Timeless Wisdom: Air War over Germany in WWII

Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com. Hello everybody and welcome to the Dennis Prager Show. Periodically we have a history hour, some major new work of history that will rivet you. As you know, I believe that history is the most important subject because if you don't know what happened, it is impossible, and I mean impossible, to understand the present. It's like losing your memory. If you don't know history, it's— you've lost your memory. And if you're lit, if you lose You lose your memory. I feel like I'm hearing bombing over, uh, over Sicily right now. Uh, I'll explain why I made that joke. Uh, but if you don't, you know, if you don't have memory, then you, uh, you don't exist. So that's my pitch for the significance of a History Hour. I handpick these books, and in this case, it goes back to World War II. The book is Forgotten 15th: The Daring Airmen Who Crippled Hitler's War Machine. Barrett Tillman has written 40 books. I don't know how one human being does that, but he did. And this is his latest book, and he wants us to remember the 15th Air Force and the incredibly daring raids that they were engaged in over Europe. So, Barrett Tillman, welcome to The Dennis Prager Show.

Many thanks, Dennis. It's a real pleasure and a privilege to join you.

Well, thank you, sir. You have written 40 books, is that right?

Well, I don't want to sound too Clintonly or too lawyerly, but what is a book? My name is in or on approximately 50 books, but that includes anthologies, so Well, that's okay. 40 years is close enough.

And is World War II your primary area of expertise?

Well, I'd say my primary area of interest is aviation generally, and after that it narrows down the historical funnel to naval aviation and then World War II generally, although I'm also intrigued with World War I aviation and not just because we're— approaching the centennial of that mark, but I grew up flying World War I type airplanes. I was extremely blessed in that regard. So my overall approach is aviation generally.

Well, excellent. Just explain to me as a non-military person, when we say the 15th, what exactly does that mean?

Well, during World War II, the United States Army was divided into 3 primary commands. It was Army Ground Forces, Army Air Forces, and Army Service Forces or Supply. And among the Army Air Forces were a variety of numbered commands of which the 15th was one of about 16 or so, because the numbers were not all consecutive. But the, uh, command structure was such that every one of the numbered air forces was responsible for a geographic area across the world.

So doesn't it— just for me, the layman— so it's— there's a word missing. It's 15th Air Force what? Command 15th Air Force what?

Uh, well, the full name was the 15th U.S. Army Air Force.

Well, okay, so to— all right, I don't want to belabor the point, but to a layperson it sounds odd. There was only one U.S. Air Force, so how could there be a 15th Air Force?

Well, that was a peculiarity that, uh, General Hap Arnold, the chief of the Army Air Forces, uh, hit upon.

And rather than designated strictly regional commands such as the 8th Air Force in Britain Um, oh, because there wasn't really an Air Force, it was part of the Army.

Yes, sir, that's correct.

Okay, I get it.

Okay, so they really make the distinction. Yeah, you're right.

I see. When was the Air Force actually started?

Well, the, uh, the U.S. Air Force as we know it, as an independent entity, well, that would have been in October of 1947.

Okay, so that's 2 years after the war. All right, so let's talk about this. Why you You say they're forgotten. That's the title of your book, Forgotten 15th. If they were as important as you make them out to be, why are they forgotten?

You know, that's really one of the primary motivations I had for writing the book, Dennis, because in the course of my career, if I can call it a career, of writing aviation history, I got to know dozens, scores of veterans of the 15th Air Force. And along the way, it occurred to me that although the 15th, based in Italy, was responsible for the southern half of the joint U.S. and British strategic bombing campaign, even today, 70 years later, it's largely unknown. And I think one of the flippant responses I had from one of my 15th Air Force contributors hits pretty close to home. He says, well, think about it. If you were a war correspondent, would you rather sip single malt scotch in a London hotel, or would you rather swill freshly brewed vino under canvas in Foggia, Italy? So the perceived glamour of the European theater of operations that was run out of Britain was a factor right from the start. And if you look at who covered those two areas of operation, the Mediterranean and the European theaters, you see all the heavy hitters in London and elsewhere in Great Britain. You had Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, even Andy Rooney to an extent with Stars and Stripes. Whereas down in not-so-sunny Italy, The only well-known correspondent or reporter was Ernie Pyle, and on top of that you had the irreverent humor of cartoonist Bill Mauldin. But when you run down the who's who of journalism in World War II America, it was all London-based.

I got you, it's a very good answer. Okay, so let me ask you this: how dangerous, and Alaska-specific if there is an answer, What was the casualty rate in the 15th Air Force?

Actually, in the 15th, it was probably not a lot different than in the 8th, which had the same mission, strategic bombing, and they both flew the identical same aircraft, B-17 and B-24 bombers and P-38s, P-47, P-51 fighters. Before the arrival of the long-range P-51 Mustang at the end of 1943 in Britain and in the spring of '44 1944 in Italy, it was almost statistically impossible for a heavy bomber crew to finish a 25-mission tour because the average rate of loss among heavy bombers operating over occupied Europe was about 4% per mission. So you don't need to be a mathematical whiz to realize that 25 times 0.04 equals almost 100%, depending upon luck of the draw. So it was an extremely risky, uh, enterprise.

So the odds were overwhelming that you would die if you flew 25 missions?

Die or shot down and be captured, yes.

Well, I wanted— I just want that to sink into people. And yet these men did this, uh, I don't know, can I add, with— without complaint, or Were they dragged to the airplane? I mean, you know.

Well, I would not go so far as to say it was without complaint because down at the basic level at the squadrons and in the air crews, and there were 10 men in every heavy bomber, it didn't take too long before they realized that the odds really were stacked against them. It's pretty remarkable in context of the military and the world we live in today that that generation of airmen, the World War II generation, grew up expecting of themselves and their colleagues that they would complete any task they started. And yeah, there was griping. I think every commanding officer and every army since Varro's Third Legion in the 6th century probably has experienced griping. But the main thing to keep in mind is that the British and American bomber crews kept flying despite appalling losses, and only in early 1944 did the lines start to improve on the casualty charts, and it became more likely that you could survive a given tour of duty.

I will return in a moment. I am speaking to Barrett Tillman, T-I-double-L-M-A-N. His book is up at DennisPrager.com. It is titled Forgotten 15th: The Daring Airmen Who Crippled Hitler's War Machine. It's good for us to read today. Aside from being riveting, it's inspiring. Why they went on these missions, why they were so dangerous, who shot them down. We'll get to all of that. This is a history hour on the Dennis Prager Show. Hello, my friends. Dennis Prager here. This is a History Hour. Periodically, I devote an hour to a major new work of history. This is The Forgotten— there's no 'the' in it— Forgotten Fifteenth: The Daring Airmen Who Crippled Hitler's War Machine. Barret Tillman is the author of more than 40 books. He himself has flown airplanes and he is a perfect person to write about this. The 15th Air Force, which as I have learned or knew and forgot, was part— the Air Force was part of the Army. So this is the 15th Air Force of the Army. The Air Force became its own service in 1947. This was unbelievably dangerous. They knew how dangerous it is. The odds are that if you flew 25 missions, you either died or you were wounded. If they were shot down and they bailed out, how were they treated by the Germans?

By and large, the Allied airmen who were captured by Germany in World War II were well treated. And I think the main reason is that The German armed forces, that is the Wehrmacht overall, which is more than just the Army, it included the Luftwaffe and the Navy, maintained its own prisoner of war camps. And so it was highly bureaucratized, and that's simply because Hermann Göring, the Reichsmarschall, Hitler's heir apparent, was also head of the Luftwaffe, and he insisted on controlling all aspects of aviation in Germany, both military and civilian. So the huge majority of British and American and other Allied airmen who fell into captivity went almost directly to a Luftwaffe prisoner of war camp where Generally, they were spared the horrific treatment that other Allied personnel often received.

Yeah, and they also wanted their own flyers to be treated decently.

That is correct. It was a quid pro quo.

Yes, exactly. So then I'll restate my original question. Don't know if you have the answer, but what percentage were killed?

Oh boy, off the top of my head, I do not know. I do have the raw numbers, the total number of people who served in the 15th Air Force. It was up around 100,000, and of those who were killed, I could probably thumb through the book, but it was, I'm going to say, on the order of about 8,000 to 12,000, something like that.

Right. Okay, so that's very high, obviously. All right, so, uh, this was— these were done, and what was the— what were the primary targets of the 15th Air Force?

The 15th Air Force was directed to be established in late 1943, both by the the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington and the Allied Joint Combined Chiefs in London. And its primary mission was the destruction of Nazi Germany's petroleum and aircraft industries. But if you look at the map and draw a straight line, say from London southeast across Europe to Romania, and especially the area north of Bucharest, which was the the Pleiades complex. That's about 1,300 statute miles, and it was far beyond—

Exactly. So how did they do it?

Well, they did it by moving from North Africa where General Jimmy Doolittle, who was of course best known for the Tokyo raid in 1942, established the 15th Air Force in November of 1943 and moved his headquarters from Tunis up to the newly occupied portion of Italy around Bari and Foggia, which are on the Adriatic coast. So that put heavy bombers within pretty easy range of most of the strategic targets in southern and southeastern Europe, especially the Ploesti oil refineries, which were between 550 and 600 miles runway for the B-17s.

And, you know, in your book you, you have the data, and most of the— or not most, but the largest percentage of missions were not over Romania but over Italy.

Correct.

And so who were they bombing in Italy?

Well, uh, we need to remember that, uh, Italy was, uh, both geographically and politically divided from 1943 onward after Benito Mussolini was deposed. He was rescued in a spectacular commando operation by the Germans in 1943, and he was able to maintain a sizable force in the northern part of Italy, which today people don't realize remained in Axis hands until the end of the war in Europe. So there were still plenty of targets to attack in Italy, and because those were essentially local missions for long-range bombers. Uh, it just worked out that, uh, a large— the largest percentage—

tell me, I've always wondered about this. The bomber had no way to protect itself, did it?

No. Uh, the bombers were heavily, uh, armed. The B-17.

And also, they did not rely on fighter escort?

Not to start with. And there you get into the pre-war doctrinal arguments that grew up in the then the Army Air Corps as to whether heavily armed 4-engine bombers could defend themselves against determined fighter attack. And it turned out that they could not, which is why the people—

Yeah, that's why I asked the question. Okay, so go on.

Well, for instance, a B-17 or a B-24 had 10 to 12 heavy machine guns, 50 calibers, both in powered turrets and handheld. And they could put out a huge volume of firepower, but it was not terribly accurate fire. So the German fighters learned early on that if they could penetrate the Allied fighter screens, if they were present, a Gruppe, a Gruppe of German fighters, usually 30 to 36, could shred a bomber formation in a matter of minutes. Now, the Germans took heavy casualties, but they inflicted heavier casualties despite the heavy firepower that our bombers had. So that's why escort fighters were so critical.

Okay, so that's the reason that any of them got through, was basically because of the, the fighter escorts?

Correct. Although, of course, the fighters did not have a way to protect the bombers from Germany's highly capable anti-aircraft.

That was my next question. Exactly. Well, there's no way to— there's no way without modern, uh, you know, evasion, uh, electronic evasion. There's no way to avoid anti-aircraft fire. You can't shoot it down.

No, you just gotta pull your way through.

Yeah, exactly. All right, the book Forgotten 15th: The Daring Men Who Crippled Hitler's War Machine. This This is A History Hour on The Dennis Prager Show, back in a moment. I'm Dennis Prager. This is A History Hour. Periodically I devote an hour to some major new work of history, in this case Forgotten Fifteenth, the daring airmen who 'Tripled Hitler's War Machine.' Barrett Tillman, author of about 40 books, is the man who wrote this one. It is published by Regnery, and it is up at DennisPrager.com. You met some of the men who fought these missions?

Uh, yes, I, I sort of grew up among World War II airmen because I was blessed with an indulgent father who had been a naval aviation cadet in World War II, and we grew up restoring and flying historic aircraft. So when I was a pup learning to fly in the 1960s, nearly all of the other pilots I associated with were of the World War II generation. And later on, I became Secretary of the American Fighter Aces Association. So that expanded my database of those who had been there and done that. And consequently, I was I'm just tremendously blessed to have that personal touch among so many.

What is life like after you have done this for years? You have the adrenaline, the intensity, the, uh, the excitement, and I don't mean it as a, you know, necessarily, uh, obviously like a Disneyland ride, but it is literally exciting beyond words. How do you go back to normal life?

The huge majority of the World War II airmen did that. Of course, a lot of them stayed in the Air Force to make a 20 or 30-year career, but most did not. And I think it says a great deal for them that they, they were able to compartmentalize what they had gone through for those 2, 3, or 4 years and became the generation that my age group, my contemporaries enjoyed as our parents. But there are always some who never quite got over it, Dennis, and I'll mention one individual without citing his name, but he was a a P-51 pilot. He was an ace. I believe he shot down 8 enemy aircraft. And 40 years after the war, I was giving him a tour of the aviation museum where I worked here in Arizona, and he nudged me off to one side and he said, you know, you seem to feel more for what we went through than a lot of people. He said, I'm going to tell you something. And he kind of bit his lip and he looked over my shoulder and then he looked back at me and he said, "On the day the war ended, I sat down and cried and not out of relief that it was over." And I said, "You knew that you were never going to be that happy again." And he just nodded, he couldn't speak. So, that unforgettable experience never to be duplicated, uh, had profound—

this is very— this is a very important topic. You see, war is hell, but not for everyone. For, for some, it is the greatest experience of their lives. And I say this only with respect. There's no— there's nothing to knock here. My father was a, uh, was a, an officer in the Navy for 3 years in the Pacific.

I didn't realize that.

Yeah.

And by the way, I want to say, when I heard that your, your father had died, it just struck home, Dennis, because I lost my father earlier this year, and it just reinforced to me that regardless of our age, we are always our parents' children.

Oh God, yeah. You should read my essay on that very subject. That's exactly right. Uh, how much time do we have on this, uh, segment, Sean? Okay, good. Yeah, because this is, uh, he, he loved— I mean, look, he, he was on a ship bringing Marines to, to invade islands the Japanese controlled. Those were the very targets of kamikazes. And, and he, he speaks of those 3 years, and he was at— he was unbelievably happy after the war, but he speaks of them as among the happiest years of his life. It's a very fascinating issue that, you know, that doesn't deny that war is hell, but it isn't for everyone, even those fighting. Like everything else in life, it's complex. You get all of that in Forgotten Fifteenth, the daring airmen who crippled Hitler's war machine. Barrett Tillman is the author, back in 2007. In a moment. This is a History Hour on the Dennis Prager Show. Hello, my friends. This is a History Hour, an hour I devote periodically to a work of history. You don't know history, you don't have memory. You don't have memory, you don't exist. Think of the— think of a nation as an individual. If you lost your memory, you wouldn't be you. Our nation is losing its memory and it isn't itself. That's why— and the same, not just for our nation, for every nation, for the world in general. The book here is about a slice of World War II. The airmen, the guys who bombed Nazi targets, especially those in Italy and in Romania. Romania had the biggest oil fields, the Ploesti oil fields. And the book is Forgotten Fifteenth, the daring airmen who crippled Hitler's war machine. And they won't be forgotten after Barrett Tillman's book. Let's put it that way. And it's one of the reasons I wanted to feature it. Feature it. These Ploesti oil fields were, I have to believe, guarded spectacularly with anti-aircraft guns and gunners. How sophisticated were anti-aircraft guns then?

The Germans undoubtedly had the best anti-aircraft guns in the world, and we always hear about the fabled 88mm, which was also used as an anti-tank gun. But German anti-aircraft guns, I think, went up to about 120 caliber or a millimeter or so. And even though some of them were radar controlled, the German optics industry was so advanced, so sophisticated, that visual eyeball use through the, what are called directors, could provide extremely accurate anti-aircraft fire up above. 20,000 feet.

Wow.

So when you combine that with the very capable Luftwaffe and Romanian and Hungarian fighter forces, it was a slugfest that lasted almost 5 months in order to shut down the Ploesti oil fields, which provided about one-third of Hitler's oil.

They were destroyed by when?

Um, basically August of 1944.

Oh, well, that's, that's, uh, that's a year before the war ends. So it's about 9 months. Yeah, 9 months. So it took a really long time to do this.

Well, actually, it was a fairly concentrated campaign that began in April of 1944 while the 15th Air Force was still growing, and Over those 4 or 5 months, a greater and greater percentage of 15th bombing missions went eastward to Ploiești. And I address it in the book, Forgotten 15th, where you can track the waxing and waning fortunes of the Axis oil—

Explain to me again. I didn't follow this. Plane is flying at night at 20,000-plus feet. How in those days was an anti-aircraft gunner going to find that plane?

Well, that was a concern certainly for the British, who operated almost entirely at night, but the Americans were determined to continue with their pre-war doctrine of what passed for precision strategic bombing in daylight, which of course made it, uh, easier for the anti-aircraft.

Okay, right. Okay, I see, I see. So that's how the Nazi gunners would see— the German gunners would see them because it was daytime.

Correct.

And it had to be—

had radar-controlled guns for—

oh, they did. Okay, that's what I didn't quite follow. So, uh, of course that could only be done on a clear day. If there's a cloud cover it protects the plane, but the plane doesn't know what it's bombing.

There were a couple of methods that the 15th Air Force used to get around that. One of them was the use of what were called Pathfinders, and they were specially equipped bombers with precision radar sets that could identify reasonably small-sized targets such as an oil refinery.

Even while they're above the clouds?

Yes, correct. Well, if that's the case, why would they ever fly on a clear day or a clear Because the visually aimed bombs through the Norden bombsight were more accurate, whereas with the radar it was not as accurate as daylight bombing. However, the Romanians were pretty shrewd cookies, and they had a huge number of smoke generators covering all of those Ploesti refineries. and with as little as about 40 minutes advance notice, they could crank them up and obscure most of the targets on short notice. So it really compounded the 15th's efforts in precision bombing.

This isn't part of your subject, obviously, but were there any, for example, resistance fighters or any locals who were trying to sabotage those oil fields from the ground?

Not that I have heard of, Dennis. The only threat from the ground, of course, was substantial when the Soviets invaded Romania in the summer of 1944 and eventually occupied all of those oil fields.

I see. So here's the great question, and I guess you'll have to— how much time are we at here, Shawn? Well, I can ask you this then. And now we have a minute before the break. How significant was the contribution of the 15th?

It was enormously significant because from the start, as I say, the 15th Army Air Force was stood up specifically to attack German petroleum and industry on the southern periphery of Europe. And after August of '45, '44 when the Ploesti refineries shut down and then were occupied, we saw the results as far away as nearly 1,000 miles to the northwest when the, the Germans ran out of fuel during the Ardennes Offensive in December in the Battle of the Bulge.

Yep, that's, that's, that's a good indication. The book Forgotten Fifteenth: The Daring Airmen Who Crippled Hitler's War Machine. The book is up at DennisPrager.com. Final segment of this History Hour coming up. I'm Dennis Prager, and this is the final segment of this History Hour. Periodically I have a History Hour, some major new work of history. Forgotten Fifteenth: The Daring Airmen Who Crippled Hitler's War Machine. Barrett Tillman's latest of 40 or so books. After 33, one stops counting. That's been my experience with authors. That was a joke. I don't meet many authors who've written more than 33 books, but, uh, it's, it's important stuff that he works at. What's the takeaway of all of this? Do you, uh, did writing the book, was it a catharsis? did you leave with just the feeling these were special people?

Well, I have written a couple of books that were therapeutic either to me or co-authors, but primarily, Dennis, the main benefit that I see as the author is the satisfaction that the remaining veterans of the 15th Air Force finally get to see because, as I said, they have been ignored for so long that finally someone became their advocate is the best way I can put it. To hear from them is extremely gratifying. I'll just mention one person. There's a lady in Minneapolis whose father is one of the heroes of this book. A flight surgeon shot down in a B-24 over Vienna, and Dr. Leslie Kaplan, who was a Jewish officer, and he worked minor miracles for months tending to sick and injured American prisoners in German captivity. And even though he was Jewish, the, the Luftwaffe treated him pretty much the same.

Did they know he was?

Yes, they did, and he made no secret of it.

Wow, what a story.

Yeah, if you want to look up hero, look up Leslie Kaplan.

Did these guys fly with, uh, amulets, talismans, pictures of sweethearts, Bibles? What did they take with them that had nothing to do with fighting?

It's interesting you mention that because the first magazine article I sold was called Confessions of a Superstitious Aviator. And not that I was terribly superstitious, but the subject interested me. So I found that dating from World War I, if not before, various airmen in various countries have used not just rabbit's feet, but pine cones, nuts and bolts, silk scarves. In the French Air Force in World War I, World War I, it was widely held that, uh, the strongest medicine possible was a garter removed from the leg of the bird.

Long live the French and long live your book, Barrett Tillman: Forgotten 15, up at my website. Thank you so much. This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com. Dennisprager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.