Recalling D-Day

Constant Weader: I've been listening to my Uncle Frank Waterhouse's war stories for close to 60 years, but the first time I knew he saw action on D-Day was a few years ago, when I took an oral history from him about another war in which he served. His mention of his D-Day service was, astoundingly, sort of an "aside." Frank served in the Army Air Force & Air Force for 20 years, he set at least one flying record (probably more, but he's never mentioned any others) & was a SAC test pilot. He lives in Washington state.

Frank flew four or five missions before D-Day, bombing inside of France.  On D-Day, Frank’s crew took off at 2 a.m. in a formation of 36 B-24s.   Frank, who was the co-pilot, and the pilot, named Beckham, thought they were following the lead element.  But “when the sun came up, we didn’t see anybody; we couldn’t find our group.  We had been following a light, but the light was some other group.  It’s a wonder a whole mess of people didn’t run into each other that night.  We unloaded our bombs after daylight close behind the lines.”  Frank was 19 years old on D-Day. 

 “In later missions, we went to Munich, and to Ulm, which we bombed three days in a row.  On one mission, we started to go to Berlin, but the weather was bad.  One time we hit an oil storage facility – there was smoke and fire up to our altitude.”

 Despite the months of training in the States, it seems the Army Air Force shorted the pilots on some pretty basic training – like how to land the planes they were to fly into combat.  Frank said, “In Boise, they had allowed me to try one landing, which I did with an instructor who had ultimate control of the plane.  I really couldn’t tell who landed that plane – he or I.  That was my only landing before I got to England.  In England, I did some test runs of the B-24 so I could get some landings in.  I made maybe four or five landings on tests.”

Groups who had arrived before Frank’s had a requirement of 25 missions.  The famous Memphis Belle (a B-17) flew with Frank’s group on one mission:  “she hadn’t got her 25 by then.”  As American forces “broke the Germans’ back” and their air defenses “weren’t as severe, they extended the tours to 30 missions.  But the German ack-ack had radar, and when we would make evasive maneuvers the ack-ack would start.” 

The formation of 36 planes had four “elements,” with one flying above, one below to the left, one below to the right and one behind.  “When you’re in the lower left element the pilot couldn’t see the lead, so it was up to the co-pilot to fly the plane and the pilot would relieve me temporarily.  I didn’t have to worry about being cold because I was sweating so much.

“But it was cold.  We wore heated gloves and heated boots.  We called our seats coffin seats; they were shaped like a coffin top facing forward so we could see where to fly.  They protected us underneath and behind, but we wore flak suits on our chests and helmets like ground soldiers to protect us from German ack-ack.  One day we were flying a mission near Paris and I thought I’d been hit.  I shouted to Beckham, ‘I think I’ve been hit.’  But I hadn’t been hit at all.  A heated glove had shorted out.

“The German ack-ack would follow us.  Unless you were the lead ship, they didn’t use a navigator, so our navigator became the lead bombardier.  The others would drop their bombs when he dropped his.  On a mission to Hamburg, the ack-ack was coming within two feet of the nose and I couldn’t tell what was going on in the rear.  I called to Finley, a bombardier, who was a Texan, ‘Are you okay, Finley?’  He didn’t answer, and I kept calling.  Finally I heard, ‘Shut up, Waterhouse.’  Finley was okay.

“I don’t think our plane was ever actually hit.

“After awhile, they upped the tours to 35 missions.  Toward the end of my tour, the rest of the crew went home except Johnson, who was the navigator, and me.  I flew with another crew and a pilot named Bruland.  He was shot down after I left, but I later found him listed as a member of the Second Air Division, so he made it.  In formation, we led the lower left element.  Flying the lead in a lower element was called ‘flying with your head up.’  On my military record there’s a little blurb that says, ‘Element lead on 20 missions.’"