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wuium ivivalSFoilowing is the account of the hardships and heroism of a Fortress crew returning from a raid on Bremen. The story is told by the 25-year-old pilot, who before the war was the youngest member of the N-ew York Stock Exchange. In times of peace the quality of the drama and the bravery and strength shown by the men would have put the story on the front page of every newspaper in America. Today it is almost an everyday story in the Eighth Air Force, where heroism is taken as matter of fact, and it will find its way into the back pages of only a few papers in the home towns of the men involved.By 2/Ll. Francis G. LauroAN EIGHTH BOMBER STATION, Jan, —Our target was Bremen, and that’s where our trouble began—five miles up with a temperature reading of 58 below,it started when our ball-turret gunner,! Murray Shrier, collapsed after his oxygen mask froze up, Bill Heathman, the right : waist gunner, dragged Shrier into Nelson ] Ring’s radio compartment and they ; started to work on the casualty.King, an ex-farmer, plugged out his : own oxygen line and inserted Shriers in the room’s only inlet valve. But the mask wouldn’t fit—it was an old model. King , took off his gloves and made the adjust-; ment, using a piece of string.The gloves never did get on again. King also passed out. He had jabbed his oxygen line into a spane bottle, not knowing it , was _frozen. Heathman, meantime, was nearing the exhaustion stage.Waist'Gunner Gerald Will, who kept tuned in on how the boys were going, joined the party. He, too, made the mistake-of plugging in one of the frozen oxygen bottles. Realizing he was in trouble, Will started back for his own station, but didn’t last that far. Just outside the radio room he-keeled over,'OUT.Co-pilot Emanuel Greasanar and Bombardier Walter Green picked up walk-around bottles that had been in comparative warm spots and went back to help. There we were in the thick of danger territory and six of our men tied up in one spot.Green called over the inter-corn and suggested we go down to give the boys a chance at lower altitude. Such a move would have been suicide, with most ofour guns unmanned: and German fighters circling all around us.The gang finally got Will revived and he returned to his guns. The ball-turiet ner »'as revived and came into the cockpit where he -sat out the rest ofmg ,gradua,1!y carne around, fighting his mask. *n»'?‘j,Ut'7this-time the ^P^rcbarger on our No. 2 engine started kecing up. Forty miles frorn the coast I had to cut it, and we shot downward through several layer*atamfoool*-0,econ' con,i”s out «*King was .still fighting, half conscbus. smashing and striking at everything and everybody When his hands hit the floor or any of the radio equipment, bits of the frozen flesh would chip off like shavings gouged out of hunks of ice. They didn’t£??u’ghhowcw‘ They were fro^It was too late to think of gloves, because no gloves would have fitted those hands, swollen to almost three times their noimal size. W hen King calmed down, be stuck his hands inside the bombardier's jacket and kept them there until we landed Incidentally, we made it despite -frozen trim tabs.There was an ambulance waiting for us. King s hands had started to bleed. One of the doctors looked at King’s hands, and 1 looked at him, and what we were thinking wasn't'pretty.Frostbite is no word to describe Kinc’s condition The flight surgeon did some good work, though, and saved all but the tips of those fingers. ..
Newspaper Details
Northern Ireland Stars and Stripes
Belfast, Ulster, GB
Tue, Jan 11, 1944
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Laura S.
USA 03 Jan 2024
Other Publications Near Belfast, Ulster
Northern Ireland Stars and Stripes
