The Ten of Us: A Wwii Pilot's Story of His Missions and Crew

By Myron Phillips

This is the tale of an ordinary kid drawn into extraordinary experiences by the needs of his country in an all-out war.
It began at the urging of my daughter, Ellen Doyle, by setting down a few personal experiences for the grandkids. It has grown somewhat but is still limited to a narrow timeframe involving a rather small number of people. Ellen provided more than inspiration, like converting my longhand copy to a computer record.
With memory, the primary source and one thought triggering another, a rambling account is inevitable. So a rambling account is what you get and remember its all as I remember it.
I hope you will find this part of my life interesting. I enjoyed living it, and I hope you enjoy reading it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477279380

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© 2012 by Myron Phillips. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/11/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-7940-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-7939-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-7938-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012919083

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Dedication

Preface

Chapter One

Crew Formed

Chapter Two

Beginnings

Chapter Three

Flight Training

Chapter Four

A Home At Last

Chapter Five

Combat

Chapter Six

Going Home

Chapter Seven

The 494th

About the Author

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this missal to all who have helped me along the way. Besides a very good wife, I was blessed with three children, two grand daughters and a son-in-law who is like a son to me.

I would also like to dedicate this to those whom I have served in the military, those I have worked with, and those who have helped me along the way.

I never felt like I was alone in life. There were so many good people out there, far more good than bad. Thanks to all of you who shared their time with me.

Dad’s Memoirs

Preface

This is the tale of an ordinary kid drawn into extraordinary experiences by the needs of his country in an all-out war.

It began at the urging of my daughter, Ellen Doyle, by setting down a few personal experiences for the grandkids. It has grown somewhat but is still limited to a narrow timeframe involving a rather small number of people. Ellen provided more than inspiration, like converting my longhand copy to a computer record.

With memory, the primary source and one thought triggering another, a rambling account is inevitable. So a rambling account is what you get and remember it’s all as I remember it.

I hope you will find this part of my life interesting. I enjoyed living it, and I hope you enjoy reading it.

Chapter One

Crew Formed

Early in 1944, ten men were gathered to become crew #6, one of fourteen crews assigned to the 864th Squadron of the newly formed 494th Heavy Bomb Group for the Army Air Corps. The ten of us were fresh out of the training system. Schooled in our specialty, there were two pilots, a navigator, bombardier, flight engineer, radioman and four gunners. We were together nineteen months. We lived together, studied together, and flew together, ultimately to face an enemy we never saw. They gave us a B-24 to man: an airplane, like its crew, cautiously hurried through the system to meet the challenges of war.

I was blessed with 20/20 vision, no overbite, and enough coordination to find my way to the left seat. I was given the assignment to lead nine others into a lifetime of experience compressed into nineteen months where we lived through the gamut of feelings from boredom to terror. I had been selected to attend the B-24 Transition School at Maxwell Field, Montgomery, Alabama. Two months of intense training gave us the knowledge and skills to handle the B-24 and assume the duties of First Pilot, later known as Aircraft Commander.

Jeff Bell was our co-pilot, a rangy farm boy from Mineral Springs, Arkansas. His complexion, weathered by countless hours in the Arkansas sun, and his long, muscular arms and oversized hands were indicative of the kind of work farming really is. Jeff spoke slowly in his Southwestern drawl, sometimes painfully so! But there was nothing slow about his mind. You might impatiently wait for the next word to drop, but by then he was a mile ahead of you.

Jeff came to us directly out of flight school. He had a jump on the rest of us with a couple of years of military life. Jeff had been in the South Pacific where he served as a cook and later as a gunner on a B-17. He knew firsthand the strange names we learned of in the news, names like Raboul, Port Morseby, and other blood stained places in New Guinea. A man of many talents, Jeff was an excellent pilot, a good athlete, and, by the unanimous opinion of those foolish enough to try him, the best poker player around.

Content to serve his assignment as co-pilot, he never indicated any frustration flying the right seat. The pilots are there for each other. He was the guy who kept an eye on me through long, cold hours where stress and fatigue took their toll. This was the guy with the built-in alarm clock who got me to meetings on time.

As time passed he gave me many more reasons to name our son, born seven years later, in his honor.

Our navigator was Dick Heckman. His start with us was rocky. Always critical and cantankerous, we could never fathom why he was in his hostile state. His Boston accent, which tended to annoy the rest of the crew, only aggravated what was already a touchy situation. Whatever it was that troubled Dick, he was able to move it to the back of his mind and gradually became more laid back to fit well in with the rest of the crew. We became good friends and enjoyed our off-time together. Through all of this, the skills that made him a great navigator never left him.

Dick was little smaller than average, about 5'7", small-boned and lithe. He fit well into his tiny navigator’s area. Dick was the best in his field, an opinion held beyond his friends and fellow crewman. His ability as our navigator did not go unnoticed by our superiors. Our Operations Officer, a West Point graduate, tried to convince Dick to accept an appointment to West Point, but Dick looked in other directions. In the end Dick became a significant member of the crew with mutual esteem from the rest of us. We flew so many times in horrible weather but he always got us back. With all the advances in navigation techniques, so often Dick was limited to the ancient technique of dead reckoning. We owe him our lives.

I recall a humorous incident that revealed Dick to really be one of us. I don’t know what irritated him, but his temper took over when he took his chart and crunched it into a ball the size of a grapefruit and tossed it into the bomb-bay behind him. Later out of the corner of my eye I saw him sheepishly retrieve it and smooth it out with the back of the hand.

Dick’s people skills continued to grow and peaked a few years later when he met a girl named Louise, who was by Dick’s admission the best thing that ever happened to him.

Our bombardier, Gene Massow, was from the Midwest but moved to California as a young man. His complexion showed the results of years of wind