Flights to the underground

FIRST IN A SERIES ON WAR VETERANS

Sept. 2 marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II.

For 40 years he didn’t tell a soul. He’d been sworn to secrecy, and honorable men keep their word. His family knew only that he was a B-24 tail gunner during World War II—until his daughter found a box of war mementos on his closet shelf and stories started spilling out.

Bob Holmstrom, 94, is one of about 100 men from Operation Carpetbagger still alive who can tell true tales of their missions. The Office of Strategic Services—precursor to the CIA—designated these airmen to fly spies and supplies into Europe behind enemy lines on top-secret moonlit night flights from 1944 until Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945.

With the 801st/492nd Bomb Group at RAF Harrington airfield in England, he flew 30 missions as tail gunner on his 10-crew, black-painted B-24 Liberator, the Night Knight. He’d already flown five missions from RAF Cheddington dropping propaganda leaflets over Germany.

Planes often flew below 500 feet to make drops, with crews watching for signal fires or lights, three in a row. Through the bomb bay they dropped supplies—usually in cylindrical containers with a bumper on one end and parachute on the other—for resistance fighters in France, Germany, Belgium, Norway, and other occupied countries. Holmstrom recalls, “We dropped medical supplies, gasoline, blood plasma, shoes, clothes, rifles, machine guns, dynamite … whatever people needed.” They even dropped carrier pigeons in oatmeal boxes with mini parachutes.

“Only the navigator and pilot knew where we were going each night. … We were flying alone with no fighter protection … we couldn’t even communicate with other airplanes, because if you didn’t know anything and you got shot down, you couldn’t tell the Germans anything,” Holmstrom explains.

In case the plane did go down, crews had learned bits of several languages and how to eat, drink, and smoke European-style. Holmstrom remembers on each flight the navigator would alert the crew where to find safety if they survived a crash: “He’d say something like ‘Three kilometers to your west there’s a church’ … so you had a place to try to find where you might run into someone from the underground who could get you back to England.”

After each mission, the first crew back would stand by the control tower, counting planes as they returned to see if all survived. Then intelligence officers would individually debrief crews twice—once after giving them a glass of cognac to relax, and again after a hearty American breakfast to jog their memory. Intelligence recorded everything each flyer saw—maybe enemy fighter planes or explosions on the ground.

Jenny Nelson, Holmstrom’s daughter, is amazed at her dad’s exploits and has accompanied him to Carpetbagger reunions annually since learning of his deeds. “He is my hero,” she says, her voice breaking.

Holmstrom entered the war at age 18. He says he didn’t fully understand the gravity and importance of what he was doing. Later he was awarded, among other honors, the French Legion of Honor and the Congressional Gold Medal. Best of all, no more secrets.