World War II Chronicle: January 25, 1943
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Maj. Gen. George Patton is pictured on page three promoting a sergeant to second lieutenant… Marine Captain Joe Foss’ “Flying Circus” has shot down 30 Japanese aircraft in one day, story on page five… The Army has caught two 15-year-old boys in their ranks — one a sergeant, the other an acting corporal (see page six)…
George Fielding Eliot column on page eight… Sports on page 11. Back on page three, the St. Louis Cardinals have selected Cairo, Ill. as their spring training site. Yesterday the Browns picked Cape Girardeau, and the rest of baseball had already settled on their sites. Gone are destinations like Catalina Island, Miami Beach, and Havana, Cuba. Thanks to the war, players will now have to pack a jacket instead of sunglasses. Here are where teams went last year, and where they are stuck with now:
| Team | 1942 | 1943 |
| Boston Braves | Sanford, Fla. | Wallingford, Conn. |
| St. Louis Cardinals | St. Petersburg, Fla. | Cairo, Ill. |
| Chicago Cubs | Catalina Island, Calif. | French Lick, Ind. |
| Brooklyn Dodgers | Havana, Cuba | Bear Mountain, N.Y. |
| New York Giants | Miami, Fla. | Lakewood, N.J. |
| Philadelphia Phillies | Miami Beach, Fla. | Swarthmore, Pa. |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | San Bernardino, Calif. | Muncie, Ind. |
| Cincinnati Reds | Tampa, Fla. | Bloomington, Ind. |
| Philadelphia Athletics | Anaheim, Calif. | Wilmington, Del. |
| St. Louis Browns | DeLand, Fla. | Cape Girardeau, Mo. |
| Cleveland Indians | Clearwater, Fla. | West Lafayette, Ind. |
| Boston Red Sox | Sarasota, Fla. | Medford, Mass. |
| Washington Senators | Orlando, Fla. | College Park, Md. |
| Chicago White Sox | Pasadena, Calif. | French Lick, Ind. |
| New York Yankees | St. Petersburg, Fla. | Asbury Park, N.J. |
Roving Reporter by Ernie Pyle
A FORWARD AIRDROME IN FRENCH NORTH AFRICA — The 10 men who brought their Flying Fortress home from a raid on Tripoli, after they had been given up for lost, undoubtedly will get decorations. Nothing quite like it has happened in this war. Here is the full story:
The Tripoli airdrome was heavily defended, by both fighter planes and antiaircraft guns. Flying into that hailstorm, as one pilot said, was like a mouse attacking a dozen cats.
The Thunderbird — for that was the name of this Fortress — was first hit just as it dropped its bomb load. One engine went out. Then a few moments later the other engine on the same side went.
When both engines go out on the same side it is usually fatal. And therein lies the difference of this feat from other instances of bringing damaged bombers home.
The Thunderbird was forced to drop below the other Fortresses. And the moment a Fortress drops down or lags behind, German fighters are on it like vultures. The boys don’t know how many Germans were in the air, but they think there must have been 30.
Our Lightning fighters, escorting the Fortresses, stuck by the Thunderbird and fought as long as they could, but finally they had to leave or they wouldn’t have had enough fuel to make it home.
The last fighter left the Crippled Fortress about 40 miles from Tripoli. Fortunately, the swarm of German fighters started home at the same time, for their gas was low too.
The Thunderbird flew on another 20 miles. Then a single German fighter appeared, and dived at them. Its guns did great damage to the already crippled plane, but simply couldn’t knock it out of the air.
Finally the fighter ran out of ammunition, and left. Our boys were alone now with their grave troubles. Two engines were gone, most of the guns were out of commission, and they were still more than 400 miles from home. The radio was out. They were losing altitude, 500 feet a minute, and now they were down to 2,000.
The pilot called up his crew and held a consultation. Did they want to jump? They all said they would ride the plane as long as it was in the air. He decided to keep going.
The ship was completely out of trim, cocked over at a terrible angle. But they gradually got it trimmed so that it stopped losing altitude.
By now they were down to 900 feet, and a solid wall of mountains ahead barred the way homeward. They flew along parallel to those mountains for a long time, but they were now miraculously gaining some altitude. Finally they got the thing to 1500 feet. Explain that if you can!
Maybe it’s as the pilot said: “we didn’t come over the mountains, we came through them.”
The co-pilot said: “I was blowing on the windshield trying to push her along. Once I almost wanted to reach a foot down and sort of walk along the pass.”
And the navigator said,
“If I had been on the wingtip I could have touched the ground with my hand when we went through the pass.”
The air currents were bad. One wing was cocked way down. It was hard to hold. The pilots had a horrible fear that the low wing would drop clear down and they would roll over and go into a spin. But they didn’t.
The navigator came into the cockpit, and he and the pilots navigated the plane home. Never for a second could they feel any real assurance of making it. They were practically rigid but they talked a blue streak all the time, and cussed, as airmen do.
Everything seemed against them. The gas consumption doubled, squandering their precious supply. To top off their misery, they had a bad headwind. The gas gauge went down and down.
At last the navigator said they were only 40 miles from home, but those 40 miles passed as though they were driving a horse and buggy. Dusk, coming down on the sandy haze, made the vast flat desert an infinite thing. One oasis looks exactly like another.
But they knew when they were near home. Then they shot their red flare and waited for the green flare from our control tower.
A minute later it came — the most beautiful sight that crew has ever seen.
When the plane touched the ground they cut the switches and let it roll. For it had no brakes. At the end of the roll the big Fortress veered off the side of the runway. And then it climaxed its historic homecoming by spinning madly around five times and then running backwards for 50 yards before it stopped. When they checked the gas gauges, they found one tank dry and another down to 20 gallons.
Deep dusk enveloped the field. Five more minutes and they never would have found it.
This weary, crippled Fortress had flown for the incredible time of 4 1/2 hours on one pair of motors. Any pilot will tell you it’s impossible.
That night I was with the pilot and some of the crew and we drank a toast. One visitor raised his glass and said: “Here’s to your safe return!”
But the pilot raised his own glass and said instead: “Here’s to a damned good airplane!”
And here is the climax. During that agonizing homeward crawl, this one crippled plant shot down the fantastic total of six German fighters. These were officially confirmed.
Tomorrow: The Men Who Did It
1st Lt. John L. Cronkhite Sr. (pilot) and Dana F. Dudley (co-pilot) were behind the controls for the flight back to Biskra. Cronkhite flew 26 combat missions, his crew sinking two submarines, an ammunition ship, and 14 enemy fighters. Dudley flew 40 missions. Thunderbird B-17E No. 41-24437 flew over 100 missions before finally being scrapped. Incredibly, she will return her crew after again losing two engines in July. The above actions inspired the song “Coming In On A Wing And A Prayer.”
Evening star. (Washington, D.C.), 25 January 1943. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1943-01-25/ed-1/