MY MOST SECRET MISSION the untold story of Yalta pg 1

This article is based on the writer's personal experience and interviews with fellow pilots from each of the three participating squadrons in the 1st Fighter Group and Navy crew from the President's ship, the USS Quincy, plus information from recently declassified federal documents.

Lt. H. A. Eberhardt

P 38 Pilot, 94th Fighter Squadron

1st Fighter Group, 15th Air Force

Foggia, Italy, Jan./Feb., 1945

Top Secret ??

We thought something big was about to happen. It was the middle of January and the colonel had disappeared for nearly a week; nobody seemed to know where or why; scuttlebut had him at a dozen different places. The Exec. Officer finally and reluctantly would admit that he was suddenly called to headquarters. We assumed it was 15th Air Force HQ at Bari, Italy (General Nat Twining, Commanding). Our Ops.(operations) Officer could not, or would not, offer any additional info.

At this time we were based at the Salsola Air Base a few miles north of Foggia, Italy. I had 18 missions under my belt and had just recently been promoted to first lieutenant. The weather in Jan. was lousy turning the plains surrounding Foggia into a sea of mud; I had only flown a half dozen times for the entire month----escorted bombers to Linz and Vienna regions and escorted photo recons far into Germany and even Czechoslovakia.

Being an intensely curious 20 year old "hot-shot" P-38 ( Lockheed Lightning ) pilot, I tried every which way to pry information out of some of our normally talkative flight leaders. I came to the conclusion they genuinely did not know and were almost as curious as I was on the whereabouts of our 94th fighter squadron's CO. Our commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Francis A. Harris, was affectionately known as "Bucky" to "his lads".

Speculation ran rampant. Was he in trouble with the higher command? Bucky was an experienced, but gutsy, seasoned fighter pilot. An affable, well liked officer respected by all of his men; he came across to me as an extremely conscientous commander not likely to be in difficulty with the 15th's top brass. Had he been selected for some singular, secret, "behind the lines" operation ? I knew he couldn't speak German. Our Flight Surgeon, Captain Walsh was a friend and said he was definitely not ill in any way. Maybe he was being reassigned ? We all hoped not.

Then I found out that the other two CO's in our 1st Fighter Group (from the 27th and the 71st Fighter Squadrons) had similarly disappeared. Bucky must be involved with some sort of secret planning meeting. Something big and important was about to happen; perhaps some big offensive to end this damned war !! We were living in tents in the cold grimy winter mud of southern Italy, good friends were being killed, life was definitely not a bowl of cherries.

Most of us, by the end of the week, had come to the same conclusion, top brass were planning something big, but what? It was the middle of January 1945 and we already had the Germans retreating on all fronts. Combat missions for our Group had apparently been temporarily suspended. The powers that be were really keeping this one quiet; nobody seemed to know anything other than something was about to happen to the First Fighter Group---it was obviously classified "TOP SECRET".

The Squadron Pg. 2

After about a week our colonel reappeared at our base in Italy as suddenly as he had disappeared. Our inquiries were answered with his broad, friendly, silent grin. It was good to see Bucky "back in the saddle again". It would be many years later, at a squadron reunion, that I learned of his one man odyssey in his P38 "Ginny". to "check out" the bases we would use. He said he was treated with some disdain by a few of the allied base commanders until they saw his secret orders signed by Major General Ira Eaker, in command of all of the allied air bases in the Mediterranean Theatre.

Lt. Col. Harris was short in stature, physically fit, somewhat cocky with good military bearing. He had the appearance of a typical fighter pilot. With 2 tours under his belt, he was a highly decorated combat veteran. He had won the respect and admiration of his subordinates, especially the younger ones like myself. In some ways, I'm sure we were a difficult bunch to manage, but Bucky was up to the task. He was a top notch CO for the 94th.

The 94th "Hat-in-the-Ring" Squadron was steeped in history and combat accomplishments; it was the first combat squadron of the old Army Signal Corps, dating back to World War I. It was made famous in the early days by names like Rickenbacker, Lufberry, and Winslow. Many of its pilots had been volunteers in the French Lafayette Escadrille. America's first ace in World War I was Douglas Campbell, an early member of the 94th whom I had the pleasure of meeting when he attended several of our post WW II reunions. Mr. Campbell died in 1987. Several World War II generals had been fighter pilots in our squadron. Among them were: Jimmy Doolittle, Ira Eaker, Curtis LeMay, and Carl "Tooey" Spaatz. We were the only squadron in the armed forces allowed to wear its own insignia (silver Hat-in-the-Ring pins) over our wings. Apparently, Eddie Rickenbacher had obtained official authorization for this from his friend General Henry H."Hap" Arnold. We were, indeed, a proud bunch !

Shortly after Bucky's return, I was told at evening mess to report to the Ops Tent for a 2000 hrs briefing. This was it !! We were about to learn what the secret plan was (or so we thought). Bucky was in a jovial mood and handled the entire briefing, which was rather short, (normally, weather and intelligence officers would give us a lot of miscellaneous info on the mission) . I was surprised there was not the normal squadron complement present. There were only about a dozen pilots there and the audience included our crew chiefs (all top-notch master mechanics including my own crew chief, John Michunovich)--not a typical briefing at all !!.

The Colonel said he was proud to let us know that the First Fighter Group had been chosen for an extraordinary TOP SECRET mission. " I want to congratulate you lads, in particular, for being selected to fly this mission". We were then told to pack our B4 bags for at least 3 nights and to have them and our sleeping bags at the flight line at 0800 hrs and Ops would see that they were loaded (along with the crew chiefs) on a C 47 from the 15th Air Force Headquarters. The Colonel had said we would fly a 3 flight formation to Tunis, North Africa and added "I will lead it and we will maintain radio silence". Apparently our neighbors in the 71st Squadron got a similar message as their planes were also being pre-flighted across the runway on that cold morning of January 28, 1945.

The Prelude

Bucky had long before really impressed on all of us how important it was to maintain radio silence on combat missions. He took great pride in how disciplined we were in this area. He had concluded our briefing with "I can tell you no more at this time, I have sealed top secret orders, which I cannot open until we reach Africa; now get your flight assignments and good luck tomorrow".

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I was assigned to White Flight #3 position (element leader in the 2nd flight); Capt Walter Gonring was my flight leader. It was a relatively clear day, for this time of year, when I climbed up the abbreviated 2 step ladder that folds into the P38 cockpit pod---always a bit of a struggle in full flight gear with my .45 pistol, knife, survival kit, Mae West, parachute, and life raft pack---- a lot of heavy appendages for my skinny frame to lug on board. I settled into the cockpit of my new P38L "Liberty Belle" (I'm from the Philadelphia area). What a great gal she was, complete with a

Varga Girl collaged on a painted liberty bell for nose art. I went through my pre-flight check (for the umpteenth time) in preparation for a 10:00 hrs take-off.

I was # 7 to crank up and pull out on the steel mat taxiway; I said my usual prayer as I pulled out and took up my position on the runway for a two ship formation take-off. When my wing man returned my thumbs up signal, I "poured the coal" to her and felt that "rush of excitement" as those big 1725 HP Allisons smoothly responded to my throttle controls. After about 2000ft. of runway flashed by, I eased the wheel back and pulled the gear lever up while glancing at my wingman.

I was watching my flight leader with only occasional checks on my wingman as we "formed up" into our usual formation. Bucky was flying a large radius circle, gradually climbing while the White and Blue Flight Leaders were making "tighter" turns to put the 3 Flights in a loose trail formation. Bucky "leveled off" on a southwest heading for our Mediterranean crossing to North Africa.

This loose formation was a nice restful way to fly for a change (only used in non-combatant areas) giving us a great opportunity to observe some interesting geography such as smoking Mt. Vesuvius and the beautiful Isle of Capri as we crossed the SW shoreline of Italy on our slow climb to 20,000 ft. After about a half hour of flying we could no longer see any land.

By now I had the fuel mix pretty well leaned out. Then I began to think how big the Mediterranean was and how much I hoped those engines kept purring smoothly. At about the midpoint of our flight I could just see Sicily in the haze off my left wing. We were now crossing the Tyrrhenian Sea portion of the Mediterranean. In the hours of loneliness on such a flight, one hungers for a human voice. But the Colonel would permit no radio chatter unless, of course there was an emergency. The dead silence meant all engines (and their gages) in our 12 plane formation flight were performing satisfactorily and that we were far away from any air bases or other source of voices----lonely, but yet not alone.

All the time we were crossing the Mediterranean, I'm wondering, "Where are we really going and what are we really going to be doing? " Seemed like we're going the wrong way if we're starting a ferry flight to reassignment in the Pacific. With all this water around us, I had the gut feeling, that somehow whatever we were about to do involved the U S Navy. It was a very pleasant and uneventful flight in good weather to our first stop at the American Air Transport Command Base, El Aquina Aerodrome at Tunis on the coast of North Africa.

North Africa

As we approached landfall, after gradually dropping down to a couple thousand feet, Bucky finally broke radio silence "OK lads we're near the field, let's echelon right". We were probably too low and too far away for any enemy listening posts to pick up the transmission. He then asked the Tunis control tower for permission to make a combat approach and land the squadron..

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About now I had the feeling the colonel had been there before and we were about to put on a little show for their base. As we approached the runway several of us in that formation were flying lower than some of the nearby structures, each plane flying close to and a couple feet lower than the plane he's following. We screamed onto this air transport base in our tightly packed echelon formation with Bucky "coaching" us in. My left wing tip was nearly touching White Flight 2's tail section as the edge of the airfield flashed by about 30 ft.below me.

"C'mon Gonring, bring your guys up, that's it-----tuck 'em in tighter---OK, lookin' good---hold 'em right there----nice and steady-----b r e a k i n g l e f t---NOW !! " With that the colonel shot up out of the formation and banked a hard left. A few seconds later the plane I was flying formation on shot up out of my view, two seconds after that, I pulled the wheel into my gut and did the same Chandelle type "U" turn to the left.

While everyone does the same basic maneuver, the Colonel's was the most violent. He "peeled-up" hard the instant he passed the control tower, only missing it by about 60 ft.

Then made a "dead stick" landing after a tight 360 turn and touched down in front of the tower, then cleared the runway quickly. One by one, every plane peels up and out; "Tail End Charley" gets to "whistle his butt" about 20 ft off the field. When he reaches the end of it he "breaks up and left". This maneuver, which we ran to perfection, gave us our spacing (about 400 ft apart) and put all 12 planes on the ground in about 2 minutes flat !!

Our crew chiefs in their C-47 would arrive shortly after us to service our planes before the next leg of this venture. In normal combat operations, 3 men were assigned to look after a P-38, a crew chief, an assistant crew chief , and an armorer (for the guns and bombs). These men were all well trained and skillful in their assignments, At our home field near Foggia (the Salsola Air Base) they had a good supply of tools and fixtures to use on the engines and air frames. Whatever they lacked at home base, they made up for with their ingenuity. They were a great bunch and looked after our planes with pride and affection as though they were their own personal property. In nearly all cases there was a good bond between the pilot and his crew chief on whom he was so dependent.

This secret mission proved to be an extremely difficult situation for them because there were only about a fourth of the regular ground crew personnel available to do all the work required. Additionally they had to function hundreds of miles from home base with very limited spare parts, tools, etc. These men worked diligently for long hours under very difficult circumstances; they did a magnificent job of keeping our fighters airworthy. I was fortunate indeed to have my own crew chief selected for this mission, Staff Sgt. John Michunovich from Billings, Montana (one of the best) was looking after my P-38 “LibertyBelle”. Mich's skills enabled me to fly 39 combat missions without an "early return".

After parking our planes in the designated area, we were shuttled to the local mess hall for a "G. I. Tin Tray" lunch which was a big improvement over our standard "mess kit fare" at Foggia. During our brief stay here, a young "overly eager" Air Operations Officer of the Day got into a hastle with our crew chiefs over the condition of our planes' battle-scarred landing flaps. Several of them had been slightly dented and cut during previous missions, mostly from releasing "belly tanks" at high speed. When he announced these planes were now "grounded" Bucky went into a "purple rage" and sought out the base commander, Col. Evans, who promptly rescinded the order.

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After spending the night in the Tunis barracks, we assembled back at the flight line, Bucky told us our next leg would be about 500 miles to Algiers where we would spend the night at a downtown hotel taken over by the military. This sounded great. As we flew to our next destination many of us were thinking about the possibility of some female companionship. Just anticipating the creature comforts of hot and cold running water, a bath tub, decent food and a regular bed lifted our spirits as we flew over Tunisia and Algeria glowing golden in the bright mid-day sunshine of North Africa.

We arrived at the Maisson Blanche Aerodrome near Algiers in the early afternoon; the Brits' RAF 210 Group (Group Captain Keddy, AOC) was based here. They seemed to be our communications "nerve center" in this part of Africa for this widespread secret mission. They were assisted by radio relays from a communications ship code named Disraeli parked in the middle of the Mediterranean.

A couple of waiting 6 x 6 army trucks hauled us into the city and to a former first class tourists' hotel which was now a very comfortable (to us) Bachelor Officers' Quarters (BOQ). After all Algiers had been through in the battle for North Africa, the surviving opulence of my room was most impressive. I even had my own private bath room complete with porcelain tub and bidet (the first one I had ever seen)----quite a contrast to our "tent life" winter in southern Italy where our steel helmets doubled as wash basins for shaving and bathing.The colonel declared an early curfew, talked about a bed check, and promised an early wake-up for an 0800 hr take-off. This put a dampener on our evening plans. However, a good dinner and hot bath helped the morale; it was my first real tub bath since "rest camp" at the Hotel Excelsior in Rome two months before.

Years later at a squadron reunion, I heard the story of how one of our crew chiefs and his buddy had tried to set themselves up as "tailors" to the local populace who were in desparate need of clothing. Seems our guys had expropriated several sturdy cotton mattress covers from our supply tent back at home base. A slit in the closed end for the head and a small slit on either side of the mattress cover for the arms produced a complete "cover all". This garb was fast becoming the "uniform of the day" for the impoverished locals. Our guys were soliciting their "customer base" on a main street sidewalk when the local MP patrol came on the scene. The operation disbanded rather quickly with the crew chiefs abandoning their inventory and "high-tailing" it through a labyrinth of narrow alleyways back to their quarters.

Next morning at our briefing, just before take-off, Bucky told us we would now cross the western end of the Mediterranean and land at the British base on Gibraltar. Ah hah, part of the secret was out !! We took off as scheduled, picked up our western heading over the beautiful blue Mediterranean toward Gibraltar--this time at a lower altitude.

The Rock

As we approached Gibraltar from the southeast, the scene on the horizon became more and more interesting-----absolutely no mistaking this spot with that magnificent Rock jutting straight up out of the azure Mediterranean for over 2000 ft. For years the Prudential Insurance Co.had used a picture of this scene in their advertising with the slogan "solid as the Rock of Gibraltar"; consequently, most of us knew what it looked like. From our altitude and distance on this clear day, it seemed awfully close to Africa, even though it was nearly 20 miles from that continent across the deep blue Strait of Gibraltar.

Bucky had warned us before take-off about violating Spanish air space in our landing pattern. He asked for and received permission to land our squadron, using code names for both the tower and us. Nearly below us was a lot of Spain but only a tiny little speck of ground attached to it and known as the British Protectorate of Gibraltar. This landing would not be like our last one; Bucky knew the Brits would not tolerate the Yanks showing off. Besides, with the many "ack ack" guns manned and possibly aiming at us, we were not in a very good position should there be a misunderstanding by the gunners on our identification and intent Consequently we made a normal approach in loose trail with an enlarged landing pattern--right turn onto final, landing to the East. © 2001 H.Eberhardt

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Their runway ran East & West and was tucked away close by the Rock with water at each end; it reminded one of landing on a large aircraft carrier permanently moored against a wall that seemed as high as the length of the landing deck. All of us had the same idea--- that we would have to "touch down" on the very end of the strip or we'd find ourselves in the drink !. I made a smooth landing ("greased 'er in" --in our parlance) and much to my surprise was able to clear the runway at the first taxiway, only using half of the runway.

We followed the colonel and taxied into assigned parking spots on the tarmac, I climbed out leaving my chute and stuff in the cockpit (there were British MP's all over the place). We all gathered at the colonel's plane; shortly a jeep drove up and a British Officer with 3 pips on his epaulets stepped out and stiffly exchanged salutes with Bucky. From what I could hear of their conversation, we had been expected but they didn't know why, yet they were determined to give us full support for whatever. I think the Europeans are better than Americans at keeping secrets so maybe the British Captain did know something, but he sure didn't let on that he knew. We were escorted to the Visitors' BOQ and assigned our rooms----very comfortable, freshly ironed clean sheets and all !

Bucky gathered us together in the adjacent hall and told us our B4 bags would be arriving shortly and put in our rooms. We would have evening mess with the Brits at 1800 hrs and that we were to get to bed early for a pre-dawn briefing on tomorrow's mission. He told us our British hosts were going to have a Formal Officers' Mess that evening in our honor. I guess to avoid any embarrassment, he felt obliged to "coach" us on the event. We were advised not to touch any food or beverage on the tables until the completion of the necessary toasts and the chaplain's invocation. After each toast, we were to sip our wine; after the final toast (to our mutual victory), and not before, we were OK to drain our wine glasses.

The Big Bash

The evening's event proved most interesting, yet , in some ways, very strange. The British

were dressed immaculately in their starched shirts and freshly pressed uniforms bedecked with ribbons. We, by contrast, were somewhat of a "rag-tag" bunch---- a few still in their flight suits, some with their A-2 leather jackets (proudly wearing their large "Hat-In-the-Ring" squadron patch). Most of us, like the colonel, were wearing ribboned "battle jackets" . The colonel didn't exclude anyone for being "out of uniform". It just would not have been Bucky's style. It was the first time I had seen him wearing all of his many ribbons, including the Silver Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross with 3 oak leaf clusters.

Our squadron was assigned to two conspicuous tables in front of the long head table, which consisted of the senior ranking host officers. Bucky was seated at the place of honor alongside the base commander, Group Captain Shaw. The tables were beautifully set with fresh linen, good china and wine goblets, silverware and flowers-----a sight I hadn't seen in years. Suddenly the idle table chatter was silenced by a bugler playing "The Royal Salute"; everyone popped up to a stiff attention. Then we all saluted as the Union Jack, Stars and Stripes, Flag of Gibraltar, and their battalion flag, with its historic battle streamers, were marched in to the cadence of two drummers, past our tables, and placed in their appointed stanchions above the head table.

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The Commander then raised his wine glass, extended his arm and shouted "Long live the King" there was a thunderous response throughout the hall as the men repeated his words, held out their glasses and took the first drink. This was quickly followed by toasts from both Bucky and the Base Commander to the President of the United States, the Queen of England, the men of the 94th Fighter Squadron, their host Battalion, the First Fighter Group, and finally, to complete victory over the enemy. By now most of us had emptied our wine glasses and the mess stewards were scurrying about refilling glasses with a very smooth Spanish rojo.

As I gazed over at the hosts' tables and observed the large number of clustered ribbons worn by many of them, awarded for both campaigns and valor, I thought Gibraltar was probably considered a "sweet plumb" assignment by the Brits---- sort of a respite reward to some of their deserving heroes. Life here, in these permanent barracks----good food, quarters, etc., sure looked plush for combat military personnel, especially compared to what our guys had been experiencing in Africa and Italy.

After the chaplain's blessing, we sat down and the Commander graciously extended a warm welcome to the colonel and ourselves. He congratulated us on being selected for our mission, never giving so much as a hint on what it was all about. At the time, it made me wonder if he even knew; in retrospect, I'm sure he did.

We then enjoyed a magnificent roast lamb dinner with all the trimmings including fresh vegetables, cake and ice cream. It was almost too much to comprehend; was this really happening or was it some kind of illusion? The best we could muster at our base, near Foggia, was Spam, ersatz mashed potatoes (potato flour and water), canned peas, and a hard, waxy K ration chocolate bar, gray coffee (chicory) and powdered milk.

The Commander took his leave shortly after dinner but the wine and warm beer kept flowing far into the night. They had a great piano player. Soon a large group gathered around an ancient upright and sang both English and American songs----some great old tunes with some vulgar verses I had never heard before or since. In fact, even with some words I had never heard before. They were great hosts and everyone was having a wonderful time. Nobody wanted to leave. A lot of wine was consumed that night; I personally only drank a couple of glasses, not being very fond of wine at the time. In spite of this, surprisingly, I still had trouble with recall the next day. Could the wine have been that strong?

Much later, someone produced a soccer ball and the Aussie and Canadian flyers challenged the English pilots to a game of ballroom rugby. They quickly piled the tables and chairs to one side of the hall and the mass mayhem that followed was something to behold ! Seemed everybody was calling everybody else a bloody bastard--a few of them actually were bloody !!.

Since I had to fly out the next morning, discretion became the better part of valor and I headed for the exit. As I walked toward our BOQ, I could hear the sharp crack of wooden furniture breaking and the thud of drunken players being slammed against the mess hall walls. I could guarantee the resultant damage was blamed on " those damned rowdy Yanks". These gentlemanly officers, who had displayed such decorum earlier, had suddenly turned into raging bulls. Fortunately most of them were just too drunk to hurt each other seriously.

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I guess many of them were overdue to vent off some steam; I can just hear those guys in their 70's and 80's at their squadron reunions in England, "Remember the bash we put on for those Yanks in Gibraltar? That was a real go !! ". To this day, if someone describes a wonderful party as a "Big Bash" it reminds me of that night ----a really interesting evening. There had to be some aching heads in Gibraltar the next day.

Departure of the USS Quincy

Nine days earlier, back in the States, it was well after midnight on the evening of Jan. 22, 1945 when the last of what would be a large (fifty-some member) party had arrived and entered a restricted gate at the Union Station in Washington. Upon arrival, the guests, with their suitcases, clamored aboard the President’s special train used in his unprecedented 4th term campaign about 3 months earlier.

This time the reporters were replaced by a special detachment of secret service men. Also aboard were: the President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his daughter Anna Boettiger, his close personal advisors, General Watson, Judge Rosenbaum, Jimmy Byrnes, Stephen Early, and Jim Flynn, several White House staff, and military medical personnel. It was only two days after the inauguration so the activity at the Washington station that night had all the outward appearances of the beginning of a “good will” cross-country train junket. Subsequently, to the Washington Press Corps and others, FDR had simply vanished that night, not to be heard from for the next month. Even the Vice President was kept in the dark on what was happening; Truman was only advised that the President could be reached in an emergency through the White House staff.

In actuality, President Roosevelt's train had, in the early morning darkness, snaked its way 200 miles south, down the old Norfolk and Southern tracks to Pier 6 in the highly secured embarkation port of Newport News, Virginia ----the same site I had steamed from in a large convoy of over 50 ships 6 months earlier. FDR's train arrived there at 6 am on the 23rd. The day before, the 2 yr.old CA 71 heavy cruiser USS Quincy had tied up there and taken on fuel and provisions; they also loaded the President's armored Lincoln limo and secreted it away below decks.

The Quincy had steamed in from the mouth of the Patuxent River, about 40 miles below Washington and near a large Navy Weapons Center where it had .spent the previous several days "tuning up" its electronics and test firing some of its weapons. Four months earlier the Quincy had been slightly modified at the Boston Navy Yard. In anticipation of the President's trip, a temporary elevator for FDR’s wheel chair had been installed and the Captain's quarters luxuriated, complete with rugs and bath tub. In retrospect, it seems a big 3 conference might have been planned for November and then postponed until after the inauguration.

On that cold January morning, The President of the United States and his party were "piped aboard" the USS Quincy. Most of the Quincy's complement of 1146 men had been ordered to stand formation "below" on the hangar deck for "special instructions"; this prevented curious gawking by the crew, giving the guests some privacy. By 0830 hrs all of the President's party had boarded and the Quincy cast off with its precious human cargo.

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News of the President and his key advisors being on board generated a lot of excitement and anticipation with the sailors. But within 24 hrs., word had spread among them that the President's daughter, Anna Boettiger, was also on board. This fact caused some hidden resentment among the more superstitious crew members. In those days it was considered bad luck to enter a war zone with a female on board.

The Quincy, accompanied by the light cruiser USS Savannah, and escorted by 3 destroyers, headed southeast out of the Chesapeake Bay and into the open Atlantic Ocean. This small navy task force then took up an easterly heading; they steamed a southerly route passing about 100 miles south of Bermuda and zig-zagging across the North Atlantic at the fast pace of 21 knots.They had been at sea for more than a week when they finally approached the coast of Africa and entrance to the Mediterranean at the Straight of Gibraltar..

Final Briefing at Gibraltar

At this time (Jan. 31, 1945) our Squadron was having a very early wake-up and breakfast at 0500 hrs, after that the colonel held a short "briefing" in the BOQ orderly room. There they were !! Bucky had tacked onto the wall the maps that showed the parts of the Atlantic Ocean and Mediteranean that surrounded Gibraltar and the local coasts. They showed the flight paths, headings, altitudes and rendezvous times for our day's three flights and were stamped with large red letters-----TOP SECRET !!

I don't think I had ever seen the colonel as serious as he was that morning while he slowly unfolded the mysterious plan and our day's scheduled events. He was obviously "uptight", a rare thing for Bucky, and even a little emotional when he confided to us that we were about to escort some of the most important people in the world. With all that had led up to this moment, it did not come as a complete surprise to me; although a few of my friends' expressions indicated an element of surprise.

Bucky then described the small task force and who would be aboard the heavy cruiser. I'm sure no one else in that small room knew until that very moment that we would be flying escort for our Commander-in-Chief, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Colonel Harris then counseled "we must protect them at all costs from any type of enemy plane action". It was truly an emotional time for most of us, as the news sank in, and as the colonel described the things we needed to be concerned with. I began to think about what an awesome responsibility this really was, and yet, I was still too young to vote !! I had this great welling of pride-----a sort of "Star Spangled Banner" feeling.

The colonel had cautioned that one of the biggest dangers to the President could come from a single plane "Kamikaze Type" bomb attack. He reminded us that the enemy had many captured Allied planes that were still flyable and could "sneak in" bearing friendly insignia. Our orders were to challenge any plane in the area of the task force---"If any unidentified Bogies ignore our warnings and get within 2 miles of the cruisers, shoot them down----regardless of their markings!" We were also cautioned not to fly directly over the President's heavy cruiser.

The colonel gave marked up maps to his flight leaders, Baker and Gonring; he laid out the mission as the rest of us took careful notes on the code names, probable event timing, etc.What he did not explain, and what we gleaned later from other pilots in our First Fighter Group, was that the the task force was headed for the large British Naval Base on the island of Malta. Our 27th Fighter Squadron had been temporarily assigned there.

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The plan was for Colonel Harris with his Red Flight to make first contact with the task force and escort them from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean.Our White Flight would then relieve the colonel's flight with a 10:00 hrs. rendezvous at approximately 36 degrees N and 3 degrees W. Captain Baker's Blue Flight, in turn, would relieve our flight after the task force had traveled another hundred miles or so into the Mediterrranean. After Blue Flight's assignment, members of the 71st Fighter Squadron, flying out of Algiers, would take over at daybreak the next day. Our White and Blue Flights were to fly to Oran after completing our segments of the escort.

Weather forecasted for our part of the escort was excellent----CAVU (ceiling and visibility unlimited)all the way. Bucky explained that the task force would consist of a heavy cruiser followed by a light cruiser; the cruisers would be surrounded by at least 4 destroyers. They are all fast ships and would be traveling top speed (about 30 knots) making a "bee line" through the Strait of Gibraltar. After clearing the strait, they would slow down slightly and resume their various zig-zag patterns across the Med to Malta.

Background Information

Never before or since would so many of the world’s leaders , both military and civilian, gather together in wartime to plan strategy and direction which would have such a profound influence on the Earth's inhabitants for generations to come.!! Bringing together the leaders of the Allies, their advisors and staff while still at war with Germany and Japan meant the utmost secrecy was paramount in providing their protection. The deployment of their protective forces had to be carried out without a hint to the enemy of what was happening. Any and all communication had to be TOP SECRET !!.

Consequently, none of the 50 fighter pilots involved were totally briefed on what was happening. All most of us knew was that we were assigned to a mission code named Argonaut in the Mediterranean area and that we had to protect some very important people. One was code named “the Admiral” (President Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and one was code named “the Colonel” ( Prime Minister Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill). Part of their travel was to be by Naval Task Force and part of it by Army Air Force and Royal Air Force aircraft.This widespread escort operation would eventually cover 3 continents and 16,000 miles.

Our First Fighter Group commanding officer, Col. Arthur C. "Sailor" Agan, at 29 was one of the youngest officers to ever command an American Fighter Group. Unfortunately about 5 wks after our operation Argonaut, Colonel Agan was shot down along with his fellow Texan and wingman "RG" Gillen (a close friend of mine). They got hit by 37mm ground fire while flying at about 5000 ft.over the Eastern Front Line (near Wiener Neustadt, Austria). I was also on that mission with them; it had been a planned strafing run on the trains between Linz and Vienna that went awry due to bad weather. The Colonel bailed out and survived in prison camp but RG was killed instantly by the anti-aircraft fire. Hendricks and Coury of the 27th were also killed on that fateful March 31st.

The responsibility to come up with most of the detailed escort plans before, as well as during Argonaut fell on young Colonel Agan's shoulders. This brilliant youthful officer was destined to become one of the Air Force's top commanders; Arthur "Sailor" Agan retired in 1970 as a 3 star general. The initial "overall planning" was produced by General Ira Eaker and his staff ( CO, Mediterranean Allied Air Force). The precise path and progress of the President’s trip from Hampton Rhoads, Virginia to Yalta, in the Russian Crimea, and return, was subject to: the utmost secrecy, the vagaries of uncertain winter weather in the region, President Roosevelt’s frail health, military intelligence, and progress of the various meetings.

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Col. Agan and his squadron commanders Lt. Col. Francis Pope, 27th Fighter Squadron (the nation's oldest squadron) ; Lt. Col. Frank Jones, 71st; and Lt. Col. Francis Harris, 94th “Hat In The Ring” Squadron, had to deploy their P-38’s at the various bases available around the Mediterranean. Because of the uncertainties it was necessary for them to “play it by ear” as the mission unfolded. It required squadrons and flights to “leap frog” each other so that there was always fighter escort and/or interception available to the major participants during the daylight hours regardless of the weather conditions. In 1945 weather forecasting in the region was not very reliable.

There was a large radar installation in southern Italy; it was code named "Big Fence". If we encountered really bad weather, their voice was a welcomed one and always seemed able to guide us back to our home base "Space Bar", code for the Salsola Aerodrome at San Severo near Foggia, Italy. Years later, at a First Fighter Group reunion, I learned that the welcomed "voice" was a fellow by the name of Coggins from High Point, North Carolina. He told me that he was assigned to our Group and had nearly all of our pilots' voices memorized. Unfortunately we were, for the most part, out of his range and there was no such facility for the aerodromes of North Africa.Our 94th and the 71st squadrons' 38's were equipped with a pair of 165 gal. "belly tanks" which carried about a ton of additional fuel; they were to be jettisoned away in the event of contact with the enemy. The 27th's 38's were outfitted with a pair of monstrous 300 gallon tanks, made of plywood, for extra long range flying.

In general, the squadrons divided up the geography so that the 27th(code named Petdog) was given the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean; the 71st (code Cragmore), the central Mediterranean, and my squadron, the 94th (code Spring Cap), got the western Med. The 27th had the most glamorous part but we got to be based at Gibraltar, a fascinating place, especially in war time. We also would be making the first contact with the President's task force as he approached the Mediterranean and the last visual contact whenever he left the Mediterranean war zone.

The Mission

That morning Colonel Harris made a pre-dawn take off with his Red Flight (4 planes); about 50 miles out into the Atlantic they made initial rendezvous with the task force at first light for the entire First Fighter Group. Red Flight flew cover for this part of the trip covering the task force as it came thru the narrow section of the Strait of Gibraltar at "full tilt" .

Our P 38 combat flight duration was generally limited to about 6 hrs, even when using the auxililiary tanks. By using one flight of planes at a time, the squadron was able (with plenty of "reserve") to maintain "air cover" for the President's task force for all of the daylight hours. Our two remaining flights, while temporarily on the ground at Gibraltar, and the 71st, at Algiers, would be on a "standby alert" status, in case the active flight or the task force's radar indicated a quick "scramble" was necessary.

At the appointed hour, Cpt. Gonring, and the other three of us comprising White Flight, took off singly, from our carrier-like field at Gibraltar, into the crisp mid-morning air. We formed up into a loose formation during a 360 turn, being very careful to avoid Spanish air space. We then picked up our easterly heading climbing slowly to about 10,000 ft. carefully scanning the horizon ahead of us. Just a few minutes into the flight we spotted the speeding task force and then the colonel's Red Flight.

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As we spelled Red Flight, Cpt. Gonring pulled up alongside the colonel's plane and they waved to each other (we were maintaining very strict radio silence); Bucky then proceeded to take his four birds back to the "Rock".; the colonel and his Red Flight returned to Gibraltar temporarily, apparently so that Bucky could send a coded progress report to Tunis, Algiers, and Malta, refuel, and head for Oran. I suspect each squadron was assigned a "top secret clearance" communications officer with a code machine for such a purpose.

Our White Flight then divided into a pair of two plane elements, as pre-arranged. Gonring took his 2 planes to the opposite side of the task force and I kept our element on the near side. We then set-up a slow weaving pattern, with one element going a few miles North of the task force while the other element would go a few miles South; then we would alternate and repeat. Consequently, the two elements criss-crossed near, but never directly over the two cruisers ( the light cruiser was trailing the President's by about a half mile).

We were really scanning the horizon hard for any suspicious aircraft. After several minutes of this, I spotted a Bogey at 7 o'clock low closing in on the task force from the Northwest. With my wingman on my right, I headed over toward him on an intercepting path at full throttle. From a couple of miles, I recognized it to be a DeHavilland Mosquito ---a very fast, all plywood attack bomber !! In a few seconds I was close enough to see British insignia on the fuselage. Bucky's final words at this morning's briefing were ringing in my ears, "Beware of the enemy flying one of our planes".

We made a diving pass at him, holding our fire, and pulled up quickly in front of him narrowly missing his right wing. I looked back over my shoulder and he was still "boring in" straight for the cruisers. I jerked on the wheel, shaking my wings violently---he would not alter his course. Hoping he was on Gibraltar's frequency, I yelled desperately on the radio "Change Course, Change Course"

Still he persisted, closing quickly on that two mile limit. I turned my gun switches on, made a quick turn, and set up to make a more serious pass on a wider (more visible) angle, coming in from his right and about 100 ft above his plane. From approximately 600 yards out, I squeezed the trigger and pressed on the cannon button, praying "please dear God, don't let me shoot down one of our own". I was aiming much further ahead than required so that my tracers would be flashing by in front of his cockpit.

The four 50's and 20 mm cannon in my plane's nose were spewing out their deadliness. Just as he was about to converge with this lethal concentrated firestream, he must have seen my tracers and/or my guns blazing. When he realized what was happening, he suddenly broke sharply left, away from the cruisers and fled the scene with us in hot pursuit---- like killer bees protecting the hive !! Without any further shots, we escorted him several miles away from the task force before breaking off and returning to resume our weaving pattern over the ships. I think I might have accidentally squeezed my transmit button afterwards with a relieving sigh of "close, very close". All of this transpired in a couple of minutes but seemed like an hour.

To this day, I don't know if that Bogey was just a curious friend or a deadly foe. If anyone knows the answer, I would sure like to know. As we continued our escort, I wondered could anyone in the task force hear my guns firing? Was the President out on deck enjoying the sun and sea air? Did he hear it ? Did it make anyone nervous? Did anybody on watch witness this through their binoculars? All of these still remain questions in my mind today.

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With no further intrusions, we completed our escort stint. At the appointed hour, we just barely perceived Lyle Baker's Blue Flight coming over the western horizon to relieve us. Without making any radio contact on the exchange, they pulled up into position and we headed for the La Senia Aerodrome at Oran, landing there in the late afternoon; in the early evening Baker's Blue Flight, having completed our squadron's daylight escort assignment joined us at the air base. Our C-47 with our crewmen also joined us there that evening and serviced our planes early the next morning. Sometime later I found out that the President's ship was in the Oran harbor that night since the Quincy and her destroyers required refueling.

Back to Foggia

Next morning the 8 of us (White & Blue Flights) took off in our P-38's for Algiers and those luxury quarters. At this time the 71st flying out of Algiers under Lt. Col Frank Jones' command took over the task force escorting. In the late afternoon, Col. Harris and his Red Flight joined us at Algiers; that evening some of the local military sponsored a small party at the hotel.

The next morning after taking off from Maisson Blanche, we wanted to give their tower a proper departure “buzz job”. This proved to be a harrowing experience for Blue Flight leader, Cpt. Lyle Baker. We were in the process of "forming-up" our echelon over the adjacent Bay of Algiers. Baker’s guardian angel must have told him at the right instant, during a turn in this tight formation, to glance down just as his wing tip was about to enter the water. Miracuously, Baker was able to maintain control of his P-38 by temporarily withdrawing from the formation; he rejoined us shortly before we screamed across the airfield at a very low altitude.

Depth perception when flying over water can be very deceiving. A friend of mine, Bill Ford from San Francisco, had drowned a couple of months before while training for combat with Capt. Gordon Buttles over Lake Lesina in Italy. Many fighter pilots were killed on training flights, and in combat, flying formation at low altitude. When you’re flying close formation on somebody’s wing you are so totally absorbed in controlling your plane to maintain a minimum distance (sometimes only a couple of feet away), you tend to lose track of how close the end of the wing on the other side of the plane is to the ground or water. If the plane you are following gets too low, the results are disastrous.

We then flew nearly all of the 500 miles to Tunis in a loose echelon formation at a very low altitude (below radar detection). I guess you could say we were "buzzing" the grassy hills of Algeria and Tunisia. We saw many flocks of sheep grazing on the pastures with their shepherds just as they had done back in Biblical days. Occasionally, if we got too close and disturbed the sheep, an angry shepherd would throw his staff in the air, hoping to break a prop or dent a wing. Again we spent the night at the Tunis air base.

Next morning 23 P-38's of the 71st and 94th squadrons, in widely separated flights, headed back across the Mediterranean toward Foggia. Unfortunately, after flying about 500 miles over water, as we approached Italy, a warm front had closed the Foggia area temporarily and we had to land at a B-24 base near Bari. After about a half hour's wait the fog lifted and we made the short hop back to our Salsola base arriving on the late afternoon of Feb.4. This concluded our 7 day odyssey and participation in escorting the President and other VIP's to the Yalta Conference. Our 94th squadron would remain on standby for the next 10 days, until FDR and his entourage embarked on their secret return trip.

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Eastern Mediterranean and Yalta

At this time the 27th Squadron took over the escort duties.The plan was for the President and the Prime Minister and their key people to fly in escorted C-54 and British York transports from Malta over Greece, Turkey.and the Black Sea to the Russian Crimea.On Jan. 30, while our squadron had been initiating the escort in the Atlantic, the 27th Fighter Squadron , with a contingent of 25 men, 18 P-38 fighters and a C-47 transport, led by their CO, Lt. Col. Francis Pope, and joined by our group commander Col. Agan, flew from their home base at Foggia, Italy to the Luqua Aerodrome, a British air base on Malta.

After two days at Malta, 18 large American and British transport planes with full crews had arrived and "squeezed" some of the 27th out of the limited Transients' Quarters. Colonel Pope then led half of his squadron on a flight to the aerodrome at Athens to await further orders leaving Major Ash in charge of those remaining on Malta.Their ultimate destinations would be the air field at Saki, then the larger field at the Simferapol naval base, both near Yalta in the Russian Crimea, and then eventually (after the Conference concluded) to the Heliopolis Aerodrome near Cairo, Egypt.

Early Sun. morning Lt. Joe Demkovich, an acquaintance of mine from P-39 and P-38 training in the states, went into town to attend Sunday mass. After the church service Joe heard a familiar sound, looked toward the heavens and saw a large formation of P-38’s go by. Imagine his consternation when he realized the red band markings on the nacelles meant they were his own 27th Squadron.

Joe rushed back to the base to discover half the squadron’s planes, including his own, had left Malta. Major Ash had pinned a note to his duffel bag that said simply and succinctly “get your ass over to Athens immediately or face a court martial”. In Luqua’s operations office he saw an RAF A-30-A (a Martin Baltimore medium bomber) posted on the ops.board with an Athens designation. When the Greek pilot checked in, Joe, whose parents were immigrants, spoke to him in Russian.

The Greek pilots made the trip to Athens a memorable one for Joe. He was assigned a place by the waste gunner’s window while the pilot and co-pilot showed off their Greek daring and depth perception skills by staying about 10 ft. above the waves of the Mediterranean all the way to Athens. At the time, Joe wished he had taken the court martial and stayed on Malta.

While President Roosevelt's task force was steaming across the Mediterranean to Malta, Winston Churchill was flying directly there from England (via Naples, probably at night in his C-54 Skymaster). The prime minister (like FDR), was also accompanied by his daughter, Sarah. He would join Britains’ top military men including First Sea Lord of the Admiralty Sir Andrew Cunningham and Field Marshall Sir Alan Brooke (both had arrived 4 days earlier via flights to Casablanca)

Our General George C. Marshall and Admiral Ernest B. King had also flown into the Luqua Aerodrome on Malta with their staffs (via their C-54 trans Atlantic flights to Casablanca) for a 3 day joint strategy planning session. With a refueling stop, it would also have been possible for FDR to fly to Malta in his long range C-54, the Sacred Cow; however for reasons of: safety, health, and his need for additional meetings, he opted to take the extra 3 wks.and go by ship. I suspect he was not fond of flying, although his son, Elliot, was C.O. of a photo reconnaissance squadron based near us in Italy.

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The USS Quincy steamed into Malta under an umbrella of locally based Spitfires and docked alongside a British cruiser which had arrived earlier: Winston Churchill was waiting on its fan tail in anticipation of the arrival of his old friend FDR--they exchanged warm vigorous arm waves as soon as they spotted each other. The President's armored Lincoln was unloaded on the dock, he was welcomed by the Governor and then proceeded with Prime Minister Churchill in a fast motorcade to the Government House for a pre-conference meeting.

That evening both military delegations would join the principles at the Governor's reception and dinner. During the night and early next morning they would board the transport planes for the long trip to the Crimea. In the early morning hours of Feb 3, there was a mass exodus of VIP's from Malta----destination Yalta, Russia. It started with our ambassador to that country, W. Averell Harriman and his staff (some Russian speaking Americans). The President’s personal interpreter, Charles E. “Chip” Bohlen was on that flight. They left in a C-87 (converted B-24) shortly before midnight and flew unescorted; most of their flight to the Crimea was under the cover of darkness and hidden by a layer of stratus clouds.

To minimize alerting the Germans, the 18 transports took off singly over a 5 hr. period starting at 11:30 pm. The night of Feb. 2, 1945, the Luqua Aerodrome must have seemed like Los Angeles International without lights. All of the transports were flown at the relatively low altitude of 5000 ft. Most of the British contingent left in their York Transports shortly after midnight and arrived a couple hours after daybreak. The first American C-54 taking off at 2 am carried our new Secretary of State, Edward R. Stettinius and his staff. They were then followed shortly by 4 - C-54's carrying General George C. Marshall, Harry Hopkins, Admiral Ernest B. King, and their staffs plus the other presidential advisors. Most of these VIP's were escorted by a pair of P-38's.

It was near daybreak when the President boarded his plane, a C 54 called the "Sacred Cow" which had been flown in by his pilot Col. Meyer a couple of days earlier. Using (for the first time) a special "on board" hydraulic lifting device, he was hoisted (wheel chair and all ) into the belly of his plane. The long 10 to 12 hr. trips to and from Yalta would prove be his first and last in this specially built C-54 Skymaster aircraft. This plane was a large 4 engine, fast long range transport built by Douglass; post war it would be known as a DC-4.

Major Paul Ash and Lt. Guy Casey took off at about 6 am with their wingmen from Luqua Aerodrome immediately after the President's plane. The remaining P-38's took-off ten minutes later to escort Churchill's plane piloted by Flying Officer Fraser. In a few minutes Ash's flight of 4 P-38's established their escort positions with a 2 ship element on each side of the "Sacred Cow". While flying across the Ionian Sea in a close formation, Casey observed a female photographer (probably the President's daughter) at the plane's observation window taking photos of their P-38's. After approx. 6 long hours of escorting, they finally arrived at their rendezvous point over eastern Greece. The five planes then proceeded to fly a wide circling pattern looking for their escort relief flight.

Late that morning Col. Pope, Lt. Edward Begley, Lt. Edgar Coury, and Lt. John Haring had taken off singly at approximately 20 second intervals from the air base at Athens. Pope made a wide climbing circle of the airfield while Begley and Coury intercepted him and flew formation with him as he set a southeasterly course. Unfortunately, this was to be one of Coury's last flights as he was killed in combat shortly thereafter. Because visibility was very poor, due to the inclement weather, Lt. Haring (the last one to take off) could not locate the others. After several minutes he made a desparate radio call asking for the flight's location. By now the others were nearly 40 miles southeast of the field, so, much to his chagrin, he was instructed to return to base.

The three P38's caught up with the President's 5 plane formation around noontime above the © 2001 H.Eberhardt Pg. 16 clouds at the designated rendezvous point over the north end of Andros Island. There they relieved Major Ash's flight, and established their escort formation. There were two dangerous spots near their route; one was the 8500 ft high Greek mountain Island of Samothrace, the other was the heavy anti- aircraft artillery on the West end of the Island of Crete which was still under German control. They flew nearly over Istanbul, Turkey, which was cloud covered, and then out across the Black Sea. Meanwhile, Ash landed his flight at Athens where they remained for several days.

As they approached the Crimea, they experienced some very nervous moments; it was now necessary to drop down thru the dense cloud layer while still trying to escort the slower C54. On entering the cloud bank, they immediately lost sight of the President's plane and had to "go on instruments". Flying blindly, they could only hope and pray that they did not fly into the President of the United States or one another or a mountain. After what seemed like an eternity of "sweating it out", they finally broke out of the dense fog-like cloud strata and, with much relief, saw the Sacred Cow behind and above them.

When the C-54 and the three P-38's approached the Russian coast line in the Crimea, they were required by the Soviets to fly a certain pattern by entering a narrow air corridor, execute their identification procedure, make a specified right hand turn and then land on a relatively short strip at the coastal Saki Aerodrome. A few days before, when some of the British advance party were arriving in their C-47, the Russian gunners shot at them because they did not follow the procedure properly.Three other P38 pilots of the 27th led by Lt. John Hurst also rendezvoused at Andros and escorted Prime Minister Churchill in his C-54 (piloted by Flying Officer Fraser). Although they left Malta a few minutes after the President's plane, they arrived a few minutes before, briefly causing some consternation.

Colonel Agan remained at Malta until all flights had taken-off for the Crimea. He then flew solo to Athens and refueled quickly. With Lt. Warren Danielson as his wingman, he led a flight of 5 P-38’s directly to the Saki Aerodrome. While Roosevelt's and Churchill's escorts and Agan's flight were not within sight of each other, they were all in the same general area. During the long trip to Yalta , if radar or ground observer information on enemy activity required it, a radio call could bring them to each other's aid.

The Conference---a Tragedy in the Making ?

Josef Stalin was conspicuous by his absence at the airport; the welcoming was handled by Foreign Secretary Molotov. Perhaps Stalin was still "smarting" from the many arguments the principles had over delayed timing on the Normandy invasion. The Americans were driven about 70 miles south across the mountains in a military motorcade. Their five hour trip on a winding mountain road was guarded by Russian sentries stationed about every 50 yards for the entire route. The President and his party finally arrived at the seashore resort town of Yalta after dark.

Prime Minister Churchill and his delegation were assigned to the old Vorontsovski Palace, at the nearby town of Alupka, while President Roosevelt and his staff were quartered in the big, beautiful Livonia palace where the Conference was held. This magnificent structure had been Czar Nicholas II 's "dream house"; the palace had served as the royal family's summer home.

Apparently the Conference did not go at all as planned a few days earlier at Malta; Josef Stalin was adamant in his refusal to give the French an occupation zone and a voice in managing post war Europe. Consequently, to appease the little (5ft. 4in.) Bolshevic, the French zone had to be carved out of the planned American and British zones of occupation. We must remember, at this © 2001 H.Eberhardt

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time, this shrewd dictator had not yet declared war on Japan, territory concessions in Europe and Asia would be his price for such a declaration. Five years previously, this butcher of the male Polish intelligentsia had ordered the summary execution of thousands of Polish officers trying to survive in his austere Soviet prison camps.

The first 4 days at the Saki Aerodrome our planes and pilots were constantly guarded by Russian soldiers with automatic weapons; this made our men feel more like prisoners than guests of the Soviets. Finally, the Russian Command relented a bit (after Col. Agan's protests) and took our men down to Yalta for some better food and "treated" ( ? ) them to a 3 hr. opera at the Yalta Opera House. All in Russian, of course; if anything, it helped most of them get caught up on their sleep.

A few days after landing in Russia all of the planes were flown the short distance from Saki to the larger air field at Simferopol to take advantage of a longer runway. This would enable the longer take-off runs required on the return trips with full fuel loads. One night at Simferapol a freezing rain encrusted all our planes in a heavy layer of rime ice; P-38's were not equipped for de-icing. Early the next morning the fighter pilots joined their crew chiefs in laboriously removing the accumulated ice using wrenches and other tools as hammers and ice picks. That morning the first return flights began.

FDR, knowing the resolve of the Japanese people and their total devotion to their Emperor, must have envisioned the loss of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and millions of casualties as the cost of invading and conquering the Japanese homeland. The U.S. had already sustained nearly a million casualties. To have the huge and experienced Russian Army assist in this potentially bloody campaign would, in his mind, be worth the concessions.

Unfortunately, Stalin, who was not anxious (like FDR) to send his troops home, would misinterpret this as softness and lack of resolve by the Americans and lead to many unnecessary confrontations in the cold war to follow. Photos from Yalta have shown the traiterous Alger Hiss, the State Dept's "expert" on Soviet affairs, at Roosevelt's side, giving (probably misleading) advice. During the winter of 1945 the President could not possibly imagine the awesome success the Manhattan Project would have that summer; we must also remember the very first test of the atomic bomb was not until after his premature death. If only he could have known how suddenly the killing and maiming would stop after a plane flight to Nagasaki !!

Major General E. W. Watson, FDR's military aide must have taken a lot of "heat" from the top military commanders during and after the Conference. This stress could have been a major factor in the sudden fatal heart attack he suffered on Feb. 20 aboard the Quincy on its homeward journey. A few weeks later, the President would lose another close friend and confidant, the Episcopal Bishop of Arizona who passed away 3 days before FDR's untimely death.

Shortly after his return from Yalta, the military/political developments in Poland made him realize Stalin could not be trusted to keep his word; Roosevelt never made public his promise to declare war on Japan. All of this must have preyed heavily on his mind, right up to the end.

Middle East Influence

On the morning of Feb. 11th, after the cumbersome de-icing procedure, Lieutenants Frank Mc Hugh and Othel Kilpatrick flew cover for General Marshall back to Bari, Italy. Also, that same day, Lieutenants Dick Hanford and Warren Danielson escorted Admiral King in his C-54 all the way from the Crimea to Tunis by way of Athens (a distance of 1490 miles). The next day Lt. Joe Demkovich, and another 27th pilot, escorted Admiral King to Cairo. © 2001 H.Eberhardt

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At the conclusion of the Yalta Conference, on Feb. 12 the President flew once again in his "Sacred Cow" nearly due south across the Black Sea, over Turkey (near Ankara), then over the Eastern Mediterranean to the Egyptian Aerodrome at Cairo, again escorted by Begley, Coury, and Haring. This flight was led by our Group Commander, Col. Agan. Near Cairo, the President re-boarded his cruiser, the USS Quincy (anchored on Great Bitter Lake).

Prime Minister Churchill left the Crimea a day later, escorted by Col.Pope and Lts.Coury, Hanford, Lucietich, Tappan, and Youtz from the 27th. It's interesting to note that they flew southwest to Athens and then southeast to Alexandria (instead of flying south, directly to Cairo as FDR had done). The next day Churchill reappeared aboard the Quincy; apparently he and FDR preferred to have their post-conference critique in the privacy of the President's cabin on the Quincy and to keep it secret from the Soviets.

While the Conference had been in progress, the Quincy had completed, without its VIP complement, its crossing of the eastern part of the Mediterranean to Ismalia, Egypt, through part of the Suez Canal and anchored in the Great Bitter Lake where it refueled. Captain Senn then dispatched one of his escorting destroyers, the USS Murphy, through the southern part of the Suez Canal and across the Red Sea to Jeddah to transport King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia to the Quincy.

At Jeddah, on the Arabian coast near Mecca, King Ibn Saud came aboard the destroyer with his party of 48 including personal staff, his princes and tribal chiefs wearing their swords. The party’s supplies were loaded on board including tents, rugs, pillows, food, firewood and, to the surprise of many of the crew members, several live sheep. It was a very unusual trip back up the Persian Gulf to the Great Bitter Lake for the crew of the USS Murphy.

The King and his staff stayed above deck. They tethered the sheep, erected the tents, and then built a fire on the aft deck of the ship. The sequence that followed was a little difficult for some of the city-bred sailors. The King’s staff proceeded to cut the throats of the live sheep, in the Muslim tradition, drain and skin them. They then roasted them on spits over the open fire they had built near one of the ammo lockers.

When the Murphy returned to the Great Bitter Lake, the King and his party were taken aboard the Quincy where the President held a reception for them. The fine relationship initiated by FDR with the Saudi's royal family 57 years ago is undoubtedly a factor in our good relationship with this country today. While anchored in the Suez, the President and his staff further enhanced our relations in this part of the world by entertaining King Farouk I of Egypt and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia at two additional lavish receptions aboard the Quincy. Consequently, all three monarchs, individually and personally, received an early "update" from FDR on most of the accords reached at Yalta.

"Take-Off" Problems

On Feb. 16 our 94th Fighter Squadron was ordered to return to Tunis, Oran, and then Gibraltar to escort the President's naval task force during their recrossing of the Mediterranean and exit into the Atlantic. On that same day pilots of the 27th, led by Major Paul Ash, initiated the task force's daylight escort about 100 miles southeast of Tobruk, Libya.

One of the few negatives about the P-38’s unique design was the possibility of one of the engines failing during the critical “lift-off” phase in the take-off run. When this happens, the tremendous thrust of the good engine will flip the plane over in an instant and kill the pilot. I saw this happen back at Foggia shortly before Argonaut started.

When flight leader Lt. Guy Casey was taking off from the aerodrome at Tobruk with Joe Demkovitch on his right wing, his right engine exploded just as he left the ground. Casey’s

reflexes must have been excellent that morning; in a fraction of a second he closed both throttle levers preventing a flip-over. Joe narrowly missed him as he suddenly overtook him. Casey “belly’d in” the smoking plane, left the cockpit quickly with his parachute and life raft.

To the amazement of the ambulance crew that picked him up, and the 27th’s ground crews, Casey had the guts and temerity to jump right into Begley's “warmed-up” plane and take-off. He caught up with his flight and led them in carrying out their escort of the President’s task force as planned.

A few days later Lt. William Dougherty of the 94th would have a similar engine failure while taking off on the wing of Cpt. Lyle Baker. In Dougherty’s case the left engine exploded before he was airborne and the right engine took him across the runway behind Baker, narrowly missing his tail.

These pilots were currently accustomed to flying the new P-38 L model ; during Argonaut some of the older P-38 J models were pressed into service. There was an important difference in take-off procedures. I remember this well because a few weeks later I wrecked our Colonel’s J model piggy-back (a special 2 passenger) P-38 when my right engine blew up just as I was leaving the ground.

There were a pair of toggle switches that controlled the position of the oil cooler shutter flaps which determined the amount of air going thru the cooler and consequently the engine oil temperature. The new L Model had a thermostatically control position “auto” so we generally flipped the switches up and left them there.

The older models only had the manual control toggles--up to open, down to close, they would always spring back to neutral or middle position. In the normal progression from J model to L model there was no problem; however when the pilot transitioned back from L to J, look out !! In the heat of the moment, prior to take-off, the pilot’s eyes and mind are focused on dozens of other higher priorities. In a J if he forgets to look at the oil flaps' position he was in for trouble. If the oil shutter flaps are not wide open at take off, the length of time to get a heavily loaded P-38 J off the ground, using full power, can be enough to “cook” the lubricity out of the oil and blow up an engine from the resultant piston seizure. The engine stops immediately and usually catches fire----always an unnerving experience when sitting in the middle of hundreds of gallons of high octane avgas.

The President's Return Cruise

After Casey's crash and mechanical difficulties with another plane, 11 P-38's of the 27th took off from Tobruk that morning in patchy fog and provided daylight escort in three sequential flights and landed at Malta for servicing. These same pilots continued to protect the task force the next day (landing at Tunis afterward). Begley was stranded at Tobruk and "hitch-hiked" in a military transport to Sicily and eventually back to Foggia.

The escort duty was then picked up by the 71st Squadron flying out of Bone (now Annaba); Algeria, again escorting the naval task force along the Algerian coast. Then our CO, Col "Bucky" Harris with his 4 plane Red Flight, flying out of Algiers, found the President's task force at daybreak and flew cover for them into the harbor and refueling at Algeria. General DeGaulle had been invited to join FDR in Algiers for a debriefing on the conference. Still smarting from France not being represented at Yalta, the petulant general declared he was too busy, infuriating President Roosevelt.

Pg. 20 My White Flight took off from Algiers on the afternoon of Feb.18th and escorted the task force just north of the coast between Algiers and Oran. After 4 1/2 hrs of escorting, we returned to the base at Algiers landing at dusk. Next day we flew over to Gibraltar and again landed at "the Rock". The other flights in our squadron, flying out of Gibraltar, were now completing the escort duties of the First Fighter Group. They escorted the President's task force about 100 miles back into the Atlantic. It was the 19th of Feb.and the President would arrive back in Washington a week later.

Also on the 19th of Feb., Churchill took off from Cairo in his C-54 shortly after midnight and without escort. Major Ash took off from Malta with 6 other P-38's including Demkovich, Hanford, and McHugh. At daybreak they rendezvoused with Churchill's plane 35 miles southwest of Malta and escorted the Prime Minister and his party across the Mediterranean, over the island of Sardinia to Marseilles, France. Here they were met by 4 RAF Mosqitoes that continued the escort to an airfield near London.

Gibraltar Visit

After completion of our escort duties we were anxious to visit the town of Gibraltar, which seemed more like a village in England than a town on the Mediterranean. Bucky advised us we were free to go touristing in groups of 3 or 4, and to minimize any conversation with the locals. In my opinion, this was one of the many ways Bucky showed his true character for handling his pilots. It would have been easy and riskless for him to confine us to quarters; he knew that most of us would never come by this interesting place again and he put his trust in us not to "screw up" and blab about what we had been doing. So Lyle Finley, RG Gillen and I headed for town.

Right about now I was longing for my camera. The colonel had warned us at our initial briefing-------no cameras. No pictures; and this little ancient Moorish town of Gibraltar was so very picturesque! It lay basking lazily in the warm Mediterranean sun in repose against the base of the rugged Rock. Over the centuries, this place had been the target of many battles. The last one the British had won in the 17th Century and it has been their fortress ever since. The civilians, in this seaport village, nearly all spoke the King's English but looked like the Andulusians they descended from. They seemed stern and stiffened by their austere life. For them, the war must have seemed like serving an eternal prison sentence; people were just not free to come and go to this isolated little enclave.

We walked down the main street past bistros, closed cafes, and little shops whose inventories were long since depleted. The street ended at a large iron gate. The gate was a 40 foot interruption in a 15 foot high wall that separated Gibraltar from Spain. There were guard houses on both sides of the gate, and at both ends. There were numerous Spanish border guards on the north side and even more British guards on the south side---seems everybody had an automatic weapon. Like small, curious children we walked to the iron bars, closely watched by both sides. I impulsively reached thru the bars and touched the ground of Spain, which was, of course, one of the few non-combatant European countries. It gave me a strange, calming feeling to touch the soil of a country now at peace. I guess the psychologists would say it was the manisfestation of a deep personal yearning for the end of this damn war that had been the focus of my life for the last three years.

Although Spain was officially a "neutral" country, we thought the Franco regime was more friendly to the Nazis, and somewhat hostile to us; we reasoned that this was because of the assistance the Franco regime got from Hitler when they were defeating the Loyalists during the Spanish Civil War. Many of us felt the Nazis had used Spanish Blood to test the effectiveness of their new war machines (ten short years before).

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Several of us were curious about the fortifications and the interior of the Rock so a British non-com MP was assigned to give us the "Cook's Tour" which proved most interesting. I strongly suspected our guide was not just an ordinary MP but an officer in the British counter intelligence corps. This little British stronghold, adjoining Spain and commanding access to and from the Med, had to be a favorite target of German spies and saboteurs. Consequently, I imagined many of its inhabitants were skilled counter intelligence personnel.

The interior of the Rock was bristling with dozens of 6 in. gun emplacements.These heavy artillery batteries gave the Brits total control over the Straight of Gibraltar and ingress to the Mediteranean. The Rock contained a labyrinth of tunnels, elevators, communication rooms, water and fuel tanks, munitions, armament, and canned food storage rooms, etc. all very, very impenetrable. It was a small subterranean city and a beehive of lift cart activity along miles and miles of corridors carved inside hundreds of feet of solid granite.

The southwest face of this rock mountain had been plastered over with millions of pounds of concrete, like smooth caramel icing on the side of a cake, to form a rainwater catchment. Apparently, most of their water came from rain draining off this steep cement slope and stored in a giant cistern---seemed primitive for such an otherwise modern facility.

One of the surprises was the vast number of large monkeys roaming free everywhere; they can be found nowhere else in all of Europe.The locals called them "Barbary Apes" and they are unique to this tiny country. It seems they were encouraged to live in this fortress.. I surmised there must be a reason for this madness; perhaps they could have served as some kind of early indicator of trouble------if they acted sick, maybe the homo-sapiens would be alerted to take caution such as putting on their gas masks. To this day, I have not heard another plausible explanation for their proliferation there during World War II.

The next day, 14 of us climbed into our P38's; reluctantly, we took off from Gibraltar and flew back to Algiers where we spent the night. On the morning of 2/22/45 our squadron returned on an uneventful trip across the Mediterranean to our home base at Salsola, completing this historic assignment. On 2/27/45 the President and his party arrived back at Newport News, Virginia; the President appeared in a very frail condition before Congress on Mar. 1 and reported on the Yalta Conference.

Reflections

Overseeing this entire widespread escort while operating in somewhat of a void, but still under the close scrutiny of so many important politicos and military brass, placed Colonel Agan's budding career on a "hot seat". He remained at Cairo until the last meeting had ended and the last VIP had been safely escorted out of the area and back to his home base. Only then was he able to relax and take due credit for a job well done without a single casualty. After 57 yrs., when I reflect back on this very secret mission, I realize what an excellent job the military did.

To bring Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin safely together in the Crimea during World War II, and to get them all back to their respective capitals, after several days of meetings and without a major incident, was rather miraculous. It's success was a real tribute to its planners and all the servicemen who made it happen. Everything about our Yalta escort was kept TOP SECRET, both before and after our mission. Afterwards, I was surprised and pleased to hear that I had received credit in my log sheets for my 19th mission (toward the 50 combat missions required to rotate back to the States)--- it was probably the least risky of the 39 missions I flew before Germany's surrender.

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The Yalta Conference was the first time Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin sat together and jointly agreed to establish "a general international organization to maintain peace and security--ensuring the rights of nations to amity, self determination, and democratically elected governments". It was President Roosevelt who proffered the name "United Nations". Also, following up on the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington 4 months earlier, General George C. Marshall clarified his plan for rebuilding Europe to the ultimate benefit of both victor and vanquished.

Many people, especially a few of my strongly conservative Republican friends, felt that the Yalta Conference was a total disaster. Some of my generation can only think of the State Department's Alger Hiss influencing the President and the strategic post war advantages these negotiations gave the Soviets. However, this conference was also where the seed for the UN's framework began to take root---to blossom in New York two years later. I prefer to think of it as a major contribution to world orderliness, as we know it today.

Over the years, I have asked myself "why us ?", why were we chosen for this extraordinary experience? Was it tradition and record ? We were America's oldest Fighter Group and had received three Presidential Citations.

Was it equipment ? Our P38 was generally accepted as America's best (and most expensive)

fighter plane in WWII; it had the most kills by America's leading aces. It also had a distinctive appearance from underneath, easily identifiable by gun crews on the warships and air bases.

Was it our location in southern Italy ? We were considered a part of the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations. I guess the answer is "all of the above".

My fellow pilots agreed, as in life, it's just "being in the right place at the right time with the right equipment" that really counts.

Occasionally I drift back in thought to some of the toasts that were made that night in Gibraltar "long live the Queen"----fifty-seven years later, Queen Mother Elizabeth died in her 101st year, and "long live the President"------unfortunately, two months later, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was dead at 63 !

Sadly, about a third of the fifty pilots that participated in this Argonaut mission were shot down by ground fire during the final two months of the war. I hereby dedicate this article to their memory, especially my former tent mates-- John D. Felsinger of Buffalo, NY and “RG” Gillen from Granbury, TX. Like so many brave young men, these fighter pilots gave their lives in combat for the freedom we all enjoy.

H. A. Eberhardt 5/20/02

To see the roster of pilots on this mission cl ick here