Free Ploesti: The Great Ground-Air Battle of 1 August 1943 by James Dugan, Carroll Stewart Page A

of Sicily, to attack Messina not only at an unexpected

altitude but from the opposite direction of previous missions. Appold's

navigator, Donald O'Dell, called off estimated height above the waves.

Bombardier John B. Hogan crouched on the central spar of the open bomb

bay, looking down at the sea, reporting white chop, which indicated

an altitude of twenty feet -- as low as Appold cared to go. Hogan was

soaked with spray during the all-night sweep over the Tyrrhenian Sea.

A gunner said, "It was just like water skiing."
     
     
The voyage was too much for the other two B-24's, which became separated

from Appold and returned to Africa. At dawn, O'Dell found the Initial

Point and Appold turned south into his bomb run. The pilot saw thick

morning mist in the Strait and announced, "Well, we'll never be able to

see the sheds this morning. What say we go to Crotone?" Appold always

polled his crew on major decisions and they always agreed with his

suggestions. By now the little pilot had an awesome reputation for

attempting the weird and improbable and getting away with it. Appold

banked into a climbing turn for the Italian mainland.
     
     
Ahead, the Calabrian Mountains were covered with low rain-drenched

clouds. O'Dell had no accurate elevation charts. Nonetheless, Appold

undertook to fly the contours of these unknown mountains to keep under

radar and thus give fighters and flak the least opportunity to pot

him. Over hogbacks and peaks at 200 miles an hour, shaving ridges and

planing low in ravines, the solitary Liberator flew. The tail gunner

saw pigs running, chickens being plucked in the prop-wake, and sleepy

farmers coming out of stone huts to look and wave. The B-24 leaped the

last foggy mouiitain and slid into the plain leading to Crotone.
     
     
"There's a fighter base between us and the target," O'Dell warned. Appold

stormed across it at wind-sock level, noting unattended Messerschmitts

and Macchis lying about. O'Dell used the enemy base as a final course

correction, ten miles from Crotone. He and Appold called out terrain

features for Hogan, hunched over his bombsight: "Three chimneys coming

up. . . . Freight train moving across in front of target." Hogan interposed,

"Hey, boss, let me try one on the train." Appold said, "Okay." Hogan dropped

a yellow 500-pound bomb. Although it would not explode for 45 seconds,

the effect of the dead weight was startling. The bomb cracked the train

in two, tossed up cars, burrowed on, curling up rails, and disappeared

in a lumberyard. The tail gunner cried, "Timber going up like toothpicks

and she didn't go off yet!"
     
     
"I want a better line-up, Norm," said the bombardier. "Drop her lower."

Appold jacked the boisterous bomber a few feet deeper. Hogan crashed

the five remaining bombs into the factory. Not one of the fierce flak

guns at Crotone was awake. With the loss of bomb weight Appold went full

throttle, leaped the first smokestacks, and banked away from a higher

150-foot chimney. The bombs burst in a tremendous exhalation. The plant

went up, crumbling and swelling with dust, cordite fumes and vaporized

chemicals. Flames spurted out of the hanging debris.
     
     
Appold said, "Gunners! You want to paste it?" "Yeah, man!" they chorused.

Appold crossed back over an undamaged section and the sergeants shot it up.

Before the antiaircraft guns could go into action the Liberator was speeding

to Benghazi, unscratched.
     
     
Interrogation officers regarded Appold's report as a "snow job."

K.K. Compton sent a photo-reconnaissance plane to Crotone. Its pictures

fully bore out Appold's report. Intelligence estimated, "It will not

be necessary to return to Crotone for some time." One plane at minimum

altitude had accomplished what nine forces at high level had failed to do.
     
     
On the following day K.K. Compton was approached by another masterful

Liberando pilot, a tall, ruddy-complexioned, dark-haired youth named

Brian Woolley