{"id":1044,"date":"2019-09-15T03:10:31","date_gmt":"2019-09-15T03:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toddshistory.com\/?p=1044"},"modified":"2019-09-15T03:13:30","modified_gmt":"2019-09-15T03:13:30","slug":"douglas-wade-tinker-hendricks-1925-2009-eleven-b-17-crewmen-left-on-the-mission-seven-came-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/toddshistory.com\/?p=1044","title":{"rendered":"DOUGLAS WADE \u201cTINKER\u201d HENDRICKS 1925-2009 Eleven B-17 crewmen left on the mission. Seven came home."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Todd A. Blomerth<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tinker Hendricks in 1943 as an aircrew student  <\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It is July of 1944. You are the parents\nof six sons. The oldest five are in the Armed Forces of the United States. Four are overseas in\ncombat zone assignments. A fifth will soon be there. The only son left at home,\nMichael is a young boy. You proudly display five Blue Stars in your front\nwindow. You\u2019ve seen Gold Stars appear in your neighbors\u2019 windows and seen the\ngrieving parents attempt to deal with the death of a child. Every day the war\ndrags on, the chances become greater that you too will lose a child to war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Minor, your oldest,\nis with the 36th<\/sup> Infantry (\u201cTexas\u201d)\nDivision which has been badly bloodied in Italy. Arthur (\u201cJack\u201d) witnessed\nthe attack on Pearl Harbor and is with the\nArmy Air Force somewhere in the Pacific Theater. Risdon (\u201cBuck\u201d) is serving as\na Military Policeman, somewhere in Italy. Douglas (\u201cTinker\u201d\u201d) is a\ncrewman on a B17 bomber somewhere in Europe. Harvey (\u201cSalty\u201d) has\nrecently joined the Navy as a 17-year-old and will soon see combat as a sailor\nin the Pacific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Douglas Tinker’s Draft Registration Card<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The daily life of Risdon\nHendricks and his wife Sidney Frances (Pierce) Hendricks must have at times\nbeen excruciating. Thankfully, their boys all came home. It nearly wasn\u2019t so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tinker Hendricks\nenlisted in the Army Air Force right after his eighteenth birthday. Soon he was\nat Sheppard Army Field, outside of Wichita\n Falls, Texas\nbeginning his training as a bomber crew member. He completed his training as\nB17 aircrew man at Avon Park Army Air Field. The B17, dubbed \u201cFlying Fortress,\u201d\nwas a high altitude, four-engine, heavy strategic bomber. The crew consisted of\nten men: flight commander, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier, radio operator,\nflight engineer and upper turret gunner, two waist gunners, tail gunner and\nball-turret gunner.  By the summer of\n1943, the \u201cG\u201d model was replacing older models. The aircraft bristled with\nfirepower, having thirteen heavy machineguns. Despite its name, unless escorted\nto the target by fighters such as the P51 Mustang, it was no match against\nenemy air attacks. Even with fighter support, anti-aircraft or \u201cflak\u201d guns\nremained deadly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1st Lt. Haas and his crew – Tinker is lower right<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

On May 10, 1944, the crew members\nof a brand-new B17-G received their orders for overseas. The ten men, four\nofficers and six sergeants, were to proceed from Grenier\n Field, New Hampshire to England\nvia the North Atlantic Route.\nAnd so began Sergeant Douglas W. \u201cTinker\u201d Hendricks\u2019 combat tour as a waist\ngunner on a Flying Fortress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Tinker\nlater wrote: We were assigned to a new\nB17G at Hunter Field, Georgia\u2026From\nHunter Field we flew to Fort Dix NJ to Grenier, to Bermuda to Marrakech [Morocco] to Tunis\nto Gioia Italy to Tortorello\n[Tortorella] Italy\nattached to the 97th<\/sup> Bomb Group (H) AAF-342 Bomb Squadron<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took the crew ten days to make the Atlantic and Mediterranean crossing. The 342nd<\/sup> had seen combat since 1942. (Memphis Belle<\/em> was part of the squadron when based in England). By 1944 the 342nd<\/sup> was part of the newly formed 15th<\/sup> Air Force, flying missions against the Axis from Italy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            As\ncan be seen from his mission reports, it didn\u2019t take long for the crew to see\naction over enemy territory. Because of the squadron\u2019s location, their missions\nwere long. The heavily defended Ploesti oil refineries in Romania \u2013 7 hours and 45 minutes. Vienna, Austria\n\u2013 6 hours and 35 minutes. By July 16th<\/sup>, Tinker\u2019s crew had flown\neleven combat missions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tinker’s flight log on the B17- closed out when the plane and crew were lost over Germany<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

            On\nJuly 19, 1944, Tinker\u2019s bomber, commanded by First Lieutenant David Haas, took\noff from Amendola, Italy with a full bomb load. Part\nof a large formation, its mission was to bomb a ball bearing factory on the\nnorth side of Munich.\nThe normal ten-man crew was supplemented with a photographer. The crew\nconsisted of Lt. David Haas (command pilot), Lt. David Hersha (co-pilot), Lt.\nFrank Coleman (navigator), Lt. Peter Parialo (bombardier), Tech Sergeant James\nLoomis (radio operator), Tech Sergeant Harold Little (engineer-armorer), Staff\nSergeant Arthur Manosh (left waist gunner), Staff Sergeant Douglas Hendricks\n(right waist gunner), Sergeant Edward Williams (ball turret gunner), Staff\nSergeant George Bernall (tail gunner), and Staff Sergeant Donald Black\n(photographer\/gunner). Lt. Parialo, the bombardier, was not part of the\naircraft\u2019s regular crew, having been assigned the duties for the one mission. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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            The\nescorting fighters kept any German fighters at bay. They were no help against\nGerman anti-aircraft. As the formation approached the target, the flak became\nheavier and heavier. Just after the formation released its ordnance from approximately\n25,000 feet, Tinker\u2019s B17 took a direct hit on its right inboard engine.  The wounded aircraft lagged back and dropped\nin elevation as Lt. Haas struggled to control it. Less than a minute later, he\nwould be dead.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the war,\nSergeant Little was interviewed. He wrote that the last time he saw 1st<\/sup>\nLieut. Haas, the pilot was in the cockpit, and that he could not have bailed\nout. \u201cAccording the words of the top turret gunner, the last burst of flak hit\nthe pilot, which caused severe injury and [sic] going down with the ship.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lt. Parialo, the\nfill-in bombardier, was interviewed after the war. His recollection was vivid: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. We were hit by flak as we turned off the\ntarget.<\/em><\/li>
  2. We stayed in formation for at least two\nminutes,<\/em><\/li>
  3. Immediately after we were hit, I check\nthrough the interphone with each member of the crew and no one was injured,<\/em><\/li>
  4. Through necessity, I disconnected my headset\nand helped the Navigator put out a fire under the pilot\u2019s compartment,<\/em><\/li>
  5. Suddenly the Navigator opened the escape\nhatch and jumped,<\/em><\/li>
  6. Co-pilot\nfollowed,<\/em><\/li>
  7. I stood up and looked to the rear of the\nship and could see as far as the waist windows. There was no one in sight.<\/em><\/li>
  8. I jumped immediately after. I knew that the\nPilot was still in the ship and I though that he was the only in the ship.<\/em><\/li>
  9. The\nplane blew up very shortly after I bailed out<\/em><\/li>
  10. I was\ntold by the Engineer-Gunner T\/Sgt. Harold A. Little, whom I met in France after\nour liberation that he followed me out and that everybody else had jumped\nexcept the Pilot,<\/em><\/li>
  11. I presumed that the pilot 1st<\/sup> Lt.\nDavid F. Haas was killed when the ship blew up.<\/em><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
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                Staff\nSergeant Black remembers the event a bit differently:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    The post-mission interviews tell\nthe chilling story. As shown in the typewritten comments of another aircraft\u2019s crewman:\n\u201cAfter it dropped about 5000 feet, it blew up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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                The\nfinal tally \u2013 seven survived. Four did not. Lt. Haas clearly died when the\naircraft blew up. Loomis and Williams may have jumped and couldn\u2019t or didn\u2019t\nactivate their parachutes. Staff Sergeant Manosh was captured, and quite\npossibly murdered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                Tinker\nwas captured and shipped to Stalag Luft 4, a prisoner of war camp for Allied\nairmen. The subsequent months were anything but pleasant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    The Men of Tinker’s B-17. Seven captured, and four missing, later confirmed dead <\/em><\/strong>


    <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

                Stalag\nLuft 4 was located in northern Prussia It held over eight thousand downed\nairmen. Survival was bleak. The prisoners\u2019 day to day existence was challenged\nby the weather off the Baltic Sea. By 1944,\naverage Germans were suffering from the Allies\u2019 continuous bombings. While Germany to a large extent attempted to honor the\nGeneva Convention on captured prisoners, the reality of life in Germany\nguaranteed that the Allied airmen in Stalag Luft 4 lived a life of deprivation.\nInadequate heath and washing facilities, unheated and overcrowded barracks,\nopen air latrines and poor quality food were the order of the day. The\nprisoners lost weight at an alarming rate. What correspondence allowed was\nheavily censored. Tinker and the other prisoners of war were not allowed to\nmention anything remotely disparaging about their condition and treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    The Red Cross food package – desperately needed<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n