4/20/43 1350 Hours – Flight 99 – over Western France

The escort fighters and tankers of Flight 99 had just returned to their station for the return flight refueling. Bob scanned the sky for the returning fighters. He longed to go further east to give the Bomber escorts more time but each mile increased the risk of encountering German fighters. If his tanker planes were shot down all of the fighter pilots would also wind up in POW camps, victims of empty fuel tanks but if he stayed too far west they would run out of fuel short of his planes. Already he was fifty miles east of the assigned location, as far as he dared to go. He wanted to give the fighters every mile they could get. He knew these men, they would stay with the bombers as long as possible and would be short on fuel—hence his being further east would increase their chance of having enough fuel to return. This was it, the first chance to see if the refueling would make a difference.

That morning on the outbound flight Bob had refueled the fighters, going as far as possible, actually going an extra seventy five miles to top them off as far east as possible. He and his escort then pulled back over the channel and landed for servicing. Now they were ready for the second refueling, without which the fighters most likely would not be able to return home. In anticipation of the refueling of the returning escort Bob had just finished topping off his own escort fighters even though they had burned less than a quarter of their fuel. He wanted them ready and able to return if they were attacked during the refueling of the returning fighters.

The radio came alive, “Flight ninety nine, this is six one leader, do you copy?”

“Six one leader, flight ninety nine leader, we copy,” Bob responded.

“Ninety nine leader, I have two fighters very short on fuel. The rest of us don’t have much either. We had to drop off escort to make it here. We’re about one hundred miles east of point R and these two probably aren’t going to make it to point R with enough fuel to tank. Can you close on us?”

“Six one leader, we’re fifty miles east of point R, the radio just got a fix on you and we just turned straight toward you as fast as we can.”

“Roger ninety nine leader. Thanks. Six one flight, lean them out as much as possible, keep a lookout, the gas station is coming our way. Charlie and Walt, you’re the shortest on fuel, you get the first shot. Make your connections good and quick.”

Ten minutes later the two very thirsty fighters were being refueled followed by the other four remaining from the original flight of eight called blue flight that Bob had refueled earlier that day. The fighters didn’t worry about which tanker was theirs, they just refueled from the nearest one. Gas is gas when you’re running on empty. Nobody mentioned the two missing fighters from blue flight but they were on everyone’s mind.

Bob’s interphone came alive. It was the radio man. “Skipper, B-17 flight just reported on forty five meters, they have lots of fighters coming in. Looks like an all-out attack.”

Bob punched the radio button, “Sixty one leader, say how many are refueled.”

Mike replied,

“Flight ninety nine leader, we have ten refueled, two of them were damaged and are headed home.”

“Sixty one, B-17’s report fighters coming in to attack. How soon can you resume escort?”

“At least ten minutes till we have twenty fighters. It’s too hot to go in with less. They threw everything at us when they found out we weren’t leaving.” That explained the missing fighters.

Bob came on the radio. “Green flight, form up on Blue leader now. Blue leader, that’ll give you twenty two.” Green flight was the twelve fighters that had been escorting the tankers, Bob’s protection. Bob’s decision would leave the tankers somewhat exposed for a few minutes while other fighters refueled. He hoped it wouldn’t be too long.

“Roger ninety nine leader, All Blue flight not refueled, you stay with flight 99 as escort. Red flight, wait as long as possible and refuel, then stay with flight ninety nine. Orange leader, you take Yellow. Join up with us when refueled. Flight 99, pull back about one hundred miles and wait, we may need you again when this is over. We’re staying with the B-17’s all the way home if we have to.”

The Blue and Green flights were already on their way.

While the last two fighters were fueling two Me-110’s threatened the tankers. They were set upon by the fighters flying protective cover and both were shot down. When the flights returned for the second return flight refueling seven of the fighters were missing and several more had been damaged. Bob did the numbers in his head, fifteen percent losses, one out of seven. Clearly there had been a serious air battle for the fighters to have losses of 15 percent. The damaged fighters were tanked first and four of the escorts were detached to take them home.

John Cutler was in Green flight and had answered the call to protect the bombers. Now he was back to try to refuel. As he pulled up under the tail of the tanker the “tail gunner” in the tanker shook his head. Cutler was one of the jokes of the outfit, he seemed to be an awful pilot. He had nearly crashed in several landings, in one case he was only ten feet off the ground when the tower ordered him to go around, he had not put down his landing gear. If it were not serious, it would have been funny. From appearances, Lt. Cutler was having a very bad day. His plane had holes everywhere, the engine was emitting some smoke, strips of metal streamed from the rudder. The boom handler watched as Cutler made a flawless connection, took on fuel and backed away. Apparently Cutler was as bad at air combat as he was at flying a fighter. Strangely enough, with this beat up fighter he had made his first decent refueling. His usual performances were much less than acceptable, none of the tanker crews wanted him near their planes. During the refueling there were words of encouragement for Cutler from the other fighter pilots on the radio. This surprised Plank. Cutler had long been the but of many jokes and derision.

As they headed home Bob picked up a fleeting distress call. He recognized the radio call sign of one of the bomber groups, the one he left several weeks ago. He wondered how many of them had survived. How many of his friends were now dead or prisoners? The bombers must have been hard hit. Had their losses been as bad as the fighters? Bob was quiet for the remainder of the flight. It had all been for nothing. The refueling was a failure.

To make maintenance easier the tankers, designated KC-17’s were based with the other B-17’s. They could be serviced by the same maintenance people and use the same spare parts depots. The men of Flight 99 had been taunted by the other B-17 pilots during the training period. They considered the tanker pilots nothing more than airborne gas jockeys. Flight 99 listened on the radio as the returning bombers began to land. They counted them. Forty six had taken off this morning from this base and a like number from each of two others. The attacking force was about a hundred fifty planes. When the last plane was down they looked at each other in amazement. Forty five planes had landed. Only two of the returning planes had been given landing preference for wounded crews. When he landed, Bob went straight to the flight ops. He was certain he had made an error in his count.

“How many didn’t make it back?” he asked the ops officer. “None. One plane landed at the coast to get a wounded crewman medical treatment. We had five wounded on the planes that landed here and three on the diverted plane. Eight wounded, no dead, and some minor damage to six planes. In the other flights we lost one to flack and an Me-110 got one over France while the fighters were refueling.”

“What happened to the fighters? We counted seven missing at the second refueling?”

“They were in a real scrap. They got hit by over fifty planes at one time and thirty more a few minutes later. The fight on the way back was the bad one. They lost track of how many enemy fighters they engaged. Seventeen of them landed with empty guns. Eight pilots made ace today and two of them got six each. They shot down over fifty German planes, the ones that came back that we know about. We know the ones who got shot down got a few too. We’ll not know how many for sure they got till we debrief the others.”

Bob was amazed. He knew the improved fighter cover would reduce losses but this was incredible. The fighter losses were high, too high to continue, but if they actually got fifty fighters, those fifty wouldn’t be there tomorrow to oppose the returning flights. This would make the next flights easier.

The commanding officer called him into his office. “Good day we had. Could have used a few more fighters over the target. They were badly outnumbered much of the time. More fighters would have increased our kills and reduced our losses. I checked, we have six more tankers coming in tonight. See if you can get any of them ready for day after tomorrow. I’d like to put up all of the fighters we have available.”

“Aye, Aye, Sir,”

The commander went on, “Good decision you made today, committing Green flight. They were fresh, had full ammo loads, and could go a few minutes sooner. Just as the Blue and Green flights arrived, sixteen FW-190’s showed up. They never got a good shot at the bombers. A few more minutes, we’d have had serious losses.”

“Thank you sir,”

There were no more jokes in the mess about gas jockeys.

At the fighter base the planes began to land, many were damaged, some barely flyable and several were flown by wounded pilots. Lt. Cutler was given preference when he got to the base, he dropped the wheels and made the best landing he had ever made. As he rolled to a stop the fire and ambulance crews were waiting, they helped him from the plane and on a stretcher. His plane was so badly damaged that it was towed to the edge of the field to be used for spare parts. Someone joked that at least this time the enemy did the damage, not Cutler.

4/22/43 1300 Hours – Flight 99 – over Western France

Lt. Cutler was ready to fly again. He was placed in Green flight to give him an easier day. The doctor had limited him to light duty as the requirement for his early return to service. The tanker escorts flew less hours than the bomber escorts and got a break during the mid-flight servicing. The combat time was generally less demanding. The need for pilots was so great no fit pilot could be spared.

When Green flight tanked for the first time that day Lt. Cutler was the last to tank. When he pulled up to connect to the fuel hose the fueling operator on the tanker called Plank on the interphone. “Guess what that dumb Cutler did today. He took off in a plane that has seven Gerry flags stenciled on it. The Gerry’s see that they’ll blow him out of the sky thinking they are getting a real ace. Wonder who’s plane that jerk took? That guy can’t even find the right plane when it’s on the runway.” Plank had no idea what had happened. Things were getting busy and they dropped the conversation for the remainder of the flight. Cutler and the rest of Green Flight joined the bombers again for the return and there was again a significant fight.

Several days later the bomber crews threw a party and invited the tanker and fighter pilots to join them as guests of honor. Plank was talking with a couple of fighter pilots who were telling him how good it was to see a tanker when they were short on fuel. They kept mentioning the exploits of a pilot they called “superace”. Plank finally asked, “Who’s superace?”

“You have to know about Cutler, don’t you?”

“Sure do, what a klutz, you didn’t have to nickname him superace to make him feel bad, did you? He has hard enough of a time flying the plane.”

“We sure did name him that but not for that reason. He shot down five Gerry’s on the first day out. He flew straight into a bunch of them just following his wingman like he’s supposed to do. On the first pass the wingman got shot down and he took them on his own. He really got shot up bad but he shot down five of them till help arrived and was going for the sixth one with only two guns firing. The other day he got two more.”

Plank shook his head. Cutler was not the first real bad pilot to become an ace. Bob Johnson had nearly washed out of training, his gunnery score was well below passing, but he was now the top scoring ace in Europe with twenty three planes. When they tanked Cutler the next time there were nine flags on the nose of his plane. He wasn’t the greatest pilot but in the air he was a fighter. And the tanker pilots were happy to have him in the flight.

The air war over Europe took a new turn. With the fighters able to accompany the bombers further, and the reduction in the German fighter cover the tankers were able to go further too. Several times they tanked planes over Germany. With these “deep” operations several tankers were put in the air over the channel as backups, at the first sign of trouble they were sent east to provide fuel if something happened to the primary tankers. Only two tankers were shot down during the operations. Experience showed that by having fighters alternate flying cover for tankers and protecting bombers they were more effective. Often the Germans lost more fighters trying to knock out the tankers than the bombers. Some real air battles ensued near to the tankers.