July 1943 - January 1944 Flew 25 missions, returned to states as flight instructor, then returned and flew 50 more combat missions from Italy with the 15th AAF.



John Comer

Flight Engineer/Gunner 381st Ridgewell, England: & 301st Bomb Group, Italy



When I first met John Comer it seemed that he was somewhat older than most of the veterans in the chapter. John’s first contact with the military was with a cavalry unit of the Texas National Guard, while attending college in 1928. He re-enlisted when WWII broke out. John was trained as a Flight Engineer in B-17 bombers. This crewman was versed in the many of the plane’s systems, monitored the engines, fuel, and occasionally repaired battle damage in flight to get his aircraft home. Additionally, flight engineers were trained as gunners and manned the important top turret on the B-17.



John had an incredible tour in the 381st bomb group. In the mid-eighties, he published a book titled “Combat Crew”. Though I have read many such memoirs, I still rate his as among the best. When I met him in the 90s, I was surprised to find that his book was still in print in England and ordered several copies. It is filled with chilling day-by-day accounts of the missions John flew, but I’ve chosen his October 9th mission to Anklam, Germany to include in this collection.



John’s crew was happy to learn that they were being assigned to a brand new B-17 “G” that had just arrived. The new “G” model had a number of improvements over the “E” and “F” models that they’d been flying. These included a better arrangement for the waist gunners, electric turbo-superchargers controls, more fuel capacity and a ‘cheese-box’ shaped gun turret mounted under the aircraft’s nose with two fifty caliber machine guns to be operated by the bombardier. While the rest of the crew were happy with their new mount, as an experienced flight engineer John was a bit less enthusiastic. He would have preferred to have an hour or two of flight time to check out the systems of the new aircraft and get to know it a bit better. That wasn’t to be however, the mission for the day was on and he had only a brief period on the ramp to familiarize himself with the plane.



John was equally unenthusiastic about the target for the day, an aircraft factory in Anklam, Germany. To get to Anklam they would fly across the North Sea, cross the Danish peninsula and then along the German coast before making a right turn towards Aknlam. Although intelligence reports predicted enemy opposition as light, John was skeptical. Experience had taught him that the Luftwaffe would not allow them to fly along their coast for hours unchallenged. Indeed, the route would put them within striking distance of a half dozen German fighter units.



After calculating the weight, John ordered nearly 14,000 rounds of .50 caliber ammunition for the gunners. This was nearly twice the usual load. A maximum load to be sure, but the new plane with its new engines should handle it, they had carried that much before. If the enemy resistance was anywhere near what John feared it would be, they would need every round.



When it was their turn to take off, the pilot, Paul Gleichauf, advanced all four throttles to full power. During takeoffs John would crouch between the pilot and co-pilot on the flight deck. From there he could watch the oil pressure, temperatures and general condition of the engines. He would also call out airspeed to save the pilots from the distraction of having to look down to read the instruments. At ninety miles an hour the plane would normally become “light” on the landing gear and could be bounced to get it off the ground. Today it stayed glued to the runway when the pilot tried. One hundred miles per hour, still no sign of lift.



The plane should have been flying at 105 MPH, but at 115 it was still chewing up runway, and there wasn’t much of it left. Finally at 123 MPH there was a faint sign of lift, Paul bounced the plane off the end of the runway and called for the co-pilot to raise the landing gear. This last-second, desperation measure reduced the plane’s drag enough to allow it to just barely claw its way over the trees at the end of the runway. Once out of ground-effect* the aircraft began to sink as it skimmed the tops of the trees. Fortunately, they passed over the trees and into an open area as the plane sank to about 20 feet off the ground.



John said that he’d been through a lot of tight spots before, but this was the only time he momentarily gave up hope of survival. He knew that any second the plane would fall off onto one wing or the other and they’d crash. He’d seen take-off crashes before, with over two thousand gallons of fuel and four thousand pounds of bombs on board, no one survives a take-off crash.



At that moment Paul yelled for the co-pilot to drop the landing gear. The B-17 hit hard and bounced more than thirty feet in the air. The pilot again called for “gear-up”. This time the bomber slowly dragged its crew and pay load skyward.



With a positive rate-of-climb established John left the flight deck and went through the bomb bay to see what was going on in the back of the plane. He initially feared that his decision to load the extra ammo had nearly killed them all, but he also knew that wasn’t the whole story since they had carried this much before in “F” model B-17s. Before the flight he had stacked the reserve ammunition boxes against the forward wall of the radio room and a few actually on the flight deck to keep the weight as close as possible to the plane’s center-of-lift in the wings. Arriving in the radio room, John found most of the reserve ammo gone. Rounding the ball turret he sighted much of it stacked aft of the waist gunners near the tail wheel. Additionally he discovered that the two waist gunners and tail gunner were in their combat stations instead of in their usual take-off positions in the radio room.



The combination of men and ammo so far back had changed the planes center of gravity enough to cause it to take off nose-high, inducing additional drag. John also later learned that despite its improvements, the “G” model B-17’s increased weight and the drag of it’s new “chin turret” required adjustments in its payload.**



John’s crew went on to complete the Anklem mission. They were under sporadic enemy attacks for the better part of six hours. He commented in his book that he lost several good friends on this mission, possibly because they ran out of ammunition. By the time they crossed the Danish coast and headed back out over the North Sea his plane was one of only a couple still firing at enemy fighters, and they had only a little left.



About John Comer

John survived 25 missions into occupied Europe with the 8th Air Force when the odds of doing so were no better than 1 in 5, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Incredibly, he returned to combat duty and flew another 50 missions in the 15th Air Force out of Italy. I don’t recall meeting any other bomber crewman that flew 75 missions.