Bailout

By Edwin C Pakish

BAILOUT France February 28, 1945

Another mission that I will never forget was the very next one that followed the strafing mission on February 22nd. I was flying #2 in the 3rd flight in Box #1. The target was a bridge at Neidersheld.

Neither the co-pilot nor the navigator-bombardier had too many combat missions but the enlisted men had. They were the crew I trained with in the States, flew overseas with, and flew number of missions together. Steve Nickoletti was the flight engineer and top turret gunner. Mitchell Schmidt was the tail gunner, and John Smith was the radioman and waist gunner. It was another lousy day for flying with lots of heavy clouds, which was so typical at that time of year in Europe. Flying formation through clouds was always a problem, especially when the clouds were dense and could be dangerous with the possibility of collision because you might loose sight of the lead plane in the heavy clouds. There is a procedure that was to be followed when the clouds are too dense and you can no longer see the lead plane. That is, you bank away from the lead plane and turn 45 degrees for 3O seconds as you descend and then you turn back "5 degrees and resume the original compass heading, going down alone until you get under the overcast and then reform into formation.

As it turned out, getting to the target was no problem. We ascended through the overcast and it cleared over the target area. It was a "milk run", no fighters and no flak. Returning home, we stayed above the clouds until we got back past the lines and in friendly territory.

We started to descend and it was OK for a few minutes. I could see the lead plane in the clouds. As we continued down, the clouds became denser and I started to lose sight of the lead plane for a fraction of a second and then I'd see it again. It was this way for a few minutes or so but it became more frequent and of longer duration. Also the temperature was going down on this winter day so I told the co-pilot to turn on the pitot heater switch. (The pitot measures the air speed of the plane and if it should freeze, you'd get a false reading on the air speed gauge which, of course, would be very dangerous).

After I told him to turn the switch on, I decided that it was too dangerous to stay in formation and I broke away turning 45 degrees for what we determined to be 3O seconds and turned back to the original heading. We descended down through the clouds until we finally got under the overcast. Those of us in the cockpit, including Steve, who now was up front with the co-pilot and I, looked around to see if we could see any planes from our group. We didn't, nor did the bombardier-navigator, who was in the nose of the plane. Perhaps the planes were behind us, so I called Mitch back in the tail on the intercom. There was no reply. I called again and there was still no answer. I thought that maybe for some reason, he couldn't hear me so I called Smithy, who was still by his waist guns. Again, no answer. Another try was to no avail. What's going on, I wondered? So I sent Steve to go to the back of the plane to find out what was wrong. He went back, through the bomb bay to the tail of the plane. He called me on the intercom radio and told me that there was nobody back there. Both Schmidt and Smithy were gone., I was in shock. He said that there were no chutes, so they must have bailed out. I wondered out loud,” What could have happened?". The co-pilot then told me when he flipped the pilot de-icier switch , he accidentally flipped the alarm bell switch. When that switch is turned on, an alarm bell rings in the back which means bail out, and right away. So I guess that's what they did.

We were now below l,000 feet and still couldn't see any planes so the navigator-bombardier gave a heading to follow for us to return to our base.When we got near our field we started to see other planes scattered about the sky all heading in the same direction. We were the first ones back at the field. 15 We landed and, as luck would have it, Colonel Samuels, along with others, were waiting to hear how the mission had gone. I told him that it was a "milk run" and I also had to tell him that two of the crew had bailed out. It was most embarrassing. Of course, I had to repeat the story at debriefing, and to others since Mitch and Smithy were not around. I wondered all night if they were OK. Late the following day, Mitch came back to the base by army truck. American soldiers spotted him coming down in his parachute. He landed near a girl's school or a convent but he was soon picked up by the MPs. Smithy came back two days later. He had landed near a small village and there were not GIs in the area. He walked into the town carrying his parachute. Many of the villagers came out to see him. The women, especially the young ladies, wanted his parachute and were willing to buy it from him. They wanted it to make ladies' underclothes, like panties, slips, etc. Being the very conscientious guy that he was, he refused, since it did not belong to him but was government property. The village mayor contacted the military who picked him up and returned him to our base. I talked with both of them the first chance I had after they returned. They both said that they heard the alarm bell ring. So out they jumped. Which, of course, was the right thing to do at the time.

The word got around fast in the squadron as to what had happened and, of course I, got kidded a lot. There was a sergeant, a tail gunner from Texas, a big guy who was a cowboy before the war. Although we never flew together, we got along real well together. After this incident, he really kidded me every chance he got about the bailout's. on the missions that followed, he would go to the crews that were flying with me and tell them that they shouldn't fly with me. He said that I was such a terrible pilot that the crews would bailout because of my flying. And he would tell me that I would have to go on a mission solo because no one would fly with me. It seemed that this went on for weeks. Fortunately, neither the colonel nor any other superior officer said anything, so I was able to live with all the kidding.