May 29, 1944

May 29, 1944

One last look at the target.

The regular bombardier was sick the morning of May 29th. Jack Hayden was on standby and became their “pick up” bombardier. Jack only had one more mission to go and he wanted to get home. So he would be part of the crew that day. This was his first time flying with the Forsyth crew. Forsyth later said of Jack, “He was a nice guy and a good bombardier.” According to Jack, the pilot he normally flew with got the idea he wanted to be a big shot somewhere around their 15th mission. “He wanted to be a pilot who would get ’em,” said Jack. Jack later saw that pilot in Miami.

The crew woke up at 3:00 AM and were on the flight line at 3:30. At that time they were assigned to 42-94973. The plane did not have a name at that time but went by the letters on the tail, RR. As soon as dawn broke, somewhere around 5:00 AM, they took off for Politz, Germany to bomb the shipping harbor. According to John Forsyth, “It flew good. We didn’t have any problems with it”. This was my Dad’s 29th mission.

Little did they realize that this was going to be their last mission together.

They took their “usual” route which they referred to as the Lincoln Hwy. over the Zuider Zee, Doomer Lake south of Hannover, south of Berlin, turned north and were bombing the port of Stettin on the Baltic seaport just north of Berlin.

There was heavy ground fire and flak took out the supercharger on the number 2 engine enroute to the target. It wasn’t far to the target so they feathered the engine and continued on. They reached their target and were able to drop their bombs.

After dropping their bombs they turned back over the Baltic Sea for Hethel, Norfolk. Because of the loss of the one engine, they were trailing the other planes in their flight. They had no sooner made their turn for home when they were surrounded by 18 Me210’s German fighters. Every gunner was in position and firing their machine guns. The tail gunner reported that at least 3 of the Me210’s were shot down before they were hit themselves. Jack Hayden said he had seen 5 go down. Three of them right away and two that were smoking but turned back to Germany. He didn’t see how they could have made it. The remaining fighters continued their pursuit of the larger group of bombers. According to Hayden, Mulqueeny, the tail gunner, saved them.

The No. 3 engine was hit and caught on fire but they were able to get it extinguished. The prop on that engine was also feathered. The left stabilizer was almost totally demolished and a wheel was shot. The hydraulic system was shot out so the flaps and landing gear all came down. The rest of the plane was full of holes. They were hit by 20 mm shells and a couple of rockets.

S/Sgt. Richard Sawyer, the left waist gunner, was wounded quite badly in the right arm by a 20 mm shell.

When Sawyer was hit it blew him onto Kellis knocking them both down. While Kellis was trying to get Sawyer off of him he was hit in the back and some metal hit him in the right eye so he could not see very well. Jack Hayden made his way out of his position to go administering first aid to Sawyer. It was about that time that the top gun turret was hit.

T/Sgt. Harold N. Rhodes, the engineer and top gunner, was hit in the neck knocking him out of the turret. He fell to the floor of the plane landing on the bomb bay doors, which just minutes before had closed. About that time 4 or 5 more bullets went right on through between Hayden and Rhodes. According to Hayden, Rhodes had a close call. Although Rhodes was “bleeding like a stuck pig” it was soon determined that he was going to be all right. He was quickly given some morphine for the pain. Forsyth had little control of the plane so Rhodes crawled to the back of the badly shot up tail section and found the cables for the vertical and horizontal stabilizers shot in two. He tried to repair them using his belt but was unsuccessful. The left router was pretty well shot off. Forsyth does not know how he was able to get enough control to keep it in the air.

They were loosing altitude and fuel fast. Forsyth asked 2/Lt. Francis Giardiello if they would be able to make it back to England. He said there was no way. Forsyth asked him for a route to Sweden but Giardiello did not have the sectional maps for that area. At this time Forsyth was wishing he had taken Prueher after all. This was Giardiello’s first mission. Forsyth made a turn and “guessed”. Giardiello later gave Forsyth a heading that would have taken them to occupied Denmark! Forsyth told him, “If and when we get on the ground, stay out of my way!” He did.

The crew knew they were going down too fast to make it to England. They also knew that landing in the Baltic Sea would be disaster and landing in Germany would mean being prisoners of war. In an attempt to keep the plane in the air as long as possible, they threw overboard all not strictly necessary equipment including their guns, ammunition, their flack suits and the bomb site. With the flaps down to 30 degrees, they made their way to what they hoped would be Sweden.

Sometime around 2:30 or 3:00 PM, they were able to get the plane landed. I believe they landed in a field and hit a fence. The plane was immediately surrounded by men with machine guns. This led them to believe that they were in Norway which was occupied by the Germans. About that time a tall blond man stepped forward and said “Welcome to Sweden.” John Forsyth shouted out, “Could you point those guns the other way.” The Swede replied, “Don’t worry. They’re not loaded.” They had actually landed at Bulltofta A/F near Malmo, Sweden.

An ambulance took Sawyer and Rhodes immediately to the hospital. The base commander welcomed Forsyth and the rest of his crew. There had been 5 planes land there that day. Forsyth was the oldest so the base commander made him in charge. He asked Forsyth what he could do for them. Forsyth asked if they could have some food. He said, “I know these men are hungry”. They marched to the mess hall and were served the only thing they had left; soup and biscuits. The commander asked if they wanted any milk. They were not allowed to drink the milk in England so Forsyth asked if it was pasteurized. The commander looked at Forsyth as if he was out of his mind and said, “Of course it’s pasteurized.” Forsyth reports “So they brought out pitcher after pitcher of milk. You never saw guys go through milk so fast in all you’re life. They hadn’t had any for months.”

Meanwhile, Prueher was back in England. It had been quite a night of celebration for him. He didn’t wake up until almost 2:00 PM. Each of the huts had a filed phone. The one in Prueher’s hut was right next to his bed. He immediately called over to the headquarters to find out what time the planes were due back in. He was told that they should start coming in in about 20 minutes. He wanted to get down to the end of the runway to “see the boys come in”. Prueher was standing at the end of the runway when 21 of the 22 planes that went out that day came back in. The crew that he had been with for so many missions did not return. “Oh, not fun,” he told me with tears in his eyes. “Ever see a sick cookie, that was me. I was sitting at the end of the runway with some nurses, Drs. and others who were interested. When the 22nd didn’t come in, I went back to the flight line. I was practully crying.”

He had no idea what had happened to them at this time. Later the base Chaplain told him that they were 99% sure that they had made it safely to Sweden. Three days later Prueher was flown to Ireland where he stayed for three months as a radar instructor. He was sent back to the States around September 1st. “I never did see the boys,” said Prueher. Years later he was able to locate Sawyer in Buffalo, NY. Mulqueeny came to visit him in Norwich, CT and Burroughs came to see him in Dover, DL.

Back in Sweden, the crew were given rooms for the night and the next morning they boarded a train and headed north. Rhodes and Sawyer were in the hospital. The rest of the crew went up to Loka Brunn which is an old Swedish spa in the mountains. They were given temporary passports. They were not allowed to go into town until they got civilian clothes. They picked up some “crummy looking” civilian clothing. None of them had a full military uniform. There were certain towns that they could not go into.

Because it was so cold while flying, they never wore a complete uniform. They would put on long johns, a heated suit that plugged into electric but most of the time it didn’t work. Then an old jean shirt, field jacket which was over sized and fur lined boots.

They didn’t have much to do during this time. “It wasn’t bad other than it was boring.” They played soccer and rode bikes. It seems that there was a charcoal taxi that they would take into a bigger town about 20 or 25 miles away from Loka Brunn. Sometimes when they got to a big hill they had to get out and push.

There is a note on the back that says that is a cookie in his mouth. I don’t know where the picture was taken but you can see his right arm is in a sling. The 20 mm shell had taken a piece of bone out of his arm. Forsyth said if it wasn’t for the skills of the Swedish doctors, he would have lost the use of his arm.

However, I have found this list of the missions and it shows this one as number 14.

B-24H 42-94973 left Sweden for England on 7 July 1945. MACR 5216