Authors: Martin Bowman
Tags: #Bisac Code 1: HIS027140
The 653rd Bluestocking Squadron suffered a run of fatal crashes. On 1 November 1st Lieutenant Robert C. Grimes and 1st Lieutenant Clarence W. Jodar were returning from a Bluestocking mission in a furiously stormy night when a wing-tip clipped a tree and they crashed inverted. Three weeks later, on 22 November 1st Lieutenant Malcolm S. ‘Mac’ MacLeod, who had flown in the RAF and 2nd Lieutenant Edward G. Fitzgerald and 1st Lieutenant Russell E. Harry and 2nd Lieutenant Milford B. Hopkins were killed returning from another Bluestocking mission in much the same circumstances. MacLeod’s Mosquito crashed at Saham Toney and Harry’s aircraft crashed at Thompson near Watton. Just a few weeks’ earlier Hopkins and Clarence Jodar had celebrated with friends the arrival of their first-born sons.
The 654th Squadron had its losses too. On 25 October the Mosquito flown by 1st Lieutenant George M. Brooks and 2nd Lieutenant Richard C. Taylor failed to return from a Night Photography (Joker) mission to Duisburg. Brooks was killed but Taylor survived and he returned. Then on 1 November the 654th Squadron lost a second Mosquito. Second Lieutenant Vance J. ‘Chip’ Chipman and 1st Lieutenant William G. Cannon took off on a Mickey mission at 19.30 hours from Watton. Chipman was a former racetrack driver from Chicago who had joined the Royal Canadian Air Force when war started in Europe. To some he was ‘...a strange chap in USAAF uniform with both RAF and USAAF wings. His chest was splattered with combat decorations and he sported a long handlebar moustache. In a crisp British accent he introduced himself, mentioning that he would be assisting in Mosquito pilot training.’ Chipman and Cannon’s objective was H
2
X photos for a bombing run to Schweinfurt. They never returned from their mission. This was the third successive H
2
X photo mission to fail to return and it strengthened suspicions that German Ju 88s were homing in on H
2
X radar equipment. It proved, however, to be an exception. At the IP, 50 miles from Schweinfurt, cameras were started. The run was completed at a target near the centre of the city and the Mosquito banked and headed for home. On leaving the city the Mosquito received a direct hit of anti-aircraft fire. The right engine caught fire and Cannon was hit by shrapnel in his right leg and on the back of his head. Chipman gave the order to bale out but received no reply from Cannon, who had the usual difficulties in exiting the Mosquito but his descent was smooth. The impact with the ground in the black of night was unexpected and rough and broke his injured leg in three places. He had landed near an anti-aircraft battery whose crewmen found him within minutes.
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Chipman meanwhile, performed the cockpit controls bale-out routine, exited the bottom hatch, opened his parachute and from his descending parachute watched his aircraft explode. After landing and burying his parachute and Mae West, he took stock. He had lost one tooth, split his lip, cut his tongue and torn a ligament in his left leg. He had retained his escape supplies during his jump, however. Chipman made his way toward France during the night and sought available hiding places during the day. From some farmer’s storage hill he filled his trouser leg pockets with raw beets and potatoes. From a small shop he stole a bicycle. With the use of the bicycle he was covering distance until an aged tyre blew out. Thereafter he walked pushing the bicycle. One night Chipman passed two German soldiers who became suspicious and shone their torch on him. Seeing the blood and torn military clothing they took him to a
Luftwaffe
aerodrome and locked him in a cell. Later he was given the freedom of a hallway.
A day or two later at breakfast he found a door unlocked. Walking out the door he made his way to one of several Bf 109s parked in a blast bay. He planned to start the aircraft and head for England and everything seemed to be working smoothly but he found that a lone person inside the aircraft could not start a Bf 109. Chipman was still trying when he was discovered and hustled back into the guardhouse. A guard, using one-inch rubber tubing, beat Chipman over the head until he was unconscious. When he recovered he was taken to the
Dulag Luft
in Frankfurt where he was interrogated. Chipman answered all questions with the usual name, rank and serial number but perhaps in a frivolous manner. Thus, in an effort to make him talk, his captors gave him a doped cigarette. It made him very dizzy and very sick but he did not lose his control. Rather, he answered their questions with imaginative and ridiculous accounts of activities as if it were the effect of the drug. This included a revelation about a flying submarine. From Frankfurt, Chipman was taken to
Stalag Luft
III at Sagan.
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On 6 November 1944 1st Lieutenant Otto E. Kaellner’s Mosquito crashed in England following a Mickey night radar-mapping mission to Cologne using the H2S radar system. Kaellner was killed and his navigator, Lieutenant Edwin R. Cerrutti, was seriously injured. Flight Officer James D. Spear and Lieutenant Carroll Bryan were killed on a local training flight on 23 December when their Mosquito crashed at Debden. Meanwhile, the loss of the three aircraft and crews on three consecutive night photography missions led Major (later Colonel) Roy Ellis-Brown, Group Operations Officer, to cancel operations pending further evaluation. Ellis-Brown, who had flown with the RAF and had been awarded the DFC, paid a visit to 100 (Special Duties) Group at Bylaugh Hall in Norfolk and got the low down from the RAF on why the Americans were losing Mosquitoes at night. He was told that ‘stooging along alone’, especially at low level for a hundred miles was ‘asking for it’. Despite opposition from the 654th Squadron commander, Colonel John Larkin, Ellis-Brown, supported by Colonel Leon Gray the 25th Bomb Group CO, all Mickey flights at night ceased forthwith and new ways of flying the missions in daylight were tried. Beginning on 19 February 1945, the 654th Bomb Squadron switched to light-weather missions.
Pete Dustman, an American pilot from the western Rocky Mountains in Idaho, who, while serving as an instructor at RAF Leconfield early in the war, had met and married Lorna, his English wife, wanted night fighters when he finished training. His roommate wanted training command. “You guessed it,” says Dustman. “I was posted to Upavon to become an instructor on Oxfords and my roommate went to night fighters. After various assignments 2nd Lieutenant Dustman wound up ferrying B-17s, B-24s, Dakotas, the P-47 and one Boulton Paul Defiant that the US borrowed to tow targets and then didn’t use. On one trip he heard about the formation of a Mosquito base at RAF Watton, so he made a stop on his next delivery to talk to the commander. Since he had flown RAF aircraft Dustman was immediately accepted and he joined the 25th Bombardment Group and was assigned to the 654th Bomb Squadron, as he recalls:
As I joined the squadron they were working to modify the Mossie to fit Chaff dispensers, night photo equipment with 24-inch cameras for high altitude (24,000ft) and to install radar on the Mickey ships. In the interim we had one B-25 and three B-26s to take night photos at 12,000ft, short range, slow and low. I flew five in the B-25 and three in the B-26 over France to cover railways at night and the building of the new V-1 sites. I flew my first mission in a day photo Mosquito along the French coast. I imagine it was a just a feint to keep the Germans guessing, which is about all it did as the groundcrew forgot to turn on the cameras before we left. As others on their first mission, I flew my first trip with my heart going at top speed, but I saw nothing except a few clouds along the route. Other missions of the 654 were a bit more exciting. Two missions that I flew verified the old saying that ‘flying is 90 per cent luck and 10 per cent skill’, although that might be overstating the skill part. On my 28th birthday on 21 February 1945 I started out on a routine night photo mission with a target at Memel, west of Hamm in the Ruhr Valley with Lieutenant Len A. Erickson as navigator. The scheduling team had fouled it up as I was approaching Essen at the same time as the RAF was having a major strike in the same area. It was interesting to watch, as we were getting ready to start our run-in at 22,000ft. Naturally everything was lit up with flares going down and flak coming up. As I started my photo run and dropped my first of a string of thirty flares, flying straight and level to keep the camera in focus, I heard a loud English voice say, “Mossie rock your wings”. We assumed that a British night-fighter was on our tail but couldn’t make contact. I didn’t want to miss the pictures, so I kept going hoping to complete the mission. Then again I heard the same voice saying “Blue Leader, this is Blue 4, this Mossie won’t rock his wings” and the faint reply, “Shoot the bastard down then!” My wings were rocked vertical and sideways with flash bombs going in every direction, with no pictures taken that night. I did have words at debriefing on return that night about their scheduling.
On a night flight over Germany to take photos, a new navigator was with me. His training had been primarily on radar, with very little on navigation. On this flight we had a strong wind shift (now known as jet stream shift), which was unexpected. The navigator thought it was just the Gee navigation system that had messed up and didn’t consider the wind shear accurate, although the Gee was good for the target run. On return he did not allow for the wind shift and we drifted so far south that we missed not only our base in East Anglia but England! Since our radios had also packed up, we let down hoping to find land and get our position in the moonlight, but the top of one cloud was just like all others. I kept trying the radio and finally received a steer of due north, landing at Bournemouth with 10 minutes of fuel left. Since the navigator had also forgotten the camera switches, the mission was a complete loss.
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On 24 March 1945, a daylight mission using a Mosquito fitted with British radar equipment was tried. After having the radar fitted at Malvern the Mosquito, piloted by 1st Lieutenant Carroll B. Stubblefield and his navigator-radar operator, 1st Lieutenant James B. Richmond, took off from RAF Defford and headed for East Anglia. The Mosquito was joined by eight P-51 Mustangs of the 479th Fighter Group from Wattisham. The purpose of the mission was electronic and radar surveillance over German fighter bases in the Siegen-Kassel area in Germany. The group flew to the Antwerp, Aachen and the Remagen bridgehead, thence to Limburg and Siegen and turned north-easterly toward the Kassel area. The Mosquito flew a criss-cross pattern at 18,500ft. The escorting P-51s were thus able to maintain the pace and flew at 19,000ft altitude and 1,000 yards behind. At 17.00 hours the Mustang leader reported unidentified aircraft at the 2 and 1 o’clock positions. They were identified as P-47s, heading west at 17,000ft. The P51 pilots attempted to call them on Channel ‘C’ but they received no response. As the P-47s came up the Mosquito had turned into them, making a tight, descending 360° circle, to present its clear US and Red Tail identifications. It then returned to its north-easterly direction, informing the group leader that it was again on course. Once again the Mosquito began to weave and criss-cross its course. As the Mosquito turned left the two Thunderbolts, flying on the right of the Mustangs, turned inside and closed on the Mosquito. A Mustang pilot warned the Mosquito that the P-47s were apparently attacking and the Group Leader yelled, “Break” but the Mosquito remained level, turning more to the left. Richmond had his head in the shroud over the CRT display screen. His first indication of danger was Stubblefield’s exclamation, “Damn! We’re being chased.” Richmond jerked his head out from under the shroud to find streaks of tracer bullets flashing through the cockpit. The port engine caught fire and the starboard engine died. Stubblefield feathered the starboard engine prop and shouted: “Get out of here, Rich. Go.” Richmond kicked out the trap door and struggled through the opening. He was still struggling when the aircraft exploded. Stubblefield was killed but Richmond was blown free and his parachute opened safely at 10,000ft. Richmond landed near a village about 50 miles west of Kassel on one foot, injuring the leg. Within moments, a cluster of civilians carried him into the village and placed him in a holding cell. After 48 hours he was transferred to an interrogation centre at Pinneburg about 10 miles from Hamburg. Two days later he was transported to
Stalag Luft I
at Barth on the Baltic. The two P-47s that had fired at the Mosquito were from the 23rd Squadron, 36th Fighter Group, of the 9th Air Force.
Next day 1st Lieutenant Bernard J. Boucher and his navigator, 1st Lieutenant Louis Pessirilo were killed during a Bluestocking mission over Germany. Five other Mosquitoes on weather reconnaissance returned safely.
Some 352 ‘Chaff’ (Window)-dispensing sorties, code-named Gray-Pea (after Colonel Leon Gray
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and Colonel (later General) Budd Peaslee), were carried out by Mosquitoes of the 653rd and 654th Bomb Squadrons using an electric dispensing mechanism in their bomb bays. On 3 April 1945 six Gray-Pea Mosquitoes were detailed for Chaff-screening for the 8th Air Force, five more scouted for the B-17s and seven flew weather reconnaissance over the continent and seas around Britain. On 3 April 1945, six Mosquitoes of the 654th Squadron took part in a Gray-Pea mission in support of a First Air Division bombing of Kiel on the Baltic coast just south of Denmark. Lieutenant Colonel Alvin Podwojski, pilot and Captain Lionel A. Proulx, navigator, were the first to take off at 15.00 hours. Once all six aircraft were airborne they climbed for altitude, flying toward Cromer on the coast. They left Cromer at 9,500ft and climbed
en route
to 25,000ft. They met no enemy opposition
en route
to the IP. The weather was good. Podwojski remembers:
Our aircraft was unable to reach a proper airspeed of 220 mph with the engines turning at their normal rpm. To attain this normal speed I had to rev our engines to 300 rpm above normal. This was too fast and it was necessary to keep the cowl flaps open to cool the engines. I considered turning back, but with the mission time estimated at only 3 hours and 15 minutes, we continued on. I could throttle back, I thought, after clearing the target. The flight plan called for us to pull ahead of the bombers 30 to 35 miles south-west of the target. I contacted the lead aircraft of the bomber force to coordinate our flight and was informed that they would be at the IP in only 7 minutes. This was disturbing. At my limited speed we could not overtake the bombers at the IP in 7 minutes. After I had instructed Captain James M. McNulty to take the lead and attempt the rendezvous, the bombers called back and reported that a mistake had been made. They were 12 minutes from the IP, rather than 7 minutes. The bombers would be at the IP at 16.30 hours. To add to our difficulties our VHF was not cutting in and out. Still, I resumed the lead with engines rotating at 2,750 rpm plus 8, much too fast. Though our starboard engine was overheating badly, a perfect rendezvous was made. Our six Mosquitoes flew line abreast ahead and above the bomber formation. We were spread wider than the B-17 formations to drop Chaff over an extended track. The Chaff had its intended effect and no flak was observed bursting near the bombers. Twelve to twenty bursts of flak were directed at our Mosquito, however, accurate for altitude but trailing our flight by 100 yards.