Valor Friday

This week’s article was a special request from Ex-PH2. She came across an article in her travels along Al Gore’s Information Superhighway from way back in 1983 about William “Bill” Lawley, Jr from Leeds, Alabama.

Three men from Leeds have earned the Medal of Honor. We’ve talked about one of those men, Henry “Red” Erwin already. Some day for sure I’ll get to the story of Alford McLaughlin, who single handedly defended a post in Korea leaving behind an estimated 200 casualties. Today’s subject is the third man, William Lawley.

After graduating high school in 1938, Lawley, like many of his age, enlisted into the American service when the war started. He joined up with the US Army Air Forces in April 1942 at Birmingham. After his basic training he took the tests to qualify for pilot duties and was accepted.

After earning his wings in April 1943 he was sent to Altus Air Field in Oklahoma where he was trained to fly multi-engine heavy bombers. American bombers in the air over Europe at this time were losing about 10% of their aircraft on each mission. Aircrew had a 1-in-4 chance of making it to 15 completed missions, with 25 being the “finish line” where one was allowed to rotate back home. Few made it that far.

Volunteering to fly for the Air Forces was very nearly volunteering for a suicide mission. Though the average age of an aircrew was about 22 years old. At that age, even on a suicide mission, nobody thinks they are the one going to die.

So it was with First Lieutenant Lawley when he was assigned to fly B-17 Flying Fortress bombers in England in early 1944. He was with the 364th Bomb Squadron, 305th Bomb Group. The 305th Bomb Group was one of the first American B-17 units to participate in the European theater of the war, arriving in England in the fall of 1942 and commenced bombing in November.

By the time Lawley was assigned to the 364th Bomb Squadron, they were veterans of the air war. The Group had been commanded by then-Colonel Curtis LeMay over the winter of 1942 into 1943, pioneering the daylight bombing tactics they’d use for the remainder of the war.

Though only 23 years old and with not quite two years in the Army, Lawley had nine missions under his belt and was in command of his aircraft “Cabin in the Sky” when the Group was tasked to be part of the “Big Week” of February 20-25th, 1944.

The Big Week would see a massive, coordinated offensive campaign against German aircraft manufacturing facilities across Germany. The goal of what was called “Operation Argument” was to cripple the Nazi air force to gain air superiority. This would be critical if the planned D-Day invasion at Normandy would be a success, which was planned for the coming months.

The Big Week would be the first time that more than 1,000 bombers would be dispatched. It became the largest air battle in history, breaking the back of the Nazi aerial war machine. The scale of the operations were unprecedented and almost unfathomable.

On the first day, 20 February, 713 B-17s and 272 B-24 Liberators would bomb three German targets. The massive formations of bombers would be escorted by more than 800 fighter aircraft (a mix of P-38 Lightnings, the new P-51 Mustang, and large numbers of P-47 Thunderbolts). I can’t find detailed production numbers by month, but the 5,000th B-17 was delivered in May, 1944 (with a total of nearly 13,000 made by the end of the war just 16 months later). That means on this one mission, more than 14% of all the B-17s produced up to that time were involved.

It was on that first day of Operation Argument that Bill Lawley would distinguish himself in combat with the enemy. His was but one B-17 in a sortie of 417 sent that day to bomb the Leipzig-Mockau Airfield, and aviation industry targets at Heiterblick and Abtnaundorf, Germany.

The weather over the continent was favorable, but the weather over England was the typical overcast and dreary English soup. Flying out of the fog, the aircraft were undertaken by heavy enemy fighters as they crossed the Channel and then anti-aircraft flak and more fighters as they crossed over occupied territory and finally the German homeland.

At 28,000 feet over Leipzig, Cabin in the Sky had just finished their bomb run. The bombs wouldn’t release. As they climbed out of the target, ladened with thousands of pounds of bombs, they were attacked by scores of enemy fighters as the overweight aircraft couldn’t maintain formation. Taking the lumbering heavy bomber head on, the German fighter’s guns were blazing.

One of the defender’s 20mm shells found its mark as Cabin in the Sky’s cockpit exploded. The round had detonated right into their windshield. Lieutenant Lawley’s face was pelted with shrapnel and then immediately by near 200 MPH wind at around (or below) zero degrees fahrenheit.

Dazed by the blast, Lawley’s head was slammed into the seat behind him. Bill looked over through a haze of blood to see his co-pilot Second Lieutenant Paul W Murphy of Michigan had been killed instantly. Murphy was slumped onto the controls and Lawley could feel the plane was in a near-vertical nose dive.

Going by instinct and muscle memory, Lawley pulled his throttles back. With his right arm he pulled his co-pilot’s limp body off the yoke and with only his left arm fought to regain control of his stricken airplane.

The B-17 is an entirely cable driven aircraft. There are no hydraulic systems to aid the pilot. It’s real stick and rudder flying, which would require significant physical strength, determination, and an iron will to pull out of a vertical dive. Which is exactly what Lawley would do.

After what must have seemed an eternity, Bill regained some control over the bomber. Pulling out of the dive at 12,000 feet he started to assess his situation. They were still over enemy territory. Now separated from their formation they would be like a wounded gazelle ripe for being picked off by the circling Luftwaffe lions.

Lawley found one of his four engines was fully engulfed in flame. His controls were damaged. His windscreen, what remained intact, was covered in blood and provided minimal forward view. His instruments were also coated in blood and equally worthless. As bad as his aircraft looked, Lawley’s self-assessment was even worse. He was bleeding profusely from numerous gashes across his face.

There was no use in fighting it, Lawley’s aircraft was doomed. He’d already lost one crewman. He reached for the bailout bell to save the rest of them. As little care as the German pilots showed for enemy aircraft, they generally held to the standard of chivalry that you didn’t shoot at an aviator bailing out of a crippled plane the same as you didn’t drown a sailor who’d jumped off a sinking ship. As dangerous as jumping out could be, and it would mean certain capture by the enemy, it was safer than riding in a seriously wounded bird. Absent the threat from the enemy, the engine fire was sure to reach a fuel tank eventually.

Lawley rang the bell. One of the waist gunners reported that eight of the nine remaining men were injured (including Lawley) and two of them were so badly wounded they would be unable to operate their ‘chutes.

He left it up to the crew if they wanted to bail out, but Lawley decided to remain aboard with his crew. Since they couldn’t bail out themselves, he’d have to fly them.

The flight engineer, S/Sgt Carrol Rowley of Mississippi, who would have been stationed right behind the two pilots (the flight engineer also served as the top turret gunner in the cockpit) elected to bail out. He knew the dire situation the aircraft was in, being the man responsible for the engines and electrical systems. He was also likely injured in the explosion that hit the cockpit. It’s possible he only heard the bailout bell and did what he was trained to do. In his compartment, he would be the first man to jump.

Rowley would parachute out successfully, but be captured by the Germans. He remained a POW until the end of the war. He appears to have returned to Mississippi where he passed in 2012.

Now with no co-pilot and no flight engineer, Lawley was single-handedly flying the plane. He decided to make for France. If they had to crash land, they had a better chance of encountering help with the Maquis, the French resistance fighters, than they would with the Germans.

Lawley kept the plane in the clouds as much as possible, using them for cover from enemy aircraft above and enemy anti-aircraft artillery below. They were deep in enemy territory.

The bombardier, Lieutenant Harry Mason, came up from his post to help Lawley fly the plane. Mason was unable to remove the co-pilot from his seat, so they used a parka to tie him into his seat to keep him from falling into the controls again. Mason then took up station between the two pilot’s seats and worked the controls at Lawley’s direction when he became too weak to do it himself.

Somewhere over France, the valiant Lieutenant Lawley, who had refused to leave the controls of his aircraft, passed out from blood loss and exposure to the bitter cold streaming into the plane. Mason took over the controls as best he could and kept them headed towards Britain, their only hope of reaching safety.

As they approached the Channel and nearing Britain at last, Mason revived the critically wounded aircraft commander since he couldn’t land the plane. They were able to at last drop their bombs. Only 50 miles now separated them from home.

As they approached the English coast another engine sputtered out. The four engined bomber was now running on half its powerplants. They could do this, as long as nothing else went wrong. Something else went wrong.

Down to two engines, one of the remaining working 9-cylinder 1,200 horsepower supercharged radial Wright Cyclone engines burst into flame. They were down to one turning and one burning.

Lawley needed to bring his plane down sooner than later, which was going to happen one or the other. A crash was inevitable, so he started to look for a field of sufficient size. Luckily he found just then a small fighter strip south of London called Redhill. As his strength faded, Lawley was able to bring his plane in for a crash landing.

Due to Lawley’s performance, all of the crew excepting the co-pilot survived the ordeal. He brought them in five hours after they’d been hit by the enemy round.

Lawley was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. Lawley was one of three men who received the Medal of Honor for action in the air over Leipzig on February 20, 1944.

Another B-17 from a different group was also critically damaged over the enemy city. Flying it to England, the able-bodied crew jumped ship to safety. The squadron commander observed the crippled bomber from another aircraft and ordered the men to all bail. The pilot was alive, but too injured to jump out. The navigator, Second Lieutenant Walter Truemper, and flight engineer, S/Sgt Archibald Mathies, refused to leave the pilot behind and volunteered to attempt to land. They tried twice, but on their third attempt catastrophically crashed the plane into a field. All three men perished, but both Mathies and Truemper were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Lawley was thus the only living recipient for the nation’s highest honor from that day’s action that saw nearly 2,000 American aircraft enter combat over Europe. He was one of only two men of the 305th Bomb Group to receive the Medal of Honor during the war. Interestingly, the other man, First Lieutenant Edward Michael’s action was almost a carbon copy of Lawley’s.

Michael’s aircraft was also badly damaged. All but one of his crew bailed out, the last man too injured to do so. He remained aboard the plane, also passing out from his wounds, and also came to just in time to crash land his bird in England, saving his crewman’s life.

On the fates of Lawley’s crew;

• Lieutenant Mason, the bombardier who helped to save the plane, received the Silver Star for his actions and returned to duty.
• The flight engineer, who had bailed, survived to become a POW in Germany.
• The radio operator T/Sgt Joseph Kobierecki returned to duty. He was on another B-17 mission and was shot down 29 May, 1944. He was captured and also became a POW.
• The tail gunner Sgt Alfred Wendt was also later shot down. Landing in France he evaded capture, spent months walking through France alone, and was down to 80 lbs when he joined up with the French Underground. He fought with them until the Allies invaded Southern France.
• First Lieutenant Harry Seraphine (Navigator), Sgt Ralph Braswell (Waist Gunner), and S/Sgt Thomas Dempsey (Radio Operator) also all were listed as returning to duty.

Lawley flew a total of 14 missions until he was rotated to the US in June 1944. He remained on active duty after the war in the newly independent Air Force. He’d serve until 1972 when he’d retire as a colonel. He passed in 1999 in Montgomery, Alabama at the age of 78, not far from his hometown of Leeds.

The heroics of the men from Leeds isn’t bad for a town of little more than 10,000 people. Must be something in water down there. The city schools did, in 2013, ask parents for permission to use corporal punishment on children. That might have something to do with instilling a fighting spirit into their youths. Oh, it’s also the birthplace of Charles Barkley.

Category: Air Force, Historical, Medal of Honor, Valor, We Remember