MOUNT VERNON — After a bombing run over Strasbourg, France, in September 1944, the plane in which Mount Vernon resident Warren “Jack” Poland was the flight engineer ditched into 38-degree water, 80 miles out to sea in the North Sea.
“We were supposed to bomb Strasbourg, but when we got there,” Poland said, “the B-17 flight was ahead of us, so we had to circle around the second time. When we came back around, the flak was like a solid wall and it blew a 6-inch hole in our No. 2 main [gas] tank in the bomb bay. When we got hit, we were at 26,000 feet. We could have landed in Paris, but we were carrying incendiary bombs and were afraid that with the fumes in the bomb bay, if we put the landing gear down the plane would explode.
“So we went out over the Channel to drop the bombs. Then we ran into a rain and snowstorm, even though it was September. And the windows got all frosted up. Gasoline, coming from the hole shot in the tank, froze in slush form on the catwalk in the bomb bay. By the time we flew enough that the ice and snow came off the windows, we were up just about to the Arctic Circle. We had only two engines running and 30 gallons of fuel left. We had to set down in the water.
“We thought we would set it in between two waves, but there were 20-foot waves,” he continued. “When we hit, the ocean whirled the airplane around and broke it in two. I got pinned down by the turret when the plane hit, managed to free myself and climbed onto the wing. The wing floated for seven minutes and then it sank.”
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Poland, at age 22 the oldest man in the crew, said the survivors climbed into a small emergency raft from the plane and he signaled for rescue with a mirror. Luckily, he said, a British Air-Sea rescue plane saw the signal and, after two attempts, successfully dropped a larger raft with provisions for 10 people for 30 days. Poland saved a piece of the parachute used to drop the raft.
The men transferred to the larger raft, but kept the smaller one. Poland said it was a helpless feeling to watch his buddies drown.
“We were a crew of nine, and the guys in the tail section were lost [due to the storm and high waves.] Three officers and I, the only enlisted man to make it through, got out. It was raining and you didn’t have time to think of anything.
“Those 20 foot waves. Trying to keep the water from coming in the raft. There was fuel and you had to hook up the engine and the rudder and the compass. And that’s what I was doing. It was dark and [the rescue spotters] kept dropping lighted flares all the time. It was as bright as daylight. When we saw all the lights, we thought, ‘Boy, the Germans have got us,’ but it was British Air-Sea rescue. And they paid them $10,000 for every man that they picked up.
“When they picked us up they put us on this British ship and they gave us brandy and civilian clothes. They told us ‘the submarines are so bad out here, that if we’re stopped, we’re a fishing vessel.’ ... We were out there for about 13 hours and a half before we got onto land.”
The rescued crew were taken to a British submarine base for a meal and some sleep before they were returned to their base in Attleborough, Norfolk, England.
Poland’s hip was injured when the turret fell on him, so he spent the next three months in the base hospital. He eventually had the hip replaced four years ago. Friends brought him food and his mail while he was in the hospital.
“When I got hurt,” Poland said, “I wrote my mom a letter. Because of censorship, all she got was ‘Dear Mom,’ and, ‘Love, Jack.’ They cut everything out of it. It was Sept. 8, ’44 when we crashed and she found out about in a press release sort of thing that came out Nov. 1, 1944.”
Poland entered “rehabilitation” on Jan. 1, 1945. He was taken to a hangar, he said, with a stool, hammer and anvil, and he straightened nails for five months.
“Every day I did that,” he said, “for five months. I straightened nails and then they’d scrap them. That was my rehabilitation.”
Poland returned to the States — by boat — in May 1945. Even after his harrowing experience on the raft, he didn’t mind taking a ship back home.
“If they would have wanted me to fly,” he said, “I’d still be there.”
Poland was awarded a Purple Heart for the “adventure,” but wasn’t discharged from the Army Air Corps until October 1945.
“When I got out,” he said, “I signed up for a pension [in ’46] and I got my pension started in 1988. ... They gave me 80 percent pension then, then I got 100 percent in 2000.”
Jimmy Stewart was the commander of Poland’s base in England and Walter Mathau was in his group there, too; Clark Gable was just a month ahead of him in gunnery school.
“I got over there and Jimmy Stewart was my commanding officer at 453rd,” Poland said. “I know this. He went on every mission. We would follow him no matter where he went. He was a real prince, I’ll tell you that.”
Poland’s plane went down on his 10th mission.
“It was so good when we came back [the other nine times],” he said. “Why, the German fighters didn’t even bother us. They put a lot of flak up right over the target and the fighters would pick you up right after you left the target on the way back to base. Our fighters would chase the German fighters and when they’d go by us, they’d wave at us. Yeah, with the P-38s and P-51s and 27s on their tail, the Germans would wave at us as they went by. They didn’t want to fight.”
Before he deployed to England, Poland was stationed at Batista Field in Cuba. He said they would fly eight hours, up and down, along the coast of South America checking for submarines. That also served as their over-water training, he said.
After his discharge Oct. 18, 1945, Poland returned to the Lorain shipyards where he was working when he got drafted and officially graduated (got a diploma) from Kenton High School on May 1, 1946. He worked as a welder, and actually taught welding to others, then started at General Motors as an experimental welder in 1956. He, his wife Nellie, and four sons moved to Mount Vernon in 1966. He retired from GM in 1985.
“God has been good to me,” Poland said. “He saved this girl for me [Nellie]. He saved me from the sea and he’s been watching over me ever since.”
Poland and Nellie were married for more than 60 years before her death in 2007. He said his story is also on the Internet and on file in the Library of Congress.
