I wrote this story around early 2000 and originally published it in Aviation Review, Vol. 2, No, 6.
In college Charles Hanline was training to be a civil engineer, which he was after the war. He also took a private pilot’s course as an elective.
In 1942, he enlisted in the Air Cadets program of the Army Air Force. He went into training to be a pilot. He was sent to Sheppard Field, near San Antonio, and then Kelly Field, for his preflight training.
He washed out of the program. It was either because he wasn’t good enough, which he suspects might be the case, or because there was only a certain number who could graduate. The rest had to be eliminated.
The Army Air Corps wanted to make him a bombardier. He preferred navigation and was accepted into that field. He was then sent to Hondo, Texas for nine months total of Navigation training. He spent a total of one year in training, also training at Texas A&M.
After one year in training, he had less than a week home. Then he was called to Colorado Springs, Co. to be assigned to a bomber group. The group was moved to Wendover Field, in Massachusetts. The climate there was similar to England’s. His crew got to fly around New York City and the Statue of Liberty.
After three months of flight training they were sent to Mitchell Field, Long Island. They made a diversion to Bangor, Maine. Afterwards, they took off and flew back to Mitchell. Another airplane flew straight into a nearby mountain. All of the ten on the crew were killed in action.
Next, his crew flew to England by way of Goose Bay, Labrador, where there was twelve feet of snow. Their next stop was Iceland. By dead reckoning he got them there only ten minutes off the ETA, and straight on course. Then they flew to North Ireland. There their new plane was taken from them. They traveled by British Transit camps and trains to East Anglia, at N. Pickinham, which is thirty miles west of King’s Limb.
There his crew was assigned as a replacement to the 92nd Bomb Group. He prepared for his first mission.
His first mission was on June 6, 1944 (D-Day.)
He, his crew, his bomb group, his wing, his division (the Second Air Division,) and most of the entire Eighth Air Force got an aerial view of D-Day.
His group’s job was to go twelve miles inland and bomb a railroad crossing. They flew in at 6000 feet but were unable to drop their bombs. After they returned, they were barely able to stop at the end of the runway.
Some of his memories of D-Day included seeing the sunken ships used to make an artificial harbor so the troops could come in, seeing the ships coming across the Channel and through the barrier, and the fact that all across England all USAF/Allied planes were painted with invasion stripes so infantrymen would not shoot at their own planes.
From then on, he flew missions about every other day. About every two weeks, he received a pass to London. There he saw the sights – and the German V-1 bombs. On one of his passes, a V-1 bomb hit a part of the hotel in which he had a room. It sprayed glass all over his bed while he was out.
Several times, his group bombed V-1 launching sites. At Le Mans, in France, and at Metz, on the France/Germany border, they bombed the transformers that launched the V-1s.
His group went deep into German territory on the first Berlin mission and bombed a Daimler-Benz training facility that was supposedly manufacturing experimental machines.
His group also bombed other places in Germany.
Mission #14 was Madgeburg. Near the Initial Point, at 22,000 feet, the 92nd prepared for the drop. Also near their I.P., another B-24 group, also at 22,000 feet, prepared for the drop. Those two groups were flying over enemy territory, at 180 mph. They had a full bomb load. But they were flying directly at each other. The other group attempted an intensely sharp turn. In the turn, six B-24s of the other group plowed into each other. Of the sixty men aboard, not many, if any survived.
The 92nd dropped from 22,000 feet to 20,000 feet and maintained the run. Bombs were dropped. After the turn, the fighter escort left.1 Seconds later, three wings of German fighters swept through the formation.
His plane was set on fire. A shell exploded behind him. It peppered him with dangerous metal shreds. Many were embedded into his flak jacket.2 His legs were also sprayed with flying metal.
The bomb bay was a burning furnace. He took a chance and jumped on the nosewheel door. He was able to kick out only one of the doors. He squeezed out that door, just getting through. He did not open his parachute until he was at an elevation of two hundred feet. He didn’t want to be shot while he was in his parachute.
He landed in a field about forty miles from Madgeburg. Then he was put by the German Home Guard into a barn. He was captured on July seventh. Afterwards, he was taken by a German methane-propelled truck to a prisoner hospital in Madgeburg.
In the hospital, he was operated on by French surgeons. The hospital was staffed by Russian orderlies who would do anything for an American.
His next stop was an English POW hospital in Hall for another three weeks.
In August, he was sent to Stalag Luft Three in NE Germany. Stalag Luft 3 was mainly a British camp. As described in The Great Escape article earlier this issue, seventy-six prisoners had escaped in May, several months earlier.
As the Americans advanced, he was transferred to a temporary camp. With thousands of men there, the Americans were afraid the prisoner’s lives were in jeopardy. So, Patton diverted his entire Third Army to come capture them. Mr. Hanline was freed and returned home.
He said, “We were still gung – ho.” They were ready, even after the horrors of German prison camps, to fight the Japanese.
After the war, Mr. Hanline was part of a truck farming business. He lives today in Plymouth, Ohio.
Notes:
- He commented that the fighter escort often liked to leave the bombers so they could strafe on the way home. Six out of the ten men on his crew were killed in action because that was how Higher Command had scheduled the strafing runs.
- A flak suit was designed to protect crewmen from flak from their neck to their knees. The rest of their legs were sprayed with metal.