BAIL OUT!
By David Brothers
I
was Squadron Bombardier for the 455th Bomb Group, 15th
Air Force, based at San Girovanni, Italy near the City of Foggi. We had 5000-foot parallel dirt and metal mat
runways. We operated out of centuries old
buildings and lived in four man tents.
On
the morning of June 26, 1944, my pilot friend, First Lt. Robert Montgomery, was
flying his last mission before returning to the USA and wanted me to be his
bombardier. I wasn’t part of his crew
and was not scheduled to fly that day, but I decided to go on the mission as a
favor and got permission from my CO. Second Lt. Ed Sabo was our co-pilot.
Our target that day was Moosbierbaum (Moose beer tree), Austria--a large petroleum refinery located
about 20 miles West of Vienna.
There
were 300 B-24s on this raid, including 40 B-24s from the 455th
Bomber Group. Our flight route took us
northbound and to the East of Vienna.
After passing Vienna we made a left 180-degree turn and made our bombing
on a southerly course west of Vienna.
Our bombing run altitude was 19,500 feet.
While
we were approaching our target, about 50 Me-210s attacked us. We didn’t break formation and held our
course. The Me-210s left after four P-38s came to our rescue.
Oddly, our appointed escort (P-51s)
never showed up and never answered our radio calls for help.
We encountered heavy flak over Moosbierbaum but dropped our bombs right on target,
which did much damage to the petroleum refinery. (This was reported by one of our crew that bailed out and landed
near the petroleum plant. Austrian soldiers took him into captivity.)
Shortly
after we dropped our bombs, the flak stopped and at least 100 Fw-190s hit us.
They circled us like “Indians around a wagon train” and came at us in-trail
with groups of eight. (T/Sgt. Kyle, our Ball Turret gunner, shot down two
FW-190s on one pass. He was great—his
body was repatriated to his home in N.J.)
We took several hits, blowing our plane apart. I was hit in the buttocks by a 20 mm shell, and its impact
slammed me against the fuselage wall.
Although I was badly wounded, I was able crawl to the bomb bay doors,
open them about 2 feet, and bail out. I
was tumbling and flailing around when I remember being told that to stop the
tumbling, I should hold my arms out to the side. It worked! I stopped
tumbling and finally had my descent under control. Some of the FW-190s followed me down until I landed in the Vienna
Woods.
Three
of us were able to bail out.
Montgomery
and the rest were blown out of the plane when it exploded. (I saw this after I
bailed out. One of them survived.)
Children playing in the Vienna Woods found his remains hanging from a tree 14 years
later. His chute was unopened. A ring he wore identified his body, and his
name was on his unopened chute. His
skeleton was fairly intact.
Lt. Sabo landed unharmed. James Mason, our tail gunner, landed nearby and was picked up,
along with me, by civilians. He was
badly wounded. I tried to get up but the
20mm told me “NOT”. We were put into a
cart, and taken to a courtyard near by where Austrian soldiers appeared. I held Mason in my arms until he died.
I
was lucky that Austrian soldiers took us into custody. They kept the civilians, who tried to kill
me, at bay. They kicked me, spit on
me, and tried to club me. I was so
angry at being attacked, and Mason dieing, that I yelled insults and curses at
the civilians. I called them all kinds
of names. But there was a woman in the
crowd who went into her house and brought me a glass of wine to drink. I am not much of a drinker, but I drank
all the wine. The pain was starting to
really kick in by then.
Mason’s
body and I were loaded into a truck and driven through the Vienna Woods along a
narrow, winding dirt road to a hospital in Vienna. I stayed there for 2 months and had 20 operations to put my
backside back together and remove as much shrapnel as they could find. Obviously, they saved my life. The doctors were medically kind to me and
marveled that I had not bled to death.
While
I was in the Kaiser Franz Josef Hospital, there were several air raids. All of us prisoners had to remain in our
wards, while all of the hospital staff would go down to the air raid shelter. An armed enlisted man would be assigned
to guard us during these raids. The
guard was not happy at all being exposed to the falling bombs! Of course, we enjoyed his uneasiness!
While I was there,the only time bombs landed near the hospital was
when a bombardier's bomb release system must have malfunctioned, and the bombs didn't drop immediately when they were released.
There was a string of explosions that I could hear coming toward the hospital.
One bomb exploded about 100 yards before the hospital and the next bomb hit about 100 yards beyond the hospital!
I know our bombers would not deliberately try and knock out a hospital.
In
early September 1944, I was shipped to a Luftwaffe hospital in Budapest
for another month. I have no
idea of why they sent me there.
During
my stay in Budapest, I met a Russian pilot, Col. Ivan Galinzki, who took me
under his wing and had me assigned to his ward. He told me his B-25 caught on fire during a flight from Italy to Russia, and he was burned during
bailout. Ivan claims that his navigator
started the fire while smoking a cigar he had gotten from an American while in
Italy! We became great friends and,
when I left, he kissed me goodbye.
He told me he would never go to a POW prison. I
never heard of him again.
Four
other American prisoners and I were sent to Stag Luft III in Poland, then to
Nuremberg, and then to the Munich area.
We were liberated by Patton’s 14th Armored Division.
He was angry and ranted at the terrible conditions that existed when he found us.
He was a tough "cookie" but wonderful to us.
How we survived in that camp, I will never know.
No one could comprehend the filth other than the ones who was there.
We had only scraps to eat.
When
I first arrived at Franz Josef Hospital, there was a very young, attractive,
German nurse who attended to us (14 wounded American prisoners at the
time). The hospital authorities removed
her and assigned Sister Kupelwieser, a much older woman, to take care of us.
She may not have been a beauty, but she was a very kind and
caring nurse with a heart of gold. She
took excellent care of us. After I
returned to the U.S.A., we wrote to each other, and I sent her packages of food
and other items I thought she might need.
After she died, I tried to find where she was buried but never did. Recently, I started having sharp pains in my
buttocks. My wife recommended that I go
to a doctor to determine the cause. I
didn’t want to see a doctor, although I am one. I finally allowed my wife to look at my buttocks to check out the
probable cause. She pulled out a half-inch
sliver of shrapnel!
Of the five crewmen, out of ten, that survived being shot down, I am the only one
still living today. I sure would like
to see those graves and Sister Dora Kupelwieser's grave.
She was very good to me in the Kaiser Franz Josef hospital.
Col. Davies visiting an
American grave site near
Tulln where some of Brothers' crewmen were buried.