Photo By Karen Abeyasekere | U.S. Army Air Corps 1st Lt. Charlie Wilson, left, and 1st Lt. Billy Bittle, both 350th...... read more read more
Subscribe
With just $10 in his pocket, 20-year-old Charles “Charlie” Wilson hitch-hiked to Canada from his hometown of Ft. Worth, Texas, in 1942, to begin his military career in the Royal Canadian Air Force as an enlisted sergeant-pilot, after being told he couldn’t become an officer with the U.S. Army Air Corps due to not having the pre-requisite two years of college education.
“As the U.S. became more involved with the war, the Army Air Corps needed those pilots who’d been trained by the Canadians back in the States,” said Curtis Wilson, about his father, 1st Lt. Charlie Wilson, 100th Bomb Group pilot and World War II veteran. “He trained in a B-17 Flying Fortress, and flew one from the States to Europe in September 1944 after being assigned to the 100th Bomb Group at Thorpe Abbotts, Norfolk, England. Dad had heard about the Royal Canadian Air Force allowing young Americans to join, and put them through flight school, so he received his wings under the RCAF.
From RCAF to USAAC
“The war started to get hot and heavy, and the losses were big. The then-USAAC hadn’t been able to get enough Airmen through their training channels, so they contacted the Canadians and said, ‘You’ve got a lot of our boys up there – we’d like to compensate you for the money you’ve spent getting them their wings,’ then brought them back into the Army Air Corps,” Curtis explained. “Once assigned to the 100th Bomb Group, Dad had to take a field commission to become a lieutenant.”
As a pilot, Charlie Wilson was assigned to the 350th Bomb Squadron. Each squadron was made up of four elements, and Charlie flew as lead pilot in his element for about half his missions. Throughout his combined military and later civilian flying career, he amassed 26,000 flying hours as a pilot.
The World War II veteran’s son shared that his dad didn’t talk much about the war, and said he believed it wasn’t because it brought back horrible memories, but more that when all the young men who survived returned to the U.S., to them their job was done, and they just wanted to restart and get on with their lives.
Piggyback mission
“When I was younger, my dad told me three things about the war that just fascinated him,” Curtis recalled. “The first was about when he witnessed two B-17s that collided, in flight, and became stuck together. That was the Dec. 31, 1944, Hamburg mission which later became known as ‘The Piggyback Flight’. Captain Glenn Rojohn (pilot of the guiding B-17) and my dad remained friends many years after the war, through the 100th BG reunions. Dad thought it was a remarkable sight and remembered flying lead of his element that day and telling them to bail out, as it looked like it was not going to have a good ending.”
Rojohn had been flying his B-17 on a raid over Hamburg and his formation had received heavy flak to drop their bombs, turning 180 degrees to head out over the North Sea. After turning northwest to head back to England, they were met by German fighters at 22,000 feet. The Me-109 Messerschmitt was so close, he could see the faces of the German pilots. Rojohn maneuvered his plane in an attempt to fill a gap in the formation, while at the same time another B-17 – piloted by Lt. William McNab – headed upwards to fill the same formation gap.
The two aircraft collided and the turret guns of the second B-17 pierced the thin aluminum belly of Rojohn’s aircraft. The two became locked together, and although he tried everything to get them unstuck, it was to no avail. Despite that, Rojohn and his co-pilot maintained control while at least 12 crewmen in both aircraft bailed out. McNab and his co-pilot were both dead at their controls, and to this day, it’s still not known whether it was the German fighters or the crash that killed them. Other crew members on Rojohn’s plane also died.
Rojohn managed to steer the stuck planes back towards Germany for a crash landing. As soon as the two planes hit the ground, his aircraft slid off the bottom plane, which exploded, but he and his co-pilot escaped with just minor injuries. The only thing left of their B-17 was the cockpit, nose and pilots’ seats.
Recollections of war
“The second thing my dad would mention when asked about World War II was about a squadron of the Luftwaffe, later and mistakenly known as the Rammjagers. It was actually the Sonderkommando Elbe that was the name of the World War II Luftwaffe task force assigned to bring down heavy bombers by ramming them in mid-air,” explained Curtis. “This was late in the war – 1944 or 1945 – and allegedly, German fighter planes were loaded up with TNT explosives, and were supposed to crash through the formation to try and blow up an airplane or two. My dad witnessed one incident where he saw a German pilot coming through the formation in an ME-109 Messerschmitt and hit an aircraft called ‘E-Z Goin,’’ piloted by Carl Martin and Henry ‘Hank’ Cervantes.
“My dad didn’t want to believe that the Germans would do a suicide mission like the Japanese Kamikaze pilots back then – in spite of the fact that they were the enemy, he had too much respect for them to believe that was their objective. What they thought the Germans were supposed to do was set the course for the formation then bail out at the last minute. He said for years that he thought the German pilot had taken a round and was dead in the cockpit, so the aircraft was errant when it hit into E-Z Goin’, April 7, 1945, over Buchen, Germany. It was only later that they learned there was, in fact, a top-secret squadron of German pilots who would fill their airplane with explosives and fly into the formation, then bail out just before it hit,” recalled Curtis.
He added that the third memory his father shared was how the realities of war were really getting to him by the time he reached his 10th mission.
“Dad said he didn’t want to meet with the new guys who were coming in – the replacement crews – because you’d get to know them then when you came back from a heavy mission which suffered heavy losses, the bunks would be empty…
“He also told me he had so much respect for the guys who were there before him in the 100th Bomb Group. After getting there late in 1944, he knew the devastation that the Eighth Air Force had suffered in the early stages of our involvement in the war,” said Curtis. “He knew of the heavy losses and the names of the guys he didn’t get to meet who were POWs; he had great respect for them. He also had tremendous respect for the enlisted personnel who worked with him at Thorpe Abbotts, including Master Sgt. Ken Lemmons (aircraft mechanic) and many like him.”
Piloting the skies, enlisted to officer
As a sergeant-pilot coming out of Canada and flying as a commander with three stripes on his arm, Wilson had shared with his son that it caused a lot of consternation.
“He was always asked, ‘Hey, what are you doing with those wings with an enlisted sergeant patch?’” recalled Curtis. “But he got his commission, and during his time at Thorpe Abbotts with the 350th Bomb Squadron, flew 32 combat missions – including Hamburg, Berlin, Merseburg, Ruhland and Bremen. Although Dad was never shot down, he went on one mission where 23 airplanes launched and only eight came back. He told me he once counted more than 200 flak holes in his plane, which I believe was called ‘Bachelor’s Heaven.’”
These significant losses earned the 100th BG their nickname, the “Bloody Hundredth.”
From combat to humanitarian missions
In addition to his combat missions, Charlie Wilson flew one or two Operation Chowhound missions (the air dropping of food supplies to the Dutch population) and two end-of-hostilities missions, when U.S. aircrew repatriated prisoners of war and French underground personnel from captivity in Linz, Austria, to Paris, May 19, 1945. Curtis shared that his dad often bragged about buzzing the Eiffel Tower as they flew into Paris. Flying the French PoWs was something he was most proud of.
For his participation in Operation Chowhound, Charlie Wilson was honored by the government of the Netherlands.
“Dad really felt a great deal of satisfaction dropping those food packages, and said it was very gratifying to help people instead of going out on bombing missions, though he was always concerned about the potential physical damage to the Dutch people from those boxes dropping at such a low altitude,” said Curtis.
Heroes one and all
“After the war, if somebody bragged about him in a room, he would make light of it – as many of these guys did. A lot of them who were more notable, like Rosie (Rosenthal) and Harry (Crosby), they had, I think, more responsibility to tell the story and to be more vocal, because their names reached higher than others, whether they wanted it or not. Post-war, they had a leadership role to play, to speak on behalf of the group. Rosie and Harry telling of the heroics of so many of the 100th Bomb Group veterans,” said Curtis.
After the war, Charlie Wilson went on to become based at Hickham Field, Hawaii.
“Back then, they had an option to come home to the U.S. on a ship, but Dad didn’t like boats and didn’t like water, so he chose to fly an airplane home instead, and ended up flying a B-17 back,” said the veteran’s son.
After the war
After Hawaii, Charlie Wilson left the U.S. Army Air Corps and became a pilot with Philippine Airlines. He also met his wife– a young Filipino flight attendant – and had three children, all born in Manila, Philippines. It was during his time there that he gained his soon-to-be-permanent nickname of “Hong Kong” Wilson, when a group of professional golfers were touring for a golf exhibition in the Philippine Islands. After flying there commercially, they switched to a domestic flight, which happened to be piloted by Charlie Wilson. Charlie was an avid sports fan and an above-average golfer himself.
“These were the five biggest names in golf at the time – the Tiger Woods of their day – including Jimmy Demaret, who became Dad’s best friend; Jackie Burke, Ed “Porky” Oliver, and Lloyd Mangrum, who as well as being a professional golfer, was also a D-Day veteran who landed on the beaches of Normandy,” recalled Curtis.
Nickname for life
“As well as being a golf professional, Demaret was also an actor and had been on many television shows back then. He liked to assign everybody nicknames and asked my dad where, in all his travels as a pilot, was his favorite city to layover? Dad’s answer was Hong Kong,” said Curtis. “There was a gentleman there who was a golf caddy – Demaret’s nickname for him was ‘Blackbird’ – who just laughed and laughed because he’d never heard of a place named ‘Hong Kong’. The next time he saw my dad, Blackbird said, ‘Mr. D, here comes ‘Mr. Hong Kong!’ and the name just stuck from then on. Everybody referred to him that way – he was even in the Houston phone book as Charlie ‘Hong Kong’ Wilson.”
Curtis recalled that as a young man he would attend the 100th Bomb Group reunions with his father and meet his dad’s crew, along with Gen. Thomas Jeffries, Lt. Col. Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal and Maj. Harry Crosby, plus many of the enlisted men who had also been stationed at Thorpe Abbotts during World War II.
Legacy of heroes
“To see them sit down and talk was wonderful,” he said. “I expected them to talk about mission-specific things and all of the details of the war, and on rare occasions they would. When asked to share their stories in detail, they would. But in social environments such as a restaurant, bar or hotel lobby, they didn’t talk about the war, their heroes or their buddies that they lost. They didn’t have to talk about the heroic things, the damage they had on their airplane when they made it back or how they felt about losing their squadron mates. They didn’t have a need to do that, as it was understood.
“These guys didn’t need to brag or boast about the fact they joined the military as 18, 19 and 20-year-olds during the start of World War II; but they loved getting together because of this deep, mutual respect and camaraderie they had for each other,” remarked Curtis. “I’m not just talking about the aircrews – my dad said every person who left to fight in this war had a story, whether they served coffee or mopped the floor. Every enlisted person who was a crew chief, a gunner or navigator left their mom, or kissed their sweetheart goodbye with the knowledge that it was a high-risk situation, because they were all American patriots. When people would press him for his story, he would just say, ‘I just went over and did my job, flew a few missions and I survived – a lot of my buddies didn’t.’ That’s about all you would get out of my dad.”
Curtis stressed that those who did choose to share their story also weren’t bragging.
“They felt compelled to tell their story to let history live, to not let these stories – which are so valuable to us today – die with them. Now there are only a handful of these guys left today,” he remarked.
Charlie Wilson passed away Jan. 11, 2013, in Austin, Texas.
“I’ve had the opportunity to travel to Thorpe Abbotts many times over the past several decades, many of those times with my father. He was helpful to Mike and Jean Harvey, Richard and Norma Gibson and the tower restoration group going back to the mid 1980’s,” recalled the 100th BG veteran’s son. “My dad supported the museum in many ways during the remainder of his life. Reflecting on my trips to Thorpe Abbotts, I have fond memories of meeting young Air Force personnel who were based at Royal Air Force Mildenhall. Many came out to pay homage; others came to volunteer on weekends helping with the restoration and displays. Their enthusiasm and dedication to the legacy of their unit – the 100th Air Refueling Wing – was amazing to witness each time I was there. This continues to this very day. There is a very special and wonderful connection to the rich history of the 100th Bomb Group of World War II, and today’s 100th ARW and all its personnel.
“My father always expressed enormous gratitude and respect to any military man or woman from all branches. I recall him saying, in spite of the advancements in aviation since World War II, it all still comes down to the men and women who dedicate their lives to the military and our country. I’ve had the opportunity to tour RAF Mildenhall and listen to presentations about the mission of the 100th ARW. I was impressed with the enormity in scope and territory the 100th supports today,” said Curtis. “The global coordination and success for mission specific needs could not happen without the dedicated men and women based at RAF Mildenhall who wear the Square D on their uniform. To all of them, I salute you.”
| Date Taken: | 12.12.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 12.13.2024 08:12 |
| Story ID: | 487390 |
| Location: | THORPE ABBOTTS, NORFOLK, GB |
| Web Views: | 93 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, WWII veteran’s son shares father’s journey from RCAF sergeant-pilot to commissioned USAAC pilot, by Karen Abeyasekere, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
