The mission was far into Germany at the very limit of our fuel reserves. I
don't remember the target but I never will forget the return flight. B-26's
carry bombardier navigators. Each one in the formation plots the flight as
though he was flying lead. After we hit the target we turned toward home. As
I
was plotting our course my plot looked as though the lead was taking us
right
over Frankfort. Impossible, Frankfort was defended by 600 guns, I must have
made a mistake in my plot. I did it over and over. No mistake. We were headed
right for Frankfort and the 600 guns. .Yet no one broke radio silence
Suddenly
the sky filled with violent accurate flak. We lost two planes that day over
Frankfort 12 aircrew dead because of navigational carelessness. When we
landed
we all talked about the error. It seems everyone knew where we were except
for
the lead navigator. We paid a high price for maintaining iron discipline in
radio silence. One more point, We never saw that navigator again.


Arthur Kramer

A couple of weeks ago, at a meeting of airtanker pilot in Reno, Walt Stewart
was a guest speaker.
He was a pilot on B-24, and his bombs were actually the first to hit the
refinery. "Utah Man" was the name of his B-24 and there was a documentary
video made about it a while back.

He talked about how on the way there, his navigator realized that the formation
had turned about 40 miles too early, using the wrong railroad for point to
start the turn.

They were 2nd in their particular group in the formation, and they were
completely sure that turn that was made was wrong, but was unable to question
it on the radio, due to radio silence.

Shortly afterward, the #1 plane in their group turned back out of formation,
and headed towards the right target, which they were happy about, because they
knew it wasnt just them that knew a navigational error had been made.

He did stress how gutsy it was though, to just turn the particular group out of
the formation like that, and its a gamble that if you are correct, you are a
hero, and if you are wrong, off to Ft Leavenworth you go.



Ron
Pilot/Wildland Firefighter