvah...her sister's grandson, Michael. I opted out because I really do not feel like flying any longer. I think I'm flied out. I recall, now, very vividly the 11 and 12 hour flights we took from Dunkeswell, England most every day in our PB4Y (B-24) Liberators. Take-offs in a Liberator were the most sweated times especially with bombs and 2700 gallons of high-octane gasoline. The bump of the crossing runway at Dunkeswell we felt was the commit point and all eyes in the after station would be on the wing and wheels. Now, when I'm flying in a commercial aircraft at take-off, my mind wanders back to that time in my life when I lived in harm's way. It's not an easy feeling.
...When you have reached the 85-year mark, you have a tendency to look back at your life, especially in the mornings after midnite when sleep eludes you. I think of the many friends I had in Fleet Air Wing 7, and how grateful I was for their warm friendship and their skills. I suppose back then was one of the high points of my life, since it exposed me to great risks. Such risks naturally hones the senses to an extremely fine point that normal life does not. Just ask any man that has traveled in "Harms Way".
...The job of U.S. Navy aircrews was to keep German U-Boats from successfully operating in the Bay of Biscay, the English Channel and the North Sea by going out day after day, often in miserable weather conditions, on unrelenting search and destroy missions. Between 1943 and 1945 nearly 200 Navy Liberator personnel serving with FAW-7 were killed in either operational accidents or in combat. Death often came quickly for a PB4Y-1 crew. On several occasions, while taking off, or returning to base, a plane would slam into the ground with a full load of fuel and bombs, disintegrating in a colossal ball of fire and sending fragments of the plane and its occupants across the ground. On one occasion my crew and I experienced a crash on take-off. One of the wheels collapsed. Fortunately, we all escaped before the plane was destroyed. The result of that event was a week's leave to London--and a scarred remembrance.
...Anti-submarine patrols typically required the aircraft to fly at altitudes ranging from 800 to 1000 feet as the onboard radar and the eyes of the aircrew scanned the waters below for signs of the enemy. Therefore, flying a PB4Y-1 at such low altitudes placed the ten men on board in a highly vulnerable position. Mortal damage to the plane caused by enemy fighters or accurate anti-aircraft fire from a U-Boat or land based guns didn't give the crew much of a chance to bail out or radio for help as their stricken craft plummeted towards the sea. I suppose that during--or after one of these missions, I must have done something to merit the award of one Distinguished Flying Cross--but I can't remember what it was.
...At the war's end in 1945 the lucky ones rejoined civilian life followed by marriage, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. But those who were left behind never had the chance to live their lives.*
And, oh, yes--I really have had enough of flying.
*(Portions of this blog helped by Schiffer Military History Book)
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