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"Pistol Pakin Mamma"

"Pistol Pakin Mamma"
Contributor - Alan Griffith, B24 best web

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Hitting a wall - then breaking through


 
I've been pecking at this blog, adding any information I can find as I get it for some time now.  I've never publicized this other than to mention it on other B-24 posts/sites or to pass it along to family, friends or someone else who may be interested in the history. The few who've seen this blog are family, friends and the interested.  That's just fine with me.  I'm not monetizing this site.  Simply, I'm doing this as my contribution of honor to the men and the machine.  This has become my game of Clue .

So just what am I doing with this?


B-24 Best Web, its contributors, plus Flickr and contributors at the B-24 Liberator and PB4Y fan club have a wealth of information.  "A picture is worth a thousand words".  How true.  I'm doing the best I can with my Playskool toy computer to enlarge and identify planes in photographs;  planes that were on Kwajalein and Saipan at the same time as the Pistol Pakin Mamma.  Also, I'm using the pilot roster and mission plans which were sent, to me, via the Pentagon historians.  These pages have been typed (in humidity) in carbon triplicates, shipped over oceans, handled, copied, microfilmed and stored.  It's amazing they survive at all. These are sometimes smeary, barely legible and require a bit of sleuthing.  

As mentioned above, I've been looking at B-24 Best Web and The Liberator/PB4Y sites.  Anytime I think I can obtain further information from a surviving crew or family member, I ask.  Occasionally I strike gold...

 Meet another plane and crew who were flying alongside the Pistol Pakin Mamma; often on the same missions.

I have the honor of introducing  S/Sgt CJ Wyland, Ball turret gunner for the Pacific Avenger (1) 42-72975 and the Pacific Avenger II.   


 





Pacific Avenger II crew...Charles "C.J." Wyland (Ball Turret Gunner - kneeling center)
Photo courtesy Steve Autman, C.J.'s son-in-law      










I was fortunate C.J. Wyland's son-in-law, Steve Autman, had apparently taken the time to listen and record CJ's story. I also was fortunate that Steve was willing to share his information about CJ with me - and you.  Steve had posted the above photo on B-24 Best Web showing the crew of Pacific Avenger in front of their replacement plane - Pacific Avenger II.  From What I'm told, this new plane had "radar" and was intended for lone night missions.  If you'll notice there are 11 crew pictured here.  I suspect the 11th fellow is the radar operator.  I have no idea what the color scheme was for this new plane flying night missions, but it was likely painted flat black.   
(Side note: My understanding is that black may seem like the optimal color for night, but dark blue is more appropriate for flying night operations. Either way, flat paint causes parasitic drag reducing air speed and range.)

Lt. [Wilson] Christian was the primary pilot for Pacific Avenger 1 & 2.  Hopefully I'll be posting more on him later thanks to information from his nephew.

(Side note: To the layman, the concept of pilots flying different planes with some regularity is something of a new thought to them.  I believed, like most people believed, their family member always flew with the same crew in the same plane from the same base and even named and painted the nose art. I think this view is partly due to Hollywood, but more likely due to the lack of information on and about a crew member after his being Killed in Action. If  a fellow had a footlocker full of personal effects it likely would have been shipped back home to the next of kin; that is, if it survived attack, before or during transit.  If it made it home to the family, then maybe the family would know more of their son's service.  These guys had very slow mail service.  The mail tried to keep pace with the island hopping campaign; not to mention the mail also had to pass the postal censors.  I may be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure these guys for the most part weren't mailing home vital photographs of planes, bases and specific locations to their families stateside. Of course some did get through the mail, but for the most part, I think our photo record of this history was brought home with the survivors.)    

 I need to mention that Lt. Victor Petroff is shown in photograph and mission logs as piloting the Come Closer with Robert Dempster, Jr. as co-pilot. Petroff also pilots the Pistol Pakin Mamma and----this plane Pacific Avenger. He was a busy guy according to the mission logs.  Maybe he was an instructor? Maybe he was in a big hurry to get home? There were plenty others doing the same bomber shuffle.

Steve also shared a very moving story of CJ's experience.  Just reading this - like many others - I see a movie script in the making.  Please appreciate and enjoy,

 

CHARLES C. J. WYLAND
7th U.S. ARMY AIR FORCE
30th Bombardment Group
1942 – 1945
STAFF SERGEANT
  
“THE PACT”


Though the odds were as good as not that it might happen, no one chose to talk about the very real possibility of having to honor The Pact one day. So, as young men often did in our circumstance, the ones thrown together by  chance just months before, we made a deal.  It was a simple pledge shared among a few that would bond us as brothers and, one day, determine our fate.   More on this later, as there was work to be done first.

The big story begins much earlier than my role in the war.  At age 19 while working at Standard Steel Works in Burnham, I knew that it was time to join the thousands of others who had put aside the comforts of home, turning down a deferment due to the factory’s work in making tank parts,  and take up arms in defense of freedom.  Indeed, there was a sense of duty; but, the attraction of adventure beyond the world I had known pulled me in, as well. So, I enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force.

Basic training took me from New Cumberland, PA. to Miami, Florida where fancy hotels had been converted to barracks and the city had become a training ground for young men preparing for battle.  It was an exotic environment for a country boy from Juniata Valley and made the daily grind worth the effort.

Then it was off to gunnery training at Nellis AFB in Nevada and bombing training in northern Nevada.  At Nellis, we rode in back of pick-up trucks across the flatlands while firing 12 gauge shot guns at clay pigeons along the way.  Next, I enrolled in aircraft maintenance school in Amarillo, Texas and became certified as an assistant flight engineer.  While there, we lived in tar paper shacks for the entire eight months. Later, we moved to the old silver mining town of Tonopah in northern Nevada for the in-flight combat training using B-17 heavy bombers.


When we shipped to Hickam AFB in Oahu, Hawaii, I officially became part of the 7th Army Air Force, 30th Bomber Group, 38th Squadron, as a Staff Sergeant.  I was to be the ball turret gunner in the belly of a B-24 Liberator heavy bomber, as I was the only crew member trained on the Sperry gun sights; and I would be the assistant flight engineer. The Pacific Avenger, had been in service for a while; and it sported quite a few battle scars. 

Our crew of 10 young recruits and an ex-fighter pilot, who had washed out of flight school, became part of the Pacific Theater campaign.  Our job was to open the western Pacific islands in preparation for U.S. invasion.  Each island would become a base from which the next set of missions would be flown, as part of the plan to reach the Japanese mainland. 

Our crew picked up where others had left off, hitting Kwajalein, the Turks, the Marianas and other islands before setting up base in Saipan for the big missions to open Iwo Jima in advance of its invasion.  The mountains in Kwajalein hid scattered Japanese troops who would snipe at us, even as we tried to root them out.  In Saipan, we lived in tents in sugar cane fields during the monsoon season, a far cry from the relative luxury of Miami.

Like Yossarian and his flight crew in Joseph Heller’s classic World War II novel, “Catch 22”, our original orders called for 25 missions, each one consisting of a five hour flight to the target and another five hours back to home base.  But once we had flown 20, we were told that the limit had been raised to 30 missions.  Then at 25 we were extended to 35, until we eventually hit 40 missions. The war was heating up; and it was taking its toll on aircraft and crews.  In addition to newly trained crews that arrived regularly, and in order to accomplish the big push to reach Japan, combat
experienced crews like mine were kept in the Pacific Theater to ensure a full battle force.

Iwo Jima was a long way from Saipan, so far, in fact, that the fighter squadrons that usually accompany bombing runs as protection against Japanese interceptors could not make the round trip.  We had to fly these
crucial missions alone, depending upon our own wits and weaponry as defenses against a foe determined to prevent us from reaching our destination.


The B-24 was a four engine heavy bomber built with two bombays and the capacity for large payloads.  The great distance between base and target, however, required the installation of an auxiliary fuel tank in the front bay.  While it would help get us to target and back, it was a potentially massive, fixed bomb that, if hit by enemy fire, would instantly doom the plane and the crew.  Nevertheless, we would prepare for each mission with the determination to complete the job.  Each of us was committed to duty, country and one another.  I carried a pocket Bible with me; and before each mission, I would read the 23rd Psalm.

As I mentioned, each mission required five hours of flight to and five hours back.  It was cold, the altitude was high, and the plane was not pressurized.  On one of the missions, one of my eardrums blew out during an evasive maneuver that forced us to dive from the high bombing altitude of 25,000 feet to near sea level in a matter of seconds to avoid enemy fire.  I did not tell anybody, though, because I would have been grounded; and my crew would have been without an experienced belly gunner and flight engineer.  We had few comforts, one of them being tropical Hershey’s chocolate, a substance that wouldn’t melt as easily in the hot Pacific climate, at sea level, that is.  At altitude, we had to melt the stuff over an improvised stove just to avoid broken teeth.  As a side note, my wife, Mary, a native of Mt. Rock, whom I had married while in training, was working at the Hershey’s factory during this time.  I sensed her presence with every bite.

As we approached our target, crew members switched from their transit positions to their battle stations in preparation for ground fire and attack
from the Japanese Zeros we knew would be coming.  The hatch of the belly turret would be opened; I would climb in and get into a fetal sitting position with my knees nearly up to my chin, and the turret was lowered from the bottom of the bomber.  I could rotate the capsule in a wide swing, giving me a good view of the skies and the condition of the underside of the plane.  It was so tight, though, that I couldn’t move around, nor could I fit in it while wearing my flak jacket.  Instead, I sat on it for a little peace of mind.

It was only a 45 minute stint in our battle positions, and just 15 minutes for the actual bombing run.  Yet, the 5 hour flight gave us plenty of time to
 privately anticipate the coming challenge; and those mere minutes of battle and bombing seemed like eternity. 

We were more fortunate than some other crews, able to get in and out and occasionally taking down a Zero before it got to us.  At least that was the case until one fateful mission when the odds ran out.

There was nothing unusual about that day, no new intelligence, no premonitions, and just another 10 hour bombing run to Iwo.  Then it happened.  It wasn’t the typical whiz of anti-aircraft rounds piercing the fuselage to which we had become accustomed.  This was loud, ripping, jarring; and it rocked the Pacific Avenger from wing to tail.  We had been hit, and hit badly, perhaps mortally, by 20 mm cannon fire from a Zero.  The pilot reported the number 3 inboard engine had been hit, was smoking and shut down completely.  Our tail had been struck and the torque bar on the twin rudders was damaged, making it hard to maneuver the plane.  Our tail gunner was wounded and out of commission.  We scrambled to get him onto the flight deck, checked and treated.  We hurried through the checklist of craft operations.  The situation was dire.  We were five hours from base and nearly crippled, losing hydraulic fluid and altitude. 

Standard operating procedure in circumstances such as this suggests lightening the plane’s load by discarding unnecessary equipment to maintain flight.  Out went the guns, the ammunition; anything that wasn’t necessary for flight was dumped. 

And then, it was time to honor The Pact.  First went all the survival gear.  It wouldn’t be needed.  Then, without hesitation or ceremony, we sent out the parachutes, unopened and unoccupied, to their ocean fate.

You see, immortal as we wished we were and brazened enough in our camaraderie, we knew that going down with the Pacific Avenger was somehow noble and, in a weird way, darkly practical.  It was
better to die as brothers, at once, than to give satisfaction to an enemy who
might capture us, or to experience the agony of witnessing, one by one, our demise in an uncaring ocean and its formidable inhabitants.


And so, our fate was sealed, though the outcome was unknown.  We descended to wave level where the air was thicker and warmer; and we waited as the hours rolled by and doubts were countered by hope and prayer.  I pulled that Bible out of my pocket.

It was our pilot who saw the speck of Saipan first, yelling to the crew to hold fast, even as we all broke into cheers.  It was now just a matter of bringing the Avenger home.

EPILOGUE

One might be rightfully satisfied if the story ended here; but there was just a bit more.  Upon inspection, we discovered that the torque bar which connected the twin tail rudders had been almost completely severed.  Had we lost the use of those rudders, we would have been unable to maneuver the plane and would have crashed into the Pacific.  The Pacific Avenger was determined to be beyond repair, and it was scrapped. 

A short time later, we were assigned a new B-24, still unpainted and straight from the factory.  It was equipped with radar, among other improvements, which allowed us to conduct night missions.  These were flown solo, without either fighter protection or in formation with other bombers. This was particularly dangerous because, at night, it was easy for enemy search lights to spot us and gave a clear shot for anti-aircraft fire to pick us off as though we were sitting ducks.  Toward the end of our tour of duty, our
bombers were flying missions every hour, around the clock over Iwo Jima.  Here we go again…


POSTSCRIPT

C.J. Wyland lives in Belleville, PA., where he and his late wife Mary reared seven children.  His courage through the war and his zest for life inspire us all.

 
Kwajalein airstrip/base 1944 Courtesy Wyland/Autman
Kwajalein airbase 1944 Courtesy Wyland/Autman



 


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