Democracy: Safety Versus Danger

Heroes Remember

Democracy: Safety Versus Danger

Transcript

Our ground crew was just terrific, our planes were usually in perfect shape but this one night we got into one bomber and the pilot said it’s US unserviceable. So we got out of it and got into another one, the same thing. We got into the third one and took off and got over the air field and as I say you like to be close to the others, well they were gone by the time we got up there. And a motor quit, while we were over our own station. So the air force were kind of superstitious, three times and out so the pilot says, “We really have reason to not go but I’m going to take a vote.” He always started with the tail gunner so I said, “Oh lets’s go, three motors is lots in this plane.” The mid upper gunner was 32 years old with a wife and daughter in St. Catharines. He said, “No, we shouldn’t go this is the third plane. The others are gone.” But they took a vote, four against three, we went with three motors. Our navigator had lost a brother already in the air force and he said to the skipper, he said, “We can cut the dog’s legs off,” dog’s legs like they sent you in different directions, try and fool the enemy. So he said, “we’ll cut the dog’s legs off, we won’t be too far behind the rest of the bombers.” So we get to the target, and of course as soon as you dropped your bombs you dove down in certain directions so the planes look to be going home at a terrific speed and we’re going over the target. And of course by that time there was a tremendous shooting up at us, aircraft, shooting up and the explosions and the planes were bouncing around. So going over the target it was so rough that the bomb aimer says, “I’m sorry skipper we have to go around again.” So that was always annoying. Every minute you spent over the target you knew you were going to be shot at. Anyway we went around the second time and he said, “Bombs gone,” so the skipper says, “We’ll get out of here!” So we started for home just barely left the target when we got coned in search lights. Once one search light gets on you then others can just come on you like that and it’s brighter than daylight. So the skipper said, “Gunners, keep one eye closed so you can see when we get out of this.” He says, “We’re going to try and get out!” So he dove down evasive action and we did get out, we went down from 23,000 feet to six or seven. I had a pain across my head, I thought it was just like an axe splitting all of a sudden it snapped and it didn’t hurt. We got headed for the channel and a second motor quit so we had two motors left so he said, “be prepared to throw everything out we don’t need. We might have to ditch in the channel”. We got across the channel, the plane started to ice up, a certain height it would ice up depending on the weather. So he said to still be prepared, we might have to bail out. So I called up. I said, “Skipper, the bomb aimer and I’ll bail out. It’ll lighten the load, we’ll hitch hike back to camp.” He said, “Shut up, if anybody bails out we all bail out!” So we got back and landed on two motors, just got landed and then the third motor quit. We taxied back to our parking space with one motor. So I would say that was probably the scariest trip I had.

Description

Mr. Kerry discusses his crew’s decision to fly a bomber after a motor quits and additional motors quitting on their bombing run.

Ivan Kerry

Ivan Kerry was born on November 3, 1925, in Port Perry, Ontario. He was one of six children. His father farmed, but the depression made life difficult for his family. Mr. Kerry recalls the generosity of Eastern Canada in sending relief shipments. He then left school at the age of fifteen to work in an egg processing plant. His enlistment followed the path of two uncles who had served in the First World War and a brother who was in the Navy. He enlisted in the Air Force as, and joined the Bomber Command as a tail gunner. Mr. Ketty was fortunate to survive one of the most dangerous and vulnerable combat roles of the war.

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