Herman H. Laabs
Lt. Col. USAF
England 1944-1945
C-47 Pilot 1942-1976
A Brief History of World War II
1942-1945 (Not so brief after all)
Entered Military Service in January of 1942. Left Chicago with other recruits for Camp Grant Illinois. This is where we were equipped with necessary clothing, etc., before being sent by troop train to Ft. Warren, Cheyenne, Wyoming, for Basic Training. At the completion of Basic Training we again went by troop train the early part of April for Mobile, Alabama, a staging area, for deployment by boat from New Orleans, Louisiana, for a nine-day cruise through the Caribbean, which was infested with German U-boats. We made stops at Cuba and Jamaica. We were accompanied 24 hours a day by the Navy PBY sea planes as lookouts for submarines. After nine days we landed at San Juan, Puerto Rico. After debarking, we took a train to Borinquen Field, Puerto Rico, where we were attached to the 25th Air Depot Group as a Quarter Master Corps. Borinquen Field was one of the many stops for the Air Force on their way to Natal, Brazil. From there to Africa, for the war against Rommel (The Desert Fox) and his German armies, Air Force, etc. in 1943.
Our stay at Borinquen Field was very pleasant and interesting for me, because of all the various planes that came through there every day. They would spend the night, and then go on to other stops along the way the next day -- British Guiana, Belem, and then Natal, Brazil, and from there overseas.
Occasionally, on Sunday afternoons, I would spend time on the flight line and beg for plane rides from the Navy and Air Force. We would go on submarine patrol for several hours because of the U-boat threat in the Caribbean, in the Navy Kingfisher and/or the Air Force B-18 Bomber.
One morning in May 1942, there was a message from Washington on the bulletin board of our barracks, asking anyone interested in the Air Force Cadet Training Corps, or in the Commissioned Officers Corps, to apply at Headquarters for this. This was my chance to try for the Air Force flying program. Many of us did this. We took the necessary tests, physical and mental, to be accepted into the Cadet Corps. Thankfully, I was fortunate to pass both. But then we had to wait about six months for passage to the States. We took a troop ship from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and arrived in New Orleans about a week before Christmas. I arrived home on Christmas Eve. How fortunate for me! The Christmas program was in progress at Immanuel, Hochheim.
After a ten-day delay en route, January 1943, we were to report to another Staging Area for more tests at Nashville, Tennessee. Spent almost a month there for mental and physical exams. Then the day finally arrived when our names would be posted on the bulletin board, and we found out whether we would be sent to pilot, navigator or bombardier school. No one could have been more thankful than I when my name was under those for pilot. It was a very happy day for me!
In February-March 1943 we were sent to Maxwell Field, Alabama, for two months of Ground School. Upon graduation from there, we were sent to Primary Flight Training at Union City, Tennessee (the Southeast Training Command). This is where we got to fly the Stearman, P-T 17, a beautiful bi-plane. After graduation we were sent to Basic Training at Malden Army Airfield, Malden, Missouri. Here we flew the basic trainer, B-T 13A, which was called "the flying coffin". This was in June and July 1943. During August and September we went on to Advanced Flight Training, from where we would graduate and receive our coveted Wings on October 1, 1943. At Advanced we flew the twin engine AT-10. Much time was also spent in the Link Trainer, a flight simulator for instrument training. All this took place at Freeman Field, Seymour, Indiana.
After another ten day delay en route at home in Wisconsin, I had to report to Chanute Field, Illinois, a B17 Flying Fortress Bomber School, which was not my choice. All through Cadet Training my first choice was the C-47 Douglas Transport. The B-17 was a four-engine plane and flew like a semi truck. From the first day of training at Chanute, I told my flight instructor that I wanted the C-47 all along. I loved that airplane ever since my days in Chicago when I would go out to the Cicero Airport and watch the DC-3s, commercial version, come in and go out. Oh, how I loved that airplane'
After 55 hours of flying the B-17, my instructor finally gave in. He asked our Flight Commander to do whatever it took to transfer me to C-47 training at Bergstrom Field Austin, Texas. This was really the ultimate for me because now I would be flying the airplane I always wanted. Words cannot express how fortunate I felt!
In early December 1943, I reported to C-47 training at Bergstrom. Our training there lasted until the end of January 1944, with Link Trainer flights in the simulator in between. From Texas we were sent to Sedalia Air Force Base, Sedalia, Missouri, for Phase Training. This included dropping paratroopers, towing gliders, etc. By the early part of April we were ready for duty overseas. We were sent to Baer Field, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, where we were to wait for our new C-47 plane. While there, it was more Link Trainer time, for one hour every day, passing the time. This was very helpful so as not to get rusty on instruments. It would stand us in good stead when we got to England where the weather was almost always bad.
Finally our new planes arrived. The planes were flown to Baer Field by women fliers who were called WASPS. About two days before Mother's Day we took off at two o'clock in the morning from Baer Field for Morrison Field Florida. On Mother's Day we left Morrison Field and headed for our first stop at Borinquen Field Puerto Rico. How fortunate that I should once again go through the base where I had spent eight months two years before. Our next stop was British Guiana, then Belem, Brazil, and on to Natal, Brazil, which was our jumping off place for Europe.
Several days later we took off for Ascension Island m the South Atlantic, three miles wide and seven miles long. We left at two o'clock in the morning. This was a nine-hour flight and after those hours we spotted Ascension Island We had a very good navigator from Racine, Wisconsin. During the night hours we flew by Celestial Navigation. We also had two cabin tanks for fuel, which made an extended flight very possible.
After two days at Ascension, we took off on another nine-hour flight for Liberia, Africa. It was difficult to take off from Ascension because of the many "wide awake birds" which interfered. From Liberia, Africa, we flew north to Dakar, and then on to Marrakech, Africa, our jumping off place to England. Here we saw many Arabs, and many worked for Germany in the 5th Column. At Marrakech we spent about three to four days, before leaving for England Once again we left at two in the morning, and headed west over Casablanca and the Atlantic. We flew out over the Atlantic for several hours before heading north to England, because Germany had many Air Bases along our route, on the West Coast of Europe.
About ten-thirty that morning we sighted England to the Northeast. Below us on the sea in a rubber dinghy, was a pilot who had been shot down by a German fighter. We could see him especially because of his smoke from the flares he bad with him to call attention. We landed in Southern England for fuel and some much-needed breakfast. From there we took off for what was to be our "Home Base” for the next year, Cottesmore, England, in the Midlands. We were told later, that a half-hour after we left Southern England the Germans bombed and strafed the same Air Base where we had been a short time before. Just how lucky can you get? Thank God!
We arrived at Cottesmore just one week before D-Day. Those of us who had no formal training in combat were held in reserve. The others had taken part in the Anzio Landing in Italy, and were well prepared for the invasion of France. As the planes took off that night at eleven o'clock, 1t was stil1 daylight in England. We reserves stayed most of the night at the control tower, waiting for the others to come home. As you know, the invasion was successful. Our planes had dropped paratroopers and towed gliders into combat. Our losses were virtually nothing! A few days later, all of us began our re-supply missions to France, and evacuated the wounded back to Southern England and the hospital there. We landed and took off from landing strips made of metal waffle strips that were hastily made by the Engineers. From those days on, and until the end of the war, our mission was to re-supply the troops on the ground and evacuate the wounded. We would fly back and forth, over the English Channel, whenever the weather would permit. England had much bad weather!
On the 18th of September 1944, we took part m "Operation Market Garden" over Holland. For four days in a row, we dropped paratroopers, towed gliders, and flew re-supply missions over Arnheim, Nijmegen, and Eindoven, Holland We had much Fighter support. As many as 1000 P-51s, P-47s and P-38s would go along with us and knock out the ack-ack guns on the ground.
In the meantime, we continued to fly our missions behind the lines of re-supply and evacuation of the wounded. One day, to make up for flights we couldn't take because of the weather, we flew five roundtrips over the Channel, from five in the A.M. until eleven o'clock that night.
The Battle of the Bulge and Christmas 1944 came and went, and finally the Rhine Invasion in March-April 1945, which broke the back of the German Armies, etc. The last month that we were to spend in Europe, we were transferred to Amiens, France. It was during this time that the war ended in Europe. We were on the way back from Munich, Germany where we had evacuated our Air Force POWs from a camp, when we got the very good news on BBC, on our plane radios that the war was over. How thankful all of us were! We buzzed our Airfield in Amiens, France, as a squadron, and fired our flare guns as we passed over the field m formation.
Two weeks later I was given a plane and crew and we headed back for Trinidad in the Caribbean to get ready for the "Green Project". From Amiens, France, we flew over the beautiful Mediterranean and on to Marrakech, Africa, then Dakar and Liberia, Africa, and the Ascension Island in the South Atlantic once again. Natal, Brazil was our destination, before going on to Belem and British, Guiana. From there it was on to Trinidad and on to Borinquen field, Puerto Rico. Here we were put through more flying tests for the "Green Project", being tested and checked out by Airline check pilots from the States. The test was very thorough. For a total of four to five flying hours under the hood-flying blind strictly on instruments for the entire flight, airways, etc. We didn't see the ground until we were 50 feet over the runway. But it was all worth it, when the Airline Check-pilot gave me the "thumbs up" after our flight. This meant I would get an airplane and a crew for the four months of "Project Green".
The "Green Project" lasted until September 1945. We flew "airlines" 24 hours a day. Flights were from Natal, Brazil to Miami, Florida, with stops at Belem, British Guiena and Puerto Rico in between. What was the purpose of this program? It was to fly men from overseas who had flown from Europe to Natal, Brazil by four-engine C-54 planes. This is where we took over to fly them to Miami, their final destination. From there they went on to their debarkation points in the States.
The rest is history. In September 1945 I returned to the States and Camp McCoy, Wisconsin to be separated from the service. While at Camp McCoy, I immediately joined the Air Force Reserve and after 30 years in that branch, I retired December 4, 1976 as a Lt. Colonel. The Air Force was very good to me and it gave me a chance when I thought everything was against me. My love for flying, and with God's help, sustained me.
Note: Borinquen Field is now called Ramey Air Force Base.
