I
walk along an old concrete runway, fine tufts of grass peaking up
between the cracks. Vintage aircraft, parked diagonally, line both
sides of the runway. Two men and a woman walk ahead of me. One of
the men wears a white cap and gestures toward one of the planes;
I figure he’s conducting a tour, so I wander close to listen.
The patch on his cap reads, “Distinguished Flying Cross Society.”
His name is Ed Klein, the other man is Ben Klinger, the woman is
Ben’s wife, Norma. There’s no tour, just three friends
visiting the U.S. Air Force Museum on an overcast, blustery day
in Dayton, Ohio.
Ed Klein flew in B-17’s during World War II. As part of the
381st Bomb Group he flew 25 missions over Europe from Ridgewell
Airfield, in Essex, England. If you were fortunate enough to survive
25 missions you were sent home. Ed was one of the lucky ones. Surviving
25 bombing missions was no easy feat.
The B-17 Flying Fortress bomber carried a crew of ten. Ed was a
bombardier. As bombardier you’re sort of the point man. The
bombardier sits out front in the nose of the aircraft. He also operates
the chin turret guns below.
As Ed talks, I look up at the nose of the B-17 pictured here and
imagine myself sitting up there at 20,000 feet, surrounded only
by clear Plexiglas, completely exposed. The muscles in my back tighten
as I consider the concentration and courage necessary to perform
this job; operating that bombsight with anti-aircraft fire exploding
and fighter planes swarming all around you.
Ed, pictured here, gives me a basic lesson in the operation of the
Norden Bombsight. In 1943, the Norden Bombsight was a top-secret
device that determined an exact release moment, enabling bombs to
accurately hit their designated target. To guard the secrecy, the
sight was loaded aboard the aircraft under armed guard just prior
to takeoff, covered from view until in the air and immediately removed,
again under armed guard, after landing. “They liked to say
bombardiers could drop a bomb into a pickle barrel from 20,000 feet
with that thing, but in combat it wasn’t that easy,”
Ed smiles.
As
the Flying Fortress withstood heavy flak, the bombsight helped compensated
for crosswind, but the weight of the mission fell directly on the
shoulders of the bombardier. Should the plane be shot down, he was
responsible for destroying the bombsight in order to protect its
secrecy. Bombardiers took an oath, swearing in part, “in the
presence of Almighty God to keep inviolate the secret of all information
revealed to me, if need be, with my life itself.”
Once over the target area the plane would be switched to automatic
pilot. Crouched in the Plexiglas nose of the plane, breathing pure
oxygen and peering into the rubber eyepiece that left a black circle
around your eye like ‘Petey’ the dog in the Our Gang
comedies, Ed would maneuver the plane’s course using small
knobs on the side of the bombsight. He wore silk gloves to keep
his skin from freezing to the metal knobs. Temperatures of nearly
40 below zero were common, as was frostbite.
As Ed neared the correct coordinates he would announce into the
radio, “Bomb bay doors open.” When the doors were fully
open the ball turret gunner, suspended from the belly of the aircraft
with a clear view of the bay directly in front of him, would reply,
“Doors open.”
Ed would then lock on the target, setting the coordinates. The floating
cross hairs in the sight made of spider's webbing would then automatically
move. When they fell into perfect alignment over the coordinates,
Ed would hear an electronic click sound as the sight released the
lethal cargo. “Bombs away,” he’d call out. “You
never pushed a button to release the bombs like in the movies, I
set it and the bombsight did it automatically, but when I heard
that click I knew.”
Once the bombs
were released Ed waited for the ball turret gunner’s important
three word reply, “bomb bay clear,” the signal that
all the bombs had fallen clear of the plane.
“It was always a nervous wait,” Ed recalls. “One
time he didn’t get back to me and I repeated ‘bomb bay
clear,’ and all I heard was, ‘No.’ One bomb was
hung-up in the bay, a pretty dangerous situation.”
Ed’s eyes grow quiet. I watch sixty years evaporate. Ed shakes
his head and his friendly smile returns, “We got lucky. The
wind evidently caught the bomb just right and freed it up. I was
never happier to hear, ‘bomb bay clear,’ in all my life,
I can’t begin to tell you how happy.”
I look at Ed and Ben and realize they were barely twenty, “Just
boys,” a voice whispers in my head. “No, hardly boys,”
I mutter correcting myself, “just everyday men committed to
a duty greater than their own existence.”
Part II of this chance meeting next time, From The Road.
