Rod We love it when people share their family's stories with us. Elmer Robison was a young man with a crew of young men going into what could be the last mission and hours of their lives. Sharing these stories is one of the reasons we do what we do. Thanks to his son Rod. ... See more
Seventy-five years ago this evening my dad flew his first of 30 missions over Germany.
That night, he and his crew's mission was to cripple the Nazi infrastructure at Nidda Airfield in Germany. On Christmas Eve, 1944 Dad - just 23 years old - strapped himself into the cockpit of a B-17, appropriately known as The Flying Fortress, 50,000 pounds of fighting-mad steel and guns, ready to take on Hitler and his cronies. This first mission and his next few were in support of The Battle of the Bulge, the last gasp offensive of the German forces under General VonRundstedt. Over a million men fought in this great battle. 81,000 U.S. casualties and 100,000 German casualties resulted during those terrible few days when good and evil clashed in a struggle to determine the future of democracy and freedom.
They say that the winter of ’44 and ’45 was the worst in a half century. When Lt. Elmer Robison lined up his Flying Fortress on the flightline the fog was a thick blanket of white blindness daring him to face it down. Even though it was daytime, flare pots lined each side of the runway – his only guidance in an otherwise sightless takeoff. With the flick of a few switches the engines roared to life and the Fortress lurched forward down the runway. Within seconds an icy glaze covered the windshield rendering forward vision impossible. With his left hand on the control column, Lt. Robison leaned forward, using his right hand to wipe away the glaze. The massive plane slipped to the left. The main landing gear struck the flare pots in rapid-fire succession. The thump, thump, thump of the flare pots signaled trouble as they approached the end of the runway, now just yards away. Still 5 miles per hour slower than take-off speed, the end of the runway screamed toward them. Two choices - pull up now and take a chance…or crash. Lt. Robison rammed back the stick, the plane nosed up, staggering into the air. The remaining flares quickly disappeared from sight, leaving the plane and its crew enveloped in a mantle of fog.
Seconds seemed to drag like minutes as the crew held their breaths. Then, suddenly, the nose of the Flying Fortress punched through the ceiling of the fog into a brilliant sunlit day, leaving behind the creamy white blanket below.
After dropping their bomb load over the Nazi airbase, they headed back to the U.S. base in England. But the fog forced them to divert to an English airbase. Climbing down from the plane, a biting, frigid breeze greeted the crew. They were allotted a literal handful of coal to heat their large room that night. The crew sat around an upright piano singing carols into the evening. It was Christmas Eve, and they had done their duty to help bring peace on Earth. ... See more
