 |
| Jack and his tent in the Staplehurst apple orchard |
Another month,
another move, this time to Staplehurst between London and the English Channel.
Planes were coming back to base shot up or with engine trouble. Jack and his
fellow crew chiefs were the front line to getting them back into the air. He
never mentioned the details of his job in his surviving letters to Alice, but even
fifty years later he remembered his job well.[1]
Bombing
and Strafing Mission Preparations
It
was getting into the spring of the year when it got light real early in the
morning, about 4 a.m. [at that latitude], and stayed light until 11 or 11:30 at night. Our planes
would fly missions sometimes twenty hours a day, and that plane had to be ready
to go twenty-four hours a day. We were flying top cover for bombers, and then,
too, we were making short 500-lb. bomb runs across the Channel to France.
 |
| Staplehurst airfield, formerly farmland[2] |
When
we flew on the long missions we would install two temporary tanks, which we
called belly tanks, under the wings, for an extra 150 gallons of fuel. And the
orders were always changing. They would call and ask to put on bombs, so the
armors would come down and attach bombs under the wings. Then they would change
the mission and decide they were going on a long flight, so they would say,
“Drop the bombs and put on belly tanks.” We would then put seventy-five gallons
of gas in each belly tank, which gave them 436 gallons of gas on that little
tiny plane. So we put the belly tanks on, and we had to run the plane up to
make sure that they would suck gas out of those belly tanks. Maybe they would
change the mission again and say, “Drop the belly tanks and put the bombs back
on.” We were busy all the time.
 |
| Tony Haley working on a plane fitted with bombs Homer on the wing |
 |
| Derrick and "Sunkist" fitted with belly tanks |
Specialist
Repairs
If
it was something that we were responsible for, as crew chiefs, we fixed it. But
if it spoiled the radio, then the radioman fixed that, and if it made holes in
the sheet metal on the outside of the plane, then we had a sheet metal man, Toi
Toy, a Chinese boy, that fixed that. Some of the time my plane came back pretty
well shot up where there wasn’t anything mechanical to do, but I had to get the
sheet metal man down. You work with him and hand him rivets or whatever he
needed. You had to stay right with him and make sure the thing was done. We had
a lot of specialists in there, but if they shot a coolant of mine up we fixed
that. Prince and I were assigned to one plane and one pilot. He ran, and then
when he came back we worked on the plane.
 |
| Electrical specialists |
 |
| Toi Toy, right |
Crew Chief's Responsibilities
It
was many hours more than eight hours a day sometimes. Sometimes maybe the
coolant actuator would go out, so we had to get back in and work in little tiny
spaces and change the coolant actuator. Maybe next time the engine was rough,
so we had to change twenty-four spark plugs. Sometimes the engine was hot, and
we had to go down in between like this and try and change spark plugs down
there. So we devised things like putting a piece of rubber hose on the end of
the spark plug where we could do it from out here, where it wasn’t so hot. That
plane had to be ready to go all the time.
 |
| Homer and replacement engine |
 |
| "Work in little tiny spaces" |
And
let’s say Derrick’s plane came back with a bullet in the engine, and Derrick
had to change engines in his plane. If my plane was ready to go, I would go and
help Derrick. And the same thing with them.
Faulty
Brakes
At
first the pilots had trouble with the brakes. When the wheels retracted, they
came up like this to the center of the plane. The wheels were still spinning, and that would make them want to go back down. So the pilots decided that they
would hit the brakes after the wheels were spinning, but the wheels had
multiple disk brakes. They had thirteen multiple disks in there. Six of them
were stationary, and seven of them turned with the wheel: this one was
stationary; this one turned with the wheel. When they put the pressure to them,
they stop the plane. But they got hot from taxiing so far to get to the end of
the runway to take off. They were so hot that when the pilot hit those things
to make them retract [clap!] in the coolness of the altitude, then [clap!] they
would freeze. They would freeze right together. Consequently, when he came
down, the wheels were locked. And when he’d nose the plane up, it would go over
on its propeller, and then he would wear the tires out completely, just
skidding, which means that we’d change tires. That was no easy job. You had to
get big jacks and jack the plane up. Oh, we were busy all the time.
 |
| Jack, Homer, and fellow crewmen on the line |
 |
| Cantine truck delivering meals to the line |
Jack, a faithful correspondent, particularly with
Alice, was too busy some days to write even to her, anxiously waiting at home
for news from her husband. Was he safe? Was he alive?
[1] Jack J. Kellar, interview about his first years after
high school by Judy Kellar Fox, 12 April 1993; cassette tape recording and
transcription held by the author. Also, Jack J. Kellar, “Autobiography,” 1998;
two ninety-minute cassette tape recordings; held and partially transcribed by
the author. Excerpts lightly edited.
[2] United States, Army Air Force, 7th
Photographic Reconnaissance Group, “Aerial photograph of Staplehurst airfield looking
north west, 11 May 1944,” sortie number US/34GR/LOC14; American Air Museum in Britain http://www.americanairmuseum.com/media/6108
: accessed 17 May 2018), “English Heritage USAAF Photography,” object number US_34GR_LOC14_VE_2007.
No comments:
Post a Comment