Charles Everard Dills
Courier Service
Courier Service
But it seemed like it might be a bit of a lark and it was only for a
week. So I volunteered.
A lean brown hand came down over my shoulder to shake hands and a
voice said, "My name's Clark." It was General Mark Clark, Commander in the Theater! I looked up, put
out my hand and kind of stuttered, "How do you do, sir, my name's Dills!" I was a First Lieutenant
at the time. He sat in the co-pilot's seat and his aide, a colonel, sat in back.
I took off and headed toward the Ponziane Islands. Lo and behold, we
had an escort of 4 Spitfires. I flew just above the water to avoid radar. I knew that General Clark
flew L-5's so I asked him if he would like to fly for awhile. He agreed and I let him fly it to the
Islands. When we got there, I took over and headed as I remember on a course of about 330 degrees,
just west of north. I was to fly for a certain number of minutes (30 as I remember) and then make a
right angle turn into the coast, hoping to cross the coast at the beachhead. We hit it just fine
and I proceeded to look around to find the dirt strip. He saw me looking around and pointed, saying,
"It's right over there!" He must of known that I had never been there before but he probably didn't
know that I only had about an hour in the plane when he got in! We landed, I took on some stuff
to go back to Naples and probably a couple passengers, I don't remember, and flew back to Naples
alone!
One day I stopped at Castel Volturno on the way back from the
beachhead. I had gotten permission so I could check my mail. I had three passengers this time, a
small man with black curly hair who was a war correspondent, a South African ground Captain and a
British Squadron Leader with a rank equivalent to our Major. This was a full load considering the
other baggage and the five man life raft.
About halfway through my tour(?) I was sent to the 5th Army advance
field as a pilot to be ready to go anywhere, anytime General Clark wanted. So for a couple days, I
was his personal pilot.
I made eight trips to the beachhead. It should have been seven but
one day I came back around noon. And as I parked, Lt. Pine came running out to my plane and said
very agitatedly, "I didn't think there was anything for the afternoon flight so I let the other
pilot go into Naples. And then a Major General showed up and wanted to go to the beachhead. Will you
take him?" So I said I would but I wanted to rest a little before I went up again.
I feel obligated to record certain incidents that I was not a
party to. These are the kind of events that never wind up in reports and therefore will never be
found in histories by latter day writers that were not participants in the events.
He was on the Anzio beachhead, in a tank with the First Armored.
Apparently there was a kind of no man's land surrounding the beachhead and on occasion a number of
tanks would go out into this area on a kind of reconnaisance. This particular day on a foray they
ran across a most peculiar group of people, dressed very peculiarly. It was a very motley group.
I pulled into a parking space and went off to get the mail.
When I returned, they were out of the plane with their baggage. I
asked what was wrong and they pointed to the flat tire!
I said, "No problem. Be back soon." And I went to my P-40 which was
nearby, flew to Naples, got the equipment needed and one of the mechanics and we flew the second
UC-78 back to Castel Volturno. We left him with the flat tire and loaded this plane with the
passengers and gear. Simple solution to the problem. I needed to do this because our P-40 mechanics
didn't have the right equipment for the UC-78. Besides it wasn't their responsibility.
So I got out on the runway and took off. After I got into the air
with no real altitude yet, the right(?) engine almost quit. It went down to about 1200 rpm. It
wasn't harming us but it was no help. This airplane is not supposed to fly with one engine with this
load. But there was nothing but trees under us and I was barely above them. We were close to
stalling, perhaps 60 mph and it was 30 miles to Naples and the ground was rising slightly in front
of us. I was doing everything I could to get one more mph out of the plane. I was so busy trying to
keep it in the air that I didn't even dare to wipe a drop of sweat from the tip of my nose which was
very annoying.
The war correspondent was in the copilot's seat and my memory
pictures him leaning forward, anxiously watching the trees flick under our wing. I believe he was
scared to death! If I could have found a postage stamp of open ground I would have put it in but
there was nothing but trees.
For thirty miles I fought and wrestled to keep it in the air and out
of the trees. I remember flicking a few degrees of flap to get over a tall tree and then nursing it
while it shuddered as I put the flaps up. I didn't dare turn because I would have lost altitude and
been in the trees. I'm sure we would all have gotten out alive even if we had gone into the trees,
but I didn't want to do it! So I kept going, straight ahead and just above of the trees.
I was heading for the east end of the runway. After all, I had just
taken off in my P-40 and hour before. When one gets to Naples, one crosses a ridge and breaks out
just over the field but now with some altitude. Good grief, when I crossed the ridge I saw that they
had changed traffic and they were taking off toward me. I called in for an Emergency Landing. As I
said before the field was grass and very wide so there should have been plenty of room. There was a
C-47 taking off on the far side of the field and a P-39 was waiting on the near side. The tower told
the P-39 that an emergency was coming in on his side and not to move. But after I had committed
myself to the landing, the P-39 started to take off. I did not want to wind up in the quarry, noted
for containing the parts of the airplanes that had ot made it, at the other end of the runway so I
headed for the field at an angle and landed in front of the P-39 and in back of the C-47. When I
finally stopped the plane we were off the active part of the runway. I just shut off the engines and
then looked at my passengers. The South African ground Captain was petrified. He probably never flew
again! Then I noticed the British pilot didn't have a seat belt and I asked him what he would have
done. He seemed slightly bemused by the whole situation and said that he just would have thrown
himself on the floor if we had a problem. I have no recollection of the war correspondent and what
he did, but I've always wondered if he ever wrote it up. I have a probably erroneus remembrance of
one of them getting down on his hands and knees and kissing the ground. The ground Captain would be
a good candidate for this.
Well, I then flew the P-40 back to Castel Volturno, got in the other
recently fixed C-78 with the crew chief and we flew back to Naples.
Wow, that was a field!! It was only 2200 feet long, had a forest on
one end of the runway and a railroad and high tension line on the other. It was tricky to get into
and tricky to get out of.
To take off one had to use all the runway, run the engine up as far
as possible before releasing the brake, then get it off the ground and over the power lines.
But landing was even more tricky. One had to come down the final
approach at minimum speed, lift the right wing over a tall tree, almost stall it at the end of the
runway, then dump it down on the runway and get on the brakes. It would still use almost all of the
runway.
I made several trips to the beachhead from here, but the most
memorable was the one with Colonel Lee. One morning he came down with permission from General Clark
to go to Anzio. He said he was an old Cessna pilot and climbed into the pilot seat leaving me in the
copilot seat.
He taxied out to the runway and I was a bit concerned because of the
trickiness of the takeoff. But he started out right. He parked way back with the tail almost in the
woods, ran up the engine and after it checked out OK, he advanced the throttles a bit more before
releasing the brake. Then with full throttle he ran down the runway and lifted off. But then, like a
true bomber pilot he fastened his eyes on the instrument panel, adjusting the throttles.
I was watching the approaching high tension lines and at the last
minute, I grabbed the wheel and yanked it back giving him a belt in the chest. He looked at me and I
pointed to the high tension wires sliding under the wing. He didn't say a word.
When we got to Anzio he dropped it in about four feet. I was afraid
we were going to have to swim back.
He got out of the plane with no word about when he was going to be
back. It was about 10 AM and I didn't dare leave the plane. Noon came and I was interested in lunch.
There was some British ground troops nearby with their dugout. They invited me to have lunch which I
did. It consisted of a hunk of bully beef, called Desert Chicken and resembled a cross between
corned beef and Spam. I also had a half a canteen cup of weak tea.
I waited
And waited. All the time I was trying to think of a way of telling
him that I wouldn't go back if he was flying the plane because I was sure he would not be able to
get into the field without wrecking the plane.
Finally, about 3 PM he came back. He never inquired about my welfare
or my lunch. But he told me to fly it back and I was able to breathe easily. I figured that I had
narrowly missed a court martial.
I went over to the other plane and the general was already in the
co-pilot's seat. I told him that I had just gotten back from there and that I wanted to finish my
cigarette before I went back up. He smiled and agreed. So I did two trips that day.
I don't remember how we met but I first met a man from the First
Armored Division when he was recovering from his fourth purple heart. I met him again later when he
was recovering from is fifth! I remember two stories he told and I have every confidence these
events actually took place.
The tank people didn't know what they were. But they really had no
business being there so they were just going to shoot them. One of the guys in one of the tanks told
the rest to hold up while he tried to make contact. He popped the hatch of his tank, poked his head
out and started to holler at the people. He tried several languages and got no response. Then one of
the group raised a gun and shot hm. He fell back in the tank. Everybody went crazy. They opened up
on the group with everything they had, shot them all to pieces and then ran up and down over the
bodies with their tanks. I believe this story but I'm sure you won't find it reported anywhere but
here!
They had rather elaborate "holes" to sleep in on the beachhead. The
beachhead was quite exposed and subject to a lot of shelling. His hole was edged with stout angle
iron to protect the edge and help keep it from collapsing. One night a shell lit rather close by.
One of the angle irons was flipped ninety degrees and driven into the opposite wall and the hole
collapsed on him. He was buried alive with one hand sticking out. A buddy of his ran over, grabbed
his hand and proceeded to dig him out. He got out alive but couldn't go to sleep in a hole after
that and had to sleep in his tank! I wish I knew what happened to hm.
And I would be most surprised if either of these incidents was
reported anywhere.
We moved to Santa Maria and I'm drawing almost a total blank on
this, although we were there for a month. I suspect some of the events that happened at Ciampino
probably actually happened here.
I'm not sure what field we were on but it had to be when I was
Acting Group Operations Officer. One of the very new pilots got lost. He panicked and flew SE down
Italy until he ran out of gas and bellied in, still pointing southeast. He called me on the field
telephone and told me he was all right. His voice was very faint because of the great distance. He
was clear down by the toe of Italy, probably at least 200 miles south of the front!
One thing I believe happened at Santa Maria involved the
Colonel's pet 38 revolver. He kept it in the bottom, right hand drawer of my desk, broken open so
one could see that it was loaded. I was busy doing something, probably working on the next day's
missions. We were in a somewhat damaged building, probably one that was a bit better than the
average one. Our only light came from a single bulb hung by the electric cord from the center of the
ceiling. It was probably early evening and it was quiet. Our G-4, the Group Maintenance Officer,
came in the room. I'm sure he was bored and looking for something to do. He reached down and took
the revolver out of the drawer. He was standing behind me when this terrible blast came, right
behind my head. He had fired the revolver right behind my head and shot out the only light in the
room. I looked around at him. He had an amazed stupid look on his face and said, " I would have
sworn it wasn't loaded, I checked it!"
Towards the end of my tour, about June and July, I spent a couple
months as Acting Group Operations Officer. It was an odd circumstance. The group Operations Officer
went back to the states on a 30 day leave and went right to Wing Headwuarters when he returned. But
he was still carried on our TO (Table of Organization). There were three others, the Assistant
Operations Officer, the Weather Officer (we had no weather equipment) and the Group Radar Officer
(we had no radar!) Lt. Col. Kelly, my former squadron commander was now in Group Headquarters. He
apparently had some respect for the way I accepted the Airdrome Officer punishment at Castel
Volturno and gave me the assignemnt of Group Radar Officer. I was fourth on the roster in
operations, a flunky!
But then the two ahead of me disappeared. One became a Squadron
Commander and the other was shot down. So there I was, alone! The job called for a Lt. Col. but I
was only a 1st Lieutenant.
We went for a few days to a coastal airfield called Voltone. I
can't find it on my map but must have been somewhere west of Rome. We were there for about a week
before moving to Corsica.
I was promoted to Captain in the first week of August. I have
always considered it a "battlefield" promotion because I was only 5 1/2 months in grade and you are
supposed to be six months in grade before you are even recommended. I was very flattered when one of
the enlisted men came up to me and said, "I'm glad to see someone get it that really deserved it!"
Then he handed me a set of captain's bars he had cut out of sheet aluminum! I wish I still had
them!. My first set of real bars were a gift from someone else. They were so old the silver had worn
off! And I wish I still had those!
In retropect I know that I was beginning to be too tired to
continue flying missions but I was not grounded by the Flight Surgeon. I don't remember anybody
being grounded this way although that was what they were really for. I do remember a day when the
Flight Surgeon sat down by Dave Johnson and asked, "How do you feel, Dave?" To which Dave replied,
"I feel OK, Doc." At which point the Flight Surgeon said, "Good. You've just had your 50 mission
physical." Perhaps he was joking but that's the most I remember anyone ever doing about a physical.
I remember trees and leftover dugouts that must have been part of
the Anzio beachhead. They were dug into the ground and had plank and dirt roofs.
One night we had the only air raid we encountered. I was sleeping
on my cot in a pyramidal tent with the sides rolled up. I heard some explosions and woke briefly. I
remember seeing a visiting ground Captain, somewhat overweight, lumbering over to one of these
dugouts in his skivvies. When he came to the entrance that sloped down into the pit, his feet went
out from under him, he sat down and slid out of sight.
I just went back to sleep.
This picture is courtesy of a fellow pilot, James Nims. Thank you
Jim for letting me use it. It is copyrighted.
This was the pre-war airport of Rome, probably about 7 miles
southeast. There was more than one group on the field. Our colonel, Stephen B. Mack, was the ranking
officer so he was the field commander. This made me the base operations officer.
Somewhere along here I got a chance at a special rest camp. For
some reason we were allowed a rest at the infantry hotel in Rome. I believe it was called the Hotel
Excelsior, the Air Force one was the Hotel Regina. I remember seeing the Coliseum on the way in from
the jeep but that's about all I saw. In any case I got probably about a day and a half in Rome. I
was so tired at this time that I spent the first four hours in a warm tub. Later I went out to eat
and the I got a chance to see a show. It was special!! "This Is the Army!" and Irving Berlin made an
apearance in his WWI uniform and sang the title song! I spent a long night sleeping between sheets
on a mattress!! In the morning I spent a couple more hours in the tub.
About this time I was told that Capt. **** was coming up to
headquarters to take over as Operations Officer. I was hurt and offended by this. I think I had done
a stellar job, was also a Captain, and I thought I deserved the job. I was supposed to "teach" him
the job. I asked to be transferred back to the 522nd Squadron as a pilot instead, which they did.
One day I got a call from the tower, telling me that the rock
picking truck was parked too close to the runway. When P-47's rolled on the runway, they would
occasionally turn up rocks from the dirt. It was a very heavy airplane, 14,500 pounds when empty,
and would often be carrying two 1000# bombs. It was felt that the rocks could cause a blown tire
which would probably wipe out several other airplanes as well by careening through the parking area,
to say nothing of the affected plane and pilot!
So we had a rock picking detail that patrolled the runway
continually when planes were not using it. They threw the rocks in the back of a truck.
I went down to the line in my jeep and found one of the
rock-pickers and his truck. I explained what was wrong and told him to move the truck immediately
and to never bring it out in front of the parked airplanes, that if it was safe, we would park
airplanes there. And then I went back to my office.
I don't think it was more than a half hour later that I got
another call from the tower. There had been an accident. I rushed down to the line and there was a
P-47, upside down, on fire. The emergency truck was throwing a line with a hook on it, trying to
break through the skin of the plane, hoping to hook onto something that would allow them to lift it
so the medics could get to the pilot.
They finally managed to break through and lift it. The pilot's
arms dropped down and he was hanging from the seatbelt, burned to death! The man hadn't moved the
truck more than 50 feet.
I completely lost it. I was wearing my 45 and I went looking for
the guy I had talked to. Fortunately I didn't find him. I honestly think I would have shot him if I
had. After about a half hour I had calmed down below the boiling point and I told the people to
never let me see him again because I wasn't sure what I would do.
When most of the planes of the time took off, the nose was high
and you couldn't see straight ahead of you. You learned, very early, even in Primary flying
Stearmans, how to judge things by looking out the side of the engine to the ground.
This was particularly true with the P-47. That day there was a
crosswind from the right and when this kid (probably less than ten missions) took off, he drifted to
the left, off the runway. He hit the truck, flipped over on his back, hit the ground and caught
fire. I still get a tear when I remember this.
I received the next day's orders from Wing and then scheduled
them for the three squadrons. (A group consisted of three squadrons and the group headquarters.)
I had a desk and phone in a tent. I had a flak map on a stand in
front of my desk and a map of Italy on my desk with a sheet of thick plexiglas over it so I could
plan the day's missions with grease pencil.
One day I had the missions all planned when I got a telephone
call from a Major in Wing Headquarters.
The major said "Have all your missions buzz Cecina today." I
looked at my map of the day's missions and replied that we could do that easily for all but one of
the missions. It would introduce a large risk. There was a very bad flak area in the way and we
didn't have enough gas to go around it.
The major replied, "You will buzz Cecina today." I took this as a
Direct Order!! So I said OK and hung up. I called the Group Commander, Colonel Mack, and he came
over and I explained the problem. We cut the mission from twelve ships to eight and he said he would
lead it. I suggested that when they came to this flak area, they should break formation and just get
across it as fast as possible, zigzagging all the way so the 88mm antiaircraft guns would have a
tough time setting their fuses, etc.
The mission returned with seven of the eight ships. The Colonel's
plane got hit in the turbo supercharger, but he made it back but his plane was never to fly again.
Three more planes were damaged.
I got really mad and called the Major at Wing Headquarters. "We
buzzed Cecina. It cost us one pilot and two planes with three more damaged. What the hell are you
running up there, a circus?"
A Lieutenant doesn't talk to a Major that way but I was mad and I
just didn't care. He sensed this and quietly replied, "I'm sorry but the orders came from higher
than the General" (the Commander of the 12th Tactical Air Force.)
Three days later I read in the Stars and Stripes that Secretary
of War Stimson had been in Cecina that day. I'm positive he did not order this. But some sycophantic
general probably said to an aide, "Have all of today's missions buzz Cecina today." He wanted to
impress Stimson!
Colonel Mack buzzed Cecina from 5000 feet. His plane had received
a mortal wound and he didn't dare lose any extra altitude. He just made it back to the base as it
was.
All Important People have sycophants around them and they are not
always easy to recognize. I'm sure both Gore and Bush have them! The candidate cannot be aware of
all facets of the swirl around them. They will be blamed for many things of which they were unaware.
Somewhere about this time we were given an "Official Election
War Ballot - via Air Mail" postcard. How I managed to have this sixty years later, I have no idea!
Either this was an extra or I did not vote.
The address side above is at the original size but the text
side has been enlarged because of the small print.