I am SOOO over Covid – just like everyone else. I also have more than a few moments where I begin to lose faith that the ‘normal’ that I was accustomed to, may never return. At my ugliest times, I reach for a Diet Coke and then I remember stories like the one that I’m about to share. Thinking of my Uncle Dick, trying to comprehend the faith that he must have had – mixed with a lot of desperation and fear! – in order to get through some of the life experiences he incurred. Makes me wonder if faith, a positive outlook, or a hopeful attitude causes your mind/brain to ‘see’ what is necessary to get through the ugliness?
Uncle Dick was a right-wing gunner in WWII. He served on a plane called The Passionate Witch II. On March 28, 1944, The Passionate Witch was under heavy enemy-fire and at high noon, was ultimately shot down. Clink the link below to read the story.
This story comes from Cousin Margie Lou as conveyed to her from Uncle Dick. The story takes place on March 28, 1944. Dick was the right gunner of The Passionate Witch unit. During the exercises and the earlier war situations, Dick stated that he could always see the flak (aircraft fire/ammunition) coming toward the plane. This was an advantage for the right-wing gunner position. As a result of that advantage, Dick said that he saw the flak that ultimately took down his plane, and knew that it was going to hit his plane. The flak essentially tore one wing off the Passionate Witch and the plane began to spiral uncontrollably to the ground. On the impact of the flak, Dick was thrown against or near the escape door. This door, when one pulled the red handle released the door, allowing for escape/departure from the plane. Dick tried to reach for the red handle but couldn’t move a muscle. Centrifugal force of the downward-spiralling plane caused him to be in a frozen-like state. At this point, Dick knew that he was going down with the plane and was going to die. Immediately he prayed, “please let Pop accept this”, knowing that if Grandpa accepted Dick’s death, all other community and family and friends would accept it too. After completing the prayer, Dick opened his eyes and, to his surprise, ‘saw’ Grandma’s face and ‘heard’ her voice, saying “Dick, pull the red handle!” By now the centrifugal force had diminished its power and Dick could move. He tried to reach the handle but couldn’t. Grandma continued to plead with him, “Try harder Dick, try harder Son!”. Pull the red handle. Dick described Grandma’s presence as “Mom was as clear to me in that plane as you are to me now Margie. Mom was in that plane with me!” Dick continued to try to get to the red handle of the door. Eventually he finally reached it and pulled the handle. The door didn’t release! Likely through all the damage done when the plane was hit, the frame of the plane had been altered, keeping the door from falling out. Once Dick knew that the door wasn’t going to open easily, he proceeded to beat/hit the door with his head and his body and anything else to force the door open. After Dick’s frantic efforts, finally the door fell out and Dick fell with it, taking his parachute with him – but there’s a story to that too. Standard parachute issue for the military at this time was a front-wearing parachute. Dick had asked his commanding officer for a back-wearing parachute and been told that he wasn’t getting one as it wasn’t ‘standard issue’. Dick hated the front-wearing chutes because it did not allow for Dick to be in the proper position to perform his job of gunner on the plane. Dick’s mode of operation was to remove his parachute and stand on it, instead of wearing it. In Dick’s mind, standing on it might protect him from gunfire or flak that came up through the belly of the plane. On this day in March, 1944, Dick was standing on his front-wearing parachute, however he had won a back-wearing parachute in a poker game about a week earlier from a fellow who had lost all his money and tried to stop playing but Dick had insisted that the fellow stay in the game and put up his back-wearing parachute as his money. Dick won the chute. This fact is ironic as Grandma was adamant that gambling was evil and refused to allow standard playing cards in her house. It is obvious to me that breaking Grandma’s rules likely saved Uncle Dick’s life.
So back to Uncle Dick falling out of the plane, he opened the chute hoping that there was indeed a chute there to open. Dick had merely trusted the fellow that lost it in the poker game – he hadn’t bothered to check it! So he pulled the chord and indeed there was a functioning chute. As Dick descended slowly to the ground, he was constantly being compromised by falling bombs from other aircraft in the vicinity at the time. In fact, he said that he could have reached out with his leg and touched several bombs as they plummeted to the ground and exploded. And the resulting ground explosion air forces were also pushing him back up into the air. Dick thought there was a good chance that one of the bombs would eventually hit his open parachute and take him to his death. Eventually one of the forces of one of the falling bombs did take out half of his chute, causing his descent to abruptly accelerate, taking him forcefully to the ground where he landed on his butt. It is thought that he damaged his tailbone in that fall and suffered consequences of that his whole life.
As Dick prepared to gather his parachute from the ground (which is what they were taught to do if they got shot down, and then to bury it afterward), he realized that he had landed about 50 yards from the exterior fence of the German compound that had been his unit’s mission to destroy. He looked to the top of the fence and could see the points of dozens of German soldier helmets, all with machine guns and other guns pointing down at him. Dick knew there was no point in running or escaping so he surrendered to the German soldiers. Dick noted that the soldiers appeared to be ‘babies’, so young. The soldiers were very excited to have caught Dick, exclaiming, “Fleiger-gangster”, meaning American Flyers. (Side note – the POW camps were called Kriegs. Dick learned to play “Kriegie” bridge in the camp and played bridge the rest of his life – also likely to have been frowned upon by Grandma!). With the butts of their guns, they pushed Dick inside the fence of the compound where he quickly saw one of his unit soldiers, John McLaughlin. McLaughlin was lying on the ground, blood coming from his ears and mouth. Dick communicated to the Germans that he wanted to go over to his friend. They allowed that. Dick went over, asked him if he was in pain. McLaughlin said that he was not. He asked Dick to light a cigarette for him. Dick checked with the German soldiers to see if he could do that. They agreed. Dick gave the lit cigarette to McLaughlin and quickly thereafter, Dick was forcefully taken away and thrown into an underground dungeon/hole. The only exposure to the outside world was through the locked hatch at the ground level where Dick could see if it was day or night. Dick said that he slept a lot while he was there alone. After a day or two, another POW was thrown down in the dungeon with him, John Oliver, which Dick called Ollie. There was absolutely no light in the hole, except for the natural light from the hatch lid. Ollie and Dick could hardly see each other – but they talked a lot. They were eventually pulled out of the hole and interrogated separately and then moved them to a train station where many American POWs were gathered and put into cattle cars, the type in which the Jews were transported. The men had no idea where they were going but would look out of the wooden slats and soon realized they were heading east – into Germany. They ended up near Frankfurt and stayed there for a few days. Then they were put onto another train where they could at least sit down and they were moved to Krems, Austria, Stalag 17B. From this point on, Ollie and Dick were together throughout the remainder of the war.
There were 10 U.S. soldiers in The Passionate Witch II that fateful March 28, 1944 day. The pilot, Robert Cook and the navigator, Al Silva, both officers, survived and were in prison in other locations. Dick always said that Robert Cook was the best pilot ever and he credited Robert for his survival. Dick was the only other survivor.
Imagine the faith, the strength, and the courage that was required to have survived this ordeal. Getting back to ‘normal’ was the least of their concerns. Let’s all try to keep the faith and keep your ‘parachutes’ handy, whether your parachute is a call to a friend, going for a walk, getting vaccinated or having a healthy dinner with your family. Protect yourself and keep the faith.