Old Time Radio

Storm over the North Atlantic - a radio rescue

By Bob Dockery, WD4CNZ

The storm and night flying made visibility extremely limited for the lead B-17G called "Satan's Playmate" on the final leg of the trip from the States to an English airbase. This leg of the trip from Iceland to Stornaway, Scot-land meant 600 miles over the iceberg-laden waters of the cold, gray North Atlantic. If lost over this part of the world, there would be no survival and little evidence. The droning of the four huge engines turning props through the squalls gave little assurance of their situation.

The radioman's position on a B-17 was on the left side just behind the bomb bay. The radioman on this type of plane also doubled as the night pho-tographer and waist gunner.

At cruising altitude, the outside tem-perature was bitterly cold and crept through boots and flight gear. The thin skin of aluminum gave little protection from the extreme cold and even less from enemy fire. The view out of the small window just to the left on the fuselage showed streams of water sliding by in the slipstream as the bomber droned through the dark sky. The dull glow of the radio dial lamps gave little comfort in the dready cramped position. They had flown from the States to New-foundland and then to Greenland and Iceland and were on the last leg of this tiring trip from America to the Euro-pean theater of war.

The intercom crackled and the navi-gator asked if Harry could get a QDF (Q signal for true bearing). He did not say so but the compass had gone out and they were lost in the darkness. Only the navigator knew this just then. The pilot was flying on a course plotted before the onslaught of the terrific storm. As a single plane from a squadron of 21 planes, "Satan's Playmate" flew alone through the dark night. With no stars to take a sighting they were literally flying blind!

Harry set to work encrypting the message into proper format using the codes for the day (all messages coming in and out were encrypted). A foul-up on putting the message together could mean disaster for the B-17 and its crew. A great responsibility was on the radioman's shoulders and all informa-tion came in and went out using Morse code - no voice mode was allowed.

Once the message was ready, he grasped the large, black knobbed key on the right of the operating desk and began tapping out the message to Scot-land hoping they would be heard be-tween the lightning crashes. Harry also hoped that he would be able to hear all of any return message over the noise of the engines and lashing rain. No response to the first try, try again, tune...carefully. There! Now a signal came out of the night asking for identification. Another Morse message went out giving the identification codeword. A few minutes passed, the violent storm still raging just outside, gale force winds trying to push the heavy plane off course.

The fortress kept flying through the pounding rain with all crew members keeping careful watch out of all avail-able windows so that they would not collide with another plane blown off course coming from anywhere. One for-got the cold and cramped conditions try-ing not to think of what could happen on a night like this one.

The message finally came back say-ing to hold down the Morse key for a tone so a bearing could be taken. Harry held down the key for a long tone. Land stations could then triangulate and de-termine their exact position. This long tone would also allow the enemy to gain a fix on their position as well. That thought was always in the back of his mind and Harry tried not to think about that and the cold, dark waves of the ocean below.

After a few more minutes, an en-crypted signal came back through the night giving a bearing in its encoding. Harry hoped the reply was from the Allies and not the enemy. They had been briefed about enemy stations giv-ing false information resulting in planes being captured over enemy-held terri-tory or ditching in the sea after running out of fuel. Harry also hoped he had heard and copied accurately under these trying conditions, for this kind of situation was no place for mistakes - even small ones.

The navigator took the information, ran his calculations, and gave a new course heading to the pilot. With the course correction the bomber flew on in the raging storm. With lightning flash-ing all around and the cold creeping into every bone, they flew through that dark, stormy night in early 1945.

They peered out into the night won-dering where they were and what was waiting in the darkness as the engines droned on.

As they neared what they hoped was the end of the trip, Harry was still hoping all of the information was correct. With the correct course, they descended from cruising altitude - still flying on instruments. Then the clouds broke ahead of them and they were right over the airfield at Stornaway, Scotland. The landing lights shone through the gloom and cheers when up from all aboard this B-17. They were safe and sound in Scot-land! The radioman was the man of the hour!

Radio had been the only link through the darkness and without it and the skills of the Radioman, Technical Ser-geant Harry Dover (we know as AA4GN) this mission would be only a war statistic for a B17G called "Satan's Playmate."

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