I was a member of the 553rd Bomb Squadron, 386th Bomb Group stationed at Great Dunmow, England. This incident, however did not happen in combat over Europe.
I was in the quonset hut with fourteen other guys. I decided to go to the dance at the Red Cross Club on the base. I was heating some water in a steel helmet on the stove. The air raid siren sounded and the boys left the hut after turning out the lights. So there I was alone in the hut and the only light I had was from the stove. Since we were not in the path of the German bombers going to London we did not worry about raids much.
I was sitting on a folding director’s chair, like the ones that Hollywood directors are supposed to use when making a movie.
I heard an airplane and thought that he was awfully low. It suddenly dawned on me that it was not one but two planes coming in.
Suddenly machine gun fire erupted all around the base. They had moved some quad fours onto the base and we didn’t know it.
I jumped out of the chair and tried to run to the door, but I got all tangled up in the chair and while off balance hit my head on a carbine hanging on the end of a bunk. I fell down and crawled on my hands and knees to the door. I reached up and turned the knob and flung open the door.
I saw tracers going over my head and suddenly the shadow of two planes zoomed overhead. The tracers looked like they were no more than fifty or sixty feet over my head.
We found out the next day that the German bomber was shot down about twelve miles north of us by a British night fighter.
There i was on my hands and knees on the sidewalk outside the quonset hut. Must have been a funny scene, but I didn’t think so at the time.