I remember a French family invited me to attend a movie with them. Because the weather was so bad, nothing was flying so we were stuck there for a week or so waiting for the weather to improve. “It was right at the time the Army was fighting the Battle of the Bulge. It was windmilling and causing the whole ship to vibrate seriously, forcing the pilot to land in a field outside Paris,” McKalip said. It got hit by flak and lost its hydraulics, so the pilot couldn’t feather the props. “On another occasion, we were coming back from a bombing run over Germany when we lost our outside port engine. We were flying on another mission the next day. “A short while later, a C-47 transport plane landed and took us back to our base. We all got out and away from the plane without injury. “Some of us escaped by jumping out of the waist gunner’s window where his. After the props stopped turning when we landed, smoke billowed through the bomber,” he said. “The plane touched the concrete with one wheel up and one wheel down and ground-looped. “Initially, the pilot suggested we should all bail out before he tried to land. It wasn’t an easy landing because one of our wheels wouldn’t drop down and lock, despite the best efforts of myself and the plane’s engineer,” McKalip recalled. “Just past the White Cliffs of Dover there was a concrete pad that must have been a mile square where we landed our B-24. They had to find an emergency landing strip somewhere short of home base at Attlebridge. The crew of “This Above All” knew they were in trouble at that point. When the copilot went to put the flaps down, they wouldn’t move.” I reported back to him I could see air bubbles in the sight gauge on the reserve hydraulic fluid. “The pilot told me to check the plane for damage. It sounded like hail on a tin roof,” McKalip said. “As we approached our target, the flak started hitting our ship. All of this was quite a surprise because most of our missions had been just over the line into Germany to small towns.” The secondary target was the marshaling yard at Dresden. Plan A was to hit the big airfield at Leisa, south of Berlin. Way off on the side, B-17 ‘Fortresses’ were coming in and turning toward the same target,” he said.Ī mission book on the 446th Bomb Group prepared by some of the group’s members after the war notes, “We got a shock at briefing. This particular day I could see American bombers for miles and miles, heading for the target. Often I’d stand up and look out the cockpit at the flak coming up at us. “I sat right behind the copilot on a little stool that swiveled out from the bomber’s frame. “We weren’t harassed by enemy fighter planes, but the flak from German 88 antiaircraft guns was heavy,” McKalip recalled.
The Allied saturation bombing destroyed 15 square miles of the city’s center, killing an estimated 25,000 to 40,000 residents. A total of 1,300 heavy bombers dropped 3,900 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs on the capital of Saxony.
13-15, 1945, fewer than three months before the end of the war in Europe. The story I heard was that the Americans bombed Dresden because the Russians insisted on it,” the 86-year-old former sergeant explained.ĭresden was bombed by the American Air Force and the Royal Air Force on Feb. “Dresden was supposed to be an open city. The Dresden mission devastated that city and was very controversial. His four-engine heavy bomber was dubbed “This Above All.” resident, was a member of the 466th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force, which flew out of Attlebridge, England. The mission that made the biggest impression on him 65 years later was the flight that leveled Dresden, Germany. Photo providedĭavid McKalip flew 30 combat missions as a radio operator on a B-24 “Liberator” bomber during World War II. McKalip is standing in the back row at far right. flew on in World War II as part of the 8th Air Force in England. This is the crew of “This Above All” a B-24 “Liberator” bomber Dave McKalip of Port Charlotte, Fla.
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