The Raid on Pottendorf, May 30/44

By T.Sgt. Raymond Roemer, Flight Engineer, 515th Squadron

"The Pottendorf mission was a day in my life that I will never forget. I am 76 years old and 56 years have past with a very interesting collection of incidents and adventures, yet, I need only to glance at my notes to refresh my memory on spelling and minor incidents. I also leave out details so as not to detract from the facts. It is as vivid in my mind as if only a few days have past.

The description written by the radio man in Walkers book leaves something to be desired and does not match my recollection completely. The raid on Pottendorf, May 30/44 was what we called a milk-run by comparison to Ploesti and others. It began at 0300 in a dark and cold morning. I was particularly concerned because they had not let is fly the Aircraft we brought to combat (A beautiful Model J with some special electronics as the Engineer I installed before we left the Homestead air base.), instead we were given an old Model D. The bucket wheels on the supercharger were spun and the gear checked as usual with the preflight inspection. There were repaired holes in the fuselage and control surfaces but nothing that wasn't as our Pilot used to say "Copesetic."

With 20 missions behind some of us and at least 30 more to go the thought was another day and lets get this job over with, so we can get home alive and soon. We turned of the IP and started the run thru moderate Flak. "Perfect" Sherk sounded off on intercom. I looked out the open bomb bay doors and watched the string hit the target. The official photograph hangs in my office today. It serves as a reminder that when things go wrong and the situation tough, there were tougher ones. We're hit fire in number 2. I called out but no one heard because the intercom was out. Damn I said I think I got the Purple Heart as I looked at my bloody hands. Mitch the Pilot signaled to me "no control" by the way he made his hand move as a steering wheel then holding them up in the air, the message was clear.

I signaled back by moving my index finger as if to toggle a switch. Mitch shook his head "no." This meant no autopilot, no control, fire in number 2 . I thought out loud "oh shit" this is not very good. The control cables that travel along the left side of the flight deck of every B24 were severed. In the bomb bay and on the bulkhead The slow blow fuses smoldered. The panel was a shamble. The servo motors actuated the control surfaces and were in a locked position. The Tech. order book said they would in a situation like this one. The servos held the ship steady albeit in a slight left turn and nosed slightly down. Smoke filled the flight deck, coming up from the nose section. There was no fire in the compartment.

After I saw the string hit the target I closed the bomb bay doors. In less than a minute we were hit and at this point I am not sure if there were two or even three but at least one very accurate and damaging 88 MM exploded inside the aircraft. Smoke from that shell filled the lower nose section and smelled burning acrid. I dropped down onto the catwalk and opened the bomb bay doors to vent the flight deck. The lever felt strange and the doors opened very slow then stopped before fully open. I later found out that one of the accumulators had burst. Even though number 3 was running with the hydraulic pump we did not have hydraulic pressure. The fuse panel as I have said before was a shamble. The spare slow blow fuses were next to the one that had burned out. My hands were cut from either shrapnel or flying pieces of the aircraft. Holding my gloves I tried to force a new fuse into the slot. It sparked and burned thru the glove to my hand.

I was hoping to give the servos a shot of the 24 volts still in the batteries and correct our attitude for a level flight. No good, the autopilot did not respond. Lankford was standing on the flight deck with his chute on and handed me one. It was inconvenient to wear a Mae West under the chute harness so I never bothered. In fact the buckle snap on the front of the harness was open I could not snap after the chute was in place. The Bail out bell was ringing. I looked past the radio man and Mitch signaled me to bail out by pointing with his finger pumping up and down rapidly. Later we found out that the Bombardier and Navigator up in the nose had a few problems of their own. The explosion tore a hole in the glass nose big enough for them to bail out.

The navigator looked at Sherk who was hit in the groin and bleeding badly. To make things even worse the hydraulic fluid from the ruptured accumulator splattered all over the compartment and it look like blood. The fluid has a reddish color. It was a very freighting picture. Tayloe helped Sherk put on his chute and they both rolled out of the hole. They were the first to go out. After one last look around and trying to think of something else to do I dropped out of the slowly closing bomb bay door. The radio man and the CO Pilot followed me out. Meanwhile in the waist another drama was unfolding.

When the crew was formed Mitch gave me the job of selecting the enlisted men. I passed in front of group of anxious faces and pointed to one and he was our radio man, next to the group of gunners I pointed to you, you, you and you. It turned out they were standing in alphabetical order. So they were Keller, Kimmel and Kline the next one I cannot remember because later Demo took his place. So in the waist that fateful day the gunners were standing around the main hatch and trying to decide who would go first. I do not think they went out in alphabetical order. Mitch was the last man out and thru a very small opening in now almost closed bomb bay doors. We were all out and on our way to the ground. I could see that I was going to land on the middle of a lake and with no Mae West (The Neusiedler See) The fall and landing is another story.

No Mae West and bam!! the chute popped and every thing got real quite you forget how much noise those four Pratt and Whitney engines can make. The sensation of falling was not evident it felt like I was just hanging there. I pulled off my flight hat and tossed it away I never liked the tight fit anyway. Suddenly it swooped up into the sky and then I realized that I was falling. Actually it was very peaceful compared to the excitement a few minutes before. Now was the time to remember the instruction about how to maneuver yourself while floating down. They took great care to explain that pulling on the shroud lines would steer the fall to a desired spot. But as I recalled the pictures they did not seem the same as the straps that I was hanging from the actual shroud lines were maybe 10 feet from the harness.

The lake was coming up fast so steering was imperative. I pulled and practically climbed up one of the straps but no change in the line of fall smack dead center of the Lake. They had also told us to allow air to fill into the flight jacket so when you landed in water it would act as a life preserver. The guy that thought that one up never had a harness strapped so tight you could hardly breathe. Well I guess this is going to be it. I had hoped for a more grand exit but here it comes and splash and under the water sheep skin pants. boots and jacket with a very scared guy in it. Fortunately God was watching me that day and a breeze filled the parachute that had not gone under the water it acted as a sail. It pulled up to the surface and then my sailboat experiences as a kid on Silver Lake back home paid off. It acted like a square rigger and brought me to shore.

I looked across the lake and waved at Lankford the radio man then turned toward shore. His story is continued in Walker's book. The shore that I was pulled into by the wind and my chute was in reality a marsh filled with tall grass and cat tails. I first attempted to bury the chute but then I reasoned that if I left it showing along with the sheep skin pants and boots it would appear as if I had drowned. As I pulled off the pants I noticed a nasty gash in my thigh and a hole in my OD pants. that I would wear for the next year. The blood from the wound washed away in the water which was about 3 or 4 feet deep. I had hurt my back on a previous mission and the snap of the chute or possibly the jerk when I hit the water whatever my back was hurting real bad. It made it difficult to walk and make good time so I decided to evade as long as possible and wait for night fall to find a way to Partisan troops.

We bailed out at 10:30. During the day small L6 type aircraft flew low over the swamp. I hid under clumps of reeds and rested as often as as I could on hammocks on the water. Walking in water is a slow process so I do not know how far it was but eventually I came to dry ground. It was now 17:00 . Shots sounded in the field ahead of me and I crawled along a ditch stopping in clumps and bushes trying to get as far as possible from the lake. The shots sounded like "Burrrp"and then I knew why they called them Burp Guns. They do not sound like our Thompson Guns. Peeking from a good hiding place I saw for the fist time a German Soldier. They were dressed just like they were in the Movies. As they came closer they continued to "Burrp" in to every clump of bushes prefaced by yelling " rouse rouse". It appeared that my bush would be next.

I jumped out of my hiding spot waving my 45 and yelled "stick em up". I know this was silly but you have got to remember that it had been a long day and I was almost killed twice before. I am not sure what I intended, but that is the way it was. They immediately dropped their weapons and proceeded to take off their Jackets or Blouses. It amazed me and the sight of 10 German Soldiers standing in under shirts and what surprised me most was that they did not wear regular shirts under the Jackets, just suspenders and undershirts. Hands up in the air and saying something that I could not understand. In the background many other soldiers stood in a group and they did not drop their weapons. So even though I had the drop on this group the other ones did not appear to want to give up. So I dropped my 45 on the ground. They slowly came forward and still talking, grabbed me and pushed me to the ground. I found out later that Tayloe our Navigator was captured a few hours earlier and was in the group observing my, shenanigans. BUT for a few minutes I captured 10 German Soldiers!"

Ray Roemer