A Typical Day of Flying

In his book, “Combat and Capture,” Red McCrocklin describes a typical mission day:

“Preparations for the mission started at 04:00 a.m. with a quick breakfast and then off to pre-mission briefing . . . we were told what the target was. There was a large map of Europe . . . with a red string leading from our base to the target. We were told the distance to the target, what altitude to fly and what opposition to expect. After this general briefing for all crew members, the lead bombardiers had a special briefing . . . the bombadiers were given a photograph of the target area and how to find the specific target. We are also given the necessary information such as altitude of the target above sea level, wind direction and velocity, air and ground speed, etc. From this information we could calculate the data to put into the bombsight.* Basic data was computed on the ground, the rest of it had to be done in flight which was no easy task with someone shooting with you.

"After briefing, we taken to the flight line and our plane. Everything, the preparation on the ground, the battles in the air just to reach the target, were all designed to put the bombardier over the target so he could do his job. . . (On April 2, 1944) After I checked the plane’s equipment, I checked my own. My parachute was missing! . . . I thought a minute and decided that I had flown twelve combat missions and probably would not need it, then too, the plane had already taxied out to the runway. . . An overpowering feeling came over me to get that chute. The pilot (Dick) called on the plane’s radio for a jeep to take me to the parachute repack station. When I got there, my chute wasn’t ready so I started to leave without it, when the repack girl said, ‘Lieutenant, take this extra chute, you might need it.’” Did he ever?

(This photograph of Red McCrocklin and Dick Terrell was taken in 1942 during their training period.)

*The Norden bombsight was a tachometric bombsight used by the Army Air Corps (Now Air Force) in World War II as well as in Korea and Vietnam to aid the crew of a bomber aircraft in dropping bombs accurately. Key to the operation of the Norden were two features: a mechanical computer that calculated the bomb's trajectory based on current flight conditions, and a linkage to the bomber's autopilot that let it react quickly and accurately to changes in the wind or other effects.