BANDITS!
By Norman O. Delker
I was a civilian flight instructor for the W.A.S.P training Program, Huston TX; a
civilian flight instructor cadet program, Vernon, TX; Service pilot, training
program, Marana Army Air Base, Tucson, AZ; and Service pilot, training program,
Douglas Army Air Base, Douglas, AZ.
I was commissioned flight officer August
4, 1945. I ferried B-25s and C-47s out
of Palm Springs and Long Beach, CA. I
was assigned to E.A.T.S Revenue Traffic in New York City in November 1945.
After being stationed in Salzburg and Linz, I was transferred to Tulln Air Base in March 1946 and was stationed there until August 1946. When I wasn’t residing at Tulln Air Base, I was living at the Hotel Atlanta on the Mariahilferstrasse and in a huge residence in Grinzing, which I enjoyed immensely.
This is my personal story about
a hair-raising incident while stationed at Tulln:
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The only time that I was shot
at in WWII, or after, occurred while I was stationed at Tulln. On July 16th, I received orders to take a C-47 and 21
passengers from Tulln to Budapest, leave them off, and pick up 21 for the
return flight. Now there are 42
passengers, a pilot, co-pilot, and a flight attendant who remember the
following occurrence.
At this time, I don’t remember
who was with me and if I was pilot-in-command. Anyway, we split the flight
time. The other fellow flew out and I
flew back.
Budapest was an all over
grass field with a small gray flight office and a gray Jeep. Each had a red star painted on it. We circled the field, got the wind
direction, put down the gear, put down the flaps, and landed. We taxied up to the gray flight office, shut
off the left engine. Where we had been
5 minutes before, the entire middle of the field blew up. The Russian Lieutenant came out and yelled,
“What you do Yankee pilot?”
I let him know what our
feelings were, and he ran into the flight office and got on the phone. We quickly unloaded our passengers, loaded
up the other 21, and took off on the left side of the big hole. It was a big one!
Things were uneventful for
the next 55 minutes until we were about 10 minutes out of Tulln. I was flying and the other pilot said: “Hey
Norm! We’ve got bandits. I radioed Tulln for a straight-in
approach. Meanwhile, two of these guys
were shooting 200 yards in front of us.
As I was rounding off prior to landing, these two guys were bouncing
bullets off the runway about 50 yards in front of us.
I can still close my eyes and
see the sparks on the runway. You know,
I was only 27 then, and the only thing that concerned me was that it was
Saturday, and I had date in Vienna.
As it was, G2 only kept us
about 2 1/2 hours. Funny thing. None of us ever heard a word about it, but
you know, I think that maybe we started the cold war.