Guardian Angel Academy (15 page)

Chapter 27

The crew of the B-17 got into the plane and took their positions.  It was a cold dark night.  Budd and the other gunners (two waist gunners, and ball turret gunner) assembled in the radio room for take-off.  After the plane was in the air, the gunners went into their positions.  The two waist gunners, Steven and Anthony, went into position in the middle of the plane while the turret gunner, Christopher, squeezed into the small sphere or turret on the underside of the plane and curled himself into a fetal position.  The turret had to be hand cranked to revolve the hatch inside the plane.  Budd crawled around the tail wheel and seated himself.  He then plugged in his heated flying suit, oxygen, and intercom.  He took a kneeling position with his knees resting on the padded supports and his legs doubling back.  Not the most comfortable position to be in for hours.

Budd's plane was the third plane in the squadron to take off, heading for a steal factory in Czechoslovakia.  When they were directly above the target, the bombardier dropped the bomb.  As the two planes ahead of them flew upwards after dropping their bombs, Budd's crew watched in horror as the two planes collided, killing all men on board instantly.  Immediately, Pep, the pilot dove the plane down to avoid being hit by the falling pieces of the broken planes.  When the plane suddenly dove downward, Christopher, the turret gunner, thought that the plane was going down.  Instinctively he pulled the ball up to get out, but Christopher forgot to turn off the power.  Rather than falling out of the plane and releasing his parachute, as was his plan, he was caught with his arms pinned to the catwalk of the plane.  Immediately, the crew cut the power and hand cranked him out and back up into the plane, in fifty below temperatures.  Christopher was safe, but traumatized and shook up.

When the men returned to their tent city, although it was now morning, the crew was ready to hit the sack.  Taking off their suits and climbing inside their sleeping bags, they deserved the rest.  Christopher was still shaken up.  He was escorted to the medical facility where he would be examined to see if he needed to be sent home.  Budd said goodnight to Max, the monkey who was just waking up.

And so it went, mission after mission, Budd straining his eyes looking for enemy fighters.  The crew enduring many close calls.  Many missions were of a twelve hour duration.  Being brave and young, Budd took it in stride, but the fear was always there.  Enemy fighters zoomed through the squadron and it became a bedlam of shouting and roaring guns.  “I got him!” was often heard as a fighter would go down in flames.  Budd saw a fortress spiraling toward earth.  One chute opened, then another, then it exploded. Eight of the ten men lost their lives in that one.  Tension was always high, especially right around the target.  After dropping the bomb on the target, the ascent back up was chilling  Enemy fighters backed off and waited around the fringe area of the target for the cripples to come out.  They would pounce on them like snarling wolves.  First, the flak or big jagged pieces of shrapnel tore at the  plane sounding like gravel as the anti-aircraft guns fell short of their target.  The little pieces were deadly if one were to hit the plane.  Then Budd heard the fatal word from the cockpit, “Feather number two.”  This meant that two of the engines were out.

Coming off the target, Budd's crew became a victim of those vicious wolves.  This happened to Budd's crew twice.  On both occasions, they were forced to limp home on one engine.  They were coming home on a wing and a prayer.  It was fifty degrees below zero, but the sweat dripped down their backs.  When they returned to friendly skies, the tension was released like air from a balloon. Now the crew could sit back and enjoy a tasty C ration.  Budd could imagine the warmth of the shower he would take upon his return.  They were still alive.  That's what mattered most.

Chapter 28

Budd and his crew had flown missions to Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Germany and Austria.  They only bombed strategic targets such as steel factories, factories that manufactured war materials, and railroad yards.  They never bombed civilian facilities.  Sometimes his crew flew sorties.  Sorties were short missions which were closer by and which meant shorter exposure to enemy flak and fighters.  They had to fly two sorties to get credit for one mission.  Budd and his crew were in air as often as weather permitted.  Budd's crew's bombardier had received radar training while at Langley Field Virginia.  This meant that he and his crew could fly during bad weather, using radar and could go out alone to bomb targets. 

Now we are back to the beginning of this story, one that entails terror and fear, but also love and safety.  The mission began on December 3, 1944. Budd's crew prepared for mission number twenty-three.  If this mission was successful it would mean Budd and his crew only had two more missions to complete and they would be able to go home.  What an amazing feat.  Not many crews lived to see the day.  It was a cold and rainy day in Italy.  Budd's crew was required to fly up through Northern Italy, through the Udine pass, over the Alps into Austria.  Their target was the Herman Goring Steel Factory at Linz, Austria.  The crew was happy and somewhat at ease, because this was to be a milk run (easy mission or piece of cake).  The crew was so excited to think that they had beaten the odds and would soon be going home.  For the odds were that they would never make it to mission number twenty-five or make it home alive.  The crew climbed into the sleek new radar plane.  As the navigator guided the crew through the pass, they sang, “Bless them all, bless them all, bless them all.  The young the short and the tall.  There will be no promotion this side of the ocean so bless them dear Lord bless them all.”

Their e.t.a (estimated time of arrival) to the target was 12:00 noon. As they neared the target,  about ten minutes away, the clouds dropped from 30,000 feet to 15,000 feet.  This was a significant change.  It was not a good thing.  This meant that the cloud cover would make the accurate execution of the bomb to the target more difficult.  The crew voted whether they should take the chance and go on with the mission.

Pep, the pilot, spoke over his intercom to the crew.  “We're going to take a vote.  The clouds have dropped. Do we want to go on with the mission, or go back home and try again another time?”

This was their twenty-third mission.  They were so close.  They didn't want to turn back now.  The voting was unanimous to continue with the mission.

The plane reached the target.  The bombardier had control of the plane through the nordan bomb site.  The navigator was busy plotting the crew's course back.  The plane made its first pass over the site, blinded by the noonday sun.  Suddenly they were struck by ME-109's and Folk Wolf 190's in force.  The milk run had turned into a mission of tension and fear.  Their right inboard engine was set on fire.  The plane was going down.  Budd heard voices and shouting but couldn't make out what everyone was saying.  The plane's guns were blazing but the damage was fatal before any one of their guns fired.  It happened that quickly.  Budd was not aware of what was happening but was firing at the fighters as they slipped back to the tail.  Budd saw chutes opening and realized his own crew was jumping out.  He looked back over his shoulder and realized Jacob, the radio operator was standing at the waist door and was waving him out.  The plane continued to spiral down.  Budd forced himself to his escape hatch, but as he continued to try to go toward the hatch, the pressure forced him down to the floor.  Budd tried with all his  strength to rise up from the floor.  On his hands and knees,  Budd inched his way toward the hatch all the while crying out, “God, God, Oh my God help me!”

From my Earth-watching position, Joseph said to me, “Well, are you ready to save Budd's life?”

I had been watching my son and eagerly said, “Yes, let's go now!”

“Follow us,” said Joseph.

I followed them down and we hovered above the scene.

I saw the shooting down of a B-17 plane.  Everything turned to chaos. Budd banged at the door with his steel flak helmet, but the hinges would not release so he clawed to get out the door.  For every few inches he pushed the door out, the door continued to shut back in on him.   Angel Joseph and Rachel flew toward the door.  I followed. Pull the door on the count of three.  Angel Joseph spoke to my mind.  One, Two, Three....We yanked hard, and the door opened.  We held it open. Budd wiggled his way out until his head and shoulders hung from the plane.  Then, the wind grabbed Budd, tearing his jacket sleeve and ripping his boots off of his feet.  Jacob had opened his chute and was watching Budd as he was being torn from the plane.  After Budd had finally wrenched himself from the plane, it blew apart into bits and pieces.  Budd was only semiconscious when he realized that he was free falling.  Seeing the clouds enclosing him, Budd knew he had reached the 15,000 foot level, the cloud formation level.  Budd's hands quivered as he reached for his chest parachute.  His heart sank when he discovered it was not there.  It must have torn from the holding rings when the door of the plane shut on him. 

At this point Budd knew that his life was over.  One would think that this knowledge would entail the uttermost dark and disturbing feelings that could ever enter a person's heart.  But it was not so. Instead of anguish and despair, an astonishing feeling of peace swept over Budd's entire being.  He was filled with a knowledge that there were things far much worse than death.  At this moment, we were touching him, bearing him up and filling his very soul with a peace and feeling of love never before felt by Budd in all his earthly life. Being touched by a guardian angel does that to a person. Budd lifted his eyes upward, toward heaven, as if to let the Lord know that he was ready.   

But the time for Budd's life to end was not at hand.  It was then, as Budd's eyes were lifted upward, that he saw his chute swinging back and forth just above his head.  Budd thought that the thread had broken from his harness, which allowed the excess to unfold, which removed his chute from his chest.  But it I who had broken the thread.  Budd was filled with glorious exhilaration as he pulled the rip cord and the chute opened into a beautiful billowy mushroom.

Budd's one hundred and eighty mile per hour plunge, now slowed down considerably.  Now, his thoughts focused on what he had learned and practiced about landing.  Budd gazed down at the patchwork below.  He had been taught to choose a safe place to land and to prepare for the landing.  He was taught to take the jolt by landing on the toes, fall forward on the knees and then to the chest.  As he was fast approaching the landing, he could see a runway strip, a forest and a lake.  He did not want to land on the runway strip, the forest, or the lake. 

Budd's thoughts on where to land were interrupted as all of a sudden his chute collapsed.  He had spilled the air out of his chute and was quickly falling.  Blow!  Blow his hands down! Joseph instructed me.  And I blew.  I blew Budd's cold hands down causing them to drop and the chute once again filled with air. 

Budd once again examined his choices.  Seeing that none of the choices were favorable, Budd decided to fall wherever fate took him.  At this point fate came in the form of three guardian angels.  We directed his parachute toward the forest, helping his chute clear the trees. Budd's back grazed a large fir tree and he slid down the tree with both feet in the air.  He made a one point landing right on his rear end.  It was the kind of jar he would feel for days.  Instead of Budd going down to meet the ground, it came up to meet him and slapped him hard.  But Budd didn't have time to reflect on his situation or to deal with the torturesome throbbing coming from his rearend.  In the distance he could hear dogs barking and shouts of men.  He knew that he had to get out of there.  Budd balled up his chute and buried it and took off running as fast as he could.  As he neared the edge of the forest he saw an old man with a shot gun and two young girls cautiously moving down a dirt road.  Budd knew he was trapped.  Should he take his chances with them, or let the military get him?  Budd decided his best chance was with them, so he moved toward them with his hands up.  He was hoping to get the young ladies' sympathy.  He pointed to his bare feet.  He pointed to the large tear in his bomber jacket.  He pulled off his throat mic and handed it to one of them.  They were large young ladies.  The girls got on either side of Budd and lifted him by his elbows and carried him down the road.  Several Germans came out of the forest with rifles and bayonets.  The girls let Budd down and the Germans took it from there.  They stuck their bayonets in his back and forced Budd across a snow encrusted field.  Budd was brought to the front porch of a house.  Several high ranking German officers were standing on the porch. 

Budd was taken to a small jail where he was placed in a cell with Jacob, the crew's radio operator.  Jacob had fallen through a roof and was captured by a group of irate civilians.  They were so mad; they were about to do him in with pitchforks when German military personnel came upon the scene. 

Since Jacob had boots and shoes under his boots, he was ordered to take off his boots and give them to Budd.  Budd was in his stocking feet.  Then Budd was taken to a small cell.  The only furniture in the cell was a wooden bed without a mattress or blanket.  Budd was given a black piece of bread.  It smelled so sour that it turned his stomach.  He tossed it under the bed.  By morning, however, Budd was so hungry that he desperately searched for that piece of bread.  Realization then hit Budd that the war was over for him.  He was now at the mercy of a hostile enemy.

The next morning all of the  prisoners from a fifty-mile radius were rounded up and secured in a jail in Wells, Austria.  All of the men in Budd's crew had been captured except for one.  One of them was missing and it was assumed he was dead.  For a week they were together and could talk about things.  Each night they were marched to the railroad station to catch a midnight train to Frankfurt, but each night the train was full.  Finally, after a week of trying, the German soldiers just loaded them on the train anyway.  The prisoners were handcuffed to the windows opposite the other passengers.  Budd and the men traveled all that night and all the next day, uncomfortably handcuffed in those positions.  When they finally reached their destination, they were herded off the train.  The civilians looked on them with hatred in their eyes and yelled bitter remarks at them.

The prisoners were taken to a large interrogation center outside of Frankfort and were separately interrogated, searched and locked up into private cells.  In these cells, the only window was a small barred one.  It was up near the ceiling and there was no way to see out.  The bed was wood and the pillow was also wooden.  Budd was fed only once each day.  It was such slop as alfalfa soup and black bread.  Each day he was taken to an English speaking German officer for interrogation.  Each day Budd would only give his name, rank and serial number. 

“Tell us more or we'll kill you,” the German officer threatened each time, angrily yelling and losing his patience.  But Budd said nothing.

One night, after a week of interrogation, Budd was taken from his cell and led outside the walls of the center.  Budd shivered , but not only from the cold.  He feared that he was now going to be punished for not talking.  The calm peaceful feeling of his earlier near-death experience was gone.  From all of the threats he had been given, he assumed that the time had come for him to be shot.  He was of no use to them now.  As Budd trudged through the snow, he pictured his sweetheart Faelela and thought of how he would never see her again.  He thought of his family receiving news of his demise.  A large building along side a railroad track came into view.  Budd's boots sank into the deep snow as he trudged toward the large building.  Could this be the place they executed all of the prisoners who wouldn't talk?  If so, what did they do with the bodies afterward?  Budd continued trudging forward as the soldier pressed the gun into his back.  Finally, they reached the building.  The door was flung open and Budd was pushed inside.  He fell to the floor.  There he could hear the footsteps as the soldier who brought him shuffled out and shut the door.  Slowly Budd lifted his head and peeked into the room.  What he saw caused him to let out a sigh of relief.  There was no gunmen. He was not with Germans.  The room was filled with disheveled American airmen.  What a glorious sight!  Budd felt such joy and excitement.  He was with his own kind.