Flak, Evasive Action And the Deadly games we played

FLAK, EVASIVE ACTION AND THE DEADLY GAMES WE PLAYED


Flak took a greater toll on our bombers than fighters did. We had two weapons
against flak, "window" and evasive action. Sometimes they worked, sometimes
they didn't. But work or not, we played them anyway. There was no other choice.
"Window" was simple. It consisted of aluminum strips. We dropped the stuff over
their flak battery. They picked the strips up on their radar where it
registered as aircraft. Then they blew the hell out of the strips. We could see
their flak exploding among the strips well below us. Good feeling. We fooled
them. But that was not always the case.

Evasive action was neither that simple nor that certain. Evasive action worked
like this. Let's say it takes 30 seconds for an 88mm shell to come to our
altitude. If we fly straight and level for 15 seconds, then turn hard we should
see the flak explode where we would have been had we not turned. And we would
keep up this flight pattern as long as the turns were completely random. If
there was any pattern or consistency to the turn sequences, the German radar
directed flak would decode it and our evasive pattern would then become
ineffective. And a lot of crews could be lost. It was game we were playing
against German flak. It was our sense of randomness against the radar's
calculating skills. And the edge went to the radar. But it was a game that had
to be played.

Usually it worked pretty well. But then there was Koblenz. We were heading east
along the Moselle River approaching the Rhine. On the bank of the Rhine sits
Koblenz, a communications center critical to German army operations. We were
going to take it all out. But we had flown two missions before and "taken it
all out". But it had always been rebuilt. This was the third try. I never liked
Koblenz. For us it was a bad luck target. On each of the previous missions we
had taken hits. On one of those we nearly lost Bob Monson, our co-pilot, as
well as Griego, our tail gunner.

As we approached Koblenz we started evasive action. Fifteen seconds then turn.
CRUMP! CRUMP! CRUMP! the flak burst outside our turn. So far so good. Now turn
again. Once more the flak went wide bursting where we would have been had we
not turned. Turn again. Then came three rapid explosions right in front of my
face. Something had gone wrong. The flak gunners were on us. Turn hard. CRUMP!
CRUMP! CRUMP! Again right in my face. I could see the red hot core of each
explosion and feel and hear the flak hitting Willie's skin like rocks hurled
against a tin roof as smaller pieces of flak were crazing the Plexiglas nose.
My heart starting pumping and I felt as though the next bursts would be the
end. Turn hard again. Silence. We were out of it. The flak had stopped. The sky
was now clear and the only sounds were the droning of Willie's R-2800 Twin Wasp
engines. We won our deadly game today. But tomorrow we would play another
deadly game. And tomorrow always came too soon


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Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

We had two weapons
against flak, "window" and evasive action.

A third was developed in the MTO: a half a box or a full box would fly ahead
of the main formation and target flak positions protecting the target,
typically a bridge, with white phosphorous to take out the crews or at minimum
degrade optical tracking with the smoke. A combination of chaff and WP was
also used.

Flak was still murder, anyway. Here's part of a letter written by John Adams,
a B-25 pilot, describing a mission in April, 1945 to destroy a railroad bridge
near Campo Di Trens, Italy, to stop the retreat of German forces from Italy
into the Alps:

"Over the target area a salvo of 88mm shells exploded off our right wing. The
plane flying to our right went down and I do not know if anyone survived. Shell
fragments came through the side of the plane and severely wounded you and
hitting [co-pilot] Ron Barison in the leg. [Barison's femoral artery was
severed by a piece of shrapnel that nearly took his whole leg off and he bled
to death]. I was hit in the neck and also had my spine chipped by a piece of
shrapnel that lodged in a vertebra. If it had been ¼ inch forward, I would not
be here today. And, come to think of it, nobody else would be either, as I was
driving. The number two engine was badly damaged and we had to feather the
propeller. The number one engine was damaged and the maximum power we got from
it was 22 inches. We cleared the target area and with the help of Frank Salters
you were stabilized and given three serets of morphine and a tourniquet was
used to reduce your blood loss. I had to decide whether to go to Switzerland or
head south to our base. We needed a hospital so we went south.The wing tanks
had taken big holes so we were low on fuel. But we got through German occupied
Italy and over the front lines of the British 8th Army. We contacted a base
seven miles inland from Ancona at Falconara. The South African Air Force
operated out of this base and they were taking off for a mission in their B-26s
and we could not land on the runway. We were instructed by the tower to land
parallel to the runway on the grass.
We were at 10,000 feet and I decided to bring it in. I was reluctant to cut the
power. The landing gear was lowered and when we tried to lower the flaps, we
found the aircraft had lost its hydraulic pressure. It was almost a dead stick
landing straight from 10,000 feet with a very sharp glide angle. We touched
down at 150 knots without flaps or brakes. Jeff Morton attached parachutes to
the frame and threw the chutes out the waist gun windows to cause extra drag,
however, they were ripped off.
We were approaching the end of the landing area at approximately 90 MPH and at
the end of the field there was an embankment 12 to 15 feet high. I wanted to
swing the plane to the left or right, but a B-26 was on one side and a backhoe
and trenching equipment on the other. All of a sudden a small ditch was in our
path. I yanked the nose up and shoved it down again but the nose gear was
knocked off anyway. The plane slid on its nose and we stopped just short of the
enbankment, so it was a good thing the nose wheel went. It helped slow us down
just enough."


Chris Mark

Subject: Flak, Evasive Action And the Deadly games we played
From: ost (Chris Mark)
Date: 8/7/03 10:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time

(great stuff snipped)

yanked the nose up and shoved it down again but the nose gear was
knocked off anyway. The plane slid on its nose and we stopped just short of
the
enbankment, so it was a good thing the nose wheel went. It helped slow us
down
just enough."


Chris Mark


In the Marauders we had an air bottle. When you hit it, it locked the brakes
and collapsed the nose wheel. It was a last resort to get the plane stopped
fast in just such a situation as you described. I guess the B-25's had no such
air bottle. Glad I was in Marauders.

Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer