It came up over dinner one night, back in my editing days.
We were working on a story at the paper about a B-24 crewman killed in World War II, whose remains had been found on a mountainside in New Guinea, sent back to the United States 60 years later, to be buried at a national cemetery at Brady, Nebraska.
“He flew on a bomber nicknamed the 'Texas Terror,'” I said to my wife. “I wonder if he was one of the guys your father knew when he was in New Guinea.”
She dug out the diary and letters home that her father had written during his two tours of duty as a B-24 Liberator pilot in the Southwest Pacific. He flew 66 missions – twice the number most airmen flew.
As it turned out, her father was piloting another B-24 on the same mission, in dense fog, on December 18, 1942, when a navigational error caused the “Texas Terror” to fly into a mountainside, killing all on board.
It would be one of many lost crews that her father knew, men he trained with, flew into combat with, and who he would grieve when they didn't return from missions.
Her father, Lt. Everett A. Wood, known as “Woody,” flew a bomber nicknamed “Crosby's Curse.” On their way to the war, during a layover in Los Angeles, Woody and his co-pilot ran into friends of singer Bing Crosby at a Hollywood bar on October 9, 1942.
His co-pilot was a good singer, and they ended up meeting Crosby at his home, in a group that included actress Lana Turner. Young men in uniform were embraced in those days, and Crosby welcomed them. They had drinks and sang together around the piano, including Crosby's classic hit “White Christmas.” The young airmen promised to name their bomber “Crosby's Curse.”
The plane was one of the rare B-24s to survive regular combat missions relatively intact, and Woody would become one of the most experienced, skilled B-24 pilots. In 66 missions, not one crewman was lost.
He once told me that flying a big, four-engine B-24 was “like flying a barn.”
A new book has been published, “Crosby's Curse, The Story of Bing Crosby's WWII Bomber,” by Russell N. Low, written in part from diaries and letters home from my late father-in-law, and his navigator. We have no financial interest in this book, so I can recommend it without hesitation. It's available on Amazon.
An independent, plain-spoken guy, Woody got crosswise with a major back in the states after completing his first tour of duty, and was sent back to the Southwest Pacific for another tour.
After those additional 33 combat missions over New Guinea, the Philippines, China, Formosa and Japan, Woody was flying over Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945, when the Japanese surrender was signed on the battleship Missouri. He rocked the Liberator's wings in tribute to those he served with, and the many who died.
The book focuses on the harrowing early days of the war, and the deadly missions flying over the Owen Stanley Range in New Guinea, with actual cannibals below, on the way to Japanese strongholds at Rabaul, Wewak Airfield, Gasmata Airfield, and the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. Woody and his crew became proficient at low-level “skip bombing” and strafing Japanese ships.
They survived attacks by waves of Japanese Zero fighter planes, and on one mission they returned with one engine disabled, over 400 holes shot in the fuselage, and leaking precious fuel. They landed on fumes.
On another mission, bombs hung up in the bomb bay, and the bombardier went back to free them, donning a parachute on the way. As he freed the bombs, he slipped and fell out of the bomb bay, parachuting to the jungle below in the dark. Hung up in a tree, he had no idea how far he was from the ground. At first light, he realized with relief that his feet were just six inches from the ground. Eating crickets and lizards to survive, and later guided by friendly natives, it took him four weeks to hike back to Port Moresby and rejoin his crew.
On many missions, heavy antiaircraft fire, “ack-ack,” was exploding around them as they made their bombing runs. After the war, Woody couldn't stand blinking lights on family Christmas trees, because they looked so much like deadly flak.
“In the first 2½ months of action,” Woody wrote in early 1943, “the 90th Bomb Group has lost 14 Liberators and 132 men. Maybe some men will still make it out of the jungle, but I wouldn't hold my breath. War is brutal.”
Listing eleven officers lost in mere weeks, Woody wrote, “Practically all the officers mentioned above were good friends of mine. It gives me a sinking sensation to return from a raid to find a friend is missing. A silence seems to envelop the camp and the topic is avoided as much as possible after it is a certainty that all hope is lost. An eerie feeling possesses one if he happens to enter the tent of a missing comrade to find clothes and disarranged photos of loved ones, revealing a quick and recent departure but an expectant return.
“One sometimes wonders who will be next. But with a shrug, you must dismiss the possibility of Death catching you.”
Had Woody not beaten the long odds against surviving one tour of duty, much less two, my wife and her three brothers would never have been born.
Woody would go on to become a noted entomologist for the Department of Agriculture, working to develop strains of wheat that are resistant to insects. He served in the Air Force Reserve until retiring in 1967, attaining the rank of Lt. Colonel. He died in 1987 at age 70.
Today, the 90th Bomb Group – known as the Jolly Rogers - is based here in Cheyenne at F.E. Warren Air Force Base.
As his son-in-law, I'm biased. But this new book is a riveting look at the incredible sacrifice, and the deadly price paid by many everyday Americans, who risked it all for love of country. Truly, our greatest generation.
I think you'd like this book.
Dave Simpson can be reached at: DaveSimpson145@hotmail.com
