I wrote this story in spring 2002 and originally published it in Aviation Review, Vol. 5, No, 2. I went to church with Dr. Gilbert’s son, Louis Gilbert.
Dr. Gilbert was born in 1924 in Mansfield, OH.
He was still in high school when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. As soon ashe turned 18, in April 1942, he registered his name to join the Army Air Forces (AAF). He did not actually report for training till later in the year, when he graduated from High School.
Once he reported for training he was sent through Camp Perry to Atlantic City, New Jersey. He recalls that the Army Air Force had occupied entire hotels and turned the city into a processing center. This was one of two major processing centers he was aware of in the country; the other was Miami, Florida.
From there he went to gunnery school at Peterson Field in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
His next assignment was mechanics school at Seymour Field, Goldsboro, North Carolina. There he learned the duties for six months – through Christmas that year, as he recalled.
After mechanics school he was assigned to the Detroit River Rouge Plant, working on and learning about the new R-3200 engine. (This engine would be used in the B-29).
He was in a hotel in Dearborn when the April 1943 riots broke out. This bit of history, though non-aviation related, was new to me, so I asked him further about it. I include it because you might also find it interesting.
Ford Motor Company had up till the point hired mostly white people – of Appalachian descent. For additional help, they brought some black people from Kentucky. This outraged the current workers so much that they staged a riot, and the whole town had to be put under martial law for a time.
One of the rules was a curfew. Because Dr. Gilbert was there, even though he had not completed training, he (and others) were sent to patrol the streets after 9 PM, when a curfew took effect. To help convince the citizens to obey, he carried a rifle – without ammunition.
He did not see a person breaking curfew during that assignment.
His next assignment was within the 2nd Air Force’s Technical Training Command. In this training squadron, he worked on fixing airplanes and running practice missions.
Though later in the war he was a ground crew member, at this point he took gunner training, so he was qualified to fill in when a flight engineer (top turret gunner) was unavailable for some reason.
The training squadron had no airplanes of its own; they borrowed aircraft in and ran practice bombing missions over target fields in eastern Washington state.
He was then assigned to the 308th Airdrome Squadron. They trained at Boise, ID; Salt Lake Air Base, Salt Lake City, Utah; Davis-Monthan Field in Tucson,
Arizona (a later airplane scrapping site after the war); Sioux City Air Base, Sioux City, Iowa, and Pocatello, Idaho.
When his squadron was at a base, they had no planes; their assignment was to run the base. They supplied tower personnel, truck drivers, gas truck drivers, and the mechanics.
In November 1943 they went overseas to the Pacific Theater and joined the 52nd Bomb Group of the 5th Air Force.
Their first assignment was to Papua New Guinea (PNG). When they were assigned, PNG was partially in Japanese hands and Port Moresby had our only airfield on the island until his group moved to their newly-made field. The field was made of metal sheets which had holes in them – for drainage, and in the hope (unfulfilled) that grass might grow through the holes and make the field appear as grass from the air.
He formed part of the ground crew for the group. He wasn’t assigned to any crew as their flight engineer / top turret gunner; he filled in when he was needed.
His first mission flown was in early 1944.
At this point the Battle for Guadacanal had finished. The battle was primarily for the airfield and its strategic importance; the island itself had no other military significance.
Even though he flew about 25 missions “filling in,” he was not eligible for rotation home because he was not officially a regular flight crew member. He did,
however, receive flight status and pay, and wore wings.
He was later based on Morotai, part of the Halmahera Group. Though there were bomber planes based there, there were mostlypursuit planes at the field. Chief bombing targets were oil refineries in the islands. He flew 10-12 times from the “little tiny strip.” Once or twice, the Japanese bombed heavily, providing plenty of employment for the ground crew – and Dr. Gilbert!
One of his duties was to introduce pilots to the B-24. They knew how to fly and even may have know how to fly this plane in particular; he showed them such techniques as how to transfer fuel. The older B-24s, up to the D model or so, had a simple-minded fuel transfer system: near the radio equipment, there was a panel with a rubber hose and a pump: you put the hose on the tank you wanted to transfer from and the tank you wanted to transfer to, and pumped. Many pilots took a while to figure it out!
In a B-24, there were four 500-gallon tanks, one over each engine, and two 200-gallon tanks in the wingtips. At 50 gallons per hour, the B-24 could stay aloft for about 10 hours without reserve bomb bay fuel tanks. The 4 optional bomb bay tanks each held 400 gallons and greatly extended the range. Unless, though, you wanted to drop gas tanks on the target, the tanks were reserved for transport flights only. With rubber and steel layers adding up to about an inch thick. They were heavy and difficult to install!
Another procedure he demonstrated was the emergency landing procedures. Hydraulic systems were the chief method of raising and lowering landing gear, but there was a backup system for when the hydraulics were shot out. A handle would lower the wheels; however, on some of the earliest models, the bombardier was just supposed to kick the nosewheel into place – it actually worked!
His third overseas assignment was at Clark Field, about 25 miles north of Manila. Here was the only shooting he saw for the whole war. The Japanese had hidden in caves. He doesn’t know whether they had determined to kill the American soldiers; but they were definitely determined to get food! That was the closest he came to the shooting. A perimeter was established to guard it.
Clark Field was first attacked December 8th Japanese time (December 7th our time), 1941 (in conjunction with the Pearl Harbor attack.) The Japanese captured the field. When the U.S. took back the Philippines, Clark Field was recaptured. Japanese infiltrated the American lines, placed a hand grenade in each B-24, and blew them up.
At this point the Air Force had only about six Bomb Groups over the whole of the South Pacific.
After Clark Field he was assigned to Laoag, on Luzon, the same Philippine island.
For a time Richard Ira Bong, the top U.S. Ace with 40 kills, was based there – in Dr. Gilbert’s words, he was a “very odd guy.” When for some reason Bong could not fly on a mission, he would throw a temper tantrum.
Dr. Gilbert’s experiences were not limited to servicing the B-24. Also on the base were B-25 Mitchells, P-38 Lightnings, and many P-51 Mustangs. Dr. Gilbert actually enjoyed not being assigned to a specific aircraft or aircraft type – he got more experience and got to know more airplanes that way.
On one mission he was flying as substitute in a B-25 Mitchell when suddenly there was a louder than imaginable noise. The crew had no idea what had happened. The right engine was not working, so it was feathered (in more ways than one, as you will see presently.) The 1000 miles back to base were flown on one engine. Not until the mission was over did the crew learn what had happened. They had flown into a flock of ducks; one had gone through the window, causing the loud noise, and one flew into the right engine. So when the engine was turned off, or in pilot talk, feathered, it was feathered in two ways.
He and other servicemen were sent one time to Batan Island, halfway between Luzon and Formosa, to pick up a B-24 and fly it back to base. They arrived at the wrong time – before a hurricane. After the PBY Catalina that took them there departed, the hurricane struck. They sought refuge in a schoolhouse, which thankfully remained standing when most all around it was blown away. After two days, they ran out of food and had to purchase more from the natives. When the hurricane subsided, there was no B-24 to fly back! Either the wind carried it out into the ocean, never to be seen again, or it might have disintegrated in the storm. Whatever the cause, they were there to fly the B-24 back but it had disappeared. Further, for several more days, the winds were too fierce for the PBY to return to pick them up. So they waited; after about a week on the island, the Catalina arrived and took them back home safely.
In about October 1945, he was rotated home. He was one of the earliest of his group to return home. For three weeks he was in a reception camp in Manila. Though he had nothing to do, he enjoyed the time. He had been overseas for about 26-27 months.
To the best of his recollection, he never learned about the atomic bomb until he got back home. He knew that the B-29s based on Tinian had been bombing Tokyo, and that the war had ended; that was all he knew until he was home.
After the war, he earned his Bachelor of Arts in History from Miami University in Ohio; his Master of Arts in History from the University of Cincinnati, and a Ph.D. in British History from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. Afterwards, he taught at the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio; Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado; and the University of Illinois in Chicago. At that point he retired.
In his opinion, the B-24 was a good airplane – a big advantage was that it was built for human beings to walk around in, earning it the nickname of “boxcar”.
It was interesting to learn about the B-24 and the Pacific Theater from a veteran who knew the historical perspective well.