Glitches ~ A Pilot's Memories of WWII
by Julian 'Bud' Rice, 1st Pilot 37th Sqdn, 316th TCG
"D-Day Out My Window" oil on canvas by Julian 'Bud' Rice at age 92
Copyrighted, ISBN 2370000692085. The stories herein began with writings and recordings in 1942 during the author’s military service in World War II and continued thereafter. This book is not intended to be an official historical reference, but rather the author’s account of events as they occurred. Images used are courtesy of military archives, public domain and the author’s personal collection.
1 THE WASHINGTON GLITCH
2 THE BOOT CAMP GLITCH
3 THE WEATHER GLITCH
4 THE SICILY GLITCH
5 THE REHEARSAL GLITCH
6 THE D-DAY GLITCH
7 THE COTTESMORE GLITCH
8 THE LIEGE GLITCH
9 THE BASTOGNE GLITCH
10 THE ARNHEM GLITCH
11 HITLER’S GLITCH
12 WE WILL NEVER FORGET
PREFACE
Some things about the war imprinted on my brain I just can’t seem to forget. At 98 my memory isn’t perfect, but some things stick with you forever. I’m no historian; I leave that to the professionals. These are my recollections of events that occurred.
As a U.S. Army Air Force pilot during WWII, I was trained to fly many planes but spent most of the war in a Dakota “Skytrain.” On D-Day and during much of the war I flew W7#37. The Skytrain was originally designed in the 1930’s by Douglas Aircraft for commercial travel as the very successful DC-3. Nearly every air passenger has boarded a DC-3 at some point. Modified for the war years, the military renamed it the C-47 and used it for daily transport of troops, gliders, land vehicles, cannons, equipment, ammunition, food, medical supplies, wounded and deceased throughout WWII. The C-47 was huge, heavy and primitive compared to today’s standards. Its enormous wing spread earned it the nickname Gooney Bird, but the design proved so reliable it remains in use today. I’m just thankful it carried me safely to and from England, Africa, Sicily, Italy, Belgium, France, Holland and Germany on nearly 800 missions.
Although rugged enough for our daily supply runs, C-47s never had weapons or protective armor. We expected to be killed by enemy fire but not by glitches. Although we never left the ground without a master plan for the safety and success of every flight, life always seems to plant an obstacle, hiccup or surprise somewhere in the middle. I call these “glitches.” Nobody’s fault… they just happen in life. No one is immune and, thank God, Hitler wasn’t either.
These hardships and tragedies brought out the best in us. Every glitch we survived steeled our courage to do better… for our country, for each other. For those whose glitches ended tragically, this book is for them.
As a U.S. Army Air Force pilot during WWII, I was trained to fly many planes but spent most of the war in a Dakota “Skytrain.” On D-Day and during much of the war I flew W7#37. The Skytrain was originally designed in the 1930’s by Douglas Aircraft for commercial travel as the very successful DC-3. Nearly every air passenger has boarded a DC-3 at some point. Modified for the war years, the military renamed it the C-47 and used it for daily transport of troops, gliders, land vehicles, cannons, equipment, ammunition, food, medical supplies, wounded and deceased throughout WWII. The C-47 was huge, heavy and primitive compared to today’s standards. Its enormous wing spread earned it the nickname Gooney Bird, but the design proved so reliable it remains in use today. I’m just thankful it carried me safely to and from England, Africa, Sicily, Italy, Belgium, France, Holland and Germany on nearly 800 missions.
Although rugged enough for our daily supply runs, C-47s never had weapons or protective armor. We expected to be killed by enemy fire but not by glitches. Although we never left the ground without a master plan for the safety and success of every flight, life always seems to plant an obstacle, hiccup or surprise somewhere in the middle. I call these “glitches.” Nobody’s fault… they just happen in life. No one is immune and, thank God, Hitler wasn’t either.
These hardships and tragedies brought out the best in us. Every glitch we survived steeled our courage to do better… for our country, for each other. For those whose glitches ended tragically, this book is for them.
1 the washington glitch
During the Great Depression when jobs were scarce, people took work anywhere they could find it. Many Americans migrated south to accept jobs advertised for the Panama Canal construction. My family was one of them. Born and raised in the small town of Colon, Panama in 1921, Jimmy Day, Bob Broom and I were best friends all through school. We played in the Canal when it was still a gaping ditch in the dirt, and grew up to work Canal office administration jobs. Little did we know the same Canal soil that muddied our school shoes would find itself poised in a world war 10 years later.
Just when the 1941 economy felt like it was getting back to normal, negotiations in Washington D.C. grew stale. As everyone knows, peace talks were answered with a glitch called Pearl Harbor.
I sat with Bob and Jimmy that December 7th Sunday mesmerized by “Gone With the Wind” in our small town theater, when suddenly the movie shut down and the house lights came up.
The theater manager announced, “Attention everyone! America has just been attacked.” This was before the days of ongoing wars, so naturally a loud gasp swept the room. “Japanese bombers have just attacked the U.S. Navy fleet at Hawaii.”
“Everyone go home immediately and listen to your radios for further instructions, because the military expects the next obvious target to be right here – the Panama Canal.”
Main Street was in chaos. Worried faces hurrying by us were people we’d known all our lives… from school, from work, from Church. By the time we got home, the three of us decided we had to do something about this.
Bombing the Canal was a threat the military took seriously when they spotted a Japanese submarine off Panama Coast. The three of us handed in our job resignations and headed down to the local Army Recruitment Center. I took a little teasing from my buddies for being turned away for being too skinny. But daily milkshakes put on the 11 extra pounds I needed to join them. The three of us were soon on our way to boot camp.
Just when the 1941 economy felt like it was getting back to normal, negotiations in Washington D.C. grew stale. As everyone knows, peace talks were answered with a glitch called Pearl Harbor.
I sat with Bob and Jimmy that December 7th Sunday mesmerized by “Gone With the Wind” in our small town theater, when suddenly the movie shut down and the house lights came up.
The theater manager announced, “Attention everyone! America has just been attacked.” This was before the days of ongoing wars, so naturally a loud gasp swept the room. “Japanese bombers have just attacked the U.S. Navy fleet at Hawaii.”
“Everyone go home immediately and listen to your radios for further instructions, because the military expects the next obvious target to be right here – the Panama Canal.”
Main Street was in chaos. Worried faces hurrying by us were people we’d known all our lives… from school, from work, from Church. By the time we got home, the three of us decided we had to do something about this.
Bombing the Canal was a threat the military took seriously when they spotted a Japanese submarine off Panama Coast. The three of us handed in our job resignations and headed down to the local Army Recruitment Center. I took a little teasing from my buddies for being turned away for being too skinny. But daily milkshakes put on the 11 extra pounds I needed to join them. The three of us were soon on our way to boot camp.
2 THE BOOT CAMP GLITCH
Naïve and eager, we arrived at Kelly Field training center in Texas along with a herd of other new enlistments. A Master Sergeant waited until we stretched our legs and shook off the dust.
“Awright boys, wipe the smiles off your faces. You’re in the Army Air Force now. This ain’t vacation, this is war.” He waited for that to quiet us down, then spoke again. “Now I want all of you to take a look at the guy on your left. Now take a look at the guy on your right.” We thought this sounded corny and rolled our eyes. The next words he grunted I would never forget:
“One of the three o’ ya is comin’ back.” I don’t think anyone breathed until he continued. “Only one of the three of you is gonna survive this war. So whoever listens carefully and does everything he’s told has the best chance o’ comin’ back.”
We later decided this was a scare tactic to make us behave, but reality would eventually prove him right. Although Bob and Jimmy aced flight school and excelled as pilots, I would lose both my best friends the following year.
The three struggled through 18 months of intense classroom learning. Much more than just flight training, it crammed in heavy courses in math, physics, mechanical engineering, navigation and mapping, meteorology, radio communications and Morse Code, aircraft and ship of filtering out the weak. They knew anyone who cracked on the ground would crack in the air.
We each scored well in gunnery so all three of us put in for fighter pilot training, anxious to fly the smaller, high speed planes. When the Sergeant announced we were instead assigned to troop carrier duty, it got a pretty good laugh from the group when I suggested there must be a typo. “Beat it, Rice” barked a sergeant. “We need troop carriers!” I probably caught a break because of this. Fighter pilots were supposed to be limited to under 50 missions because the job was so dangerous, and were not expected to survive more than that. A few were so capable, however, they survived over 100 missions – much more than their fair share. In contrast, troop carriers didn’t have to fight. By flying through combat zones with no armor or weaponry hundreds of times, however, everyone felt the hazards were pretty much evenly divided.
We knew the invasion of Europe was still in the planning, so we concentrated on perfecting our skills. Over and over we practiced instrument flying, formation flying, night flying, paratroop drops, glider tows, short field landings, etc. Being tested regularly and rigorously built our confidence. We grew restless to be put to good use.
War news circulated about Nazi bombings and death camps in Europe and the South Pacific. The more we heard about, the sooner we wanted to “get over there” and help shut it all down.
By graduation, the three of us were split up and sent to different air fields for Advanced Training to begin 400-500 hours of aerial practice.
I would never see my two best friends again. Jim had hitched a ride on a passenger plane that got swept into a mountainside by a terrible snow storm, and Bob’s plane crashed after takeoff from mechanical failure.
I was assigned the unenviable task of fingering through Bob’s crash site to gather any scattered pieces left of him to return to his family. Then I found something I hoped would comfort his young fiancé. Glistening in the mud was the engagement ring he was bringing her. I selfishly thought this small remembrance would make the news easier to bear, but she just collapsed crying in her mother’s arms. I could still hear the muffled sobs as I reached the curb. The weight of the war suddenly hit my shoulders like a truck.
As the war progressed, I would learn that listening and learning was not enough. I would learn that all our studying and cramming and training and helping each other memorize all night and flying and testing and high scores and A-Ratings were not enough. I would learn that a master plan was not enough and a backup plan was still not enough.
I would eventually learn what worried the Sergeant back at Kelly Field. He knew the gangly bunch of kids in front of him knew nothing, and wouldn’t understand anyway. He knew that war was no place for sissies, and this was a lesson we would each have to learn on our own.
3 THE WEATHER GLITCH
Aside from Hitler, our second enemy was weather. Nothing in training could prepare us for winters in Europe. At least with gunfire you could hope to clear the bullets and flak a few miles ahead. But a storm could follow you for hours. Something as minor as frozen windshield wipers could crash a plane. Windows iced over, leaving you to fly blind for hours. I once had a resourceful crew chief who used the plane’s heater hose to melt the ice for a quick glimpse, but it refroze within seconds. Sometimes when blizzards got really bad we had to take refuge in an open field somewhere and sleep in the plane. Occasionally while stuck in some field overnight, we’d come across a couple of ragged orphans scavenging for food or hiding in some bombed out barn. Some looked as young as five or six years old. Often they were so frightened they would just stare in silence. With a little prodding they would accept our food rations and flight jackets, then run into the woods.
As any pilot knows, bad weather creates resistance. It slows down your aircraft and eats up precious fuel. Designed to carry eight hours worth, the C-47 carried enough for most round trips to Europe and back. A bad storm, however, could add hours to your flight.
In addition, German fighter planes patrolled the European coast. This required flying way out to the 13th meridian to avoid them. The extra miles required extra fuel, so Gibraltar Island was used as a stop-over to pick up extra tanks. During these 12-hour flights your arms throbbed, your back ached, your eyes stung and your ears rang, but no one dared complain. Everybody had it rough on land, sea and air. No matter where you were, pretty much everybody was neck deep in harm’s way. But by the time you landed you fell asleep so fast you forgot how bad you felt.
Picture yourself in an aircraft where you can’t see out the windows and radio use is forbidden. Add this to mandatory “Lights Out” on land. No communication and no visibility was a lethal recipe. I recall a storm in northern France was so bad we couldn’t see the nose of our plane let alone the lead plane we were following. I dropped low just above the tree tops to follow some railroad tracks. The rain got so thick and hard, the lead pilot had no choice but to turn back. Unable to radio me, suddenly there he was - coming straight at us. Fortunately, we managed to swerve at the last second and avoid collision. With no radio or visibility, near misses were so common they soon stopped being mealtime conversations.
Sometimes a storm would eat up most of your fuel, and we’d land with only a few minutes to spare. I know other pilots were not as lucky and fell into the sea. We always cheered simultaneously at the first sight of the English coastline.
It began to dawn on us we were captain of our own ship up there. These weather surprises would continue, and very nearly caused the failure of D-Day.
As any pilot knows, bad weather creates resistance. It slows down your aircraft and eats up precious fuel. Designed to carry eight hours worth, the C-47 carried enough for most round trips to Europe and back. A bad storm, however, could add hours to your flight.
In addition, German fighter planes patrolled the European coast. This required flying way out to the 13th meridian to avoid them. The extra miles required extra fuel, so Gibraltar Island was used as a stop-over to pick up extra tanks. During these 12-hour flights your arms throbbed, your back ached, your eyes stung and your ears rang, but no one dared complain. Everybody had it rough on land, sea and air. No matter where you were, pretty much everybody was neck deep in harm’s way. But by the time you landed you fell asleep so fast you forgot how bad you felt.
Picture yourself in an aircraft where you can’t see out the windows and radio use is forbidden. Add this to mandatory “Lights Out” on land. No communication and no visibility was a lethal recipe. I recall a storm in northern France was so bad we couldn’t see the nose of our plane let alone the lead plane we were following. I dropped low just above the tree tops to follow some railroad tracks. The rain got so thick and hard, the lead pilot had no choice but to turn back. Unable to radio me, suddenly there he was - coming straight at us. Fortunately, we managed to swerve at the last second and avoid collision. With no radio or visibility, near misses were so common they soon stopped being mealtime conversations.
Sometimes a storm would eat up most of your fuel, and we’d land with only a few minutes to spare. I know other pilots were not as lucky and fell into the sea. We always cheered simultaneously at the first sight of the English coastline.
It began to dawn on us we were captain of our own ship up there. These weather surprises would continue, and very nearly caused the failure of D-Day.