THE SOUTHERN ROUTE TO ENGLAND By Earl J. Seagars © 2020
I graduated in Class 43-H as a single engine pilot at Brooks Field, San Antonio, Texas and was commissioned as a 2nd. Lieutenant. I had been a good student pilot and received high grades from all of my instructors in Primary, Basic and Advance flying schools. In Basic flying school I won a short field landing contest among the other entire student pilots. Two vertical poles were stationed on either side of the runway with a paper tape strung between the poles and about six feet above the center of the runway. The test was to fly over the imaginary barrier and make a 3 point landing (main gear and tail wheel) as close to the barrier as possible. Our instructors were on either side of the runway, watched the landing and ran out and marked and measured the distance of each contestant. Little did I realize then how valuable this type of training would be necessary later on in my flying career.
Brooks Field was a combination twin engine and single engine Advanced Training School. The day after graduation all the new 2nd. Lt. twin engine pilots were given their assignments. The majority would be going out to multi-engine transition school to learn to fly four engine B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberators. Others were to be assigned to twin engine transition training schools, A-20 Havocs, B-25 Mitchells, B-26 Martin Marauders and some multi engine transport type of aircraft.
A day later a general assembly was called for all single engine pilots officers. The Colonel said, “Gentleman, you are all officers and soldiers, but soldiers first. In everyone’s career in the Army there will be assignments not to your liking. All of you single engine pilots are being assigned according to the Army Air Forces needs and current requirements. At the present time there is no shortage of fighter pilots. Fighter transition training schools are overloaded. There is a dire need to develop very quickly combat crews. So practically this entire class will be assigned as Co-pilots to B-17, B-24 , B-26 and multi-engine transport type aircraft”. The smiles turned to frowns, disbelief and groans. There were many unhappy sad faces and misty eyes as visions of flying P-51’s, P-47’s and P-38’s were shattered and high hopes vanished into thin air with those words. It was doom and gloom time! The roof just fell in! What a serious blow and a bitter pill to swallow! There was much quiet cussing, discussion and the question of why us?
The Colonel stated that he knew this news was very disturbing, but we were now officers and he expected all of us to accept our assignments, do a good job, follow our orders as soldiers and the requirements of the war department.
I was assigned as a Co-Pilot to Combat Crew Training in B-26’s at Barksdale Field, La. The assignment sheet listed Edward K. Gallagher, Pilot; Earl J. Seagars, Co-pilot; Frank E.McKeown, Navigator-Bombardier; S/Sgt. Donald F. Dwelling, Engineer-top turret gunner; S/Sgt. George E. Ries, Radioman-Gunner and Sgt. Benjamin F. Powell, Tail-gunner. We all met for the first time and shook hands. We were going to be a combat crew. I was more determined then ever to be the best Co-pilot I could be, I told Ed, I wanted to work hard and get all the left seat time I could. I even volunteered on weekends for engineering test flights to build up more flying time and experience, so that if the opportunity ever presented itself, I would be ready to be a first pilot.
Upon completion of our Combat Crew Training at Barksdale Field, the Pilot, Co-pilot, and Radioman-Gunner of each crew were placed on orders to travel by train to Hunter Field, GA to pick up a brand new B-26 and fly it by the Southern Route to England. The Navigator-Bombardier, Engineer-gunner and Tail-gunner joined other personnel for a train ride to New Jersey to board the Queen Mary for transportation to England. The Queen could carry up to 15,000 troops on one trip. The Queen didn’t need a naval escort; it was so fast it could outrun any enemy ship or submarine.
At Hunter Field, our crew was assigned a new B-26-55 Martin Marauder built in Baltimore, MD. It had eight hours flying time logged on the form 1A. It was painted a dull camouflage gray. We ran flight engineering test, aerial flight characteristic checks, a short cross country test, gas consumption and Bomb Bay fuel tanks transfers and further consumption test for four days. Then it was off to Morrison Field, West Palm Beach, Florida. There we were briefed on the Southern Route by the Air Transport Command. We spent Christmas Day, December 25, 1943 at this location and departed the next day heading south for Borinquen Field, Puerto Rico. The flight time was 5 hours and 20 minutes. We were in the Caribbean and the Tropics. The trade winds were “blowing and the palm trees were swaying gently back and forth to these steady winds. The temperature was warm and comfortable in this island setting. It was a delightful location to be in and to be a part of a very interesting adventure..
The next morning, (December 27th.) all the crews were briefed on the next leg from Puerto Rico to Atkinson Field, British Guinea, South America. We were to fly at 8000 feet altitude for best weather conditions according to the meteorologist. A Navel Office asks all of us to be vigilant and scan the ocean surface for enemy submarines that were operating in the area. We were to Radio back if we did. We did see one motoring on the surface, we could not tell if it was friendly or German, but we reported a submarine position. The trip took 5 hours and 45 minutes.
On December 28, we departed Atkinson Field; British Guinea and flew over the great mass of green jungle as far as the eye could see. This was no place to have engine problems or a forced landing. There was no place to land in this green mess of trees and growth. The forest was unforgiving and unbending. There would be no survivors.
We were now heading South and would have to cross the mighty Amazon River at the equator. The great river that starts high in the Andes Mountains to the west. The backbone of South American with some perpetual ice and snow covered granite rugged peaks. The melting snow, ice and rain on the east side of the Andes flows through the immense drainage system of the Amazon Tropical Rain Forrest and empties into the Atlantic.
As we approached the Amazon River basin, we were amazed at the display of high tropical heat and humidity.
In front of us was a tremendous wall of white towering cumulonimbus thunderhead clouds that jammed together and blocked our path. It completely covered and hid the river. The huemungus cloud mass of cumulonimbus cells stretched as far as we could see westward and eastward and upwards to over 50,000 feet in altitude with anvil and crown shaped heads.
It was awesome! It was very threatening! Such a tremendous, overwhelming display of meteorological power. Each individual cumulonimbus cloud is a weather cell of its own creation. Strong Convection Currents of warm moist air from the heated water surface rises upward in elevator shafts of air, cooling with altitude, dropping cloud burst of rain and the thin, heated air continues to rise upward into a boiling, rolling mass of visible moisture. Inside the cloud the vertical elevators of air moving upward and heavy laden rain falling downward by gravity creating static electricity that turns into strokes of lightening with rolling thunder. The cumulonimbus cloud is the granddaddy of all clouds and the most violent. With heavy rain, hail, strong up and down air turbulence, lightening and sometime gust or microburst of air hitting the surface at over 100 mph.
We flew up to this monstrous barricade. We circled downward descending to 3000 feet and peeked under the cloud base. Below us was the red-brownish muddy Amazon River. From the cloud base torrents of rain poured out of the clouds. This was no place to be at this low altitude. We could not cross the river at this point under this display of weather. There was no room to maneuver in this area. We climbed back up and far to the east we could see the muddy river flowing out to sea and staining the blue Atlantic Ocean in a mud colored fan that extending for over 100 miles out to sea.
At 12,000 feet, everything in the aircraft was checked and double-checked, the gyros were caged and uncaged then we aimed the nose of the airplane into this wall and penetrated it. We were instantly on instruments! The rain pounded the windshield in torrents. The engine temperature gauges in seconds fell from 180°F to 100°F. We quickly closed all the engine necelle vents. Water started bubbling in from around the windows, the hatches, in the nose section – every crack and cranny was dripping until there was standing pools of water on the floor. We felt like a submarine.
We became concerned with the possibility of becoming overloaded with the weight of the penetrating water. There was that dreaded jungle down there! For 52 minutes we flew on instruments through the roaring, pounding, drenching rain. When we came out of the clouds into the clear blue sky the sun was bright, very bright. We put back on our dark glasses. There was a strong reflection of sunlight. Where was that coming from? Then with amazement we saw there was no camouflage paint left on the leading edge of the entire wing. The propeller spinners were bare. The front of the cowling around both engines was bare aluminum reflecting the bright sun. The camouflage paint was gone, beaten off by the pounding rain. Almost immediately, the engines over heated with the temperature indicators hands racing up into the red zone over 220° degrees. We quickly opened the engine necelle cooling vents. Then with so much moisture inside aircraft, there was instantaneous fog; we couldn’t see the instruments just 18 inches in front of our faces. We were really blind flying. We quickly released the side window locks and opened the windows. It blew holes in the fog and finally evaporated the water in the aircraft. Wow! Now that was exciting! We had a few busy minutes! After a 5 hour and 15 minute flight we entered the field pattern and landed at Belem, Brazil.
On December 29, weather interfered for the next leg so there was a day’s delay with the aircraft sitting on the hot parking strip and in the hot tropical sun.
On Dec. 30th, the weather had cleared enough for the next leg from Belem, Brazil, to Fortaleza, Brazil (near Natal, Brazil). We taxied out, turned and ran up the engines, checked the magnetos, lowered 20° of flaps and took off. Ed gave the thumbs up for retracting the landing gear and I moved the gear handle up. The wheels retracted, the nacelle doors closed and the speed and angle of climb increased. Ed extended his hand, palm up and made slight movements of his hand to indicate, milk the flaps up slowly. I moved the flap indicator slowly slightly up, there was a loud “bang” and the flaps instead of coming up, snapped down to the full 45“-degree position. They locked there. Nothing I could do shaking the handle, rattling the handle, or moving it up and down didn’t work, the handle was frozen in the down position. It caused a severe drag and our airspeed fell off. Ed quickly applied full power and the aircraft struggled to maintain 500 feet of altitude over the green mass of that thick forest below us. We called the tower to notify them of our problem and that we were returning. Would they clear the field for an emergency landing? We did a very careful and controlled shallow left turn going around in a 360°-degree pattern. We made a high approach, a steep decent and landed safely with the full flaps locked down. After days with the mechanics checking over the entire flap system, bleeding the lines, examined the flap actuator cylinder, checking every nut, bolt and rivet on the flaps and the pedestal control system. With dozen of test of flaps up and down, we were asked to make a test flight. We did and the flaps worked OK.
The Belem Airfield was carved out of the green jungle. The aircraft parking area was within 50 feet of the tall trees. When the sun went down it was very, very dark and sometimes there were strange noises coming out of the jungle.
On January 5, 1944, we again took off with a loose flight of three aircraft heading for Fortaleza, Brazil. We were especially alert to the flaps and gained plenty of altitude before milking them up very slowly. They worked! After a 5 hour and 30 minute flight we arrived over the Fortaleza airport, entered the pattern and landed. As we turned off the runway on to the taxi strip, a movement caught my eye and I looked out right to the main landing gear strut. Descending out of the engine necelle and clinging to the strut was a monkey.
“Hey, Ed we have a stowaway – a monkey! He is riding on the right landing gear strut”. “What! Holly Cow, look, grab a jacket so he will not bite you and wrap him up. I’ll stop the aircraft and you go get him!! He probably climbed aboard the aircraft last night because we were so close to the jungle.”
(“Monkey Business” to be continued)