MEMORIES FROM JEFFERSON PROVING GROUND

November 10, 1941 to December 26, 1942 by

Charles Keith Stewart

Mr. Stewart was a civilian Aerial Observer on B-25's and A-17's at the Jefferson Proving Ground in Madison, Indiana, prior to being drafted into the U. S. Army in 1943. Two pilots that he flew with were Lts. Robert Van Dusen and Charles W. Sweeney. Lt. Sweeney later went on to drop an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Mr. Stewart went on to Italy to help supply ammunition to a squadron of heavy bombers. It is believed that Lt. Van Dusen was killed in the Pacific in 1946. Mr. Stewart holds a unique place at the Proving Ground in that he lived on the land prior  to its being condemned by the government.  Mr.  Stewart later retired from the Proving Ground as a Test Director.

What did I do in World War II?  I helped supply bombs and ammunition to a squadron of heavy bombers in Italy.  That's it. If the above is not detailed enough, what follows is not a diary nor a history but mostly a collection of excerpts from nearly one thousand letters written during the war and enlarged upon from memory. The morale of the home front was kept up (hopefully) by the facts that would pass censorship with the emphasis on the lighter happenings.  What follows will present an incomplete, distorted and murky picture with the accounts of the trivial and the serious being approximately in an inverse ratio to the way it actually was.  If it truly depicted the boredom, frustration and unhappiness of army life in war time, no one would read past the first page. My hope is that the perceptive reader will acquire some inkling of the heat and cold; the toil and the misery; the danger and the fear we experienced. This is the way I saw it.

Charles K. Stewart, 35696253

Ex-Staff Sergeant, Ordnance Dept.

U. S. Army

The Ole Briar Patch

February, 1985

On November 10, 1941,  I reported to Jefferson Proving Ground for a physical examination and probable hiring.  After the examination and filling out of numerous forms, I was sworn in with a group and told:  "Report to Mr. Lackey tomorrow morning.  You may now go home.  You will be paid for the full day.  Wait—tomorrow is a holiday.  You will be paid for it also. Report the next morning."  Right then and there I decided I would like working as a civil." servant!  I was assigned to the Bomb Section at Building 322 at the airport.  The work consisted of preparing and testing bombs, air­craft signals, aircraft flares, ground signals and, later, anti-tank mines.  At first we tested nothing as we had to acquire equipment and had no airplane or pilots.

On December 7, Wiletta and I were guests of Aunt Hilda Morris at Jeffersonville for Sunday dinner.  After dinner the news came over the radio of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  We  all discussed the implications of the news—obviously we were in the war, but it had been apparent for some time that this country was preparing for war, so the only surprise was the time and manner in which we became involved. I told Wiletta then or on the way home that I would be called for military service.

At work there was great enthusiasm for the job at hand, and we said to each other, "Now we'll get an airplane." We soon got our airplane, a B-23, similar in appearance to a DC-3 (C-47).  Along with  the aircraft came a Proving Ground Detachment of the Army Air Corps I commanded by Major John Waugh, a pilot, and with Lieutenant Charles W. Sweeney and Lieutenant Robert Van Dusen as the other pilots, j        Lieutenant Al Rumberg arrived in 1942.  My work took me to the Bomb Field on the northern end of the Proving Ground—almost due west of  New Marion.  Our operational headquarters there was "M" Building— M a reinforced concrete building with thick walls and an observation cupola on the roof. We rode to and from the Bomb Field in station wagons driven by a uniformed chauffeur (who was not required to do anything except drive) by way of what is now U. S. 421, old Michigan Road and Gate 9 at New Marion. The present perimeter roads inside the fence were not in existence at that time.

By early 1942, the B-23 had been replaced by 2 early production B-25's, an A-20A and an A-17.  The A-17 was a two-seater by Northrup- low wing, fixed landing gear and not very fast.  At that time, we were involved in research and development testing of various type of incendiary bombs, probably because of the existence of buildings--mainly houses--against which bombs could be dropped for evaluation of performance.  Almost all houses and major buildings had been sold and moved so I suspect the remaining ones in that area were left by design.  During this testing, we had some experiences that I still remember very well (safety was only a word then) .

     We were at the Shonk farm just north of Graham creek on the west side of the road which leads south from "M" Building.  The two-and-a-half story Shonk house was still standing.  The B-25 aircraft was flying from north to south at a low level (500 ft???) and the bombard ier was dropping by hand, on command, three incendiaries (4 pound) at  the house and hitting it if someone guessed right.  There was no bombsight for that sort of thing.  I was stationed with two other men in the driveway to the basement of a barn (torn down or moved) south and slightly west of the house.  On either side of the driveway were stone walls that increased in height to the west.  The tops of the walls were at outside ground contour while the driveway inside the walls was level.  This gave us protection of various depths depending on where we stood.  I was observing the flight of  the bombs with the aid of binoculars and also timing the flight from the aircraft to impact by means of a stop watch..

       On this particular run, when the three bombs dropped, one veered slightly down from the other two. Of course, I followed the flight of the two rather than the one which left my field of view.  I was standing where the walls were waist high or slightly more—the men with me had crouched at the time of drop.  The airplane speed was about 150 miles per hour' so that the bombs at that low altitude had more forward motion than drop.  As the bombs got close, I saw that they would be slightly west and a little high of the house—and suddenly thought, "Where is the other one?"  Instantly I dropped to the ground and a fraction of a second later the bomb struck the wall directly behind me.  Had I remained standing, it would have struck me around the chest and torn me in two. 

     I didn't forget that lesson but soon had another.  We had hit the house and were inside, upstairs, trying to find the hits. The weather was cold, the ground frozen, the sun was shining and it was mid-to-late morning.  Hits were easier to locate if the entry hole was observed, so I stepped out a dormer window opening on the east side of the house.  The roof was gray slate; it was dry and not too steep to walk on, as I was wearing two-buckle overshoes which gave good traction.  As I walked north along the roof, my feet went out from under me and I started sliding toward the edge.  I had walked into the shade of a large pine on the east side of the house and the snow or frost had melted off and refrozen into a thin layer of clear ice in the shade.  My first thought was of what was going to happen to me when my body hit that frozen ground two-and-a-half stories down, and my second was of the brick chimney I was sliding by.  I was on my left side and the chimney was at my back, but I reached back and out with my right arm and caught hold—and stopped with one or both feet over the edge.  Would you believe that (as I reached for it) I was SURE the chimney was going to topple like children's blocks? With some careful squirming, I got on the upper side of the chimney and stood up.  By pushing off the chimney I could just step onto clear roof to the south which I proceeded to do and then back into the house.  I doubt I had been missed during the minute or so I had been out on the roof.  Someone said, "Stewart, are you sick?"  "No." "Well, you look sick--you're white as a sheet."  Of course, I had to tell the story.  I was wearing mittens with a smooth leather surface and the right one that had caught the far corner of the chimney was considerably scuffed.  The scuffed mitten was a constant reminder (as if I needed reminding.') until it was accidently dropped out of the back hatch of a B-25 at about 10,000 feet altitude.

Sometime in early 1942, we were put on a six-day work week-­Saturday was a required work day for which we were paid time and a half (my pay at that time was $1280 per annum). 

     Even with this, we worked a Sunday or so on the incendiary testing.  One Sunday in late spring we were set up along "J" road near Bethel Church—nearly a mile south of the Shonk farm.  The road runs a little south of west at that point, and several houses had been left on the north side.  The B-25 was to make its runs down this road from the east.  Si Miller (the George H. of "It Reminds Me" column in the Madison Courier), Pete Cutsinger, Jimmy Benham (a chauffeur), a photographer named Starkey, or some similar name, and myself were stationed in a field two or three hundred yards north of the road.  It seemed that half the Proving Ground was on the road and well back from the target.  Si and I were standing in the bed of a pickup truck, each with a stop watch and bi­noculars to observe and time the flight of the bombs.  The photographer, with his movie camera, was on a platform built on the flat bed of a 1 1/2 ton truck—about ten feet off the ground.  Jimmy and Pete were standing on the ground.  The plane was at about 1500 feet and was to drop a 500-pound cluster of 4-pound incendiary bombs--a total of 125. There was some breeze from the south and the bombardier over-corrected on the first run and did not drop.  The bombardier was Technical Ser­geant Nace, and he had been out on the town on Saturday night.  On the second run, the plane kept drifting right until we could see fight into the open bomb bay which meant he was coming over us.  Si or I remarked that there would be no drop again this time when out they came.¹  I swore and Si spit out his pet obscenity as we jumped over the side and crawled under the engine of the pickup.  During the eleven or twelve seconds that it took for the bombs to impact, I felt sure one of them would hit one of my exposed legs and take it off.  After impact, we crawled out and soon found ourselves, in a fog as the" smoke poured from 125 holes in the ground.  It was as though we were in the center of a big shotgun pattern with the hits 20 or 30 feet apart.  Neither truck was hit.  Pete was a veteran of World War I and knew how to look out for himself—he stepped behind a tree and was safe.  The photo­grapher said he would have jumped had he realized what was going to happen.  Jimmy couldn't understand how we got off the truck and under the engine before he had time to get there—and he was standing directly alongside!  There was no room for him—we had beaten him to it.  The sound(s) of this type of bomb falling is a swishing sound followed by a dull thud.  Yes, I did get a good time on the watch.

Shortly after this, Joe Gottwalles, one of two aerial observers, was drafted and I took his place.

     Walter Pegee and myself were scon sent to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Aberdeen, Maryland, to learn how to test M26 bombardment flares.  We traveled to Aberdeen from North Vernon on the Baltimore and Ohio's crack train, "The National Limited." I had ridden on trains several times as a child and at least once as an adult, but I had never ridden in a Pullman, eaten in a dining car or slept in a berth.  I was impressed by the food served in the diner—excellent!  Walter and I were quartered at APG in officers' barracks—so new we swept sawdust and shavings out of our room.

     Reserve officers were pouring in--our barracks filled in a day or two and it was only one of several.  We ate at a table with eight or ten officers and were astonished at the speed with which they wolfed down their food and left the table.  Their time was so taken up that a minute was precious to them.  I was (and am) a far too rapid eater and Walter was not far behind, but those officers left us the last two at the table every time!  We finally decided not to be last and made an all-out effort to eat as rapidly as possible—still last!  I suppose we were not motivated as highly or else ate more or both.  We were supposed to stay ten days or two weeks (I don't recall) but a phone call came from Washington at the end of a week.  The man taking the call turned to us and said, "Washington wants to know when you will be back at JPG—the work is piling up."  Walter turned to me and said, "What do you say?"  I said, "I'm ready to go now," and I believe we left that evening--neither of us liked the place.

On the return trip I had an upper berth instead of the lower I had outbound.  Although not as roomy, it didn't seem much different until we got into the mountains of West Virginia.  The train was con­stantly curving first one way and then the other and the car would tip back and forth so that sleep was only possible for me by drawing one leg up to prevent rolling and so waking up.

The M26 flares were dropped from a B-25 at 10,000 feet flying at a speed of 200 or 250 miles per hour, later raised to 300, and it then became necessary to dive 2,000 feet or so to 10,000 feet in order to obtain the speed required.  Observation was made from the back of the plane to verify that the drag sleeve (similar in appearance to a "wind sock" at an airport) was open and its lines not twisted or broken.  A glimpse was all you had.  The other observer was in the A-17 at 4,000 feet where the time fuze functioned the flare,  the parachute opened and the flare burned.  A pass was made very near the flare to observe for torn chute or tangled lines.  We reported-'by radio to the ground on each one and directed the ground observers to bad ones and even made low passes to mark the spot if it fell in a thicket or was hard to see on the ground.  High explosive bombs were usually dropped from 8,000 feet with the bombing run from north (Holton) to the south.  A 500-pounder that functioned on a delay fuze setting would make a hole ten to twelve feet deep and about thirty feet across while a 1,000-pounder would leave a hole about 40 feet across.  The holes would have been somewhat deeper but for the presence of rock at ten to twenty feet and, also, much dirt fell back into the hole.

I well remember the first 2000-pounder we received for testing. When it arrived by truck, it was still warm from the explosive filler which had been poured at Ravenna, Ohio.  It was dropped with the nose fuze set on "delay" and it made a crater about fifteen by sixty. Meisberger's bar at New Marion had a pyramid of beer bottles displayed behind the bar, and they all jumped off onto the floor.  That night I was over at Uncle John's (my mother's old home place on the creek beyond Canaan) and Aunt Bertha asked me, "What on earth did they do at the Proving Ground today?   I had just walked in and latched the door when it felt like the whole house raised up and moved and the door I had just latched opened.  John was in the barn and he thought the barn was going to fall in on him."  There were more incidents.

At the conclusion of the dropping of one load of flares, I was closing the hatch in the rear floor of a B-25 when something was said on the radio or intercom—I, like everyone in the plane wore ear­phones.  It was noisy in the extreme in that part of a B-25 behind the bomb bay and the only way to hear was to press both earpieces tightly to the ears.  I quickly did this (without getting the hatch latched) but I was too late.  I learned later that the pilot had said "Hang on!"  The aircraft dived steeply about 4,000 feet, my feet left the floor, my headset was pulled loose, my head hit the top in­side of the aircraft and stayed there for a short time, the hatch door came wide open and I speculated about whether I would come down in the plane or (feet first) through the open hatch.  The pilots were combat oriented and wanted to find out all they could about the plane's performance under emergency conditions so they would now and then fly with first one engine shut off and then the other.

One day they pulled the nose up until the plane (B-25) stalled, and that was the day Master Sergeant McMullen (bombardier) headed for the Commander's office and announced that he didn't care if the pilots wanted to have fun and games until they killed themselves but that he wanted no part of it.  That cooled things down temporarily. After some other complaints, Major Waugh issued a written order that there would be no flying under 500 feet except as dictated by the mission.  Within a few days of the posting of that order on the bulletin board in the hanger, I was in the back seat of the A-17, piloted by Major Waugh, headed north up the east side of the Proving Ground. The good Major followed the fire break just inside the fence until it dodged around a woods.  We were so low the prop wash was waving the weeds behind us.  I could see the tops of the trees as I looked over his head at which point he lifted the plane, barely clearing the woods, and dropped down again on the other side--a la cropduster. To show his happiness he swung the plane back and forth from side   ~ to side.

The regular pilots were Charlie Sweeney, an Irishman from around Boston and one of the nicest fellows you would ever want to know, Bob Van Dusen, from somewhere in upstate New York, and, later on, Al Rumberg.  Sweeney was piloting "Bock's Car" (now in the Air Force Museum at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio) when the second atomic bomb was dropped from it on Nagasaki, Japan.  He (Sweeney) piloted his own plane, "The Great Artiste," when the first bomb was dropped on Hiro­shima.  Rather than moving all the instrumentation from "The Great Artiste," Sweeney and Fred Bock traded planes for the second atomic strike--Sweeney flew "Bock's Car" and Bock flew "The Great Artiste." After the war Sweeney eventually became Commander of the Massachusetts Air National Guard as a Brigadier General and retired as a Major General.  Van Dusen was also likeable but was somewhat more reserved. According to rumor, he was killed in the Philippines, though I have never had it verified.  Sweeney was like a lightning rod; things seemed to happen when he was piloting and sometimes when he was not.

He was acting as bombardier one day and opened the bomb bay doors near Nebraska (Indiana) and two or three 250 or 300 pound bombs dropped— outside the fence.  They did not explode because they had not yet been "armed."  It was not Sweeney"s fault-————perhaps.  It was blamed on an electrical malfunction, and it may have been.  We searched at low level in the A-17 until my head ached from looking at the fast-moving ground from such a low altitude—but no bomb holes.  Saw lots of groundhog holes though!  It was blackberry time—whenever that is. A group of soldiers were brought up from Ft. Knox and they searched on foot for three days, but without success.  Those bombs are still there, ten to fifteen feet down, less if rock was encountered. Sweeney was the pilot the day they flew a B-25 off the apron that extends from northwest of the hanger past Building 322 and on toward the Paper Mill Road.  They wanted to see if they could do it.! Doolittle had just raided Japan and speculation was high as to his take-off point.  Of course, they could have found out the shortest take-off distance by using a runway, but there would have been no adventure in that.

Sweeney was the pilot one day when we started to take off into the northwest.  He "ran up" first one engine, then the other, asked for and received clearance to take off and opened both throttles.  We accelerated rapidly--! had to hold on as I was sitting on my seat pack parachute on the floor where I could look out the waist window--my usual spot on take off and landing.  We passed Building 322 and then the point where we should have lifted and continued to accelerate. We passed the hanger--why hadn't we lifted?--and then crossed runways 23 and 18.  By that time we were far past the point of no return— where power could be cut and the brakes applied—too late now.'  We crossed the large numbers painted near the end of the runway and I could visualize the pictures in the papers of the scraps of metal and debris mixed with the splintered trees.  I was watching the right wheel when it lifted and it was not more than a foot off the runway when we went over the end of the pavement.  We soared up in a very steep climb until our speed dropped; then we leveled off and I heard "Bombardier to pilot on intercom."  I switched to intercom and heard the bombardier (Nace) say, "Lieutenant, what were you trying to do back there?"  "Sergeant, maybe next time you will be on the flight deck on takeoff where you are supposed to be." Nace was sitting on his little seat in the plexiglass enclosed nose where he had been reading a comic book as the flares were loaded and where he would have certainly been killed in any kind of crash on takeoff, and Sweeney had decided to teach him a lesson by letting him see the woods off the end of the runway come at him and thinking (as I certainly did) that we had, as the British say, "bought the farm.." 

     I  mentioned  to Sweeney afterwards that it would have not aged me so much had he let me in on it but he just laughed and said it was done on the spur of the moment.  Again, with Sweeney piloting we took off to  the East and had just made our turn north at the east fence when he continued to turn and started an approach to land into the southwest.  This approach followed a line from east to west just south of the first row of buildings south of the firing line and then a turn onto the runway.  You can still see the faint remnants of the double yellow lines on the south roof of the original buildings put there as a north limit for that approach.  Clearance from the tower was required for takeoffs and landings but nothing was said on the radio.  As we made our turn in past the hanger and settled toward the runway, what to my startled eyes appeared but the crash crew wearing their asbestos suits!!!!!!  This was only done in anticipation of a possible crash. We landed, ran down the runway with the crash crew in hot pursuit, stopped (and I started breathing again), turned around, taxied back in front of the hanger and stopped with engines idling.  The flight engineer got out, ran to the hanger and came back with his parachute which he had forgotten.  Major Waugh's office was in the southeast corner of the hanger and he happened to be looking at us when we made the turn and started back.  He picked up his phone to the tower and asked if the pilot had called the tower.  "No."  "Alert the crash crew." 

     Again, it would have been nice to have known. Sweeney, the pilot, coming in on 18 (due south)--construction was almost finished on the new east-west runway which we would cross well down on our roll.  To prevent any mishaps, the contractor was   ' to have a flagman at the intersection to stop anything or anyone from crossing in front of a plane.  We came in high and landed well down the runway, and the brakes went on.  I was sitting down looking out the waist window when suddenly the brakes went on full and the main wheels just stopped turning.  We were doing possibly 75 miles per hour. I instantly knew what the problem was and braced as best I could--a waste of effort.  We passed just to the rear of a tandem dual wheel flat bed truck loaded six or eight feet high with forms and moving east on the new runway—so close that the left wing went over the top and the left prop just missed the rear of the truck.  Just then, the left tire blew, having eroded all the rubber and part of the fabric off the bottom.  We spun around in slow motion counter-clockwise as we continued on and stopped off the east side of the runway in the grass facing northwest.  I hopped out the back hatch without putting down the little light-alloy ladder and my legs felt quite rubbery. It was probably a good thing that Sweeney was the pilot—he was the largest and strongest pilot—the others might not have been able to lock the brakes or, at least, not as quickly.

Van Dusen treated me to some aerobatics in the A-17 one day and Sweeney had me fly the A-17 two or three times while he read—we waited at altitude while the B-25 made repeated trips to the airport to reload.

Once he (Sweeney) landed the A-17 on the emergency landing strip located west and a little south of the bomb field.  It was only dirt with the vegetation graded off and was oriented east and west.  This was the only landing made on it before I left.  Our takeoff was inter­esting—we bounced three times before we stayed up.

There was a certain amount of animosity between our boss and the Air Corps fliers mostly generated by Mr. Lackey and aped by some others..

     We had two clusters of fragmentation bombs (6 bombs to a cluster) in the B-25 one day, and as we made our approach, one of the people at "M" Building said on the radio, "We would like to have these closer than the last time—about 300 feet instead of 3000 feet."  (Those are not necessarily the distances but convey the idea.)  "Did you hear that, Sergeant?"  "Yes, sir."  "Let's get them in close."  "Yes, sir." We were at 1500 feet or so and when the bombs left the aircraft I thought they would land on the roof of "M" Building where about five people tried to take cover on the west side of the cupola on the roof.  The bombs from the first cluster struck in the road ditch directly across a narrow gravel road from "M" Building and chipped many pieces of concrete from the east wall.  Later, someone circled each hit with black paint and it made quite a conversation piece when inquiry was made by visitors.

Walter Pegee and myself drove up to the bomb field one afternoon when we had nothing to test, unlocked the gate at the fence, called in to "M" Building for clearance to come in, was told to come on and were about three quarters of a mile east of "M" Building when we both heard something on the radio which sounded like "Coming on the range." I looked out my window and saw a B-25 making a run with bomb bay doors open and we were just south of the target!  Walter braked and we hit the ditches without bothering to shut doors behind us.  A bomb was dropped and we soon saw the tail above the nose and felt better though it impacted only 300 yards or so from us.  If the tail can be seen above the nose, it will be short.  If the tail appears below the nose, it will be long.  If you can't see the tail of the bomb, pray!

     In addition to testing flares and bombs, we also fired aircraft signals from the waist windows of the B-25's which were observed and timed from the ground. We were scheduled to make a night test of aircraft signals one Thursday night in November, 1942, for the ed­ification of some important (?) people from Washington who thought we might not be getting correct times on the signals in daytime (we were) so they must see a night test.  We didn't test on Thursday night because of foggy weather and had more of the same on Friday night. While waiting at the hanger, there was a phone call from the bomb field stating that it was clear there.  Sweeney and the other pilot (Rumberg) did not necessarily believe what they had been told so they took off in the A-17, flew to the bomb field and back and reported that it was clear at the bomb field.

We took off in a B-25 with two pilots, a flight engineer named J. C. Samsill, Raymond Loehrke (a proof director who went for the ride), Pegee and myself.  The plane was not fully fueled as they had been filling the underground gas tanks from a tank car that day and no refueling was permitted while unloading a tank car.  In addition, it was pay day and the man in the tower and the man in the weather station were not the regular, experienced people we needed; the regular people had put in their day and had left the post en masse.  Samsill had been in trouble with the law in Madison and was confined to the post.  The tower was to give us a report every half hour on ceiling and visibility.  We arrived at the bomb field and fired signals for an hour or so while flying in tight circles.  The smell of the signals filled the plane, a smell approximating burned horse hair and black powder—quite unpleasant.

      After a time, Pegee nudged me and, smiling, pointed to Loehrke who was vomiting into a fuze can kept for such an event.  The constant circling would have been enough and the smell of the fired signals was frosting on the cake.  The mixed smell of signals and vomit permeated the plane from end to end and was quite foul. After finishing the test, Sweeney asked for artillery firing from the front be suspended so he could make a compass approach from the north.  This was done and we headed south.  The last report from the tower was ceiling 500 feet and visibility one mile.  We could not find the field for the fog and went back to the bomb field asking them to fire a green signal (to make sure of our location) which they did and we saw it.  Again we flew south and circled where the pilot thought the field should be.  The ceiling was about 100 feet and visibility less than one mile.  I saw the field once but it was gone in the fog before Sweeney could turn.  He flew lower and lower until we were under 100 feet by an altimeter that might or might not be right.  There are many trees on the Proving Ground that are at least 80 feet tall and the water tank is about 85 feet, so Walter and I were most unhappy. Once we crossed what is now U.S. 421 so low I could see the road in the light of the exhausts.  My sister thought we would take the chimney off Quarters 26 where she lived and one gun crew, at least, hit the dirt thinking we were going to land on top of them.

     Wiletta and I lived at Wirt and she could hear us and knew what the problem was; she spent a long evening praying.  All the while, Sweeney was trying to get the flustered man in the tower to find out where the nearest open field was for we were very low on gasoline.  Eventually, we were told that Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, was open and Sweeney promptly went up to 1000 feet or so, headed for Dayton and instructed the tower to call Major Waugh, tell him of our destination and that we would return in the morning and to notify Wright Field.  Walter and I had started to relax slightly when Sweeney asked for the map of the Cincinnati area.  There was a pilot's map case in our part of the plane containing section maps of the entire U.S.—except Cincinnati. We both searched it twice and Sweeney crawled over the bomb bay and searched it also—no Cincinnati map.  Without it he could make no use front be suspended so he could make a compass approach from the north.  This was done and we headed south.  The last report from the tower was ceiling 500 feet and visibility one mile.  We could not find the field for the fog and went back to the bomb field asking them to fire a green signal (to make sure of our location) which they did and we saw it.  Again we flew south and circled where the pilot thought the field should be.  The ceiling was about 100 feet and visibility less than one mile.  I saw the field once but it was gone in the fog before Sweeney could turn.  He flew lower and lower until we were under 100 feet by an altimeter that might or might not be right.  There are many trees on the Proving Ground that are at least 80 feet tall and the water tank is about 85 feet, so Walter and I were most unhappy. Once we crossed what is now U.S. 421 so low I could see the road in the light of the exhausts.  My sister thought we would take the chimney off Quarters 26 where she lived and one gun crew, at least, hit the dirt thinking we were going to land on top of them. 

     Wiletta and I lived at Wirt and she could hear us and knew what the problem was; she spent a long evening praying.  All the while, Sweeney was trying to get the flustered man in the tower to find out where the nearest open field was for we were very low on gasoline.  Eventually, we were told that Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, was open and Sweeney promptly went up to 1000 feet or so, headed for Dayton and instructed the tower to call Major Waugh, tell him of our destination and that we would return in the morning and to notify Wright Field.  Walter and I had started to relax slightly when Sweeney asked for the map of the Cincinnati area.  There was a pilot's map case in our part of the plane containing section maps of the entire U.S.—except Cincinnati. We both searched it twice and Sweeney crawled over the bomb bay and searched it also—no Cincinnati map.  Without it he could make no use of the beacon signals on the radio.  He had already crawled over the bomb bay and changed the radio so we were now on the band used by airports and for beacons.  We were soon called by Wright tower but Sweeney did not respond.  Wright called again and he answered. I well remember the next transmission:  "Wright tower to Army 129829, what is your location?"  There was a significant pause.  "Army 129829 to Wright tower, I do not know my location; I have lost my be'arings."

      Immediately the tower got busy warning some four or five aircraft headed for Dayton that a B-25 was lost in the fog and to go away and stay away.  By now I was resigned to parachuting and didn't like the bottom hatch from which we would have to leave, fearful that the wind would slam us against the back of the hatch opening.  Walter and I tightened our parachute straps and I did the same for Loehrke and warnec him we expected to have to bail out and for him not' to tarry.  He gave an attempt at a smile but I don't think he would have made it--he was too sick.  I asked Walter, "You or me first?" "You first, but don't wait or we'll both be there at once."  In a few minutes Sweeney called Wright tower and told them he had spotted a field (the fog was not so thick in Ohio) and was going to land.  He "dragged" the field first (flew across it to survey it at low altitude), circled, put down flaps and landing gear and came in.  We had seen that it was a blacktop runway and felt cheered but Sweeney landed long and Walter said, "Give her the brakes, Charlie; give her the brakes, Charlie" very fervently. We stopped at the very end of the runway and Sweeney had the four of us (all but the pilots) get out and hold a small plane just off the end of the runway which, though tied down, would have been pulled loose or turned over as he gunned one engine in order to turn around. Samsill did not take off his backpack parachute and walked around laughing and bent over several times to pat the blacktop--he was about one notch short of being hysterical.  We found that we were at Vandalia, Ohio, and shortly took off for Wright—all but Loehrke— he had all the flying he wanted and then some, so he was going to take a bus to his home in Toledo.  This was the only time that I ever knew Sweeney to be flustered--he started to land on the wrong runway at Wright, was told by the tower he was on the wrong approach, went around and landed on the proper runway.  I might mention here that when the plane was fueled it lacked 15 gallons of being empty— if the tanks held what they were supposed to hold--I believe it was 680 or 700 gallons.  The "low fuel" warning light was blinking when we landed and must have been when we took off from Vandalia. 

     After calling Glen or Dody telling them that I was safe and asking that Glen drive to Wirt and tell Wiletta, Samsill, Walter and I slept for the balance of the night (it was around 1:00 a.m.),in the Transient Enlisted Men's barracks.  Next morning we assembled and found that the field at JPG was not open because of weather—low clouds, misty and foggy.  By the time we got to the large cafeteria at Wright with a hope of getting some breakfast, it had just closed I  Sweeney turned his Irish charm on the lady in charge, told her we had been flying all night from Seattle, Washington and asked that she feed his "crew." She doubtfully said she would "ask the girls."  They opened up and fed five of us.  There must have been a dozen women manning the food line. We, as civilians, could not go in the pilot's lounge and spent a miserable day standing and sitting in the chilly, wet air.  When even­ing came, Samsill, Pegee and I took a bus to Dayton, ate at a cafeteria and got a hotel  room for the night.  Samsill was the only one with money so we borrowed from him.  We obtained a bottle of rye whiskey and drank it to settle our nerves but it didn't seem to help much as we were still wound up tight.  After a very restless night during  which both Walter and I heard Samsill say (talking in his sleep), "Take her up to 10,000 and I think we'll make it in."  Next morning we returned to Wright and put in another miserable day of waiting un­til around 3:00 or 3:30 p.m., the pilots came hurrying, told Samsill to get the 'chutes, and we left before the weather report changed.

The pilots had been getting weather reports each half hour from JPG.  As we prepared to take off, they told us that we could not return to Wright and if we missed JPG, the nearest open field was Atlanta, Georgia, BUT we had full gas tanks.  We never flew higher than 800 feet and as we crossed into Indiana, Pegee and I were invited to go into the bombardier's compartment and help navigate, as we knew the countryside better than the pilots.  What did we find there? That's right, the missing map of the Cincinnati area!  I suspect one of the bombardiers really got it for not returning it to its case. The first place we recognized was the road intersection at Pleasant--when we got to Canaan the pilots knew where we were; we landed at JPG and were taken home by the guards.  Walter and I finally wound up with overtime for the whole affair (under the table), but we would not have willingly undergone such a harrowing experience for any amount of money.

We had worked overtime until dusk one day and the pilot had re­quested firing be suspended so we could land on 18 (north to south). After being told that firing was suspended and that we were clear to land, we were on our approach a mile or so from the front when someone fired a 4-round clip of 40mm shells at about our altitude and some 200-400 yards off our left wing.  Those tracers are bright and they looked BIG as they streamed by.  Everyone in the plane was most unhappy for it was entirely uncalled for.

I believe it was the day after Christmas, 1942, when I walked into the house at Wirt after work and Wiletta promptly burst into tears. I was taken aback more than a  little thinking something had happened to Davey.  She was unable to speak but handed me a card that was my notice to report for examination for military service.  I was so re­lieved that nothing was wrong that I laughed out loud.  I had been expecting the notice and suspect that Alice Francisco, postmaster at Wirt, had held it for a day or two so it wouldn't spoil Christmas for us.

There was a preliminary physical examination at the Armory on Jefferson Street in Madison for the purpose of detecting if any of us had three arms or one leg.  Then on February 6, 1943, a group of us was taken by bus to the Louisville Armory and had a thorough physical examination.  After completion of the exam, a fellow behind a desk looked over my papers and said, "Did you know that you are slightly color blind?"  I replied that I had suspected it--Dody and I had dis­agreed on the color of a shirt of mine—I said it was green and she said it was blue and Dody was usually right.  He said it was just enough to keep me out of the Navy or Marines to which I replied, "That's too damned bad!” You didn't want the Navy?"  "No way."  I was just a little uptight.  I took the oath and went home as a member of Uncle Sam's army—inactive duty for one week to wind up personal affairs-­then report to the Madison Armory on Saturday morning, February 13 for active duty.

I worked at JPG that week; the money was needed and sitting around home would have been trying.  Arrangements were made for Wiletta and Davey to move into the front room of the Ringwald place on the Paper Mill Road with her family.