An American WWII pilot who survived a crash in which his best friends died has returned to England for the first time after being tracked down by a farmer who unearthed the wreckage of his aeroplane.
The last two surviving members of the nine man crew, Pilot Norman Landberg (89) and Tail-Gunner George Eberwine (85) attended the service.
Photo taken by Eddie Mulholland.
Waiting in the departures lounge at JFK airport on Thursday morning for a flight to London, an announcement came over the public address system. We would be traveling with a very important passenger. An elderly man was sitting in a wheelchair. This, we were told, was Norman Landberg, who during World War II had flown 56 missions over Europe in B24 Liberator bombers, and who was returning to Britain for the first time since 1945 to be guest of honour at the unveiling of a Memorial for two of his comrades who had died when a plane that Mr Landberg was piloting crashed on take-off.
America has a heightened sense of the respect due to war veterans, and the passengers of AA 142 rose as one to applaud as Mr Landberg was wheeled through the gate and down to the plane.
I found him sitting in Business Class, his seat set in the reclining position, being cosseted by two flight attendants, a modest, quietly-spoken man in a track suit and trainers, slightly bemused by all the fuss.
During the war, 1st Lieutenant Landberg of 36 Bomb Squadron, as he was then, was stationed at Cheddington Air Base, in Ivinghoe, Buckinghamshire. This was not only the first time he had been back to Britain since 1945, he told me, but the first time he had been in aircraft. ‘I’m a little nervous’. He thought for a moment. ‘Anticipatory’.
It was all very different from flying over Germany at night in a B24. ‘What was that like? Oh my God … there was no insulation. It was cold as hell – 50 degrees below. Your wings would be flapping all over the place, rackety as anything. It was terrible.’
Landberg’s Squadron was engaged in special ops, attached to RAF 100 Group. His B24 Liberator did not carry bombs, but top-secret radar-jamming equipment. His job was to fly lone missions, without any fighter support, over Germany, in advance of Lancaster bombing raids. Flying below enemy radar, Landberg would circle a defined bombing area at an altitude of between 50 and 100 feet, transmitting radar signals into the air designed to fool the Germans into scrambling their fighter squadrons in pursuit of non-existent enemy.
By the time the actual bombers arrived – or so the theory went – the fighters would be back on the ground busily refueling. Landberg’s description of this is succinct. ‘Scary …’ He was just 21, responsible for the lives of his ten-man crew. ‘That responsibility was not lost on me. And that’s the reason I’m coming to England’.
On the night of November 15, 1944, Landberg took off on what he expected to be a routine – if such a word can be used – mission. Shortly after take-off his aircraft lost power. ‘All my lights went out. My engineer had a flash light which he shined in my eyes. I couldn’t see the instruments, and my left wing caught the ground and I started to tumble …’
The plane hit the ground, ploughing across two fields. The plane was loaded with 4,000 gallons of high-octane fuel and 26,000 rounds of ammunition. It should by rights have exploded; miraculously it didn’t. Landberg’s navigator, and best friend, William Lamson and the left-side ‘waist-gunner’ Leonard Smith were both killed on impact.
But the cockpit in which Landberg was sitting was ripped from the fuselage and catapaulted 300 yards from the wreck. ‘I just snapped off the safety-belt and stepped out on the ground’, he remembered. ‘Oh my God, it was something!’
His seven other crew members also survived.
Landberg had a week of R&R in Torquay before rejoining his Squadron, to fly another 30 missions. At the end of the war he went back to his home in Atlantic City, and his young wife Elizabeth. ‘She was a great girl.’ He paused. ‘She still is.’ He thought of staying on in the Air Force, ‘but I’d sort of had my fill, particularly of flying.’ He went to Engineering School and then got into sales. ‘I was traveling all over the country. You can sell anything. And I loved driving a car.’
Landberg had been so affected by the crash that he had never spoken of it, not even to his wife. And it might have passed, forgotten, into history, had it not been for Chris Jellis, a 43 year old film prop man who lives in Ivinghoe. Jellis’s cousin owns Force End Farm, where Landberg’s B24 crashed in 1944. For years he had been ploughing up bits of the remaining wreckage, including live 50 calibre machine-gun shells, without knowing what they were exactly the wreckage of.
In 1993, Jellis himself picked up a piece of metal bearing a manufacturer’s plate – Ford motor co, Dearborn. He turned detective, becoming in his own words, ‘a bit of an anorak on the B24’. A local Historian told him that America bombers had been stationed at Cheddington. Through military records here and in America he determined the Squadron and names of the crew of the crashed bomber. Dialling every N Landberg in the American phone directories eventually led him to Norman. I said, ‘Is that Lieutenant Landberg?’ Jellis told me. He said ‘No-one’s called me that since 1945’. When I told him I’d been picking up bits of wreckage for years, he said, ‘didn’t they clear the sucker up?’
Jellis resolved to erect a memorial in honour of the two airmen who had died. On Sunday, Norman joined the only other surviving member of his crew, the tail-gunner George Eberwine – whom he has not seen since the end of the war – at a ceremony to unveil the marble stone at the site of the crash. The unveiling included a dedication by a US Airforce chaplain, Flypast and wreath laying. He later plan to visit the US War Cemetery in Cambridge and the Imperial War Museum.
Memorial to commemorate the 65th Anniversary of the loss of two American Airmen Walter Lamson & Leonard Smith, who died when their B24 Liberator crashed shortly after take-off.
‘This whole trip’, Landberg told me, adjusting his duvet, and accepting a drink from a passing flight attendant, ‘was quite something’. It might even have cured his aversion to flying! ‘It was most pleasant’, he said as we taxied to the Arrivals Gate. ‘I don’t think I’ll be quite so nervous flying home.’
During the war, 1st Lieutenant Landberg of 36 Bomb Squadron, as he was then, was stationed at Cheddington air base, in Ivinghoe, Buckinghamshire.
by Mick Brown
Taken from the Daily Telegraph
Photos: Eddie Mulholland
This article is from the Spring 2010 issue of Confound and Destroy
