Presentation Date: March 28, 2002
CAPT Abel Dolim
B-17 Navigator, 94th BG, 332nd BS, ETO. Eye-Witness to the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor!
- B-17 Navigator, 94th BG, 332nd BS, ETO
- Eye-Witness to the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor!
- Navigator in B-17 "Flying Fortresses"
- 51 Combat Missions Over Enemy Territory
- Two-Time Winner of the "Lucky Bastard Club", with Over 410 Combat Hours
- Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC), Among Other Decorations
- Overcame Phony-German Radio Navigation Signals that Lured Many Other Allied Bombers Back Over German Territory (with Disastrous Results)
Author of Yesterday's Dragons, Navigator from Hawaii Recalls His 51 Missions Over Enemy Territory. Abel will have copies of his book for sale and personalization. Or you can purchase the book from militaryantiquesmuseum.com
Yesterday's Dragons
"I remember on my very first mission I saw two bombers get hit, and they went straight down. One of them exploded after 2000 feet. And the other bomber dropped off and plunged and four men got out. And I thought - - four out of twenty men."
Abel Dolim survived 51 missions as a B-17 navigator - - braving flak, enemy fighters and the frequent possibility of midair collisions - - to help get his bomber over targets in Germany, and back home. Most of the young men he'd trained with were lost within days of reporting for duty in the war zone.
"We lost over 40,000 dead in the Eighth Air Force. I'll bet you 20,000 never got out of their bomber. Never had a chance." The author of the book "Yesterday's Dragons" spoke at the March meeting of the Golden Gate Wing. He told of the dragons of combat he and his fellow airmen faced - - fear, dread, terror, fatuigue and anxiety.
Abel had witnessed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, from his family's two-story home twelve miles away in Oahu's highlands. He'd been coming home from church when he noticed anti-aircraft bursts over the harbor. At first he assumed more Navy maneuvers were underway.
Tuning into radio station KGMB, he at first heard nothing but silence. Abel went back outside and saw black smoke plumes rising above the anchored Pacific Fleet. Then the radio came on and Abel remembers the announcer first reports of a 'sporadic attack by unidentified aircraft.'
About an hour before the air attack had started that morning, Abel's father had been heading out into blue water in the family's fishing boat. A US Navy destroyer steamed off his starboard beam as he left the harbor. When a PBY Catalina flying boat appeared overhead and dropped a couple of objects into the water, causing two big explosions near the destroyer, Mr. Dolim quickly returned to the harbor.
"Later on we learned that the (destroyer) Ward had just rammed a Japanese midget submarine, and I guess the PBY dropped a couple of charges to finish it off."
Abel's father worked in the harbor. After the attack was over, Mr. Dolim was asked to help clean up the harbor area, and he brought him home a foot-long piece of a shot down Japanese bomber. Oahu was buttoned down tight after the attack. Dolim recalls barricades, barb-wire on the beaches and curfews. Under martial law, the Dolim fishing boat was confiscated by the Coast Guard, to be used for harbor patrol.
On the positive side, Abel was able to join the Coast guard temporary reserve, allowing him to study marine navigation, meteorology and morse code. The courses enabled Abel to pass the tests for joining the Army Air Force cadet program.
Dolim was called up in September, 1942. The following month, he left for Mather Field, California for navigational training, since he'd had high scores in navigation on his cadet tests. By October, 1943, he'd graduated, and was up at Moses Lake, Washington. There he met his pilot and bombardier and they traveled by train to Florida to pick the rest of their bomber crew before heading to England. April 11, 1944 saw Dolim with the 94th Bomb Group in the war zone - - at Rougham, near Bury St. Edmunds. The 94th had begun operating in May of the previous year, and had already earned awards for its action in a number of bombing raids.
April 18th was a mission to Berlin. For some reason, Dolim says the mission was recalled, aborted. But the 94th BG kept going to the target. "Somehow the 94th kept plugging along and ran into a gaggle of Fw 190s. In the matter of about a minute, two squadrons disappeared. About six bombers made it back. One of them dropped out of this formation and made it back home on the deck. The tailgunner baled out, thinking they'd got shot down. When the crew got back the pilot and navigator refused to fly combat any more, so the crew was disbanded."
Abel remembers that after only a week in combat, at least two of the young men with whom he had trained were already missing in action. On April 22nd, it was Abel's turn to fly his first combat mission, to bomb German train-marshalling yards in Hamm. Dolim says the 94th was fortunate in leading the whole Eighth Air Force over the target. Weather conditions had delayed many takeoffs, and before the whole bomber force could return, darkness had fallen.
"When they left enemy territory, German night fighters got in amongst them and shot a few of them down. And, if you can imagine, we weren't rigged for night operations. We had these four red-hot glowing turbo superchargers - - like so many beacons in the sky - - saying, 'Here, c'mon, here I am. Come shoot me down.' Talk about sitting ducks. Anyway, that's what happened and we lost a few bombers that way."
A week later, April 29th, came Dolim's first mission to Berlin, and a new challenge. After taking off through the clouds covering England, Dolim's B-17 was unable to link up with the squadron or any of the rest of the 94th, and instead tagged along with the 452nd BG.
"It was lucky for us because the 94th took a beating that day. We lost two bombers and the Luftwaffe was up in force and hammered the Third Division, which was my division.
"That month we lost 25 bombers and crews. It was the worst loss for the group during the entire war. We lost our best squadron commanders and operations officers, leading navigators and bombardiers, our best crews. And we never recovered. When I left the group in March, 1945, we had gone down to the bottom of the heap in terms of bombing efficiency.
"When you're an airman on the line, you're expendable. All you know is what you see. You're not privy to the counsels of the higher command, the briefings at Group or Wing. All you know is what you see. You know what's happening, but you don't know why, and it's damaging to your morale."
Dolim explained the difficulty bomber gunners faced trying to shooting down an enemy fighter on these missions, given the head-on attacks the Luftwaffe favored.
"Any fighter pilot will tell you that the toughest shot you can make is a deflection shot. But every shot from a bomber was a deflection shot. We had two good turrets, the ball turret and the top turret, and they were considered 60 percent effective. The flexible guns (nose and waist) were 15 percent effective, which means if you fire 100 rounds, you get 15 hits if you're lucky."
Machine gun rounds fired at an enemy fighter approaching a B-17 at 11 o'clock arced forward toward the bomber's nose, in the gunner's attempt to intercept the fighter. But the tracer rounds (every fifth round) gunners used to 'see' and guide the bullet stream were misleading, because tracers burned out about half way past the 800 yard effective range of the .50 caliber bullet.
"The Eighth Air Force got smart, and when I came back in October 1944, they'd taken out the tracers and put in ball rounds."
Dolim says the important mark to surpass as a bomber crew member was the sixth mission, because all your buddies were shot down before they did six missions. At nine mission, you were a pro he says - - prefacing details of his ninth mission, on May 12, 1944.
"You get up over the Channel and you're heading... to rendezvous with your fighters over the enemy coast in Belgium. You're flying a brand new B-17G. You don't know it but you're going to fly all the rest of your missions in that bomber, number 574. The day after you fly your last mission in it, in July of 1944... another crew will take that bomber up to a target near Paris. And it will be shot up so badly the bomber will ditch in the Channel...
"You also learn that your tailgunner has been in trouble again. He's in the stockade because he's been AWOL, and Sgt. Giovanni is taking his place. And your co-pilot is not on this mission because we've got a new pilot who's on his first mission... so he's co-pilot, to get his experience.
"You're at 18,700 feet and you're carrying five 1000 pound bombs. Your target is an aircraft repair facility at Zwickau, Germany. The main target is at Brux (Czechoslovakia), a large refinery complex. The reason you're at 18,700 feet is because of the scud in the cirrostratus above you. You can't bomb visually above that stratus, so you're staying below. You also know that at 18,700 feet you're going to have twice as much flak damage and losses as you'd have at 25,000 to 28,000. You know this.
"Your fighters show up... and you see the P-51s alongside."
On a more personal note, Abel says the experience you've gained on previous missions allows you to avoid having to pee every twenty minutes, and your ears have quit ringing. Both were due to nerves. And he says you've solved the problem of "soggy crotch", where your drool from wearing an oxygen mask has drained down your chest to below your belt. The problem was solved with a wool muffler, which soon freezes to a lump of ice under your chin. Dolim says, "You've got to remember before you come back down where it melts, to take it off and whack it on the side of the airplane. Whack all the ice off, and then put the muffler back on before you land."
"About 25 miles west of Koblenz, you're warned that the Luftwaffe's up in force. About that time all your little friends (fighter escort) take off - - they're gone. They go after the German fighters, don't escort us any more, so you're up there all alone.
"You get to just about 20 miles southwest of Frankfurt and your bombardier says there's a P-51 just about 3 o'clock, level. You're just doing your entries in your log and have your head in the maps, and you hear this guy talking and you say, 'Hey, wait a minute, I know this bombardier. He can't tell a P-51 from an Me 109... It's terrible, but I look out towards the front and see six black Fw 190s going right through the high squadron, wham!
"So I give the bombardier hell. Tell him if he can't identify 'em... just say they're unidentified aircraft. By this time we're scanning for everything. And you also learn to use the red shield on your goggles. You've got about ten of these - - greens, greys. But the red was the one I liked because I learned I can pick out a fighter at 2500 yards with that red shield.
"So I'm looking out and there they come again. This time there's about ten Fw 190s and they go right through the lead squadron. And then there's a powerful explosion. You can't hear anything but you feel the pressure wave and you see this great big red ball and then it's just gone. And then you see two bombers drop out of formation - - one in a shallow dive and all ten guys bail out. And then the other one, he drops and hangs behind, then drops his landing gear to communicate his surrender. After awhile, nothing happens and he trucks them up and gets back in (formation)." Dolim says, he didn't realize the composite group he was flying with that day was itself a target, a diversion to keep the Luftwaffe from concentrating on the main force bomber attacking the refinery at Brux. But as they neared the target, he felt the real challenge was ahead...
"I spotted a gaggle of airplanes. There must have been thirty of them in all, Me 109s at about 2500 yards. I alerted the pilot an
d the group, and remembered thinking, 'Here's where we catch it today.'"There were three flights - - a lead flight, a high flight and a low flight. And the lead flight was the shooter and they were coming right at us. I remember saying to the crew, 'Hold your fire, hold your fire.'
"And then the top turret gunner started firing. He had the range. I sure couldn't tell range very well. And we all started shooting. I could hear the shells popping around us. And then this fighter I was shooting at came right at us, but he wasn't firing. I also had seen two of the Me 109s off to the far left of the lead squadron drop out. I don't know if they got hit or what happened. I just saw them drop off.
"This guy I was shooting at kept coming at us, but he wasn't shooting back. I hollered to the waist gunner... to get that sonofabitch... and he was shooting at him at point-blank range. I thought the guy was going to ram us, because he came within about five or ten yards of our tail, I'm pretty sure. But he went straight down, and the tail gunner saw him crash. Never bailed out. Dolim says they hit the target, and after turning for home, the Luftwaffe interceptors attacked again from behind. But although the enemy fighters raced through the bomber group, with guns in all the planes firing, no bombers and no fighters went down.
"It was really crazy. And after we got back we were talking about it and I said, 'I think those fighter pilots were a bigger bunch of rookies than we were.' And by that time the Luftwaffe had lost almost all of its really good pilots, by May of 1944."
Dolim's second tour, he says, was dramatically different from his first. "We were running out of good targets. I used to like going after German airfields. I hated those buggers. Anytime you whacked a German airfield I'd say, 'Let's get those guys.'
"And just before the invasion that's what we did. We whacked all those Luftwaffe airfields. We even went down through the center of France and bombed a training field they had there. These guys were learning to fly and we bombed the hell out of them."
The experiences aboard B-17s took a toll from Dolim, as they did for every pilot or crew member B-17s or B-24s. As many of them today can tell you, if they're able, the experiences brought a premature aging. "All in all... what it did for me was... I grew up very fast. By the time I was 23 I felt like I was 40."
"My buddy, (John) McAllaster and I, both survived air combat. We both stayed in the reserve and were called up during the Korean War. I was in Japan when McAllaster went KIA on a night intruder mission in Korea."
Out of the six young men with whom Dolim trained for Army Air Force service, he was the only one who was never shot down in combat in two wars. After the passage of nearly sixty years, Abel Dolim sees luck as the reason why he survived.