Extraits du Journal de John C. Briol

Le Diary de John J. Briol a été publié sous le titre de :
Dead Engine Kids : World War II Diary of John J. Briol, B-17 Ball Turret Gunner.- Silver Wings Aviation, 1993.- ISBN: 0963790900 .
Pour plus d'informations, et pour se procurer l'ouvrage voir John Briol's Web Page

September 12, 1944

We had our toughest mission this morning so far. My stomach still has a sick feeling and my knees are still wobbly. We bombed Ruhland (Ruhleb).
I'll start from the beginning. We got up at two o'clock this morning. It may take me a couple days before I feel like writing about these missions. I don't even like to think about them.
Before we eat breakfast some of us who are Catholic go down before each mission for Absolution And Communion. When we go out to face death we can receive Communion without Confession or we can even eat breakfast before but it's not recommended. I feel much better when I can receive like that. Then we went down to briefing.
They raised the curtain on the map where our route and mission were laid out. All the airmen groaned. We knew a lot of us wouldn't come back. All they did to console us was to say, "It's not pretty," and they let it go at that. The route was marked so we had to fly all the way across Germany to the other side to Ruhland. We had to pass near Berlin on the way. Our target was the synthetic oil refinery at Ruhland. They throw everything at you there, their rocket ships and everything, not to say anything about flak.
After briefing we went to the equipment room where we keep all our flying equipment. We drew parachutes and harness and Mae Wests. We carry .45 automatic pistols in a shoulder holster. (We keep them with us in the hut.) We use electrically heated clothing, pants, coats, gloves and shoes, oxygen mask, helmet and goggles, flak suits, escape kit containing maps, compass, etc., in case one has to bail out or crash land in enemy territory. When you're in the ship you're a mass of wires. One to your throat mike, one to your headset, one to your electric suit and a hose to your oxygen mask. We get one B-4 bag to a ship which contains one extra thing of everything if something should go out on you. We pile all this stuff outside and then we go to the armour building for our machine guns. Before a mission we have to clean the oil off and check everything. We have to take the oil off or they'll freeze up at high altitude. After a mission we clean them and put the oil back on. We have to install them before every mission.
A truck takes us out to the plane. It has to be preflighted, guns put in and a million things checked. We put on all our equipment and take off. After we're over the channel we take our positions and pray that we'll see England again.
We usually hit the coast of France, Belgium or Holland. We pass over the lines where we see the boys fighting it out on the ground below. We have to fight it out in the air over Germany.
After we get into Germany the flak starts coming up at us but it's not so intense until we get to the target. Fighters won't bother us until we get close to the target, unless we're caught straggling along behind our formation.
After hours of sweating it out and praying, we saw Berlin in the distance. It seemed to be smoldering from the pounding we're giving it. We passed near it a little to one side to avoid the intense flak.
Then it happened so quick you couldn't think. We heard the report "bandits". they seemed to come from nowhere. The Nazi fighters came barreling through our formations before you could wink an eyelash. I watched terrified as three of our Fortresses went down in flames with their bomb loads and our buddies in them. I saw five men get out of one of them. The rest were lost. One of them kept falling, I never did see his chute open.
By this time I had my guns charged on as one came flashing by our ship. One of our escort fighters was on his tail, pouring lead into him. Besides that, a couple other Fortresses were giving it to him. You could have recognized the pilot if it weren't for his oxygen mask. He must have been dead as he went by.
I think about 54 of our Fortresses and Liberators were lost on this raid. We had one engine gone but we kept up with the formation to the target at Ruhland and left it in flames. We turned around and beat it back across Germany. It wasn't long and another engine quit.
I was never so scared in my life because we didn't have enough power to keep up with the formation. We couldn't keep up with them so we were left straggling across Germany on two engines and losing altitude. When you're all alone like that your greatest fear is enemy fighters ganging up on you. They were getting our range from the ground and the flak would come up and almost knock us down. We lost altitude down to about 10,000 ft. Then the engines seemed to hold us.
God was with us though because we weren't attacked. Every time we saw a speck on the horizon we were terrified. We sweat it out for hours over Germany until we finally passed over the fighting lines into France, the happiest moments of our lives.
We almost headed for Switzerland because it was closer but our engines managed to carry us back over the channel. Coming back from a mission and seeing the shore of England is the sweetest thing in the world.

Copyright © 2001

September 28, 1944:

Today, as the British would say, "We had it," again, we were the only one ship of our element of three to return alive. Our squadron only put up twelve ships today (part of another squadron). Only two came back. We were in a box of twelve ships. We bombed the Krupp works of Magdeburg. Waves of twenty enemy fighters attacked our box of twelve ships. There were a couple hundred enemy fighters in the area. I never expected the Luftwaffe to come back but it did, as I've seen with my own eyes. I also know God is definitely with our crew. I'm pretty sure I got a fighter today. I claimed it but I don't think I'll get credit for it because I didn't actually see it fall; I was too busy. I think Ozzie, our toggalier, got one too.
We got up about three o'clock this morning. Got our pass to briefing, went down to the theater, received Communion and went to breakfast.
I've never seen such a nice priest in my life. He's so concerned about the men. He keeps a list of all the men that are lost and also compares the names with those that receive before every mission. He asks us how missions are etc.
At briefing, as usual we groaned. This target was right next to Berlin. We were over Germany from early this morning till six tonight. We met some flak on the way to the target but it wasn't so bad, the worst was to come. As we got to the I.P. we opened the bomb bay doors. We were 40 miles from the target. We had five bombs, each weighing 1000 lbs. We had 2700 gallons of gas because this was a long trip. We had about 30 miles to the target when we sighted the enemy off in the distance at 3 o'clock level. It's impossible to describe the feeling. There seemed to be hundreds of them. They went around in back of us to 7 o'clock. Then they seemed to break into groups of 20. I don't know where our fighter escort was. They came for us low. I thought we were all lost but we responded automatically. I guess I was fighting like a cornered rat but somehow I wasn't thinking of myself. There were so many I didn't know which one to shoot at. I got my sight on the nearest one and blasted away at him. All of his guns were firing at us. I tracked him all the way up along side our ship still blasting away. I forgot all about short bursts. As he came alongside, the German crosses were plain as day. I saw fire and smoke starting to come out the right side of his engine. I may get credit for shooting down that fighter. Our navigator verified it. He saw it fall in flames. I could see the dead pilot. His oxygen mask was torn off. The ship looked as if it were hanging in the air for a second, then I turned my guns away from him onto another ship just coming up on our tail. My left gun went out but all this time I was still blasting away with my right one. The other plane went off to the left without attacking. There was another going under. I tracked him all across the sky underneath getting in a few shots but he was pretty far away. The whole ship was vibrating from everyone shooting.
I was too busy but I saw most of our planes blazing and burning alongside of us. Further back I saw one blazing Fortress spinning down and breaking up. I only got in a glance at that. All of a sudden our fighter escort was there and the enemy planes scattered with P-51s on their tails. That was really a show to see the FW-190s get it instead of our Fortresses.
Our interphone had gone out on us and we could hardly talk to each other. These Fortresses are like a flying tomb without an interphone. Our no. 2 engine was shot up from the bandits but it was still pumping away.
We made it to the target with the two ships we had left. Our formations were all broken up. Planes were scattered all over. We got our bombs away in the middle of the flak. At first only two bombs went, so we salvoed the other three to hit part of the city anyway. Again our bomb bay doors wouldn't come up, so Haynes, our engineer, had to sart cranking again. These doors hold the ship back a lot when open. In the process he busted the hose on his mask and almost passed out from the rarefied air. He was trying to hold his breath while someone dug out the extra mask we bring along. His face was starting to get purple and we couldn't leave our positions. The navigator came back and helped him.
Before the fighting started I was in misery because I couldn't leave the turret to relieve myself. When the fighting started I had worse to worry about, so I didn't notice it again until we were headed for friendly territory. Another thing from being in one position all the time, my legs and back ache to beat the dickens.
Our whole squadron was shot down except two of us.

Copyright © 2001