By Andrew A. Rooney, Stars and Stripes Staff Writer
March 17, 1943

A U.S. FIGHTER STATION, Mar. 16 — Crash crews don't have any fun. When it rains they watch it rain, and when it doesn't they watch American pilots make three-point landings.

"This crash crew business isn't what it's cracked up to be," Pfc Walter Merrill, of Worcester, Mass., claims. "I've been on this job for six months and I never seen a good crackup yet."

They jokingly gripe about it, but the fact remains that no work for the crash crews means good flying.

Various airfields under Eighth Air Force command have their own systems about how their crash crews should work, but they are agreed on the fundamentals. At every station where American planes are landing there is a crash truck and crew standing by 24 hours a day.

The percentage of takeoff and landing crackups of American planes in England is close to zero.

Occasionally a heavy bomber pilot puts his ship down too near the middle of the perimedal track and runs off into the soft muck at the end of the runway.

On these rare occasions, the crash crews roar to the scene and usually find the crew laughing, kidding the pilot, and the ship, if it's a Fort, up to its ball turret in mud.

The crash trucks have been taken over with the fields from the RAF. They are equipped with a 400-gallon water tank and a 25-gallon tank of chemical solution. With a twist of a valve on the truck, the chemical mixes with the water and the combined 425 gallons of liquid will produce 4,000 gallons of fire-smothering foam.

The crash truck, "crash tender" to the English, is a glorified fire truck. It carries 520 feet of double jacket hose and an additional 20 feet of special suction hose for use in case one of the water reservoirs at different points on the field is handy.

Hold Tight

A four-cylinder motor aboard produces enough pressure to throw 250 gallons of water 50 feet. The same stream will throw anyone holding the hose the same distance in the other direction unless two hefty Air Corps firemen plant their feet and hold tight.

The crash crews behave just about as firemen home — and when they get to town after a dull day they are apt to behave just as the traditional visiting firemen.

Some of the boys have been firemen. Take "Pop" Benjamin. For 25 years before he joined the army, "Pop," "Sgt. Joseph" on the books, tried to convince the taxpaying people of the Texas half of Texarkana that the fire department had saved them enough money every year to be worth twice what they were being paid. "Pop" is the chief of a crash crew at a bomber station now, and like a good chief he's still fighting for better equipment and more of it.

A few weeks ago "Pop" Benjamin and his crew had their first assignment on the field, when a Wellington came in one dark night with flames from her port engine streaming back over her wing.

On duty that night were Pvt. Ray T. Eicholy, Minneapolis; Cpl. Edward Dixon, Okmulgee, Okla., and Cpl. Edward J. Kaminiski, Lansing, Ohio. This crew went to work as soon as the bomber stopped rolling, saved the $200,000 ship and helped the crew escape uninjured.

Waiting for a job, some of the crews read, sleep, or just argue with the pill rollers on duty next to them in the "meat wagon." When the bombers come back from a raid the crash crew on duty is one of the best unofficial authorities on how many took off, how many aborted, and how many are coming in. Officers who wander out to the control tower and don't want to bother control tower officials with questions ask them for the box score as they pass. Men working in the hangars who didn't watch the takeoff wander out to watch the bombers come in.

Spare-time Mechanics

Some crash crews aren't content to sit and wait for the crashes that never — or almost never — come. At a USAAF fighter station the crash crew has a mascot, and they devote their time to taking care of it. The "mascot" is a Piper Cub which is used as a taxi by the ranking officers on the field. These crash men are converted mechanics. They know Airacobras, Lightnings and Thunderbolts, but for the time being they are content to service their "Pipersmitt," as they call it, and stay on tap for crash landings.

T/Sgt. James J. Mindeck is chief of the crew at this fighter field. He's 20 years old — got his rating as a mechanic, and holds the label of flight chief.

Members of his crash crew include S/Sgt. William Thorsen, New York City; S/Sgt. Oscar White, Riverton, NJ.; Pvt. Kenneth Reinerio, Montreal, Wis., and Pvt. Gene Manila, Townsend, Mass.

Most of them worked in a garage back home. They are all mechanics; it is important that crash crews know what a plane is all about.

Crash Jobs

If there is a bad smash the crash crew has to get the trapped pilot, or crew (if it is a bomber), out in the shortest possible time. If they know what to cut and what not to cut, their job is quicker.

The truck is equipped with metal cutters and a pair of shears with handles insulated to withstand 20,000 volts. They have another high-voltage fire axe and several small knives that look like miniature scythes. These sharp instruments are blunt at the tip so that they can be slipped under a flier's harness without cutting in. With their razor-sharp edge they cut through parachute straps like warm margarine.

There aren't any brass poles, and no false alarms, but there is plenty of authentic firehouse atmosphere around the place. Regularly the crash crews go tearing out on a dry run; once in a while they empty the 400-gallon tank on their truck in a wet dry run.

To test equipment crews often pour a little used drainage oil on an open spot of ground, touch a match to it and walk through in their asbestos suits. Once or twice these tests have ended uncomfortably when the man standing in four feet of flames suddenly found that the English damp inside the suit had turned to steam, and he was being cooked in the best double boiler fashion. Otherwise the suits are satisfactory.

The firemen's job is one long wait, but it can be dangerous. Asbestos suits weren't made just for dry runs.

If a bomber takes off with a belly full of bombs and wings full of gas, and then aborts before it reaches the channel, the pilot has a big job landing the loaded plane. It has been done countless times without accident, but there is always that chance. . . .

If the ship cracked up there probably would be a fire. The crash crew's work is to extinguish the fire before it reaches the gas tanks. The bombs are reasonably safe unless fire explodes the gas tanks.

With asbestos suits and asbestos blankets to cover the men with the hose and chemical extinguishers, the job calls for work with the danger of explosion at any time.

Forts and Liberators carry enough bombs over target areas to destroy an entire field if they were to explode simultaneously anywhere on the field itself.

The crash crews' jobs are dull for long periods, but there are interesting possibilities.