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At 5:30 a.m., fteen minutes before taxi time,
a jeep drove around the ve-mile perimeter
track in the semi-darkness, pausing at each dispersal
point long enough to notify the waiting crews that
poor local visibility would postpone the take-off
for an hour and a half. I was sitting with Murphy
and the rest of our crew near the Piccadilly Lily. She
looked sinister and complacent, squatting on her fat
tires with scarcely a hole in her skin to show for the
twelve raids behind her. The postponement tight-
ened, rather than relaxed. Once more I checked over
my life vest, oxygen mask and parachute, not per-
functorily, but the way you check something you’re
going to have to use. I made sure my escape kit was
pinned securely in the knee pocket of my ying suit,
where it couldn’t fall out in a scramble to abandon
ship. I slid a hunting knife between my shoe and
my ying boot as I looked again through my extra
equipment for this mission: water canteen, mess kit,
blankets and English pounds for use in the Algeri-
an desert, where we would sleep on the ground and
might be on our own from a forced landing.
Murphy restlessly gave the Piccadilly Lily anoth-
er once-over, inspecting ammunition belts, bomb
bay, tires and oxygen pressure at each crew station.
Especially the oxygen. It’s human fuel, as important
as gasoline, up where we operate. Gunners eld-
stripped their .50-calibers again and oiled the bolts.
Our top turret gunner lay in the grass with his head
on his parachute, feigning sleep, sweating out his
thirteenth start.
We shared a common knowledge which grimly
enhanced the normal excitement before a mission.
Of the approximately 150 Fortresses who were hit-
ting Regensburg, our group was the last and lowest,
at a base altitude of 17,000 feet. That’s well within
the range of accuracy for heavy ak. Our course
would take us over plenty of it. It was a cinch also
that our group would be the softest touch for the
enemy ghters, being last man through the gantlet.
Furthermore, the Piccadilly Lily was leading the last
three ships of the high squadron—the tip of the tail
end of the whole shebang. “We didn’t relish it much.
Who wants a Purple Heart?“
The minute hand of my wrist watch dragged.
I caught myself thinking about the day, exactly one
year ago, on August 17, 1942, when I watched a piti-
fully small force of twelve B-17’s take off on the rst
raid of the 8th Air Force to make a shallow penetra-
tion against Rouen, France. On that day it was our
maximum effort. Today, on our rst anniversary,
we were putting thirty times that number of heavies
into the air—half the force on Regensburg and half
the force on Schweinfurt, both situated inside the in-
terior of the German Reich. For a year and a half, as
a staff ofcer, I had watched the 8th Air Force grow
under Maj. Gen. Ira C. Eaker. That’s a long time to
watch from behind a desk. Only ten days ago I had
asked for and received orders to combat duty. Those
ten days had been full of the swift action of partici-
pating in four combat missions and checking out for
the rst time as a four-engine pilot.
Now I knew that it can be easier to be shot at than
telephoned at. That staff ofcers at an Air Force
headquarters are the unstrung heroes of this war.
And yet I found myself reminiscing just a little affec-
tionately about that desk, wondering if there wasn’t
a touch of suicide in store for our group. One thing
was sure: Headquarters had dreamed up the biggest
air operation to date to celebrate its birthday in the
biggest league of aerial warfare.
B-17F-30-VE, 42-5864, crew of Capt. Thomas E. Murphy, Lt. Col. Beirne Lay. Jr., 351st BS,
100th BG, Telergma, Algeria, Aug. 17, 1943
Thomas E. Murphy was
born in Waltham, Massa-
chusetts. He was killed at
the age of 27 as the pilot
of the B-17F Piccadilly Lily
during a raid on Bremen
on October 8, 1943.
(Photo: Murphy family)
HISTORY
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