DYING FOR ANOTHER DAY

AuthorHouse

Contents

Chapter 1. Preparing for takeoff..................................1Chapter 2. Flying high in Mississippi.............................5Chapter 3. Earning my wings.......................................9Chapter 4. My date with the "Flying Fortress".....................13Chapter 5. Bon Voyage.............................................15Chapter 6. My last mission........................................23Chapter 7. On the run.............................................29Chapter 8. Morning of the Gestapo.................................37Chapter 9. On my way to becoming a POW............................45Chapter 10 My new "home:" Stalag Luft III.........................47Chapter 11 The so-called camp hospital............................53Chapter 12. Let us entertain you...................................55Chapter 13. Take me out to the ballgame............................57Chapter 14. A walk in the woods....................................59Chapter 15. Thoughts of escape.....................................61Chapter 16. Sirens! sirens!........................................63Chapter 17. The great potato heist.................................65Chapter 18. 1944 winds down........................................67Chapter 19. The forced march.......................................69Chapter 20. The train ride from hell...............................73Chapter 21. Stalag VIIA: Hell on earth.............................75Chapter 22. Liberation Day.........................................77Chapter 23. "Escaping" into Moosburg...............................79Chapter 24. Next stop: Munich......................................81Chapter 25. Homeward bound.........................................83Chapter 26. Camp Kilmer to Manhasset...............................85Chapter 27. Reunion at Penn Station................................87

Chapter One

In 1937 I was just a little guy in a little high school in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. (Little meaning I was about 4' 11" and could not participate in sports.) Although Yankee Stadium was practically next- door in The Bronx, New York, I had no aspirations of becoming the next Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig. My ambitions were lofty in a sense though: I wanted to be a pilot. Movies such as "Wings," "I Wanted Wings," and the "Ace Drummond" serials with Lon Chaney, Jr. gave me the fever. And although "Wings" was a World War I movie, I knew little about the war, except what little I had learned in school. Neither did I know about the Nazi Party and Adolph Hitler's Third Reich and what they were up to, even as I sat in the theatre in Boonton, New Jersey-about two miles from Mountain Lakes. I had never heard of a B-17 either, or the prototype that was tested on July 28, 1935 at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio. Being an airplane fanatic, however, I did know that Wright Field, which became Wright Patterson Field in 1948, was named after the Wright Brothers, Wilbur and Orville. Dayton always claimed "ownership" to the birth of flight, but North Carolina begged to differ. The first flight was successfully launched there at Kitty Hawk, on December 17, 1903.

The army ordered its first batch of B-17s in 1938, thirteen to be exact. Sitting in the theatre that day I couldn't imagine what the future held for me, or how a B-17 would end up shaping my life.

I was only seventeen years old so Hitler, Nazi Germany and B-17s were not even on my radar screen; at least not yet.

I just wanted to learn how to fly. There were a few very small airlines in those days, and I wanted to fly for one of them.

My parents couldn't afford private lessons so they sent me to a junior college, which was a prerequisite (along with being at least twenty years old) for aviation cadet training

The college we decided on was Oak Ridge Military Institute in tiny Oak Ridge, North Carolina. Oak Ridge was located between Greensboro and Winston-Salem and about seven miles east of the sleepy little town of Kernersville. My parents drove me down from Mountain Lakes in late August of 1938 in our '37 Dodge. I remember stopping and spending the night along the way. I think it was at a hotel in downtown Richmond, Virginia.

Oak Ridge was established in 1852 by the Society of Friends (Quakers) as a "finishing school" for boys. It became one of the best prep schools in North Carolina and was well known for its debating societies as well as its athletics. Oak Ridge teams regularly played the likes of Wake Forest, the University of North Carolina and Trinity College (later Duke University).

In 1929 Oak Ridge officially became an all-male military secondary school as well as a junior college. During World War II, 127 of the academy's alumni were awarded the Purple Heart while another twenty-seven earned the Silver Star. It's ironic that Oak Ridge became a military school after being formed by Quakers, who are devout pacifists.

Today, Oak Ridge is the third-oldest military school in the United States still in operation.

A lot of boys were (and still are) sent to Oak Ridge for disciplinary reasons. The code of conduct there was very strict. It was early to bed and early to rise with absolutely no room for "monkey business." There was room, however, for initiation rites, or hazing, which included having my rear end beaten around pretty good by the second year guys.

One of their initiation methods included a large, wooden paddle with holes in it. They called it the "Board of Education" and it worked very well. My rear end was sore all year. Another technique they used involved a toothbrush. They would make me drop my drawers and they would take that toothbrush and kind of rub it back and forth on my butt, in the same spot, until a blister was created. Didn't hurt my growth, though. At Oak Ridge I grew almost five inches to about 5' 5." My mother had taken me to a doctor in Mountain Lakes who prescribed some type of growth pill. To this day I don't know what it was. But they worked. Or they were just placebos that helped get my mind off my inferior height. Didn't matter, though. I ended up becoming about the average height for a grown man in the 1940s: 5'8."

All of us at Oak Ridge had to perform "guard duty" at one time or another in front of the school. It was a boring job except for that one fateful Saturday afternoon in September of 1938. That was the day a Model A Ford pulled up to the curb loaded with a bunch of giggling girls. Needless to say, I deserted my post, walked over, and struck up a conversation. But before I could get my first sentence out one of the girls exclaimed, "Why ... it's a damn Yaaankee!" The girl turned out to be Doris Cooke, a petite blue-eyed brunette and the cutest girl I'd ever laid eyes on. I learned that she was a sophomore at Kernersville High School and lived in the middle of town. We didn't have that many dates when I was at Oak Ridge because I didn't have a car and she didn't have a license. Plus, Oak Ridge had very strict rules for off campus trips and an early curfew of 11:00 p.m. So our only dates were meeting for Cokes in Kernersville - and I had to walk seven miles to get there. We met at Pinnix Drug Store, a Kernersville institution. It's where you bought all your sundries and had your prescriptions filled while you sat at the soda counter and enjoyed a Coke or a milkshake. The Cokes were five cents and the milk shakes were a quarter. Meeting for Cokes was about the extent of Doris' and my "love life" during my two years at Oak Ridge. We would soon go our separate ways, me back to New Jersey and she to wherever. I told Doris that whatever happened, I would never forget her. "I will never forget you, either, Pete Edris," she said. "After all, you're the first boy who ever kissed me ... and a damn Yankee, at that!"

Back at Oak Ridge that night I couldn't get Doris off my mind. Would we stay in touch as we promised? Or just grow apart over time.

Something deep down, though, told me that this was not just a passing fancy.

Chapter Two

After Oak Ridge I worked in New York as an office boy. My father was an insurance investigator and probably wanted me to follow in his footsteps. But I hated "office" work and couldn't wait until I was twenty and eligible for flight school.

And it finally happened: On August 29, 1941, I went to 90 Church Street in New York City and was sworn in as an aviation cadet in the Army Air Corps. From there we were put on a train bound for Montgomery, Alabama. We were the first class to be called "Aviation Cadets." The previous title was "Flying Cadets." We also were the first class to have preflight training before we ever got into an airplane. Ground school included all kinds of stuff, including mathematics and meteorology. Thanks to my military training at Oak Ridge, this all came very easy for me. I really had a good time because hazing was as easy as a cakewalk. The upperclassmen couldn't even touch me without my permission. They could do little more than straighten my tie or my nameplate. What a relief to know they couldn't beat me like the guys at Oak Ridge did.

My next step after Montgomery was primary flight school, where I flew PT 17s in Jackson, Mississippi. The PT 17 was a Stearman biplane with two open cockpits. The instructor sat in front and a cadet sat in back. We had sixty hours there, before we went to basic training. Each school lasted about eight weeks. There were four weeks as underclassmen and four weeks as upperclassmen at each school. Four of us (Campbell, Bader, Jones and me) were assigned to a guy named Ted Woodbeck. He was shorter than me because I had made it to 5' 8." And he was quite a pilot. His training went all the way back to the twenties and early thirties when he was a crop duster. He was the guy who really taught me how to fly. You really had to know the mechanics of an airplane to fly a biplane. I kept wanting to grab the stick with my left hand because I'm left handed. But Woodbeck grabbed my left hand and said, "That hand goes on the throttle (which is on the left) and you put your RIGHT hand on the stick." I was thinking I might flunk out before I got off the ground! But as it turned out, all four of us passed with flying colors. But this success didn't bode well for our future, though. Campbell had his head blown off, Bader also was killed, Jones was wounded ... and we'll get to me later. Not much of a track record, huh?

The first ten hours of flight training consisted of normal maneuvers. I was told how to bank left and right ... and climb and descend. Instructors weren't allowed to do any acrobatics until you had ten hours. Then they could put you on your back. One day he used a Gosport tube to communicate with me. It was sort of like a stethoscope. I had a helmet on and the tubes to the Gosports - a tube in each ear in my helmet. I could hardly hear a word Woodbeck said. The wind was screaming in each side of my helmet.

I was certain that he was going to put me on my back, as in he was going to roll it over, upside down. So ... I grabbed the seat with both hands. He asked, "You got your seatbelt on?" I shook my head up and down, yes. He had a mirror and every time he asked a question, he looked in the mirror to see if I understood. I couldn't talk back. So I grabbed the bottom of the seat on each side as hard as I could. We rolled over on our backs and he said, "All right Edris, let me see your hands." I shook my head sideways, no. "Damnit, Edris, I'll wash you out if I don't see your hands." (He was yelling so loud I could actually hear him over the wind). I let go of that seat and stuck my hands up to my shoulders. He yelled, "Stick 'em way out!" I ended up just hanging by my seatbelt. Of course I was wearing a parachute, but I was terrified nonetheless.

After the war people often asked me if I ever practiced bailing out of airplanes. The answer was "no." We didn't even read a book on how to bail out. All they told us was where the ripcord handle was. That's all they ever told us. Period.

But at least on this day of flying upside down, I didn't have to bail out. Hoped I wouldn't have to bail out during my first solo flight either. But I'd soon find out. You believe you're never ready for your first solo, they say. Well, they're right. And my primary instructor wasn't very encouraging either when he said: "Edris, go kill yourself; because I sure as hell won't be on that airplane. You're on your on. That's why they call it 'solo.'"

Well, I took off and let out a whoop. We had check points to let us know where to make our downwind leg, where to turn onto the base leg, and where to turn for the final approach. The last thing the instructor said before he got off the wing was, "If you bounce too hard and your nose goes up in the air, just remember to stick and throttle; the stick forward and throttle forward to full power. Go on around and make another try." So ... I came down the first time and bounced onto the ground. All I could remember was, "stick and throttle." I gave it full power and went around and did the exact same thing the second time. I went around a third time thinking if I was going to get this bird down alive! I was so mad on this third try that I came down and just pulled the stick back into my belly and let the thing come down. It bounced along the ground like a big rubber ball. I could see the instructor frantically waving his arms. I taxied over and he said, with great relief: "Okay. I think that'll do it for today, Edris." Well ... I passed (sigh of relief).

But right before my graduation, something horrible happened at Pearl Harbor. And the world would never be the same.

At 7:58 a.m. on December 7, 1941, a sneak attack was executed by the Japanese Navy on the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor. Japan's objective was to cripple the fleet and keep it from interfering with its plans to wage war in Southeast Asia against Britain, the Netherlands, and the U.S.

The attack was devastating. The bombings killed more than 2,300 Americans. They completely destroyed the U.S.S. Arizona, capsized the U.S.S. Oklahoma, sank three other ships and demolished 180 aircraft.

President Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, "A date which will live in infamy." The attack was the catalyst for America to enter the war with all its might, not only in the Pacific, but also in Europe, where Nazi Germany and Imperial Italy had declared war on the United States and its allies.

I knew in my heart that the war would affect my buddies and me more than we ever could imagine. It would change everything: Our plans, our hopes ... our dreams.

I felt my appointment with destiny was drawing near. I had no idea where I would meet my fate. But I knew it wouldn't be in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey.

Chapter Three

After graduation from primary flight school we went on to basic training in Greenville, Mississippi, which is right on the Mississippi River. There was a new field there and we were its inaugural class. I liked the place except for one thing: Lack of food. For the first couple of weeks I thought I was going to starve. About all we had to eat was chipped beef on toast. In the military, this "delicacy" became known as S.O.S, "shit on a shingle!" There I was introduced to a Vultee BT 13A. It was a low-wing monoplane with a fixed, non-retractable landing gear. It had a radio (which I quickly learned how to use) and an intercom in the cockpit.

In Greenville I had a screaming instructor who was louder than Woodbeck. This guy would actually beat his head on the instrument panel when I did something wrong. Finally, it was time for me to solo. The first day up I remember it was very cold. I mean ... it was cold even by New Jersey standards (and this was the deep south!). It was so cold that on my first landing attempt the wing stalled out because of frost. So I just crunched it down onto the runway. My instructor pulled the plane over to a side taxi strip and left the engine running. Then he jumped down and actually put his shoulder under the wing, lifted it up and down, and looked at the strut to see if it was damaged.

Meanwhile, I'm looking out the side of the cockpit, wondering what the hell he was doing! Then, lo and behold, he goes to the other wing and checks it out too by lifting it with his shoulder. I thought who does this guy think he is, Charles Atlas? Then he climbed up onto the wing and hollered in my face, "Okay, Edris, you're going solo."

Well, "I must be doing something right," I thought. And I guess I was, because I went on to pass my solo test with flying colors.

After graduating from basic I went to twin engine - advanced training at Columbus Army Flying School in Columbus, Mississippi. We were actually the first class there, too. We trained on two airplanes. One was a little AT8 Cessna. The other plane was a Lockheed Hudson, which the British were using for submarine patrol. It was a large, twin-engine plane with a twin tail. It was one of the most difficult planes that any of us ever flew. Several cadets got killed trying.

April 28, 1942 was my graduation day; the day I got my wings. And I was thrilled that my mother and two sisters, Helen and Lucille, showed up for the ceremony.

So here I was - a once 4' 11" high school runt who was too small to play any sport ... showing off his wings. "I'll show you someday," I always said. And I did show 'em. Now I was a full-fledged second lieutenant with a pilot rating.

By this time, Doris was college a student at Greensboro, N. C. And although we had been corresponding off and on through my cadet days, the relationship wasn't all that serious (I didn't think). But when she told me how hurt she was that I hadn't invited her to my graduation, I knew I had screwed up. I knew from then on that I'd be more sensitive to her feelings.

Chapter Four

After graduation it was time to move on to McDill Field in Tampa, Florida for B-17 training. When I found out we were going into four-engine bombers, I thought, "Lord God, I'm going to wash out. I'll never learn to fly those behemoths!" Compared to the bi-plane I learned to fly on, this was like jumping from the Little League to the Major Leagues. No wonder they called this thing the "Flying Fortress." It was 70 feet long and weighed almost 40,000 pounds; that's before you added the ten-man crew, almost 6,000 pounds of bombs and several thousand pounds of fuel. The wingspan was a gigantic 104 feet and the plane was powered by four 1,200 horsepower radial engines. No wonder these engines were named "Wright Cyclone" radials. Because that's what they sounded like: Cyclones! So here I am: a twenty-one year old kid learning how to fly a 40,000 - pound bomber that cost $276,000. Yikes! What have I gotten myself into? But we found out that these birds were very forgiving. That you could make a million mistakes and still bring it home. And they could take quite a beating, too. They were like Timex watches claimed to be in their 1950s advertising: They would "Take a Lickin' and Keep on Tickin."

We spent about a month at McDill, where we were assigned to the 92nd Bomb Group. Then we moved further south to Sarasota, Florida for combat training. Because America had declared war only five months before, everything was new, which meant there was no defined training schedule. You might say we were sort of flying by the seat of our pants. All the while, though, we were preparing to go to England to join forces with the 8th Air Force and the Royal Air Force (RAF) for battle in the European Theatre of Operations (ETO).

We flew all day, every day that summer of 1942. We learned high-altitude flying (25,000 feet), bombing, navigation ... everything. Pilots also had to check out some of the gun positions: There were two nose guns operated by the bombardier, two tail guns, two belly (ball turret guns,) a side nose gun for the navigator, two waist guns, and the twin top turret guns operated by the flight engineer. Each of these guns was a .50 caliber machine gun, designed to blow enemy fighters out of the sky: In the ETO we will be the target of Me-109s, designed by famed German aeroplane designer Willy Messerschmitt. With a top speed of 379 mph, we'll have to blow it out of the sky, because we sure as hell can't outrun it. The other Nazi fighter that will have us in its crosshairs will be the FW (Focke-Wulf) - 190. One squadron of FW-190s was nicknamed "Yellow Nose," because the cowlings around the engine were painted yellow. This was no slouch of a fighter plane, either. Powered by a BMW 14-cylinder radial engine, its top speed was 395 mph.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from DYING FOR ANOTHER DAYby PETE EDRIS RAYMOND REID Copyright © 2010 by Pete Edris and Raymond Reid. Excerpted by permission.
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