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DAN ROSSMAN
Primary Flight Training in PT-19s was relatively uneventful. Basic was not. My first day solo ended in a dead stick landing when the fuel pump died. My first night solo was interrupted by a snow storm that resulted in my first actual instrument flying after about all of two or three hours instrument training in the plane. My first night solo cross country was even worse. The engine caught fire and I joined the Caterpillar Club by rolling inverted, opening the canopy and pulling the belt.
On 6 June, 1944 (D-Day in
Europe) during a flight practicing single engine procedures the
Instructor Pilot decided that we should also practice combat type low
level flying. Flying down Lake In August 1944 our crew was sent to Savannah, GA to pick up an airplane and fly it to India for assignment to the 14th Air Force in China. Those orders were changed so that we were to fly to Biak , New Guinea via, California, Hawaii, Christmas Island, Canton Island, Tarawa, Guadalcanal and then Biak to deliver the plane and crew to the 13th Air Force in the South Pacific. The trip to California was uneventful except for a prop governor malfunction as we were ‘transiting’ the Grand Canyon , causing a three day layover in Kingman, Arizona for repairs. Departure from California was delayed for six weeks by an historically severe weather front that kept even B-24s from getting through. Finally we were released to go---1:00 AM take-off. Two hours into the flight the weather turned bad--- contrary to the forecast—but we continued. We were never able to contact any of the three surface weather ships positioned to update our navigation and weather; and we never got the recall message. We flew actual instruments in weather all night --- by hand, no autopilot—and I saw my first St. Elmo’s Fire. At sunrise, the Navigator came up to say that because of the weather he couldn’t be sure of our position. Worse yet, it would be at least two hours before the sun would be high enough to take sun lines and establish our position. We were now in serious fuel trouble. The flight was planned for about ten hours and we were approaching that time without the least idea of our position.. We agreed to maintain our heading, told the radioman to keep trying on his radio and I used my commercial broadcast band radio to see if I could pick up anything. Eventually, I faintly heard what I recognized as the Coca Cola theme song and realized I had picked up a commercial station which hopefully would be Honolulu. Homing on that station indicated a 45 degree right turn to reach it. Maintaining the previous course would have taken us Southwest of Hawaii, an area no one would have thought to search. Finally, Diamond Head came into sight; I declared a fuel emergency and requested a straight –in approach. We landed with less than 50 gallons of useable fuel after flying thirteen hours, five minutes. We were the only plane to get through that day.
From Biak, we were sent to Jungle Survival School—done excellently by Aussies, and flew ‘practice missions against ‘soft’ Jap targets. Prior to leaving this school I attended a Pilots Only briefing that graphically spelled out the gruesome fate that awaited captured American Pilots. And finally, we reported to the 75th Bomb Sq. I have never forgotten the incoming briefing. It included statements such as, "….welcome to the war, you’re not gonna like it…" and, ".. If you’re here for medals, you’ve come to the wrong war. You won’t get medals for doing what you’re paid and volunteered to do..". At the time we joined the 75th, they were about two weeks into conversion from medium altitude bombing to low level and everybody was learning how to do what the Pilots had always been prohibited from doing—low flying. Now, lower was better. In addition to fixed targets, we would be doing infantry close air support, shipping sweeps and road chasing. My war has been characterized as ‘ combat at twenty feet’ and ‘the war in the trees’ A sign in front of Group Headquarters stated, "Home of the 42nd Bomb Group, specialists in no-altitude attack".
When I returned from rest
leave a week later, tactics had changed drastically and we went over
targets in one or two plane strikes. Depending on the availability of
aircraft, we flew five or six times a week , actual strike or practice. By late July, 1945, we had already been told that because of the upcoming invasion and a shortage of aircrews, all mission limits had been waived. And, briefings on the invasion assured us that air-to-air Kamikaze , already being experienced by the B-29s , were a certainty. We already knew that the favorite !!@@#Jap attack was head-on and having twelve forward firing .50s under my thumb was little comfort. To make it worse, there was no Underground in ~!!@#$ Japan. If you came down, you were strictly on your own. At war’s end, two months short of my twenty second birthday, I had been flying 22 months, had over 700 combat hours, bailed out once, ditched twice, ‘crash landed’ three times, survived a dead stick landing ( in a BT-13 ), survived two engine fires and a double engine failure—this on take-off the last time I flew overseas. In total, I had lost six planes. As much as I loved flying, I had had enough! For some reason , I was having trouble sleeping. When I processed off active duty in January ’46, I agreed to stay in the Reserves. In the early fifties , the Air Force established a ‘School House" program and I picked up qualifications in Automotive and Aircraft Maintenance. A few years later I decided to go back to flying and joined the Pennsylvania Air National Guard as an Aircraft Maintenance Officer and Pilot. In the Guard, I flew the T-6, T-33, C-47 and TB-25K which we used to train F-94 Starfighter Pilot/Radar Observer crews. In 1959 I transferred to the Air Force Reserve which was flying the Troop/Cargo drop mission in C-119Gs as a Flight Test Maintenance Officer and Pilot. The 512th Troop Carrier Wing was one of the fourteen Reserve wings called to Active Duty in the Cuba Missile Crisis. I have always felt that President Kennedy’s willingness to effect such a large scale call-up must have indicated U.S. seriousness to the Soviets. The call-up orders stated two years, but thirty days later I was home. Those that wanted to stay two years were given the opportunity to do so. In 1970 the Air Force decided to equip the Reserves with C-130s. At that point I became Deputy Group Commander, Operations and we were the first Reserve Group to be transitioned into C-130s. After a rough 22 months of flying in the war, my flying years after the war were quite peaceful: One hung gear—successfully lowered eventually, one ‘frozen aileron’, one single engine and one total communications radio failure—fortunately on a clear night. All those flights ended with successful landings. An officer’s length of
service in the military is a function of rank. My time ran out in 1972 and
I retired. I have always been thankful for the opportunities that my
country gave me, particularly that of being an Air Force Pilot. |
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Just
days after my nineteenth birthday, the Army lowered the entry age for
Aviation Cadets to nineteen . Four months later I started Basic Infantry
training at Miami Beach as an Aviation Cadet Candidate Private. Selected
for Pilot training in June 1943, I flew PT-19s, BT-13s and twin engine
AT-17s before graduating in March, 1944.
During
Basic Flight School we were asked to pick the operational plane we
wanted to fly. That was easy—P-38!! Instructor: "O.K. then you
want to go to Twin Engine Advanced, right?" " Right"!!!
When I got there my Instructor asked the same question and got the same
answer. He was puzzled. " If you wanted P-38s you should have gone
to Single Engine Advanced". Toward the end of Advanced I was told
to select an operational plane assignment from the following: B-17,
B-24, B-26 and C-47. I wrote, 1st: P-38, 2nd:
P-38, 3rd: A-20 and ducked; first time I had ever disobeyed a
direct order. In mid-March, 1944 I graduated with orders sending me to
Charlotte, NC for A-20s. While waiting at Columbia SC for the Charlotte
class to start, my orders were changed to B-25s at Greenville, SC.
Greenwood,
SC we got too low, the props touched the water and we had to ditch. It
took twenty four stitches to close the rip in my chin when the seat belt
opened. The court-martial took the Instructor’s wings and commission.
Not having yet been to combat I was allowed to continue after being
reprimanded, fined and made to sign what amounted to an I.O.U. for the
plane. That B-25 was recovered from the lake in August ’83 and is on
display at Columbia, SC.
The
trip to Guadalcanal was uneventful, but having reached that hellhole of
an island, I couldn’t wait to leave; the heat and humidity were
unbearable. My admiration for the people who fought for that island is
infinite. Take off the next morning was routine until we reached 5,000
feet and I pulled the throttles back to level off. The right engine
would not respond and stayed at a manifold pressure setting equal to the
ambient pressure. Landing was uneventful. Three of the people who met us
had no insignia on their uniforms. During the interviews they identified
themselves as Army Counter Intelligence. It took three days to find and
repair the problem—a bolt was missing from the throttle line. Some
months later I was told the plane had been sabotaged while in Hawaii and
the perpetrator had been caught. We had been in a long line of planes to
have unusual problems.
My
first mission, flak suppression one minute ahead of B-24s bombing from
5,000 feet, gave me my first sight of a !@@##$ Jap – missed the SOB. My
second mission, the next day, was a shipping sweep. I now fully understood
what the Briefer had meant. The next day brought strike number three,
against a !@@##$$ Jap headquarters complex. We went over the target in a
right echelon. I was number five; number six got out of position and slid
left in front of me. Catching his propwash kept me from climbing over a
palm tree sticking up from the palm tree farm we were overflying to the
target . The impact took six to eight feet off the left wing and made it
necessary to ditch the plane. 24 hours,15 minutes, 4.98743+ agonizing
seconds later we were rescued.
