WW II pilot awarded Distinguished Service Cross

  • Published
  • By Tech Sgt. M. Erick Reynolds
  • 8th Air Force Public Affairs
BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La. (AFNS) --  In a long overdue award ceremony here Feb. 2, an American hero was presented the Army's Distinguished Service Cross for leading a formation of B-24s on an extremely dangerous mission during World War II.

Then-Capt. Walter T. Holmes, operations officer for the 68th Bombardment Squadron, 44th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force, was stationed in Libya when he volunteered to pilot a B-24 named "Wing and a Prayer."

On July 2, 1943, the 68th BS suffered a loss which moved Mr. Holmes into the operations officer position for his unit. Even though he had already completed his required 25 missions, he stayed on with the unit and continued to take every opportunity to fly the B-24 Liberator at his new deployed location in Libya. The word was that the unit was "preparing for something big," and he didn't want to miss the action, according to Mr. Holmes.

"I took every opportunity to fly," he said, according to memoir notes. "Flying at high altitudes allowed us to drink ice water ... and listen to Axis Sally."

Just before the start of the mission, the crew of "Wing and a Prayer" was short their pilot. 

Mr. Holmes stepped forward to accept what several of the crews had deemed a suicide mission, but every last man was willing to commit to. Many of the crews had completed 32 missions, six more than they needed to be taken off of the flying schedule.

"Gen. Brereton (commander of the U.S. Middle East Air Forces, later re-designated as 9th Air Force) said 'this mission would be worth it if we lost every last airplane,'" said Mr. Holmes. "It kind of got you pepped up, we were all very patriotic, and that is what our country was asking us to do."

They were being asked to fly a 2,100 mile round-trip mission to a very heavily-fortified oil refinery in Romania that produced a good majority of the fuel for the German military. The mission would include 177 B-24s flying the first ever low-level mission with heavy bombers through rough mountain terrain to accomplish the task. Shortly after take-off, while over the Mediterranean Sea, the lead bomber fell from the sky and was never heard from again, according to several accounts of the mission and Mr. Holmes. That set the tone for the mission; it would be the first of 54 of the bombers to be lost that day.

With the lead airplane for the entire mission now gone, Mr. Holmes and his crew pressed on leading one of the formations. As they approached the coast they started descending, flying through the mountains of Yugoslavia and Romania at extremely low altitudes.

As the formation cruised at tree-top level and approached the target area, Mr. Holmes recounted the experience about flying so close to the anti-aircraft weapons.
"There were a lot of fireworks that day, that was the first time we had ever seen 88 millimeter anti-aircraft cannons that close, it sure looked a lot different at 30,000 feet," he recalled. "The fire would come out of those things 40-50 feet and we were at 25 feet. Believe me; you can put a bomb on a bicycle when you're flying at 25 feet, you can't miss."

When the crew of "Wing and a Prayer" had dropped their payload, they turned to the coast heading back towards Libya. With the mission planned to the extent of the 2,100 mile combat range of the Liberator, several of the planes had to divert to Turkey. On this day, flying on the wings of his liberator, Mr. Holmes prayers were answered. Once they landed in Libya his crew chief approached him, after draining the airplane's fuel tanks, and informed them they had less than 10 minutes of fuel left when they touched ground. 

At the ceremony awarding Mr. Holmes the Distinguished Service Cross, Maj. Gen. Floyd Carpenter, vice commander, 8th Air Force (Air Forces Strategic), presented the award to Mr. Holmes two days before his 90th birthday and more than 65 years after the heroic raid.

"This is a historic day for all of us," said General Carpenter. "It's not very often that we get to stand among heroes."

Before the general pinned the nation's second highest military decoration on Mr. Holmes, General Carpenter shared a few words highlighting why the mission was so important that the crews would sacrifice so much, and then he talked about some of the other missions Mr. Holmes participated in.

"It's pretty amazing that he made it through the amount of sorties he did without getting shot down," General Carpenter stated as he held up a piece of shrapnel from one of Mr. Holmes' planes that had injured him while on a bombing mission over Germany. "In fact, he never lost a crewmember. This can be accredited to his flying skills, his great crew chief and his great crew."

The raid on the Ploesti Oil Refineries was Mr. Holmes 32nd and final mission. 

Memoir notes can be read at www.44thbombgroup.com. 

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