Flak, Evasive Action And the Deadly games we played

FLAK, EVASIVE ACTION AND THE DEADLY GAMES WE PLAYED


Flak took a greater toll on our bombers than fighters did. We had two weapons
against flak, "window" and evasive action. Sometimes they worked, sometimes
they didn't. But work or not, we played them anyway. There was no other choice.
"Window" was simple. It consisted of aluminum strips. We dropped the stuff over
their flak battery. They picked the strips up on their radar where it
registered as aircraft. Then they blew the hell out of the strips. We could see
their flak exploding among the strips well below us. Good feeling. We fooled
them. But that was not always the case.

Evasive action was neither that simple nor that certain. Evasive action worked
like this. Let's say it takes 30 seconds for an 88mm shell to come to our
altitude. If we fly straight and level for 15 seconds, then turn hard we should
see the flak explode where we would have been had we not turned. And we would
keep up this flight pattern as long as the turns were completely random. If
there was any pattern or consistency to the turn sequences, the German radar
directed flak would decode it and our evasive pattern would then become
ineffective. And a lot of crews could be lost. It was game we were playing
against German flak. It was our sense of randomness against the radar's
calculating skills. And the edge went to the radar. But it was a game that had
to be played.

Usually it worked pretty well. But then there was Koblenz. We were heading east
along the Moselle River approaching the Rhine. On the bank of the Rhine sits
Koblenz, a communications center critical to German army operations. We were
going to take it all out. But we had flown two missions before and "taken it
all out". But it had always been rebuilt. This was the third try. I never liked
Koblenz. For us it was a bad luck target. On each of the previous missions we
had taken hits. On one of those we nearly lost Bob Monson, our co-pilot, as
well as Griego, our tail gunner.

As we approached Koblenz we started evasive action. Fifteen seconds then turn.
CRUMP! CRUMP! CRUMP! the flak burst outside our turn. So far so good. Now turn
again. Once more the flak went wide bursting where we would have been had we
not turned. Turn again. Then came three rapid explosions right in front of my
face. Something had gone wrong. The flak gunners were on us. Turn hard. CRUMP!
CRUMP! CRUMP! Again right in my face. I could see the red hot core of each
explosion and feel and hear the flak hitting Willie's skin like rocks hurled
against a tin roof as smaller pieces of flak were crazing the Plexiglas nose.
My heart starting pumping and I felt as though the next bursts would be the
end. Turn hard again. Silence. We were out of it. The flak had stopped. The sky
was now clear and the only sounds were the droning of Willie's R-2800 Twin Wasp
engines. We won our deadly game today. But tomorrow we would play another
deadly game. And tomorrow always came too soon


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Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer