Go home - Catalog - Overview - Index - Photo Menu

Personal Account of an Armorer at Dakar, French Senegal Jerome F. Downs

Donor	Original Source	PIMA ID	Donor ID	Category
Richard P. Ellinger	Jerome F. Downs	na	RPE-OCR-DA-455	OCR-DA

This document is an OCR scan of a 6 page computer printed original. It is believed that it accurately reproduces the original. This has been printed in the MHS, newsletter, The Thunder. TO: MARAUDER THUNDER. Fifty-five years ago I was first exposed to the Martin-B-26 Marauder. It was in Dakar, Senegal where I was one of eleven Army Air Corps enlisted men stationed there as armorers. I am sure most old B-26 pilots remember that during the North African campaign Marauder's were stripped of their guns and armor, even the ammunition chutes and bomb shackles, before being dispatched across the southern Atlantic via Natal, Ascension Island, Accra, and up the African coast to Dakar and eventually to the North African combat zone. Our duty was to reinstall the guns, accessories and armor, all of which had been dipped in cosmoline, packed into wooden crates, and flown over on C-47's. Now, at the age of 77, my wife and I moved into a retirement community. Here I encountered a crusty old B-26 pilot named John I. Dean who flew the Marauder in the 9th Air Force. Our conversation reminded me of the B-26 experiences. John gave me a copy of Marauder Thunder. I thought that before both of us were gone, other B- 26 veterans might enjoy the armorer's reaction to these incredible airplanes and their crews. With typical military planning, I was a graduate of the pursuit armament school at Buckley Field, Colorado. The bomber armament school was at Lowrey Field in Denver, a place where they had sidewalks made of cement rather than wooden planks and barracks which were permanent buildings with central heat, not tar paper shacks with cast iron stoves. - 2

We learned such valuable skills as how to synchronize machine guns on a fighter plane to fire through the propeller even though there were no such aircraft in service since 1941. We also learned how to dismantle, repair and install the M-103 nose fuse for bombs when that device had become obsolete a year earlier. Through various replacement depots and the magic of the wires running through the holes in our Form 20 personnel records, we disembarked the troop ship in Dakar, French Senegal, on 2 February, 1943. The airfield at Dakar was about 25 miles away on the end of a sandspit. "Pavement" was the interlocking steel mats. There was one semi-permanent building for air operations. Mechanics, supply, hydraulic shop, and the armament shack were all tents. The Armament shack equipment consisted of a home made work bench with a bench vice after about two weeks complaining about its absence, solvent tanks made from 55 gallon drums cut lengthwise and mounted on 2 x 4 saw horses, and an inadequate number of hand tools. WE made the tanks with hammer and cold chisel. As they had originally contained gasoline, it was too dangerous to risk cutting them with a welding torch. At least a week before we were even set up to work, in came the first flights of B-26's. I recall clearly standing at the end of the runway, watching the approach over the water, viewing the Marauder nearly head on. Gad! What a beautiful airplane! I cursed again my lack of 20-20 visual acuity which kept me out of Army Flight School. When the Marauder hit the runway, it was another story. I don't remember the length of the runway but it was minimal considering the landing speed of the aircraft when the winds were - 3

"light and variable." If any old Marauder pilots have forgotten, I will remind you that the tires did not grip the steel mat runways nearly as well as the pilots wished. I don't recall any ground-loops but I do remember the smell of very hot brakes. Operations handed us orders to re-arm the Marauders. The number on the tail determined the order of the work. We cracked open the wooden crates with crowbars, being cautioned by the carpenters standing by, "Don't screw up that good lumber, damn it!" they hollered. They were salvaging it to make desks, chairs and file cabinets for headquarters and the medical shack. They even made sure we didn't bend the nails unnecessarily as these were salvaged, too. The first chore was to remove the cosmoline from the caliber .50 machine guns. That grease is the invention of the demented. T/Sgt. Louis Lonko, our boss and the only regular army man we had, said that a steam jenny could degrease the things in a minute. We didn't have one. The degreasing was accomplished by soaking the guns in 100 octane gas in the tank we made and scrubbing away the sticky cosmoline with paint brushes. A few days of having one's hands in 100 octane gas caused severe contact dermatitis. The medics issued us some salve and we made it a point to keep our hands out of the gasoline as much as possible. The first batch of Marauders we worked had four blister guns, two turret guns, two tail turret guns, two waist guns and one tunnel gun. Some later models dispensed with the tunnel gun. I suspect 4

that its weight, and that of an extra crewman, didn't warrant it. The tail gunner could cover much of the same field of fire. The blister guns were difficult to reinstall although I have forgotten now just why this was true. Two of us would hold it in place while a third worked the attaching mechanism. The ammunition chutes were another problem. They never seemed to fit in their intended sockets. Attach one end of the gun, thread the chute through the maze under the cockpit, and attach it to the ammunition canister invariably resulted in the gun end of the chute coming unstuck before we were finished. Our instruction at Armament School on turrets was minimal. And it was the hydraulic turrets. These Martins had electric turrets. We had no idea how to service them. So we made paper tags and tied them to the turret controls. The tags read: Turret not tested after installation of guns. Guns not tested. One troubling problem was whether to lubricate the machine guns after the degreasing. Some thought we should. Others said no. The negative view was supported by the fact that at altitude the light oil would congeal and the guns wouldn't work. So we left them dry. I recall asking a couple of the enlisted crew members what to do. They didn't know either. I still don't know the correct answer. Reinstalling the armor was a particular burden. First, the pilot's armor was heavy as hell. The narrow working space and the weight contributed to a lot of skinned knuckles and nasty words. I was impressed with the quality and weight of the pilot's armor. I was horrified at the want of protection of the copilot. I guess 5

Baltimore figured co-pilots were expendable. I didn't feel so bad then about not being admitted to flight school. I might have wound up a copilot. Nose art on aircraft was getting popular in those days. I remember seeing several of the planes which have been pictured in the material John Dean lent to me. The most spectacular one I remember was a Marauder with the name JEZEBEL in big silver letters which stretched from nose to tail. This wasn't nose art. It was entire fuselage art. There was one poignant moment in which the B-26 air crews participated. It was Easter, in 1943. There was no official chapel at the base. The chaplain, a Fr. Kirwin from Boston, arranged to have Easter Mass at the little chapel in the town of Rifisque, walking distance from the field. On that particular day the base was overflowing with air crews - there were more than fifty aircraft being held at Dakar because of bad weather on the way north. Nearly all were B-26's. The result was that the tiny church which would seat about 100 was packed - standing room only and then some. Some men attended Easter Mass by standing outside the windows. The Chaplain made a brief pitch for money. "Gentlemen," he said, "this little chapel is in desperate need of money. It can't even begin to pay the bishop's assessment. It has no money for its school. So please, when the nuns pass the collection baskets, fill them, please. " Fill them, they did! I stood outside and watched the nuns holding the bushel sized baskets, overflowing with bills, some 6

American, most local currency. One of the nuns lifted a 1000 franc bill ($20.00) between two fingers as if it were hot. "Mille Franc!" she exclaimed. "Mille Franc!" She appeared not to have ever seen a bill that large before, not to mention a basket full of them. She was mesmerized by the sight of all that money. Her prayers had been answered, too. Father Kerwin told us later that the Easter Collection assured the solvency of the church and the school for a long period. So, you Marauder crews did more for good international relations in one morning than you could possibly imagine. As you survived, perhaps those little nuns were praying for the rich Americans who could be so generous. After you won the war in North Africa, eleven privates first class were unemployed in the armament business. But the U.S. Army Air Corps found other duties for us. But tell me, was it the noise of the B-26 which made John I. Dean such a crusty old curmudgeon or was he always that way? JEROME F. DOWNS San Francisco, California 19 October 1998

Go back to Personal Account menu