Lavoie, Ralph 384th Bombardment Group 547th Squadron Crew Position: Ball Turret Ex-POW, Stalag XVIIB E-mail: Rl5613@aol.com

Further study: See the book "Boys at War, Men at Peace" by Ed McKenzie. Available on Amazon.com.

More information: The transcript of Ralph Lavoie's 1945 testimony to the War Crimes Office and information on the June 25, 1943 mission can be found in the July 1999 issue of MEMORIES publication. E-mail for information.

Copyright to the following story belongs to Ralph Lavoie. It is reproduced here with the express permission of Ralph Lavoie.

When Staff Sergeant Ralph Lavoie departed Grafton Underwood aboard a B-17F heavy bomber named "Yankee Powerhouse" on the morning of June 25, 1943, he could not know what lay ahead in the skies over Hamburg, Germany that rainy and cloudy day. Of the 19 aircraft the 384th Bomb Group put in the air at 0550 hours from AAF Station 106, eight were turned back by considerable rain and a heavy fog bank before rendezvousing with the rest of their wing. Three more aborted due to mechanical failure and returned to base. Only eight aircraft answering to call sign "Brockhouse" fought their way through to the target to drop their 500 pound bombs. They were attacked by an estimated 150 enemy fighters, mainly FW190s and ME109s. Three bombers were shot down, including aircraft #850, with the group leader, Major S.L. McMillan on board, and aircraft #143, piloted by Second Lieutenant George Riches and carrying ball turret gunner Ralph Lavoie.

Before the war, not much happened in the Massachusetts town of Fitchburg where Ralph Lavoie grew up with his three sisters and two brothers. He enjoyed the outdoor life, fishing and swimming in the Shirley Reservoir where his family had a summer place. Ralph also enjoyed roller and ice skating. He graduated from St. Bernard's High School in 1939 and went to work in a local food market until enlisting in the Army just after Labor Day, 1942. Because Lavoie was 21 years old at this time, he could not pick his branch of service. He soon found himself in the Army Air Force in Miami Beach, Florida, headed for mechanics school but instead he volunteered to be an aerial gunner. Lavoie's first flight was in an AT-6 training aircraft at the gunnery school in Ft. Myers, Florida. While firing at a tow target from a cockpit on the trainer, he unclipped his safety harness to get a better shot, and would have fallen out of the plane had not the pilot realized his predicament and banked the plane so Lavoie fell back into the cockpit. He remembers recording an excellent score on the tow target that day.

Next stop was Salt Lake City, Utah for armorers' school and then on to Boise, Idaho to become part of a forming B-17 crew. The next phase of training was at Wendover Field in Utah, "a god-forsaken place if there ever was one", before moving to Sioux City, Iowa. There the crew picked up a new B-17F aircraft. After being processed through Kearney, Nebraska the ten airmen were given a six-day furlough before shipping overseas. Lavoie went home to see his family and his fiancée, Mary, to whom he had become engaged when he left home the previous September. He "said good-bye, for how long no one ever knew or could try to guess."

To get to England the Group departed the States through Bangor, Maine and f1ew on to Gander Field, Newfoundland, before taking "the big hop" across the Atlantic to Prestwick, Scotland. Lavoie described it as "a thrilling prospect to follow Lindbergh", which became distinctly less thrilling when his aircraft ran low on fuel, necessitating a stop at a British fighter base in Ireland. It took two days to transfer enough fuel to fill the B-17 to three quarters of capacity from the 250 gallon "one lung pumper" available at the base, but the crew was grateful for the rest after their long flight over a hostile ocean. From Prestwick, they flew to Grafton Underwood, headquarters for the 384^th Bomb Group, 547^th Bomb Squadron. The date was May 18, 1943, barely nine months after Lavoie's enlistment. Legendary Air Force Colonel "Bud" Peaslee was the Group Commander while Captain Dillingham commanded the squadron. The Group's crews sailed across the Atlantic on the Queen Mary, one of the world's great luxury liners which had been converted to a troop transport for the duration of the war. Located in the Midlands of England, Grafton Underwood was on the estates of the Duke of Buccleuch, who was paid the princely figure of \\$30,000 a month by the United States government for the use of his land.

The crew of "We "E" Hope" had become a close-knit group, as did so many aircraft crews during the war. During training they often went out on the town together. The 10 young men came from nine different states. Lavoie's closest friend was the tail gunner and second armorer, Stan Martin from Utah. They were inseparable and spent all of their working and free tune together. The pilot, first lieutenant George Riches from Ohio, was also a close friend of Lavoie's, even though fraternization between enlisted men and officers was officially discouraged. Lavoie refers to Riches as a great guy who was too democratic to stick to protocol. Other crew members were: Dick McCray, co-pilot from California; the navigator, Ron Irwin from Wisconsin; Bombardier Bill Boomhower from New York; first engineer and top turret gunner Bernard Anderson from Massachusetts; Bill Waller, waist gunner and second engineer from South Carolina; radioman Freeman Penney from Illinois; and Guy Smith, second radio man and waist gunner from Indiana.

Their base was near the village of Kettering, visited one evening by Lavoie while on a pass. It was the only memory the young gunner would bring home from England. Barracks living was crowded but the food was good, better than that given to the ground crews. Lavoie remembers that gassy food, such as corned beef and cabbage, was never served to flight crews, as it would lead to extreme discomfort while it expanded when flying at high altitudes. As he remembers, "It would give you one good belly ache". Lavoie also recalled that on mission mornings the crews were served fresh rather than powdered eggs. If you were offered a second helping, you knew it was going to be a rough trip.

As first armorer, Lavoie was responsible for the machine guns on the plane, and also helped the ground crew load the bombs. His first mission took place on June 22 to Antwerp, Belgium to bomb the General Motors plant there. His plane's position in the Group's formation on this flight was right wing in the high squadron in the famous 8th Air Force "combat box". Two B~17s were lost to enemy flak soon after crossing the enemy coast. "It certainly changed our minds about the seriousness of combat," said Lavoie. His own aircraft was hit by flak as well, including a piece that shattered the Sperry Computing (aiming) Sight in the ball turret where Lavoie was positioned. He could not see out to aim his guns but kept the turret in motion to deceive the enemy fighter planes in the area. "It was imperative that the ball turret keep moving and not let the Germans know it was disabled in any way," said Lavoie. Otherwise they would have attacked the B-17 from its defenseless underside. The plane returned safely to base, but the damage to the ball turret put it out of commission for repairs. Thus, three days later on the second mission, this time to Hamburg, Germany, Lieutenant Riches and his crew flew another squadron aircraft, #143, called the "Yankee Powerhouse". With George Riches in the left seat and second lieutenant Richard McCray flying as co-pilot, the heavy laden bomber rendezvoused on schedule with Its squadron, but most of the aircraft in the group failed to join up and only eight B-17s from the 384th Bomb Group headed for the enemy coast.

On this day, June 25, 1943, the eight aircraft dropped their 500-pounders on the target, but results were unobserved due to extremely poor weather. 'Yankee Powerhouse" was in the number two position in the lead squadron, just to the right and behind the Group Leader. The three squadrons of the Group all flew at the same altitude, on this mission 27,000 feet, with the high squadron just to the right and above the lead squadron, and the low squadron just to the left and below. Both the high and the low were within 50 feet of the lead squadron in altitude and their wing tips were almost touching. As Lavoie says, "It required some great skills on the parts of our pi1ots to avoid collisions and stay in formation."

According to the Mission Report filed by Captain W.E. Dolan, "Enemy fighters were reported as attacking from the enemy coast line to the target area and then back to the North Sea, breaking off because of bad weather. The number of planes engaging our forces was 150 aircraft consisting mainly of FW 19Os and ME 109s with some ME 110s and several Ju 88s. Over the target area the enemy aircraft were of the following colors; silver and grey, and white cowlings and black fuselages. On the grey aircraft were silver and black. In the Terchelling area the following colors were observed by the crews; yellow noses, blue and black fuselages with white checkers on the rear sections of the ­fuselages."

The report continued, "The enemy fighters took advantage of high clouds and made their attacks from them. Making a pass at our formation they would seek the cloud cover and then re-attack from a different position. The majority of the attacks came on the right beam between 2 o'clock and~5 o'clock from below and nose attacks were made from 11 o'clock to 2 o'clock from below and high. Only two tail attacks were attempted, one from below and one high."

Luftwaffe pilots had learned to respect the massed .50-caliber machine guns of a 'combat box', and calculated at this time in the war that nose-on attacks gave the bomber crews less time to react with fewer guns and also that any attack from astern on a 27 plane "Fortress" formation allowed 200 enemy machine guns to concentrate on the attacker. However, the 384^th Group's defenses were severely compromised due to the large number of aircraft that aborted the mission while still over England

"Yankee Powerhouse" was hitafter coming off the target with flak which killed the co-pilot and seriously injured the pilot, Riches. He could not use his right arm and this prevented him from using the automatic pilot. The inboard right engine was set afire, and the plane dropped out of formation. The Fortress was attacked by approximately 15 enemy fighters, was hit continuously and went into a dive. As the restof the plane caught fire, the pilot gave the order over the intercom to bail out. In the ball turret, Lavoie attempted to "lower the guns on my turret which had to be facing straight down in order to open the door into the ship, and I had to get into the ship as my parachute was there. I found that my turret was jammed for a 2Omm shell (from a fighter) had come up between my feet and went up into the power unit of the turret and exploded. Now I did not have a scratch at the time, but it sure disabled my turret. The guns would not move because the mechanical part of the turret was destroyed. With the plane in a dive, I saw no way of getting out, and I thought at this time I was going to meet my Maker. Suddenly the plane came out of its dive and I looked up. Previously I had unlocked the door but was unable to open it because of the large steel ring that went around the turret. Now the door was open!

I climbed up and out and put on my parachute. My two waist gunners were down, one was wounded, but I got to the rear waist door, salvoed it, and helped them get out. At this point I went to the tail to check on my tail gunner, Stan Martin, and I could see he was beyond any help I could give him. Crawling back to the waist, I realized that the plane now was in very serious trouble and I jumped. The plane had dropped to about 18,000 feet when I bailed out and I had to freefall to at least 10,000 feet to get to oxygen level. We were told to watch the ground and when it appeared to be really rushing up at you, then you were below 10,000 feet. This is what I did when I bailed out.

With a chest type chute, which is what I was wearing, it was best If you were on your back when the chute opened, so your face would not be cut by the shrouds when they were pulled from the pack. I know I tumbled a long way trying to find that 'on my back position' until I finally got it. When the chute opened, there was a tremendous quiet. I had heard stories about the Germans shooting men in their parachutes, heard stories about people lynching them when they got on the ground and naturally I was now concerned for my welfare. I looked off to my right and I saw a German fighter plane heading right for me and I felt this was it. But instead he flew up along side me, tipped up on one wing, and turned so that his prop wash collapsed my chute, and I dropped...fast, about 50 feet - until my chute reopened. In the meantime he circled around and made a second pass and again collapsed my chute and again I fell. A third time he headed towards me but this time he turned his cockpit towards me, gave me a snappy military salute, and flew on. Of course what he was doing in the meantime was drawing the attention of the people on the ground to where I was coming down, and for them to wait for me. And wait for me they did!"