P-47 ditching story (22 October 1944)

21 October 1944, was scheduled as a maintenance day for the 311^th. The other two squadrons sent off routine missions. The 310^th sent 15 planes to bomb Haroekoe. The pilots noted a heavy build-up in a front along the south coast of MacCluer Gulf, already closed in up to 12,000 feet. Heavy rain prevented them from continuing to the primary target and they turned to the secondary one, the airdrome at Sagan. These missions did not return until after noon. At 1200 Noon orders were received by the 58th to conduct a fighter sweep to Ambon Bay at once. The fighter sweep was to include all serviceable aircraft. These orders were the result of a reconnaissance report that seven Japanese transports had been seen entering the bay that morning. At 1330 in the afternoon eight planes from the 310th, followed by seven from the 311th, took off from Noemfoor. Major Ed Roddy, 58th Group Operations Officer, led the 310th. Major Odren led the 311th, accompanied by Bob Powell, Assistant Operations Officer, three Flight Leaders, Jack Brown, Steve Benner and George Taylor, and Element Leaders Ken Crepeau and Don Murrie. This appeared to be a choice mission and all the squadron leaders had assigned themselves to make the flight. If they found the shipping as suspected, they were to try the rather new bombing technique — skip bombing. Upon arriving over the target a thorough search of the area failed to disclose any shipping larger than luggers and barges.

The 310th, first on the target, reported to have sunk a lugger and damaged others. As Roddy left the target area he spotted a four-engined flying boat, an Emily, anchored on the west side of Binnen Bay. Six pilots strafed the enemy craft, obtaining numerous hits, but the plane did not burn. The 311th claimed another lugger sunk, with two direct bomb hits. Upon leaving the target, the two squadrons were separated. Major Roddy, worried about shortage of fuel and shepherding a crippled plane, headed directly for Middleburg Island, the closest Allied base. 1st Lt. Russell P. “Bucky” Harris, leading an element in P-47D- 16 No. 42-76051, had had a close call with enemy ack-ack. His left wing was hit as he made his initial run on the concentration of barges and Luggers, and in spite of personal danger as a result of the damage, he continued his attack, making successful strafing runs on enemy craft. Soon he became aware of fire in the wing, and reported this to Major Roddy. The fire continued to burn for about twenty minutes, then stopped. It had burned out all of the hydraulic fluid. The fire also burned out the left aileron control and the connection to the airspeed indicator. Harris managed to keep the plane in the air for the return to Middleburg where he crash-landed without injury to himself. The aircraft was heaving damaged and turned over to the local service squadron for repair or salvage.

Major Odren elected to try to reach Noemfoor, which was reporting good weather at that hour. In New Guinea, in the monsoon season, as the heat of the day increases, the thunderstorms build up rapidly to very great heights. As the pilots approached MacCluer Gulf they found a solid weather front had built up from sea level to an altitude beyond the capability of the Thunderbolts. Odren immediately turned northward along the front, hoping to get around it and into Middleburg. They soon discovered that the front had extended across the Vogelkop and was moving across the water so fast that it was impossible to go around it.

Seeing that it was impossible to get through, Major Odren decided that their best chance of survival would be to ditch the planes as close together as possible and await rescue. The flight had inched its way northward into the Dampier Straits and Odren decided on one of the small islands situated between Batanta Island on the south and Waigeo Island on the north. The first plane in was Bob Powell and he was followed in rapid succession by Major Odren, Steve Benner, Kenny Crepeau, Jack Brown and George Taylor. Only one pilot Jack Brown, was injured. As Jack brought his aircraft in for the water landing the sudden impact forced his head against the instrument panel, breaking his nose. For some unknown reason Lieutenant Don Murrie had enough fuel remaining to climb to higher altitude and remained aloft in order to establish a radio fix on their position. Accomplishing this, he was the last to ditch, at about 2045 hours. Murrie’s action undoubtedly helped to facilitate the rescue and possibly saved some of his buddies lives.

A radio controller at Sansapor had listened to the plight of the pilots and had obtained the radio fix on Lieutenant Murrie. The next morning the 2nd ERS Catalinas and P-47s of the 58th Group were dispatched to search for the downed men. Before dawn on 22 October the 310th sent four planes off at 0430 — mission number 390 — the purpose — to search for seven missing "Tubby’ pilots." These four pilots found nothing. Mission 391 departed at 0830, this time eight planes were sent out. They arrived in the search area and found three pilots in the water northwest of Batanta Island. They immediately called the Catalinas flying boats. Two of the 311th pilots were in life vests and the third was clinging to some driftwood. Catalina "Daylight 13" landed and picked up two of these pilots. Catalina "Daylight 33" picked up the other pilot.

A third (4 aircraft) and fourth (2 aircraft) 310th search missions departed Noemfoor at 1030 hours. Mission number 392 spotted the tail end of one aircraft sticking out of the water on a reef at Mansfield Island, north of Batanta Island. 2nd ERS Catalina, "Daylight 33" was called to the area and picked up a pilot at about noon. A B-25 assisted in this mission. These pilots also found a single-engine enemy fighter crash-landed on the south side of Joe Island, east of Gebe Island. The last mission remained in the area until 1710, when they finally landed at Middleburg and learned that all seven pilots had been rescued.

Steve Benner and Ken Crepeau had reached Batanta Island early in the evening and eventually joined up together. They were rescued first, (See photos [photo 1][photo 2] of the pilots on Batanta Island) along with Don Murrie, who had also reached Batanta, being picked up about 1030 the morning of the 22nd. Bob Powell, Jack Brown and George Taylor were unable to remove their one-man life rafts from their sinking planes and had remained in the water in their Mae Wests overnight. They were picked up by another Catalina after spending 15 to 20 hours in the water. Odren, who did not reach Batanta until noon, was the last to be rescued, being picked up by a Cat about 1330. Jack Brown and George Taylor required hospitalization upon reaching Sansapor, for the broken nose, minor injuries and exposure. The other five pilots were returned to Noemfoor by late evening.

Major Odren submitted his official report, dated 23 October 1944:

"On 21 October 1944, I was leading a flight of seven P-47 airplanes of the 311th Fighter Squadron on a bombing mission to Ambon Harbor. I took off from Noemfoor Island at 1330. The weather was good here and fair all the way out, however, in the meantime, a bad front with thunderstorms had built up extending from east of Babo around the coast of Jefman on Dutch New Guinea. At 1730, I arrived back over the New Guinea coast and saw that I would be unable to get through to Noemfoor. Then I proceeded immediately towards Middleburg. While proceeding back around the front. I learned the front was moving west almost as fast as I was and I was unable to get around. I then called my flight and told them that we would all force land near a small island in Dampier Straits. Lieutenant Murrie for some reason still had approximately 100 gallons of gas and asked if he could climb to 20,000 feet to give the controller at Sansapor a chance to determine our exact location while the rest of the formation was landing. I ran out of gas at 1930 and made a forced landing along with the other five. An hour and fifteen minutes later, while sitting in my life raft, I saw Lieutenant Murrie return and force land near the same island. Early the following morning I saw P-47’s, P-38’s and Catalinas out searching for us. I was the last man to he rescued at approximately 1530 from Batanta Island, which I had reached at noon.”

Sixty-some odd years later, the pilots involved in this disastrous mission still have some vivid memories of what happened. Major “Ody” recalls:

HARRY ODREN

HARRY ODREN - "I also vividly recall the mission on October 21st over the Vogelkop to near Ceram. when Powell, Brown, Taylor, Crepeau, Murrie, Benrier and I were weathered out of all friendly bases on the return trip and we all ditched our planes in the sea. On the return leg back to Noemfoor we were in radio contact with friendly threes, who were well aware of our predicament. We discussed our plight and since fuel was running low, we agreed the best solution was to ditch near an island and hopefully get to shore, so we could all be rescued. Unfortunately when we landed in the water it was dark, the tide was going out, and only Benner, Crepeau and, I believe, Murrie made it to shore. Powell, Brown arid Taylor spent the night in lifejackets, and I was fortunate to get into my dinghy and waited until the next day when I was picked up in the PM by a Duckbutt’ (a PBY Catalina rescue plane). All of us were rescued and returned to the hospital or our home unit, and a big party, Some of the pilots were evacuated to the States (Brown and Taylor). Others, including me were returned to our units and back to flying missions.” Bob Powell, the man the 310th pilots saw clinging to debris in the ocean, tells of his experiences on this ill-fated mission: "I was on the October 21st flight to Ceram for a strike on shipping in Ambon Harbor. Ceram was the outer limits of our range and we always returned to Noemfoor with a limited supply of fuel.

This was our first afternoon flight to that target, since we had been limited to morning strikes, with the weather usually turning bad in the afternoon. On the way back from the target we tried to top and skirt the weather that had socked in the entire area. When these efforts failed and fuel tanks were nearly empty, we had no choice but to ditch. We were over the ocean at the time, with land to the south. I called Odren, who was leading the flight, and told him I was showing empty and I was going in. He said the rest of them would be following. I recall it was sunset and I dropped down on the deck heading for land. I wanted to ditch close enough to land that I could hopefully make shore, I cut the throttle and glided in for ditching, cut the ignition and leveled off just above the water. I hit a hell of a lot harder than expected and knocked myself senseless for what seemed to be a few seconds, When I came to, the nose of the plane was sinking, so I unbuckled and jumped out onto the wing but before I could grab my life raft the tail came up and I slid off the wing into the water. My plane sank like a rock. So I ended up with my life vest and my ‘.45’, which wasn’t worth much at that point. By the time I got oriented I could no longer see and I spent the night floating around with my thoughts, and believe me I had some wild ones — including a thought or two about sharks! I also thought about how handy my life raft would have been about then, At one point during the night I actually tell asleep while floating. (Bob had flown a four-hour weather reconnaissance mission on the morning of the 21st). The ocean was not perfectly calm butt kinda bobbed up and down in the shallow swells. When morning came I developed another problem — the Co2 had gone down in my ‘mae west’ and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the air tubes unscrewed to blow air into the vest. As I lost buoyancy I had to tread water to keep afloat.

With daylight I could see land and started swimming toward shore but I wasn’t able to close the distance. I was concerned about wasting my energy. so I gave up swimming since my more pressing problem was to stay afloat. Later in the morning I saw a four ship flight of P-47s searching the area to the northwest — I think — of me. I prayed they would come near enough to see me but no such luck as they flew off in the opposite direction, A short time later a two ship flight flew directly over me, but again no such luck. By this time I was completely exhausted from trying to stay afloat — I began to think this was it! Now this next part is hard to believe — but so help me it is true. I was looking out across the span of water toward the horizon when I noted a bird, sea gull size, sitting on the water. I thought I must be seeing things but, sure enough, there it was! Then I saw the bud was sitting on what looked like a tree branch — my God, it was a tree! I amazed myself with the strength I mustered to swim to the object and it was a tree about 40 foot long. Only the Good Lord could have put that tree in the ocean at that time. I climbed on and straddled the trunk of that baby and thanked the Lord. About what seemed to be an hour or so later, another two ship flight of 47’s came in sight. I took off my life vest, swung it in the air and hit the water. The second plane peeled off and came straight for me. it made two passes, rocked his wings. then circled. About ten minutes later a PBY arrived, landed. taxied over and picked me up at what turned out to be about 10:30 AM. I was so elated over the rescue I didn’t feel the exhaustion until I returned to base. I recall the back of my legs were like raw beefsteak from my pants rubbing them during the long swim. Steve Benner and Kenny Crepeau reached Batanta Island and found each other on the beach." Ken relates this story of their adventure. Read the other stories:

KEN CREPEAU

KEN CREPEAU - "The night where our seven ships bellied in at night is quite clear in my memory, We started out with eight but one snafued after takeoff and returned to base — I can’t remember who it was. It was the longest mission any’ of us had ever flown, seems it lasted most part of the day and part in darkness. After completing our bombing and heading home — I remember we made several strafing runs on some enemy shipping. sinking one, l’m sure we were perhaps halfway home when we ran into some extremely bad weather. Ody. being our leader, tried in vain several times to fly around or over it. With our fuel supplies running low it was decided our best action was to ditch together as close to one another as possible. I don’t know how, considering the vast amounts of ocean we were flying over, but "Ody" found a small piece of land to ditch close to. By this time it was getting dark and most of us had our gasoline warning lights lit up.

Don Murrie was in the best shape fuel wise and "Ody" had him fly as high and as long as possible with his pip squeak turned on, before he joined us in the water. This land we were flying over had a coral reef stretching out into the water. It appeared phosphorescent and not too deep in the blackness. Here I thought I would go in. Ody instructed us to prepare to ditch, canopy open, straps locked, full flaps, gear up and landing lights on. He wanted us down as close as possible and with landing lights on we were less apt to land too close. I remember him saying not to establish a glide down the steep beam of the landing light. I don’t remember who went in first, but after seeing one or two splashes, I went in. The ship slid in real smooth and I was safely down. My first thought was to clear myself from the cockpit to avoid going down with it. I jumped on my wing root and shoved off. The plane sank at once. Even with my Mae West fully inflated I was rapidly becoming exhausted in my effort to reach shore. My .45 in my shoulder holster caused me a lot of discomfort so I flipped it away next came my shoes. -After swimming, floating and dog-paddling for what seemed like hours my feet finally hit bottom. I staggered ashore and collapsed, throwing-up and coughing up half the ocean. There, standing on shore above me and hale and hearty was Steve Benner, my flight leader. He told me later he thought I might be a Jap and was ready to blow me away. Because, I suppose due to his training at the Point and his ability to think early in an emergency, he had brought his entire bail-out kit ashore with him. I had left mine back in my ship with my chute. After helping me out of the surf he was very generous with his rations. He shared food, water and cigarettes with me. Also his shelter half. The shore was covered with crabs and in order to get any rest we buried ourselves up to our heads with sand and covered our heads with his shelter half, tent like. We weren’t sure we had made shore on Jap held territory or not, so decided not to investigate until daylight. Very early the next morning a flight of ‘Jugs’ found us and gave us a good buzz job. I later found out they were 310th boys. Murries late night signal had given them their search directions. Shortly after, an air-sea flying boat landed, taxied to shore and picked us up. We made one more pick up (Murrie). One of us had managed to attach himself to a large floating tree limb and stayed with it. I think it was Bob Powell. Later that night there was much rejoicing in our own area, knowing that all seven of us had been picked up safely.” The hero of the disaster, Don Murrie, related his story of this mission and his rescue the next day:
DON MURRIE

DON MURRIE - We were out to get some Jap shipping. I don’t recall whether we did any damage or not but on the way home Odie decided to take us around a bad weather build-up over the mountains with a swing through the Halmahera Strait. By then it was getting dark and the guys were beginning to run out of juice! I think I stayed up longer than the others because I was running on the leanest mixture possible before cut-off, and with full turbo to boot! I don’t know how the engine took it but she continued long enough for me to get enough altitude for a radio fix Before the fuel warning light came on permanently. It bothered me. so I pulled out the bulb and put it in a pocket for a souvenir. I think it’s still somewhere around the house. Anyway, I had time to select a spot to ditch not far off the island. The little life raft worked just as advertised and I spent the rest of the night on the beach with my loaded .45 in my mitt! In the morning a couple of (P-38) "Lightnings" came by. The vertical stablizer of my wreck was about half out of the water so they used it for a little gunnery practice. I don’t know whether they saw me or not. Shortly afterward I put out to sea and was picked up by the "Cat" One of the Cat crew offered to buy my pistol for a good price but being an honorable officer of the USAAF I had to turn him down. After everyone was safe and sound I learned that I wasn’t the only one on the island that night! I don’t remember who it was (Benner and Crepeau) but it was a good thing that we didn’t go exploring because someone would have certainly been shot by a friend with a nervous trigger finger! I can’t find my flight record but I bet I broke the record for the longest time airborne for that model of the P-47 in the Pacific at that time."

According to Major Odren’s mission report, Don Murrie had flown seven hours and fifteen minutes.

This mission had cost the 311th the following aircraft:1
Harry M. Odren Stephen 0. Benner Jack T. Brown George E. Taylor Robert W. Powell Kenneth J. Crepeau Donald L. Murrie	P-47D-21, No. 43-25642 P-47D-21, No. 42-25417 P-47D-15, No. 42-23235 P-47D-23, No. 42-27631 P-47D-21, No. 43-25636 P-47D-16, No. 42-75935 P-47D-16, No. 42-75893

Major Odren’s regular assigned aircraft was undergoing a plug change at this time and Odren was flying Jander’s “Santa Maria.” His crew chief, Harlan Nail was very upset when Odren came up missing in action, as demonstrated by his letter home after the incident:

“I was really worried about Major Odren for two days. He was missing but he is like a good luck charm — always turns up — Thank God! Odren was the last to be picked up by the PBY two days later. He brought back the aluminum paddle out of his one man life raft. He said he had used it to fight the sharks until he realized if he left them alone they didn’t bother the boat. He always used a small inner tube in the bucket (seat) under his seat pack to give him more height and comfort. He told me he almost lost it, but was able to retrieve it and get back to his boat. The inner tube was as much a part of his equipment in the seat as his seat-pack (parachute) and I should know, as many times as I threw it in the seat before his seat-pack. Joe Madison took a condenser from a radio and repaired my electric razor so I am enjoying shaving again. Our squadron has been complimented by the 5th Fighter Command as having delivered the most bombs, the most hits on targets, and the best maintenance record in the Southwest Pacific. There are several fighter groups here so that is something to be proud of. I may be biased, but all fighter squadrons do not have as good a group of pilots as we have. I thought the food was lousy but we even came up missing the dog biscuits today. I don’t wish the Aussies any bad luck but hope to God they have a crop failure on black currants. Our Group C.O. says he can always tell when it is time to move on and things are too easy as the men start bitching. Guess it must be about time, I hope.

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