U.S. ARMY AIR CORPS PILOT NORMAN FRIEDMAN: WW 11 HERO….R.I.P.
http://www.mydesert.com/article/20100319/NEWS01/3180404/Pilot-flew-D-Day-bombing-mission
U.S. Army Air Corps pilot Norman Friedman, who flew B-24 and B-17 bombers over Europe during World War II, said his most memorable missions were his first and his last.
Friedman’s first mission, on June 6, 1944, was a bomb run over France during the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
On his last mission, his 24th, Friedman was wounded in combat and was unable to return to the battlefields of the sky.
Friedman said his fascination with planes, beginning when he was a boy, inspired him to become a pilot.
After 10 months of physical training, schooling and learning how to become an officer and a pilot, Friedman lined up with his fellow airmen at Blytheville Army Air Field in Arkansas in 1943 and received his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant with the U.S. Army Air Corps.
“With a smile on my face and a lump in my throat, I put the gold bars on my shoulders and the silver wings on my left breast,” Friedman said.
Friedman was assigned to a B-24 Liberator bomber crew and was designated the crew’s co-pilot.
Before leaving on its journey across the Atlantic, bound for Debach, England, the crew decided to have a design painted on the nose of the aircraft.
“After some discussion, they accepted my suggestion,” Friedman said. “We used the picture of a White Owl as painted on the cigar box. Instead of the owl holding a cigar in its claws, it now held a bomb. The name of the plane was ‘Lil Hoot.’”
As co-pilot, Friedman and the pilot took turns flying the plane during bombing missions over Europe.
“Every 20 minutes we changed over — all the way to the target and back,” he said. “When you fly in formation, it’s pretty tiring.”
On D-Day, the B-24 crew took off at 5 a.m. from the air base in England, bound for the shores of Normandy.
“All the various groups of the 8th Air Force flew short missions just slightly inland from the beachheads where the troops landed,” he said. “The target for our group was Lisieux, France, a small town not too far inland. The aiming point was the crossroads in the center of town. We were to destroy this target to keep the Germans from bringing up support for the defense of their positions along the beach.”
Friedman said the target area was covered with clouds and the bombers were unable to locate the aiming point.
“Our instructions were not to drop unless we could identify the target,” he said. “We did not know where our troops were and did not want to drop on them. We made a couple of 360-degree turns looking for holes in the undercast, but no luck.”
Two planes collided in mid-air over the English Channel on the way home, he said.
“Both planes were destroyed and the crews were unable to get out,” Friedman said.
Friedman was injured in combat on his 24th mission — on Oct. 7, 1944 — in a B-17 Flying Fortress — during a bomb run over Merseburg, Germany, site of the largest oil refinery in the country.
“There were no enemy fighters encountered but the flak over the target was the most intense we have ever seen,” he said. “It looked like a solid black cloud.”
Friedman said the bombs were dropped with no difficulty and the target was heavily damaged — but danger was awaiting the men on their flight back to the base.
“After ‘bombs away,’ the formation started a 90-degree turn Our plane was struck by a burst of flak near the right inboard, number three engine,” he said. “A piece of flak on its downward trajectory came through the top of the cockpit area and struck me.
“It split my nose and laid it over on the side,” he said. “It missed my helmet and cut my sunglasses in half. At 60 below zero, the blood coagulated immediately.”
As Friedman got out of his seat, he tore his mask off of his face.
“At 32,000 feet, it doesn’t take very long to pass out from lack of oxygen,” he said.
Friedman made his way into another section of the plane, where the bombardier and navigator tended to the bloodied, blue-faced co-pilot.
Friedman was given a spare oxygen mask; the bombardier applied sulfa powder to the injury — sulfa was new at the time, he said, and used to prevent infection — and was given a shot of morphine.
After the number three engine quit, the plane dropped out of formation and Friedman passed out from the shot.
He regained consciousness, only to find out that a second engine had conked out.
“With only two engines operating, we were losing altitude very rapidly,” he said. “We were still deep in Germany, so Billy (McVicker, the navigator), called for friendly fighters. Finally, a flight of four P-51 Mustangs joined us.”
The bomber continued on course for England, gradually losing altitude. The pilot ordered the ball turret to be dropped and all of the guns and ammunition jettisoned to lighten the plane.
“By the time we reached Belgium, the load was light enough for the plane to maintain an altitude of 4,000 feet,” Friedman said.
The plane made it across the English Channel and landed safely in England.
“After arriving at the hospital on the base, the doctors cleaned my wound, sewed the bridge of my nose and straightened it up,” he said. “Due to the fact I was unable to wear an oxygen mask on the sore bridge of my nose, I could not fly high altitude and go on combat missions.”
Friedman returned home in January 1945 and began flying with the air transport command, flying as co-pilot on C-54 transport planes, making trips between France and the United States until October 1945.
Friedman remained in the Air Force Reserve until 1974, retiring with the rank of colonel.
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