WWII Stories of Courage
HE DIDN’T HAVE A CHANCE
This is the story of “Red.”
We had a boy in our barracks at Shipdham base who had never been far from home before the war. He was from a Midwestern state. He talked about home and his parents, particularly his mother. We called him “Red.” He didn’t know much about girls and we doubted if he had ever been out with a girl. Red was very young; he couldn’t have been more than 19 when I first met him. His hair was the red color of a fire engine. He stayed by himself much of the time when he wasn’t flying missions and didn’t talk much about his missions. I don’t remember who his pilot was or the others on his crew.
“Red” sometimes got homesick and I remember he would then tell about his hometown. Memory fails me when I try to recall his hometown or much about it. “Red” had gone on a few missions and we all kind of watched for him and hoped he would make it back from each one. I don’t know what mission it was or what the target was but one early morning we took off for what was supposed to be not a very dangerous target with little enemy flak or fighters anticipated.
We got off all right and assembled fairly well and started out across the North Sea. We encountered little cloud cover and the weather appeared fine for a bombing run. As we approached the enemy coast we were in quite a tight formation for B-24s. Everything looked good for a bomb run and bombing visibility. I think we were at about 20,000 feet.
Nearing the target there was a little flak but not much to talk about.
Soon we were on the run and the bomb bay doors opened and we had that sweaty feeling you got as the bombardier took over and got his bombsight lined up. Then it was bombs away very quickly and all of them went. It was my duty to check to see that bombs did not get hung up. Suddenly a call came from someone in the crew that a bomb had gone through one wing of Red’s plane. The plane peeled off, went into a spiral and downward. I can still remember the spiral of smoke coming from the wings as the plane went into a fatal dive. There were no parachutes observed. There may have been some we didn’t see it all happened so quickly.
But “Red” didn’t make it back and as far as I can recall was never seen again. “He never had a chance. Poor kid,” said one of the older veterans of combat flying as he sorted through Red’s clothes. It was the custom for surviving crews to pick out the best clothes of those who went down. Many times if a crew was late returning from a mission their clothes would be gone, divided among the survivors in the barracks. So it was with Red. All that’s left of him is this fading memory, vague yet strong. But Red is out there somewhere, wherever innocence lives.
On cold nights when the mist hugs the airfield a figure has been seen wandering the runways. When the moonlight is just right and sends its beams earthward and just a glint strikes the figure one can see the red of his hair.
By Forrest S. Clark 44th BG 8th Air Force WWII
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