LT George L. Nason, II, Navigator, Whitney Crew, 832nd.

The night we took from Lincoln, Nebraska, or rather the morning, for it was 2:30 A.M. Tuesday, July 11, 1944, was wet and stormy.  In fact, because of the weather there was a little doubt that we would take off. However, after a. rather sketchy route briefing in the brightly lit up War Room at the end of the field, we all realized that at last this actually was “it," rain or no rain.

Our crew was among the last of the 60 to get the green light from the control tower, and we revved our engines and taxied into place. We took off at two minute intervals. By the time we were airborne I was already at work giving the pilot mag headings and checking my maps and timings in the flight log on the first lap or our long flight east. I say work, but compared with what was to come, I had an easy time of it. We were flying on radio beams all the way across the country so it was quite simple.

The electrical storm. stayed with us as we crossed Nebraska and Iowa with lightning flashes around our wing. and St. Elmo's fire appearing at frequent intervals on the wing tips and gun. Our guns had been taped up but, the fire burned the tape off and made them sputter and flash.

Through the clouds we could see the lights of Omaha, Des Moines, Joliet and Chicago. By the time we reached Toledo it was getting light. We bad been briefed all the way to Bangor, Maine, and, with 2780 gallons at gas, there was no need to land before reaching New England.

The only excitement afforded us during the morning was an experimental P-51 type plane that came up and flew with us a ways near Cleveland. It bad a single engine with counter rotating propellers - something new to us. We guessed it was from Wright Field, the Air Corps experimental station. He did a few tricks for us, then dipped his wing in farewell and turned back.

Flew on past Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Utica. Ran into a haze nearing Albany where we had to circle while a Whit called the tower to check our destination with the Army radio. They told us we were to go on to Manchester, New Hampshire, instead of Bangor, so we climbed to 15000 to escape the haze and headed for Manchester. Got a bit chilly at that altitude as we weren't dressed for it still being in the khakis we bad on at Kearney.

Arrived at Manchester about noon but had to circle for at least a half hour as the field was pretty occupied with a B-24 that had rolled off the runway. Finally they called us to .come in and, on landing, we were met with station wagons which carried us off the field. One of the men had to stand guard on the ship while the rest of us signed in for bedding and quarters. We were also issued heavy winter flying clothes, goggles and waterproof s1eeping bags and given a quick medical examination.  Then we had dinner and a couple at beers at, the Officer’s Club.  After that I had to report at a meeting for all navigators at which we were briefed on radio ranges and call signs from here to Gander Lake, Newfoundland. This lasted an hour or so and after it was over, I went to bed.

Next morning we were up early and after breakfast were briefed again and received maps for the flight to Newfoundland. We also received our orders, sea1ed, of course, and marked –“SECRET” with the warning that “THIS ENVELOPE CONTAINS SECRET DESTINATION ORDERS FOR THE ABOVE NAMED PERSONNEL, AND IS NOT TO BE OPENED UNTIL ONE HOUR AFTER THE DEPARTURE FROM THE CONTINENTAL LIMITS OF THE UNITED STATES. THE DOCUMENTS CONTAINED HEREIN ARE TO BE SAFEGUARDED IN ACCORDANCE WITH AR 580-5.” From then on we were on our own.

We took off at 10 O’clock. Had a nice clear day with just a few clouds scattered here and there. Flew over Maine’s capital city, Augusta, and on to Bangor. Then, bidding adieu to the U.S.A., we headed for New Brunswick. Called over Woodstock, Fredericton and Moncton as we crossed the province, and then flew on to Nova Scotia where we picked up the radio tower at Goshen. Crossing Cape Breton Island we came into Sidney right on the beam. Flew on across our first large body of water, Cabot Strait, to Newfoundland. We had been directed to pick up the Gander River and follow it up to Gander Lake where our airbase was located, a base formerly held by the Germans who had operated it for their commcia1 airlines.

The field itself was huge with big wide paved runways. There were planes all over the place, most of them four-engine jobs - Fortresses and Liberators - but we also saw a lot of B-26’s and C-47' s too. All of them were going out across the Atlantic on their maiden Voyage.

We parked the “Pogo-Stick” and climbed into the truck which drove up to meet us and took us to the BOQ. Found our quarters very comfortable with four men assigned to each room. We didn't have to place a guard on the ship at Gander as the base provided roving guards in jeeps who patrolled the field night and day.

While we waited for the weather to clear, we all enjoyed a few days of just taking it easy before our long and strenuous trans-Atlantic hop. On our second day there Doug, Vehlow and I decided to go fishing.  Figured it was probab1y pretty good as so much of the count1y is wilderness so was not like1y to be fished dry. The scenery reminded me quite a bit of Northern Minnesota with its many lakes and streams, rugged pines and thick under brush.

Started off at 3:30 in the afternoon and hopped a jeep to the Canadian radio station. They drive on the left side of the road here which always seems wrong the first time you try it.  From there on we walked, carrying the fishing tackle from our jungle kits, as, by this time we knew we were not going to be doing jungle combat flying but were headed for the civilized shores of Great Britain to become another unit in the by now famous U.S. Eighth Air Force.

We must have hiked a good 10 miles, following a little-used log-corduroyed trail, past several lakes, streams and swamps. Along the way we met a U.S. sergeant who was stationed at the base but on pass for the day so we invited him to come along. At one of the streams we stopped just a few minutes, but in that short time I caught a beauty of a brook trout nine inches long.

After hiking around three lakes we decided the second had the best prospects so returned to it and settled down to fish. There was thick underbrush all around the lake and it was literally walled in with evergreens. Apparently these Newfoundland fish had never before met up with fishermen for they practically leapt into our boat. Within a very short time we had 20 speckled trout. By this time it was 8 O'c1ock, although still broad daylight, but we decided to build a fire and have our fish fry before it got much later. The trout were delicious, and we made up our minds that if we were weathered in a few more days we'd go on a second fishing trip.

By 9 O'clock it was beginning to get dusky and also turning chilly, so we put out our fire and started back. The return trip proved a good deal more difficult. As there was no path whatsoever and it was a moonless night, we all did quite a bit of stumbling about. As for me, I fell in the swamp at one point and got wet up to my knees.

After about three hours of rough going we spotted the radio station. When we reached it, we found two of the Canadian operators just going off duty so were lucky to get a lift over to our base. By the time we finally reached the barracks it was after midnight, and Whit was almost pacing the floor. Guess he thought we'd disappeared in the woods and he'd have to start hunting around for a new co-pilot, bombardier and navigator.

In all we spent five days in Newfoundland and had a pretty decent time of it. Loafed a lot, went to the movies evenings and got rested up for the ordeal to come. Only thing that spoiled it for me was that I developed a sty on my eye which bothered me for a couple of days. Finally got some boric acid from the hospital and after bathing it a lot, it cleared up.

On Sunday afternoon the route weather cleared and we were called for briefing preparatory to taking off that night.  Following a general briefing we had a navigators' briefing at which we were given information and current weather and true courses. Then we worked out the true and mag headings on the basis of the winds. Also figured what our “point of no return” would be. This was the maximum distance we could return and still have enough gas to return to Gander Base in case of trouble. Our gas tanks had been topped off - in fact, just before we took off, the gasoline trucks came around a second time to top them off again so we'd have a maximum gas load.

There were 50 of us taking off this time. One of the 60 which had left with from Kearney had crashed in Maine. Fortunately for us we hadn't known any of the crew. We heard they had all been killed. The group we were leaving with this time were not all from Kearney. They came from fields all over the country.  Some of our original group were heading for the Azores and on. across the southern route to Italy and the fifteenth Air Force.

Unless we were in dire trouble, we had been ordered to maintain complete radio silence all the way across as there were many German submarines in the North Atlantic and German patrol planes near the Irish coast.

As we took off, I tuned in our radio compass on the Gander station and checked

my true heading. It was still light at this time although our take-off had been at 22:30. As we climbed we watched the icebergs floating about just off the Newfoundland coast. It had been foggy when we left, but after we hit the water, the sky cleared for a while. Then an undercast set in and we bad to climb to 8000 get away from it.

All this time, or course, I was just reading my compass, checking the air speed and keeping the flight log. This was the most important job I had had to date, and it really sobered me to think that the safe arrival of the ten of us, plus a $500,000 plane depended solely on my  calculations. Consequently, I worked every minute of the way checking and re-checking my figures.

About three hours out we hit our first storm which knocked us about five miles off course. Climbed over it and, as it was getting dark now, I was able to shoot a couple stars to check the mag compass. Did a two star fix on Arcturus and Vega. Also used a few of my other favorites - Deneb, the North Star, Spica and Dubhe, taking a different fix once every half hour. Showed Doug how to take readings on the astrocompass so he could check the compass heading.

Hit our second storm about 5 A.M., a mean one as ice began forming on our wings so we had to climb fast to get out of it. After we had thawed out we dropped down through the soup again. Hit the third front 5 hours out of Ireland. About this time I altered our course to head in for Ireland. At this point we had a couple of what could have been disastrous experiences. Our compass needle began pointing down, which would seem to indicate we were over land and a radio station.  As we were f1ying above the clouds we couldn't see what was below, but, as my calculations showed we were still a few hours out, the pilots decided to keep to course. A little while later though, when the same thing happened again, the co-pilot insisted we go down to have a look. We were all getting a little edgy about this time and mighty anxious for the sight of land. As we started down our guardian angles must have parted the clouds for us, just long enough to see a patch or of gray water, so we knew we still had some more flying to do. It was plenty lucky for us we caught that glimpse of ocean before dropping all the way out of the undercast as we learned at the de-briefing after we landed that German subs were lurking out there on the surface with their guns ready to blast away at any hapless plane who followed their radio beam down.

Flew on a couple more hours when, finally, the rocks to the right at Donegal Bay showed up. Picked up the beacon at Diarnacross and followed it in. Went on to a field called Duncan Lodge, I believe, and called in for landing instructions. We were told to go on to Nutt’s Corners though, as this base was already filled up. This odd-named base adjoined the first fie1d so we didn't have to go far. Came in there at 11 A.M. Green­wich time. We had, of course, lost five hours on the way east. The trip took exact1y 11 hours, 50 minutes. I had come in 20 minutes early and two miles right of  my course, which was supposed to be pretty accurate.

Seemed funny to see so many of the planes we'd taken off with the night before circling the traffic pattern too as we hadn’t seen a sign of them all the way over. Gives you all an idea of how vast the Atlantic is. We heard that one of the group had had to turn back to Newfoundland and another just disappeared.

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