Try this: Gunner on my father-in-law’s B-17F “Chief Wahoo” – shot down
A True 1944 Adventure
by Lawrene R. Landwehr
W256S4895 Wood Lilly Lane
Waukesha, WI 53189
At 7:46 AM, Sunday, April 30th, 1944, our B17F fortress bomber, the “Chief
Wahoo” 😀 , took off from our 483rd BG base at Foggia Italy, with 10 men and
12-500 lb load of demolition bombs. With the rest of our formation, we were
to destroy a factory at Milan in Northern Italy.
Our pilot, Hilmer Landholt, our bombardier Floyd Bowles, myself at age 24,
and eight more of us were briefed that this would be a “Milk Run”. All we
had to do was fly up there, drop our bombs, and come back to our base. All
the Italians and Germans would be in church!
Sad to say, intelligence was wrong. During and after our run on the target,
heavy flak rocked our plane. An 88 projectile went through the wing between
number 3 and 4 engines, exploding above us. Immediately #3 engine caught
fire. The pilot pulled the handle and extinguished the fire with the CO2
rings around it and feathered the prop! With the loss of power in that
engine, our plane had to drop out of the formation protection and start our
journey back home. A few minutes later, four ME 109s of the German Luftwaffe
engaged us because we were a straggler and without the protective firepower
of the squadron. In the ensuing battle, they made runs firing against our
plane from the nose, and then went under us to turn and come back from the
rear. The bombardier, by a sly trick, shot up one ME 109 so bad he had to
bail out. I was at right waist and fired only 20-30 rounds from my flexible 50
caliber out the open window. All this time we were losing altitude; the
three engines could not keep us up. The pilot gave the order to bail out at
approximately 5,000 feet.
After pulling the rip cord and floating down, I noticed a creek running
across the road near where I would come down. Upon landing roughly, I
gathered my chute around me and back into the 3-foot culvert. In eight or
ten minutes, motorcycles, bicycles, and military vehicles searched for me.
They knew I had come down in that vicinity.
To plan my escape, I stayed in the culvert all Sunday night and all of the
next day and night. On my parachute harness I had fastened a Tropical
Survival Kit that I had picked up – water purifier, hacksaw blades, money
and maps. I then planned to walk to the Adriatic Sea, obtain a boat, and
paddle back to Foggia. I set out walking – walking 200 steps, then jogging
200 steps, an old Indian way to cover ground. The money was useless; people
ran away when I tried to buy a bicycles, food or other items. The third
night, I “borrowed” a suit coat from a clothesline to cover up my flying
coveralls.
Being too engrossed and eager to get back to our base, I got too bold. I put
a garden hoe over my shoulder and walked right through villages and over
bridges guarded by soldiers. Finally on the fifth day, while I walked down
the highway, a German soldier stopped me for a light for his cigarette.
Since I couldn’t speak German, I shook my head and continued on. He rode his
bike in the opposite direction until another soldier joined him; both pulled
out their pistols and approached me asking for identification. All I could
do was shake my head, whereupon they marched me to the local jail. When they
searched me and found all those escape items, they thought I was a spy or a
fighter pilot. I had an English-speaking woman question me, but as you know,
I could only tell them my name, rank and serial number.
They must have gotten on the phone to German Headquarters, because the next
day they took me under guard to a railroad station and then through Bremmer
Pass and into Germany. In Frankfurt there was a central prison and SS troops
to interrogate Allied airmen and other POWs.
After 2 days and nights in a cell with only a straw bed on the floor and an
open drain for a potty, I was brought to a central room by a 7-ft. tall
guard and plunked down in a chair across from a German officer. He spoke
good English with an accent. He had a pack of Lucky Strike and Chesterfield
cigarettes in front of him. After offering me one, which I politely refused,
he proceeded to light up and blow clouds of smoke in my face. He didn’t
realize I didn’t smoke. He confirmed my name, rank and serial number and
then started berating me for fighting against them. My name Landwer means
(according to Webster’s dictionary) the first German Land Army. Wehr macht
is their infantry fighting force. Suddenly he asked me how many tons of
bombs the B29 would tote to the target and what was the top speed? With no
answers to another five questions, he motioned to the guard to take me to my
cell.
Lunch consisted of a cup of watery soup of potato peels, cabbage or
rutabagas with some broth, a slice of black bread, margarine and one 3″
slice of wurst. Shortly I was taken to the same room with a different SS
officer who said that since I was found with escape items and a civilian
jacket, I was a sure candidate to be shot as a spy unless I cooperated with
answers to questions about our base, missions, and future targets! With no
answers to their dozen questions, I was returned to my cell to “think it
over” seriously before it was too late.
In four more sessions in which I told them nothing, my final SS officer
berated me: “You think we Germans are stupid. Look at this.” He pushed a
report of my crew, each position and each man’s name, rank and even civilian
occupation in front of me. When I showed no surprise, he said “For you the
war is over”, and that I was to be sent to an Airman’s POW camp to spend my
days until we lost the war.
That night I was loaded on a 40-8 boxcar with other POWs and arrived two
days later at Stalag Luft IV at Gross Tychoro. As POW 1036, my clothes were
exchanged for other used ones and I went into Compound A as the first group
to occupy a room with 15 other Kriegies. We had two tier wooden beds in our
barracks three feet off the ground to prevent tunneling.. There were 11
other rooms with just one wash room and two latrines.
On February 10, 1945, we left Luft IV; traveling in the Black March of 80
days and more than 620 miles in the winter. Along the way, some of us got
into 40-8 boxcars to Nurenburg. We were liberated May 5, 1945 by Patton’s
Third Army at 7A Moosburg. After a voyage in convoy to the US, I was
discharged Sept. 15, 1945 at Fort McCoy, WI. At the rank of T/Sgt!!!
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