The First B-17 To Bomb Berlin

Speaker 1: And we returned to our American Stories. And up next, an incredible story from John O’Neill at the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force in Pooler, Georgia, outside of Savannah. In 1943, John’s father, John J. O’Neill, Junior, served as a tail and waist gunner on an experimental B-17 that became the first American plane to bomb Berlin, all by some extraordinary chance. Here’s John with the story.

Speaker 2: In 1943, the United States Air Force had one problem. Weather was hampering operations. The British came over and said, “Look at, we need the real hardware: guns, boats, ammunition.” We have some secrets that we’re willing to trade for those. One of them was radar. The United States was so far behind in radar, the British were so far ahead. So when Roosevelt heard that, he said, “Give them what they want.” We want their information. Because the Germans had radar, they knew when bombers were coming over and where they were crossing. So, MIT’s three thousand scientists took this information and built the first operational United States radar sets to be put in specially equipped B-17s, all top secret. They could literally do navigation and bomb through overcast. My father’s friend, Major Fred Rabo, was tasked with bringing these twelve B-17s from Boston—what’s now Logan Airport—with the first radar sets in them. So they brought those over in 1943, and they formed a bomb group called the 42nd Bomb Group out of Alconbury. They took crews from every one of the bomb groups, and they trained them how to use radar. The very invest navigators, the very best pilots, the very best crews were tasked with this—so, the first operational radar mission. So these guys would get up the night before. They were told, “You’re gonna lead the 100th Bomb Group.” So these special planes would fly the night before to a base, park there. The next day they would work with the lead ship who was doing dead reckoning navigation and provide them radar fixes. So nobody knew. They couldn’t name their planes. Most did, you know. The guys would take a lot of pride in putting their nose art off. But there were these contraptions sticking out from underneath the plane—either under the nose if it was an H2S set, or underneath the ball turret, or underneath the front of the nose if it was an H2X Mickey set. Very top secret, and they were called the Pathfinders—the Eighth Air Force Pathfinders. My father’s patch on his jacket is of a lightning bug with the light on the tail lit up, holding a bomb. So, it was basically that the lightning bug would light the target, and when they were over it, they would drop the bomb. So all the different four Squadron PA I just had very similar type. Either it was an eagle holding a bomb with a flashlight, but they were called the Pathfinders. We wanted to reach Berlin, going back to November of ’43, and there were attempts to reach it because, remember, now we had the long-range P-51. They also thought it was a great morale boost because, remember, we hadn’t landed on the beaches of Normandy yet, so they wanted to send a message that Hitler’s capital could be reached. So they tried six times starting in November 1943, and each one of those missions was scrubbed. Fast forward to March 4th: my father’s ship is sent to the 95th Bomb Group. The night before, at Horham, they were going to lead the 13th Combat Wing to Berlin. A maximum effort mission: 750 B-17 and B-24 bombers, or to leave for Berlin; fighter escort all the way to the target and back. The target is the Bosch Electrical Components factory in Mainklingkyle, a suburb of Berlin, just to the southeast. They’re going to hit that target because they make the fuel injection systems for the Heinkel bomber and the Luftwaffe’s Messerschmitt, and also the Focke-Wulf 190. They get up that day, they pull the curtain for the briefing, and they see the map of Europe, and they see the string which would take them to the target. Everybody sees Berlin. My father’s waist gunner, a guy named Beans from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, leans to my father and goes, “Well, we’re dead.” “Make sure you get everything to my parents back in Pittsburgh.” “And now.” Of course, Beans would say that if they were going on a training mission; he was like the Eeyore of the crew. So, every time they were to go anywhere. But he says, “No, this time, I really mean it.” They called my father “One” after O’Neill. It was like the short name “One.” They all had shortened names. The other waist gunner was Hoppy. The top turret gunner’s name was Don White. It was Whitey. So they all had these names. So, Moffatt was the ball turret gunner. So, Beans says, “We’re not gonna come back from this.” “We’re not going to come back from this.” They take off for Berlin—maximum effort—the entire Eighth Air Force is going. Weather’s real bad, delayed and take off. I mean, we could talk about formation flying and how, how long it took. Imagine 750 planes trying to get information with no anti-collision radar on our ships. It was all by sight. You’d get into clouds; you couldn’t see. There were so many collisions, and when you collide two B-17s or two B-24s together with two thousand gallons of high-octane aviation fuel, seven thousand rounds of .50 caliber ammunition, and a twelve-thousand-pound bomb load, they would just explode, and bodies would just never be recovered. So, anyway, they get over the continent; there’s a radio recall issue—whether targets or too much weather. Return to base. My father said, “We had gotten a really good position in the formation.” We were in the middle of the 750 bomber streams. So there were squadrons in front, squadrons in back, and this whole armada is headed to Berlin. They’re in the middle. Why the middle was important, or why it was considered safer? The Luftwaffe would come up and try to wipe out the lead squadrons in front. Then they would have to go down and refuel. So the front squadrons usually took the brunt, and then the tail-end squadrons—the low squadrons—would take the brunt. All of a sudden, they start seeing these B-17s turning around. My father’s lieutenant’s on the radio. He’s the Pathfinder ship. He’s given the course corrections. He says, “Sir, radio recall.” “You know, maintain radio silence.” “We will continue that the target is briefed.” That was it, and then crew, crew conversations. “Where has the colonel gone mad?” So, he’s a 95th colonel. Anyway, long story short, the mission commander, Griff Mumford’s plane, was using dead reckoning. They were drifting further and further off course, so they weren’t taking the fixes that the radar ship was given them. So finally they get on the radio and said, “If you do not allow us to course correct, you’re 49 miles off course right now.” “We’re not going to have enough fuel, we’re not going to hit the target, and we’re not going to get home.” So, at that point, Mumford says, “Take the lead.” So, of the 750-bomber stream, 39 bombers continued to the target. It was the Charge of the Light Brigade. They get to the target. P-51s are there, including Chuck Yeager, who had his first shootdown that day. If the P-51s weren’t there, 39 ships would have gone down, wiped out—no doubt about it. They get to the target. The colonel wanted to be the first one to bomberl in. It was a huge prestige thing going back to the States. He says, “Back off to the deputy lead position.” So he begins to back off. The colonel gets on the IP, or the final bomber, who can’t open his bomb bay doors. Their frozen shot, bad weather. He says, “Take the lead; we’ll bomb on the Pathfinder.” They bomb. They shoot a flare; opened the bomb bays. My father’s crew is the first United States Army Air Force B-17 to reach; gets credited. They thought for sure that he was either going to get the Silver Star or be court-martialed for disobeying the radio recall. Whatever their explanation was: that their radio man on the “I’ll Be Around” B-17 (that was the name of it), who was the lead ship, was interpreted as a false radio recall sent up by the Germans. My father’s radio operator, who had the opportunity to talk to, said that radio recall was as real as they got. That was no ‘o’ thing, because they had special codes they were given before every flight, and he says, “I verified that.” But they stuck with the. They didn’t divert. They stuck with him all the way to Berlin, but the P-51 saved him. Four B-17s were lost over the target. Thirty-five of the 39 got home. They flew over Horham; they landed. My father’s crew went up to Alconbury, which was about another 25 minutes near Cambridge. They got out of the plane exhausted. It was like twelve hours in the air, combat-cold, and they were met by one press person. Meanwhile, there was a huge Life magazine, Andy Rooney, Walter Cronkite. All these famous journalists were there at the base, at the 95th. They got all the credit in the world of these favors, except for one guy from The New York Herald Tribune; he was at Alconbury, and he heard the story, and he interviewed the crew. They were ordered to meet with this guy after their mission debrief, and he told him this story, and he hands them a copy of a teletype. He’s typing it out on a special typewriter because it went across the Transatlantic cable back to New York, and it was kind of in a code. And he hand to my father’s pilot, and he says, “Hold on to this.” “This is the true story of the mission to Berlin.” Because he led. My father’s pilot would only talk to them if he was allowed to tell them who the crew was. But the original Transatlantic cable was sent to me by my dad’s pilot, and he said, “Hold on to this for history.” And I have the original navigation maps that were in the B-17 that Al Inglehart, the Mickey operator, had made—all the times, the chart courses, how far off target they were, and how they ended up being the first B-17 to bomb Berlin.

Speaker 1: And a special thanks to Monty for the great job on the production. The story of John O’Neill, as told by his son, here on Our American Stories.