Presentation Date: January 28, 1999
2nd Lt. Robert W. Harrington
ETO B-24 Pilot, 446th Bomb Group. The irony of it all.
"I went on the 106th mission of the 466th, which was a milk run of seven and a half hours, and it only took me eight months to walk home. "The 466th Bomb Group flew 341 missions during WWII, 5062 sorties, 12,914 tons of bombs dropped and 71 planes lost. And for 466th pilot Bob Harrington, the war would change dramatically on the unit's 106th mission. On August 15th, 1944, the B-24s of the 466th BG were on a mission to bomb airfields in northern Germany.
The Group got to the target, successfully hit the airfield, but the Luftwaffe retaliated with a vengeance. The B-24 was on fire and in a flat spiral, "so I pushed the bail-out button, and it's only two and a half steps from the pilot seat to stand on the flight deck and jump up through the bomb bay door of the B-24. After 242 days of evading the occupying German troops, Harrington was liberated by the 2nd Armored Division, 2nd Canadian Army.
Harrington is President of the James H. Doolittle Chapter of the 8th Air Force Historical Society. There are about 700 members in Northern California. ETO B-24 Pilot, 446th Bomb Group. The irony of it all.
"I went on the 106th mission of the 466th, which was a milk run of seven and a half hours, and it only took me eight months to walk home. "The 466th Bomb Group flew 341 missions during WWII, 5062 sorties, 12,914 tons of bombs dropped and 71 planes lost. And for 466th pilot Bob Harrington, the war would change dramatically on the unit's 106th mission. On August 15th, 1944, the B-24s of the 466th BG were on a mission to bomb airfields in northern Germany.
The Group got to the target, successfully hit the airfield, but the Luftwaffe retaliated with a vengeance. The B-24 was on fire and in a flat spiral, "so I pushed the bail-out button, and it's only two and a half steps from the pilot seat to stand on the flight deck and jump up through the bomb bay door of the B-24. After 242 days of evading the occupying German troops, Harrington was liberated by the 2nd Armored Division, 2nd Canadian Army.
Harrington is President of the James H. Doolittle Chapter of the 8th Air Force Historical Society. There are about 700 members in Northern California.
"From Pilot to SkyDiver in 11 1/2 Minutes"
"I went on the 106th mission of the 466th, which was a milk run
of
seven and a half hours, and it only took me eight months to walk
home."
The irony of it all. The 466th Bomb Group flew 341 missions during WWII, 5062 sorties, 12,914 tons of bombs dropped and 71 planes lost. And for 466th pilot Bob Harrington, the war would change dramatically on the unit's 106th mission.
The B-24 Harrington commanded was named "Troublemaker" - - a moniker of the pilot's own choice, and well-suited to the airman's activities in the months following his being shot down over Holland. Harrington told his tale of escape and evasion to a packed officer's club at the Golden Gate Wing's January, 1999 meeting.
On August 15th, 1944, the B-24s of the 466th BG were on a mission to bomb airfields in northern Germany from which the Luftwaffe was flying rocket-powered Me 163 fighters against bomber formations. The 466th alerted 40 crews that morning, to ensure manpower for a 36-bomber effort, and Harrington's was the 37th crew.
"Everyone was reported 'all present and accounted for', and we said 'hot dog' and back to bed we went. And I no sooner got back to the Quonset hut and in bed when here comes a jeep, and (the officer) says, 'Harrington, you have to fly today.' And I said 'I can't possibly get the crew together, they're all over the base...' And he replied 'we didn't say we wanted your crew. We said we want Harrington."
It turned out another bomber pilot hadn't returned from London. Just a pilot was needed, and that was Harrington, to fly with an unfamiliar a crew.
"I didn't even know what their names are. I didn't have any idea about their personalities, whether they were good men or scared to death like I was."
Harrington says the Group got to the target, successfully hit the airfield, and he later found out his bomber had made a 'marvelous hit.' But after the B-24s turned for the flight home, the Luftwaffe retaliated with a vengeance.
On the first pass, Harrington says a host of Fw 190 and Me 109 fighters descended on the bombers from behind. "They hit the number three engine and the radio operator...the radio operator was dead."
The second wave took one of the waist gunners and wounded the co-pilot. The third wave shot out engine number 4, which meant trouble.
"We could have flown that way had they left us alone. But they made one more pass and came through and shot the tail gunner, and shot out the rudder controls... and with all the power on one side, there wasn't anything we could except get out and walk."
Harrington recalls the B-24 was on fire and in a flat spiral, "so I pushed the bail-out button, and it's only two and a half steps from the pilot seat to stand on the flight deck and jump up through the bomb bay door of the B-24. I went out and after all the fire and all the smell of the .50 caliber machine guns going off.. that burned powder... when I bailed out, it was so quiet and so beautiful."
The Luftwaffe downed four B-24s from Harrington's 787th Sq. and two from another squadron flying from the same base. Harrington relates the cold facts of losing four bombers in very human terms. Of 40 possible parachutes from those planes, 21 crew members got out. Of those 21, only two were to escape and evade German occupation troops in Holland.
Harrington says on other missions he'd seen crews shot in their parachutes after bailing out. He figured if he bailed out at 18-thousand feet he had maybe a minute and fifteen or twenty seconds before he'd hit the ground if he never opened the 'chute. As he says he "planned it", Bob wanted to free fall and pull the ripcord just in time to land in the "backyard of a fellow who was in the underground" who could take him to safety.
"It was right then I was converted from a pilot to a skydiver, "he remembers. "I looked up and all I could see was sky, because I was on my back. And I had to turn over so I stuck my arm out and rolled over. And here's all the ground in front of me and it's beautiful. And here's all these little fields. They keep getting a little bigger and a little bigger, and I say 'Gee, isn't that marvelous' And then I see things in that field and I wondered if they're humans...and then 'hey, they're cows'. And that's when I pulled the ripcord.."
When the parachute opened, Harrington was headed for a canal. On its right bank were 40 to 50 German soldiers. Deciding that wasn't for him, he pulled the 'chute shrouds and slipped to the left bank, where he stuck his right leg in a cattle hoof print and twisted as he fell over. That twist turned his leg black and blue from ankle to hip for the next eight weeks, but fortunately didn't break any bones. A couple of Germans fired shots at him from across the canal before he scooped up his parachute and slipped over the dike.
Five darkly dressed men approached him and turned out to be Hollanders. They communicated to Harrington his need to hide, took his chute and harness in separate directions and guided Bob to a hedgerow. There they told him to hide among the bristling thorns of the primrose. German soldiers soon began probing the hedgerow with their rifle bayonets, but the probing stopped about six feet short of where Bob was hiding when one soldier shouted he'd found something.
For several hours, Bob kept still in the primrose, his leg aching and the rest of him numb from the thorns. With nightfall, the Hollanders escorted Bob to a barn for a glass of milk and a change of clothes. A uniformed member of the Queen's guard introduced himself and told Harrington to do as exactly told, when bicycling up the dike past German troops.
Harrington says he was told, "The only way we can get out of here is to ride the bicycle, right up the dike past them. And when we pass them I'm going to say 'Da' (a universal Dutch greeting for 'hi' or 'how are you'). And when I say 'Da', don't look 'em square in the eye, but lift your head just a little bit, say 'Da' and we'll keep on going."
In the dusk of the day, they passed two squads of soldiers just that way. Put up in a home in Steenwijk, in the province of Overijssel, Harrington stayed there three days, his leg black and blue. A doctor told him it was not broken and he just had to stay off of it.
Thus began 242 days of escape and evasion tactics for Harrington, one of 600 Allied airmen then hiding in Holland. The Allies knew these soldiers were in the country, but didn't know who they were nor where they were hiding.
"I was shot at, I was chased, but I'm a slippery little devil, I can tell you that."
Bob's time there was anything but boring. In addition to keeping alert to avoid capture, Bob was busy being "enterprising".
"I had a nice going organization where we were stealing as much back from the Germans as they were getting from the Dutch. We could get all kinds of food. They knocked over a (German) paymaster and lucked out on the money. They gave it to me for safe-keeping, because I was the only one who couldn't go anywhere with it. They said, 'you have this money now and we'll tell you when we want some of it and what we need it for.' Fresh eggs could be had on the black market for a gilder apiece, fresh butter - - 85 gilders a pound.' Harrington had 100,000-plus gilders in his safe keeping and he parceled out the money, allowing his group to eat quite well for awhile.
Evasion wasn't easy. Harrington sometimes hid outside...other times under the floor or upstairs and out a window onto the roof. All of his tactics had to be planned out in advance - - the exact number of steps to doors, windows and the like...with his cue being the split second the lights went out.
Harrington had an A-11 Army Air Corps issued watch which one of the Dutchmen admired. Bob didn't want to give it to him. But when the man insisted and came back with gin, brandy and a pound of bacon, Harrington gave him the watch on the strict provision he not show it and nor tell anyone where he got it. Harrington warned that the watch would get the wearer in deep trouble with the Germans. Three days later, the man with the watch was put in front of a firing squad and executed.
After 242 days of evading the occupying German troops, Harrington was liberated by the 2nd Armored Division, 2nd Canadian Army. A half-dozen armored cars rolled into town one day, and set a communications center. When he heard the Canadians had cleared the town of Germans and planned to roll northeast to Assen, Bob stepped up to a Major and said, "I'd think I'd like to go with you. I'm a pilot with the Army Air Corps and I've been here for eight months, and I'm sick of it, and want to go along."
The Major asked if Harrington could shoot a Springfield .30 cal rifle. When Bob said he could, the Major told him, "Get right in the back seat of that armored car and watch. Anything that moves, shoot. We'll find out if they're really interested or what they really want afterwards. I had eight armored cars yesterday, and a couple of bazooka teams knocked out two of them. So now I shoot first and talk to 'em a little bit later."
During his eight months of escape and evasion, Harrington never did come across any of the other crewmembers who had been shot down that August 15th, 1944.
Harrington is President of the James H. Doolittle Chapter of the 8th Air Force Historical Society. There are about 700 members in Northern California.