Warbird Information Exchange

BY JOHN CHAPPELL: STAFF WRITER

The bomb bay doors were halfway open, and Bob Simons was hanging out in the slipstream covered head to foot in slippery red hydraulic fluid as the B-24 came in for its rocky landing
It was a landing that, without him, might not have taken place at all.

Simons was holding together hastily repaired hydraulic lines to the landing flaps and to the plane's brakes, while more fluid sprayed in his face, as pressure hit the lines. The flaps engaged. The plane hit, bounced and hit again. Simons, his legs locked, stayed the course.

Then the brakes. One side held, the other did not. The bomber went into a careening, circling spin as it moved down the runway to a stop.

The bomber, with its crew of 10, had been almost certain to crash. Its vital hydraulic lines, the ones that control landing gear, flaps and essential brakes, had been severed by enemy fire. The bomb bay was a sea of fluid. It was May 5, 1944.
Only one other of the crew even knew what Simons did that day.

On Sunday, before a room full of family friends and distinguished guests in the Pinehurst Trace clubhouse, U.S. Rep. Howard Coble presented Simons with a long overdue Silver Star.

"Bob, I am honored to be able to present this to you, sir," Coble said.

The crowd stood and cheered. Applause and whistles broke in a long, sustained note of tribute. The accompanying citation was read by an aide to Coble.

"Staff Sgt. Robert M. Simons distinguished himself by gallantry in action while engaging in military operations against an armed enemy of the United States at Ploesti, Romania, on 5 May 1944," she said. "On that date, Sgt. Simons voluntarily risked his life to secure damaged lines his aircraft sustained as a result of enemy antiaircraft fire while on a bombing mission. ... The courageous action enabled the aircraft and crew to safely return without the loss of life"

The Silver Star is the third-highest award given for valor in the face of the enemy. It is also the third-highest military decoration that can be given to any member of a branch of the U.S. military. The Silver Star is actually gold, a star encircled by a laurel wreath. On its back are inscribed the words, "For Gallantry in Action."

State Sen. Harris Blake told members of the audience that he took personal pleasure in the event, as he and Simons were both members of the same Sunday School class. In all their years of friendship, Simons had never spoken about his war experiences.

"I never had any idea," Blake said. "I didn't even know he was in the military."

He read a letter that he had written his friend after Simons told the class two or three weeks before of the upcoming award ceremony.

"When I got a chance to read the report, I quickly saw why you were being given the Silver Star," Blake said. "I want to say personally, thanks for all the effort you gave for the rest of us. Your actions allowed me to continue my life as a free spirit. I remain thankful to God for the incredible gift"

Blake presented a certificate of congratulations from the N.C. Senate and gave him a North Carolina state flag that had been flown over the capitol. A number of family members spoke, and one son, David Simons, who had been acting as master of ceremonies for the event, held up a battered rectangle of aluminum, somewhat smaller than a cookie sheet. It was a fragment of that same B-24, known affectionately by her crew as "The Buzzer."

On display were photos of Simons from his World War II days and other items including a scale model of the aircraft.

'Was All Alone'

In an interview last week, Simons recalled his days as a nose-gunner in bombing runs over Ploesti. The Rumanian refinery there produced oil supplies vital to the Axis war effort, Simons said. He had flown 37 missions, a dozen of which were so hazardous they counted twice, as "double-point" missions -- meaning he had flown the equivalent of 50.

"It became the most heavily armed aerial target during the war," he said. "They developed chemical smoke layers. You could hardly see the targets -- couldn't see them if the smokescreen was good, which was bad for us. I made five assaults on Ploesti. I had other missions, too. We hit railroad and shipping terminals. We didn't just try to bomb the refinery, we tried to take the oil with it, too. Ploesti was shipping oil."

May 5, 1944, was his third combat mission. On this mission, they hit a refinery. On the way to the target they had gone over a part of Yugoslavia and run into unexpected fire from 80 mm antiaircraft guns.

"We were in a barrage of flak and got shot up a little bit," he said. "Usually the lead navigator knows where those flak pockets are, and you go around them. When we got to the target, we hit very intense flak. Both Rumanian and German fighters attacked us with rockets fired from aircraft. Our No. 2 engine started to burn. Our pilot had to shut it down and feather. That didn't help things."

That same burst apparently severed hydraulic lines on the bomber's starboard side, lines needed for landing gear, wing flaps, and brakes on touchdown.

"They were cut," he said. "On the way back, going over Yugoslavia again, we took more flak. When we got down to 10,000-foot altitude, it was normal procedure to look for damage."

That damage inspection found the whole bomb bay awash with hydraulic fluid from cut lines. At first, the pilot gave orders to prepare for an emergency landing and told the crew to tie their parachutes to posts in the bomb bay so they could be used for air brakes on landing, since the brake lines had been cut. Simons took off his personal parachute to contribute it to the effort.

"I went back with my parachute and gave it to them to use," Simons said. "They deployed the chutes -- the waist gunners took care of that -- but the pilot changed his mind. He said, 'Forget throwing those chutes out. One of you is going to get tangled up in them and go out.' So now there was not much to do, except maybe repair the lines. Our flight engineer, Phil Rizan, was doing this. I was going back forward to my position (as nose gunner), and Phil asked could I give him a hand."

'Holding on for Dear Life'

The engineer was working through the open bomb bay door, which had not closed on that side.

"I wrapped my legs around the bomb rack," Simons said. "I held his legs while he worked."

The engineer was leaning out of the open door at about a 45-degree angle to work on the cut lines, trimming off edges to where he could widen them out with a screw driver, jam them together, put friction tape around them and wrap rags around them.

"Phil said, 'I am not sure those are going to hold, would you mind holding them when we land to help take the pressure?' He used an emergency crank to get the landing gear down. He said he'd signal 'one' for flaps and 'two' for brakes. I was all alone. He went back up to be with the pilot. Phil was the only one that knew what I was doing."

Simons assumed the engineer's position, gripping the wing flaps lines first.

"He signaled for the flaps," he said. "I could hear them working The left went down all the way, but right -- which I was holding -- didn't go all the way down. The pilot had to correct a little for that."

Still, there was enough control from the wing flaps that the bomber descended toward the field.

"When touchdown came, he signaled 'two' for the brakes," Simons said. "He came in hot and tough. We bounced."

It wasn't the safest place to be in for a landing, hanging out in the rushing air and a torrent of hydraulic fluid.

"I am in the bomb bay holding on for dear life, holding lines together, so he can get some brakes," Simons said. "He hit the brake. I could feel us slow down. I was getting sprayed the whole time with this oil."

On the pilot's second tap, the left side brake locked. The plane went into a "ground loop" swooping a huge circle on the field at 80 mph, he said.

"I almost went out when that happened," he said. "There was no friction. So he left the plane parked. He just stopped right on the runway. A captain came out and told him to get this airplane off, and the pilot, he's a second lieutenant, says, 'If you want this plane moved, move it yourself.' Everybody evacuated right away."

The radio operator saw Simons hanging out the bomb bay, totally red and sopping wet with the crimson-colored oil.

"The Red Cross girls had doughnuts and coffee," he said. "I got some 110 octane aviation gas and went to the tent to clean myself up. The rest went to the debriefing."

Simons says he had long before stopped feeling fear. So many planes went down on those missions.

"I was going to die, because the cruisers, at that point, were going down like flies," he said. "If you assume you are dead, it can only get better."

Simons wasn't thinking that day how few crew knew what their nose gunner had done that saved all their lives. He was just glad to be alive.

"We lived through it," Simons said. "It wasn't our airplane anyhow. We never saw it again."

Until Sunday, that is, when his son David could hold up a fragment of the plane for all to see.