Mustaleski Crew

"Mustaleski" Crew Memories

All photos courtesy of Robert Kirkwood

Judge John H. Kirkwood (Ret.) - Montesano, WA

Dear Mr. Bates:

Responding to your A Bit-O-Lace Home page, our crew flew on 42-97976 on three different occasions, although we were eventually assigned to the Blue Hen Chick, 43-38719;the last time being to Kiel, and this was, literally, almost the last for all us, including 976.

Blue Hen Chick
43-38719
(image - click bigger, use browser back)

Our first mission in 976 was on January 21, 1945, to the city of Mannheim. I was flying as togglier, and distinguished myself by being unable to release our load of propaganda leaflets. The bomb switch failed to operate, and the pilot directed me to operate the releases manually. A subsequent critique revealed that the mechanism was frozen solid, so I was exonerated. I was out on the catwalk with a walkaround bottle, and I can still see the city with all of the snow some five miles below us. The next thing I saw was my oxygen hose swaying loose, off the bottle. Discretion being the better part of valor, I went back to the nose, informing the
pilot of my frustration.

Our second mission in 976 was on February 16, 1945, our second attempt at playing fighter-bomber at a railroad bridge in Wesel, on the Rhine River. We missed, naturally.

The third mission on 976, was, as they say, the charm.
damaged Miss Lace

"This airplane feels funny."    Right over Kiel, and seconds before the bomb release, I heard the co-pilot say that "This airplane feels funny." Seconds later the tail gunner, who had regained his power of speech, blurted out something to the effect that part of "The tail was gone." A flak shell had gone right through the left horizontal tail, leaving only a partial surface, and completely removing the left elevator.
   We dropped out of the formation, and tried to drop the bombs, but the electrical system failed. We flew north a minute or so, the plane now in the hands of the pilot. The pilot did not want to drop over Denmark, so we turned out over sea, and dropped via screwdriver. Actually, we were over Schleswig-Holstein, according to my position, but it was close, and Tom did not want to chance killing danes. (Though a staff-sergeant, I had checked out as navigator after our regular navigator had been assigned to Pathfinders, and had been flying as such since March 10, 1945.)
   We flew on, at a reduced speed, far out to sea on a west-south-west course with occasional ETA's to the pilot. Several fighters joined us, and finally we got back to the base, and the runway was cleared for us. A decision had to be made by the pilot: To jump or ride her in.. Tom decided that he could land the plane, so we all congregated to the radio room, and that was that.
   I might add that none of us had any desire to jump. Most of the photos of 976 were taken after repairs, hence the dark colored rudder and left elevator. As you know, the color prior to the damage was silver. 976 flew one or two missions after that, but I never saw her again, other than in a color photo of the moth-balled fleet in Arizona.

Several photos in the recently published History of the 447th Group Appear of 976 on pp. 258 and 306.
Kirkwood crew picture with damaged Miss Lace
Our crew, as it appears on p. 258 is as follows:
Rear
L to R
            Pilot:                           Thomas Mustaleski
            Co-Pilot:                      James Grewe
            Bombardier:                 George Szewczyk
            Waist Gunner:              Armando Cioccke
            Radio Operator:            Alex Staples
            Navigator:                    John Kirkwood

Front
L to R
             Radio monitor:           Unknown, I'm sorry to say.
                                             This man was sent along, on this mission,
                                              to monitor the German (Luftwaffe) radio traffic.
                                              Probably intelligence gathering.
            Top Turret:                P.I. Farley
            Tail Gunner:               Clarence Walker
            Crew Chief:               Not our regular so I didn't know him
            Ball Turret:                William Grove

Photos taken by John H. Kirkwood

vertical stabilizer

Tail Gunner: Clarence Walker

damaged Miss Lace

Left vertical stabilizer wing root damagd

damaged Miss Lace