We could see Tobruk down there, 23,000 feet
below. It looked like a big pile of rubble. It hardly seemed worth bombing.
But our twelve B-24’s went into the run just the same. Somehow,
we’d missed the German convoy we’d been sent out to get.
Maybe it had turned back into the shelter of Crete. Anyway, we had
six 1,000 pound bombs in the bomb racks of each B-24, and we weren’t
going to carry them all the way back to our base in Palestine. Tobruk
was good place to dump them. Remember, this was August, 1942, and Rommel
was talking about occupying that suite at Shepheard’s Hotel in
Cairo. There were plenty of Jerrys in Tobruk.
Suddenly the lead plane let go with a salvo. That was the signal for the
rest of us to release. I could feel our ship lighten as our bombs let
go. Then we were swinging in a circle for the long trip home. It was every
plane for itself from here on in.
Way down below; you could see the puffs of smoke that were our bombs
landing in Tobruk. A few of them hit the harbor where the funnels and
decks of sunken ships looked like tombstones. JoeTrumble, back in the
tail gunner’s coop, began to yell over the
intercom that we’d hit something. Joe was always getting excited.
We were out of danger, even though we were a good many hours out of
our base. If we didn’t run into any Focke-Wulf’s or Messerschmitts,
we’d be okay. I began to relax.
I looked at my co-pilot, Glen Swope. He grinned back at me. ‘Maybe
we’ll get another crack at that convoy tomorrow,” he said.
“Maybe we can commute back and forth.”
“Okay by me.” I said. All of a sudden it dawned on us that
we really had come halfway around the world and that we really were in
the war, at last. It wasn’t just headlines any more to us. This
was the real McCoy.
It was only the day before that we’d flown old No. 11916 into Palestine
after a week’s delay at Khartoum waiting for orders. We never did
get around to calling our B-24 any affectionate name like “Hellzapoppin,”
or “Suzy Q,” maybe because the number seemed to fit her square,
businesslike fuselage just as well. Then today at noon we’d been
called in a briefing by British Intelligence Officer Bailey.
“We’ve had word that a German cargo ship is heading for Tobruk,”
he said, indicating a course on the map. “you’d better go
out and have a look.”
Well, we’d had our look and we’d either missed that ship or
the convoy had ducked back into the shelter of Crete again. Somehow, it
was the first time I’d had a chance to let down and relax. It felt
good.
It didn’t seem like 12 months ago that I’d walked onto the
field back at Oklahoma Air College, in Oklahoma City, U. S. A., to learn
how to be a pilot. They had a swell crowd of civilian pilots there, training
kids like myself to fly. There was V.R. Cline and Dusty Rhoades—it
wasn’t until later that I learned who Dusty was: one of the last
of the famous barnstorming pilots left over from the last war.
Dusty was tall, slim and sandy-haired, and he was doing his bit and not
talking about it. He was one swell instructor, too. Probably Dusty could
have gotten a commission, I don’t know. The Army Air Force was lucky
enough to have a lot of guys like him who went to work with positively
no glory, teaching thousands of American kids to fly. A few months ago
I heard Dusty was killed at a primary training school when a student plane
accidentally taxied into him. He was a great guy and a good pilot.
Well, I learned to fly Pt 19A’s at Oklahoma City, and after that
I went on to basic training at Randolph Field, Texas. That’s the
spit-and-polish school of the AAF, in case you didn’t know it.Brother,
you learn fast about such things as military precision in drill, and
how to keep that brass buckle shined. Maybe it was harder for me,
because I was just a farm boy from down in Gustine, Texas. I’d
graduated from Texas A & M in ’39 and at the time I didn’t
figure I’d ever use the military training I took there. I was
glad I had it.
At Randolph Field we flew BT 9’s and Bt 14’s and we drilled
when we weren’t flying. It was a tough routine. The day I got my
wings was pretty exciting. Everybody was wondering where he’d be
sent. I was held on for a couple weeks with an observation squadron. When
word came for me to report to Sebring. I was to be co-pilot on a B-17.
Brooks Field was better fun, because we began flying formation and instrument
flying. We began to do cross-country and night flying in AT 6's and BC
1's. Brooks field is where they begin to tighten up on you—to sift
out the boys who’ll fly and those who won’t. A lot of the
boys who washed out at Brooks Field went on the become part of a bomber
crew.
Once, it was considered pretty tough to be washed out of pilot training.
But now you find just as many guys who are tickled to be part of a bomber’s
crew. It’s like being on a team, with everybody clicking together
on the plays, and when you come in over the target and make a ----------------.
The day, I got my wings was pretty exciting. Everybody was wondering
where he'd be sent. I was held on for a couple weeks with an observation
squadron. Then word came for me to report to Sebring. I was to be a
co-pilot on a B-17.
It was like crawling into the inside of a box car the first time I got
into my ship. I’ll never forget the thrill of that first flight
in a B-17 when Bill Kidd, the pilot, handed over the controls. It was
like a dream, and I almost had to pinch myself to make sure it was me,
Sturk, a guy from the wide-open spaces of Texas, and not some other guy.
We began to fly long cross country trips. Believe me, Uncle Sam, doesn’t
spare anything to give his boys the best training he can give them. We’d
fly over the New Orleans in the afternoon, just the way you used to hop
into your car and run over to the next town for a movie. The next night
we might make a trip across to Houston, Texas. It was good practice for
navigation. It’s this kind of training that’s helping our
Flying Fortress crews hit Goering’s “bombproof” cities
with such accuracy these days.
It was good practice for navigation. It's this kind of training that's
helping our Flying Fortress crews hit Goering's "bombproof"
cities with such accuracy these days.
We were getting pretty good by then and we were getting itchy for foreign
service. Then one day half of us were called in and told to report to
Barksdale Field. We were to fly some new B-24’s.
Once again, I was co-pilot, and it took just one flight to convince me
the B-24 was one sweet ship, too. With the B-17 and B-24, I’m convinced
that we have two of the best long-range bombers in the world. Don’t
ever let anyone tell you different.
Then one day a wire came in from Morrison Field, saying they needed ten
pilots. We reported. I was handed a check sheet with the names of a crew.
I was pilot—destination was Khartoum, Egypt! It was quite a moment.
I called my crew together. There was Glen Swope, co-pilot; Slim Moore,
navigator; Matty Strait, bombardier; Jim Woods, engineer and top gunner;
Hal Burdetter, aerial engineer and waist gunner; Dick Jenkins, radio operator;
Tom Kearney, aerial radio operator and waist gunner; and last but not
least, Joe Trumbel, our tail gunner.
I worried a little bit about my new navigator while we were (going through)our
equipment--tin-hats, rubber lifeboat, emergency rations and so forth.
After all, Slim Moore was just out of school and I didn’t know what
he could do. But I needn’t have worried. Slim never talked very
much, but he turned out to be tops as navigator. Your navigator is an
awfully important guy when you’re flying a fully-loaded B-24 toward
a distant pin-point on the opposite continent and you’ve got just
enough gas for three hours extra flying.
We stowed everything away inside our B-24. When we got everything inside
there wasn’t much room, what with the extra gas tanks. At noon word
came we were to take off at 11 that night.
That afternoon was plenty exciting. We had to fly a two hour check to
make sure everything was functioning okay. We had no way to check our
overload, but No. 111916 could take it.
At 2300 we crawled in, got set, and taxied into position for the takeoff.
I got the signal, swung around—and the power went off!
We had to be hauled back to the line. The ground crews went to work, and
in a few hours we were all set again. But we didn’t start that day.
Down in the Carribean it rains every afternoon and our first hp had to
bring us in in the morning.
We took off the next day and hit Puerto Rico on the nose. Slim Moore went
on chewing gum and looking down at the field as if he’d expected
to find it there all along. I began to feel better about the next hop
to Trinidad.
We hit Belem and then Natal on schedule. We were ready for the hop across
the South Atlantic to Liberia and Roberts Field. It was a funny feeling
to realize that I hadn’t seen a B-24 until a little over a year
ago, but now I was supposed to fly one with her crew of eight across the
big pond. I went to bed and didn’t sleep very well that night.
But, I needn’t have worried. Slim Moore was okay. We hit Africa
right where we’d planned. There was one thrill we got though when
we turned on the radio compass two hours out of Roberts Field and found
it wasn’t working. I turned over the controls to Glen and began
hunting for what was wrong. We located it, finally --one of our bags had
fallen off the heap and knocked a fuse loose. It put it back and the needle
began to work.. It was the only close call we had.
Old No. 11916 kissed African soil just 12 hours after we’d left
Natal. It was swell to crawl in for a good night’s sleep. When we
woke up at dawn it was raining. It was coming down in buckets and the
ceiling was about 50 feet off the ground. When it let up a little we took
off, and at 7,000 feet we ran into clear sunshine.
From there on into Khartoum it was easy. I kept looking for elephants
and giraffes but all we saw was one hippopotamus lumbering out of the
Nile.
Khartoum was getting closer to the action. We wondered where it would
be—Cairo? Or would we farther east, maybe to India?
One week at Khartoum was a good rest. We flew one search mission, looking
for a P-40 pilot who’d been forced down in the desert with motor
trouble. We found him—standing beside his plane and waving his undershirt.
His “pink elephant” camouflage on his P-40 made him completely
invisible against the desert sand.
One week, and orders came to report to Maj. Payne in PalestineWe flew
in one afternoon and the C. O. Col. McGsuire, shook hands with us. I told
him we hadn’t had any actual experience, and he just grinned.
“Don’t worry—you’ll get it.”
So here we were returning from our first mission, after dropping our eggs
on Tobruk...
it was the next day that we got word to report for a mission. Col. Maguire
was there again and so was British Intelligence officer Bailey. For
the second time in two days we were to go after that Nazi convoy. The
briefing was short.
Reconnaissance reports they’re trying it again,” he said.
“Get them this time, lads. Good luck.”
We went out to the field and crawled into No. ----- with a lot of wisecracking.
We were beginning to feel like verterans. We’d walloped Tobruk.
This time we’d get that convoy for sure.
And we found her: a Nazi cargo ship with four destroyers!
My palms began to sweat. Even at 23,000 feet, in fur-lined gloves and
flying suit. This was the first time we’d had flak coming up at
us. Believe me, those four destroyers were pumping plenty at us, too.
We were going into our bomb run now, coming in on an evasive course. Matty
Strait was calling the tricks now. We'd release on the leader again, bombing
in a pattern--the four destroyers were racing around the zig-zagging cargo
ship on an erratic course, trying to get away.
Ahead, the bomb bay doors were open in the lead plane. Ours were open,
too. It was penty cold with that wind whistling up through those open
bomb bays.
Suddenly we leveled off. Six yellow objects tumbled out of the lead plane.
Matty let out a yip. Our bombs were tumbling out. A puff of flak came
up under our tail but it didn’t seem to hit us.
I headed No. 11916 back toward home base. Over the interphone system Joe
Trumbel was yelling that we’d hit the cargo ship with another near
hit on one of the destroyers...
This is the end of Lt. Sturkie’s account. No. 11916 returned
to her base in Palestine, circled the field and crashed. Lt. Sturkie was
thrown clear. Although badly burned, he recovered, and is now on duty
at AAFSAT as an instructor. In the words of Time’s correspondent
in Cairo, Sturk’s account is “not exciting, not heroic, but
the kind of dull, monotonous, hard, nerve-straining work American bomber
pilots have been doing for the past six months in the Mid East."
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