What's in a Name?

They can be forgiven for thinking so, for their confidence in their invulnerability was shared by those who planned air warfare, and the lesson of the bomber's true vulnerability to fighters had to be constantly relearned throughout the war. Even the massed firepower of bombers in large formations could not offset the disadvantages of slower speed and of having to maintain a straight course and consistent altitude when faced with opposition from faster and highly maneuverable fighter airplanes. Bowyer reports that as early as 18 December 1939 an unescorted formation of Wellingtons from RAF 9 Sqn was badly mauled by Messerschmidt Bf 110 two-seat fighters while on a reconaissance patrol over Holland. Sobered by this example and impressed by the destruction wrought by their own fighters on unescorted German bombers, the RAF switched tactics, developing night bombing capability to evade German fighters. This worked until the Germans developed night-flying radar, and then 80% of the bombers they shot down never returned fire.

The lesson of unescorted bombers had to be learned all over again by the USAAF. In 1943, the 8th USAF based at Duxford planned to complement the RAF night-time operations with massive B-17 formations operating unescorted during the day. Again, however, the losses sustained in conflict with fighters were so high that by mid-1943 the US offensive was called off. It was only resumed when the problem of distance to German targets was solved by fitting fighters with extra fuel tanks to extend their range, so they could accompany bombers from England, protect them against fighter attack over Germany, and still have enough fuel to make it back.

Over the Mediterranean, the SAAF also had to learn the lesson. Eagles Victorious records an operation by six unescorted Marauders from SAAF 24 Sqn in March, 1944. They set out to attack a small German naval formation near Crete but were intercepted by nine Messerschmidt Bf 109s. In a fierce battle lasting almost two hours, all but two of the Marauders were destroyed, and one of those was so badly damaged that it had to be scrapped after landing. The survivors alone fired 3,000 rounds between them in self defense, and the Marauders succeeded in shooting down three of the six attackers, but the loss of five bombers and twenty-two airmen came to be known in the SAAF as the "Marauder massacre" and dictated that Marauders would not again be sent to attack without escort when there was a risk of fighter intervention.

To be sure, fighter escort could be a mixed blessing. I asked Alex what he could tell me about an entry that reads "fighter escort" in John's logbook on Feb. 1, 1945, an operation that Alex also flew. He explained that the escort was provided by American P51 Mustangs, operating from another base in Italy, because the target was troop concentrations, which were believed to be well defended. But the American pilots were hot dogs, ignoring formation regulations as they showed off their powerful new fighters. Weaving in and out of the bomber boxes, they made flying difficult with their prop wash, or they practiced dive bombing the slower bombers, turning away at the last minute with engines screaming. The air waves turned blue as SAAF pilots cursed the Americans on the radio. When they got back to camp, the SAAF CO, Lt. Col. Cormack, was so furious that he phoned the USAAF CO and told him to keep the fighters away in future or Cormack would order his gunners to shoot them down.

This was not the only instance of tension among allies. Soccer was a favorite pastime of bomber crews between ops, which were sporadic, sometimes occurring daily, sometimes with days in between. During a welcome break in the weather in February, 1945, a game started up on an open space near camp, pitting the South African and Italian airmen against each other, with John and Alex both playing on the South African side. In the end, the South Africans won, but the victory was disputed, and the Italians took it badly. As they were leaving the field, a small stone hit one of the SAAF players in the back; he was a cook, a big man with little patience. He turned and ran after the man he thought had thrown the stone, punching him without hesitation. At this a general melée broke out, and eventually shots were fired. Lt. Col. Cormack, ran out, pistol in hand, calling for order. Just as he arrived, a bullet hit a telephone pole above his head, and he dropped to the ground. The fight soon broke up anyway, with no one seriously injured.

I was intrigued to find differences in an account of this fight in Eagles Victorious that reflect a difference in memory and reporting between officers and enlisted men. The authors of Eagles Victorious are both officers and likely relied heavily, if not exclusively, on officers' accounts. They report the game as rugby, which has always been a gentleman's spectator sport, in contrast to the working man's fondness for soccer, and they report that it was a regularly scheduled league game, with the dispute breaking out over who should be using the field. Italians also started the fight, according to Eagles' authors, but they claim that SAAF officers had nearly restored calm "when a NCO foolishly fired off his revolver into the air and sparked a panic." In Eagles' account, Lt. Col. Cormack "just managed to clear the field before serious damage was done," with no mention of his hitting the ground in panic himself. The truth is probably somewhere in between both these accounts, but the men who played the game are more likely to remember what game they were playing, and an informal start-up game is more credible than a regularly scheduled league game in mid-February of the heaviest winter in sixty-four years.

Relations between officers and men are a complex reflection of social relationships in civilian life, and this was especially true in the stratified and deferential society of pre-war Britain. Most formal and distant at headquarters and during peace time, the relationship grew closer and less formal during combat, particularly in bombers, where a small group of men, usually the same men, were repeatedly thrown together in extreme circumstances. Gunners were always enlisted men. They were not even designated as gunners, and thus distinguished from general air crew, according to Bowyer, until an Air Ministry Order in January, 1939. The pilot, co-pilot, and navigator, on the other hand, were officers, with the pilot being in command of the airplane and a particular pilot being in command of the whole formation on a particular operation. Yet on John's plane they all referred to each other by nicknames. The pilot Lt. Van Rooyen was "Van," the co-pilot Lt. Van Pittius was "Gey," the navigator Lt. Broom was "Pat," Warrant Officer Smit was "Smitty," John was "Coxy," and Sgt. Neale (also seconded from the RAF) was "Butch."

Social relations in the SAAF were complicated by the addition of flyers from the RAF, who, though mostly enlisted men, nonetheless originated from the center of power and influence in the British Empire, in which South Africa was a colonial satellite. At the Biferno base, officers and men slept, ate, and drank separately and relieved and showered themselves separately, yet the tents were all alike, and the mess and club areas were the same prefabricated quonset huts, heated with the same improvised stoves. The shower was a five-gallon perforated fuel drum suspended from four poles under the open sky. One threw a bucket of cold water into the drum, whether it was summer or winter, and did one's best until the water ran out. "It was so bloody cold that it was a habit easily given up," said Alex. "Shitters" were also in the open air. They consisted of a pit with decking built over it and holes with hinged wooden covers cut in the decking. Sometimes as many as twenty-four holes were in a single facility, in two rows of twelve. Privacy consisted of hessian (burlap) strung on poles. Urinals had no privacy screen. They were funnels stuck into the ground, draining into a hardcore sump. Dubbed "desert lillies," they were distributed throughout the camp, between the rows of tents. Alex remembers a major using one of these on his way to his tent from the shower. He was attired only in a towel, which he slung over his shoulder when he relieved himself, and he was surprised in this attitude by a group of young women who were arriving with a concert party. "He took off faster than he was ever able to get his Marauder off the ground," remarked Alex. This story is revealing not only because of what it shows about the levelling effects of camp life but because the embarrassed individual was an SAAF officer and a pilot in a story told by an RAF enlisted man.

Social differences like these were eroded but not eradicated by the gunner's job itself. Youngsters like John and Alex, still late adolescents, were forced to grow up quickly by the kind of work they did. When they arrived in Italy from Shandur, they ran conversion classes for those who had not yet trained on the Marauder. "I found this a bit odd," Alex writes in Jack Stovall's book, "as I was only an eighteen-year-old sergeant, telling lieutenants and warrant officers how to do it--and these men had all been on many ops." In air-to-air combat, gunners bore heavy responsibility, for they were the bomber's defenders, and their instructions to the pilot were crucial in defending the plane effectively. Focused on the attacker, the gunner alone knew the angle of attack and advised the pilot as to evasive action. "Corkscrewing," for example, involved angling the plane's wings to avoid incoming fire, while maintaining course and altitude so as not to collide with other bombers in close formation. The pilot who did not respond instantly to a gunner's instructions on the intercom, or by means of Morse code in flashing lights, risked not only his own life but that of the entire crew. Bowyer recounts the story of an Australian tail gunner in a Lancaster over Germany, whose pilot refused to heed the frantic evasion directions of his gunner, because he did not believe a British officer should take orders from a colonial enlisted man. As it happened, the battered bomber was able to limp back to England, but after it landed, the gunner told off his pilot in a furious tirade, while the entire crew looked on. The Lancaster pilot, who was new to operations, arrested the gunner and charged him with insubordination, but when the station commander heard the whole story, he dropped the charges and reassigned the pilot to another squadron.

In spite of this kind of responsibility--and probably in part because of it--young gunners still acted young when they had the chance. At the sergeant's "club," which was no more than a quonset hut set back-to-back with the mess tent on the Biferno base, a man could "join the wolf pack" if he drank a cocktail made of all the drinks behind the bar and then climbed up the marquee pole of the mess tent and down again. Alex told me he attempted this but only got halfway up the pole before he fell. He knew an RAF sergeant who got drunk on plum brandy, which was easier to do than getting drunk on beer, because beer was severely rationed. After returning to quarters, he found the tent reeling above his head when he lay down, and he soon had to go out to throw up. It was a cold, clear night, with snow on the ground and a bright moon. After relieving his stomach, he was alarmed to see a bright red patch on the snow and was terrified that he was vomiting blood. Then with relief he remembered the plum brandy.

For SAAF 25 Sqn, the serious business of bombing targets in Yugoslavia varied from one op to another: bridges, railway lines, oil storage tanks, heavy gun positions, ammunition dumps, troop formations, and German or Chetnik strongholds that were under attack by Yugoslav Partisans. All were likely to be defended by anti-aircraft guns, which became frighteningly accurate with the introduction of radar predicted flak. The Soviet army skirted Yugoslavia in its drive westward, leaving Tito to take on the Germans in his own country, so coordination between the Partisans and the western allies was close and constant. Soon after its formation in June, 1944, the Balkan Air Force assisted in the Soviet rescue of Tito from the German encirclement of Drvar and in his flight to Bari, Italy, where he decided to relocate his headquarters on Vis, an Adriatic island off the Yugoslav coast. Belgrade was liberated by the Partisans on Oct. 20, 1944, but German resistance remained strong in parts of Yugoslavia until the end of the war, and 25 Sqn flew constant ops throughout the spring of 1945.