"Of course, besides just finishing our missions, all of us like to feel that we’re helping to finish this thing as fast as possible.

"Dad, I find the things that occupy my mind most are the plain, ordinary things of life. I want to come home just to live for the joy of living and doing.

Detail of Lt. Ralph Campbell's last letter home, written on November 20, 1944.

"I want to get up in the morning, do a good hard day’s work, eat a good meal at a good family table, say ‘hello’ to the neighbors, shoot pheasants, walk out through a pretty field of spuds, drive to town through the snow, go to church with my Dad, wrestle with the boys and tease Mom and the girls, sing in the choir, have a family dinner together on Thanksgiving, go fishing, haul more beans with my truck than the next guy can with his, hug my Mom, marry the sweetest girl in the world, do as fine a job raising a family as my Dad did, build a house and help to make it a home.

"A million things like that are what I want to live for, Dad. When I hear a beautiful piece of music, that’s what it says, and when I pray, those are the things I ask my Heavenly Father to let me do.

"I know your faith and prayers are always with me, and I hope I can live up to the kind of life you meant for me."

After mission 19, Ralph and his crew were given a week’s rest on the beautiful island of Capri.

Then, following a mission briefing on the morning of December 11, 1944, 1^st Lt. Charles Ralph Campbell climbed aboard his assigned aircraft, along with the other nine members of his crew, and prepared to depart for Vienna.

Ralph took the pilot’s seat in the cockpit alongside his co-pilot, 1st Lt. Jack Ward. The navigator for the mission was Lt. Dave Davis, and Lt. Kenneth Trimmer was bombardier. T/Sgt. Charles Clark was flight engineer. S/Sgt. Paul Butler was tail gunner, S/Sgt. Gilbert Fisher was nose gunner, S/Sgt. Andrew Kraynak was ball turret gunner, and T/Sgt. William Devine Devine and S/Sgt.Vincent Daniels were waist gunners. It started out "a day of particular honor for us," Butler would later write. Lt. Campbell, who was in line to become squadron commander because of his reliability and piloting skills, had been "selected to be the deputy wing commander" for this "vital and dangerous mission to Vienna." That meant that if something happened to the wing commander, Lt. Campbell would assume command of the mission. The 49th Wing was made up of four different bomb groups, each being composed of four squadrons.

Lt. Campbell instructs his crew before boarding.

One after another, the big 30-ton bombers cranked up their four powerful engines, pulled into line, lumbered down the runway, picked up speed, and lifted off into the early morning sky with 2,700 gallons of fuel and four tons of bombs aboard. The formation of bombers flew up the coast of Italy, then across the Adriatic toward an Initial Point over Austria where it was joined by several other heavy bomber squadrons and an escort of P-38 fighter planes. In all, 435 heavy bombers from the Fifteenth Air Force, with fighter escorts, attacked targets in and around Vienna that day. Some 100 B-24 Liberators, including the one flown by Lt. Ralph Campbell, assembled in formation and headed toward their assigned target, the Moosbierbaum oil refinery on the outskirts of Vienna. From the Initial Point, the big bombers flew straight and level toward their in a tight formation. A German reconnaissance aircraft that had awaited their arrival radioed information to the ground about the size of the formation, the direction of its approach, and its altitude, so the anti-aircraft gunners could trim the fuses on their flak shells to explode at the desired altitude.

Ralph in the cockpit

 As Ralph and his crew approached the target area some four hours after take-off, they found it to be heavily fortified. According to Sgt. Butler’s account, "as the Germans had salvaged many of their anti-aircraft weaponry from Ploesti and Budapest and strategically intensified the defense around our target, the oil refineries in the environs of Vienna."

Repeated assaults over previous weeks by bomb groups from the 15^th Air Force had all but totally demolished the oil refineries in Ploesti. With the loss of the Ploesti refineries, which had represented a significant percentage of the German war machine’s petroleum production, the Nazis were now heavily dependent on the Vienna refineries, which enhanced the strategic importance of the target.

As the 100 or so Liberators from the 451st Bomb Group approached their specified target, Lt. Trimmer could see from his position in the nose of the airplane a square field of flack bursts several miles wide situated over and around the target area..

"Our bombing run from the Initial Point to the target required a close formation of all aircraft and straight, level flight, meaning no evasive action could be taken," Sgt. Butler said. "Visibility was unlimited, which was favorable for bombing but ideal for the tracking of our formation by ground defenses." And on this day, "the anti-aircraft fire was particularly intense."

Keeping his ship on a steady course, Ralph penetrated the flack field as he had done on previous missions. Several bursts of flack struck the aircraft, disabling its radio system as well as its internal intercom system. At this point, none of the crew had been hurt. But flying at 21,000 feet through what Butler described as "a veritable field of exploding steel," the plane and its crew were now incommunicado with the outside world, except for visual contact with other planes in the formation. Even within the huge ship itself, communication among crew members was hampered. The only way for the cockpit to get a message to the tail gunner, if that were needed, would be to send a messenger, which would involve someone leaving his station. The tight formation of Liberators released their bombs over the target area and then followed the wing commander on a sharp turn to the right. That path took them directly over a battery of 105 mm. Howitzer anti-aircraft guns mounted on flat-bed railroad cars. "The fire was painfully accurate, and the bursts were of a size that I had never seen before," Butler later recalled. The wing commander’s plane was hit, went out of control, and began a rapid descent.

Over the Adriatic This is a photo of the B-24J Liberator, serial #44-10629, that was piloted by Lt. Charles Ralph Campbell on December 11, 1944, the day he was killed. The photo was taken a month earlier on November 7. It was previously published in American Bomber Aircraft Vol. I, Consolidated B-24 Liberator, by John M. Campbell (no relation), published by Shiffer Publishing. Lt. Campbell's nephew, Colin Campbell, is now in possession of the original 8x10 glossy photograph.

From his position in the tail gunner turret, Butler witnessed a plane piloted by Lt. Lyle Jensen, a new pilot on his first mission, get hit by a flack burst, catch on fire, flip over, and head straight down. "I saw no parachutes," Butler said. "He was so close to me and gone so fast. I think I was in shock after that."

At about the same time, Ward saw another flak shell exploded just above the number three engine to his right, rocking the aircraft. Flak fragments blasted into the side of the plane. One chunk of hot metal passed through the right window of the cockpit, ripped through the palm and thumb of Ward’s left hand, and then entered the pilot’s neck, just below his flak helmet, killing him instantly. Other flak fragments hit the co-plot in the left calf and the right foot. He lost consciousness.

The nearest other person to the cockpit was the flight engineer, Sgt. Clark. When he surveyed the damage to the aircraft and saw the pilot and co-pilot both slumped over the controls, Clark immediately bailed out.

The bombardier, Lt. Trimmer, and the navigator, Lt. Davis, both left their stations to see what was going on in the cockpit. When they entered the cockpit, they found the pilot dead and the co-pilot unconscious and bleeding profusely. They attempted to revive Lt. Ward.

Meanwhile, without functional on-board communication, the tail gunner was unaware of what was going on in the cockpit and didn’t know that no one was flying the plane. He remained at his station, keeping a lookout for enemy aircraft. Moments after he saw Lt. Jensen’s plane go down, he saw a parachute pass by under the plane. Only later did he realize that it was probably Sgt. Clark’s chute he had seen.

Damaged and with no one at the controls, the big B-24 Liberator went into a dive. Sgt. Fisher, sitting in the nose, felt the pressure of the descending plane against his back.

By the time Trimmer and Davis were finally able to revive the copilot, the plane had lost 10,000 feet of altitude. The number one engine was out, the number three engine was running erratically, and most electrical systems, including the instruments, were not operating.

Having regained consciousness, Lt. Ward immediately took command. His left leg and left hand were completely incapacitated. His right foot was severely injured, and he was still bleeding heavily. Yet the left-handed co-pilot grabbed the yoke with his right hand and managed to pull the ship out of its steep dive and regain control. Once it was flying level again, he determined to try to get the aircraft over allied territory before the rest of the crew bailed out. He directed the navigator to give him a course to the nearest Russian lines.

With the instruments not working and with the plane having been flying for some time with no one at the controls, it was hard to know for sure what their location was. But Davis and Ward set a course for 150 degrees, hoping to reach the Russian-controlled territory near Lake Balaton, a 40-mile-long lake in Hungary some 120 miles south-southwest of Vienna. Trimmer applied a tourniquet to Ward’s left arm and then alerted the crew to be ready to abandon the aircraft.

It was a struggle for the co-pilot to retain consciousness with such a severe loss of blood. But he remained in command and held the course. Two of the engines seemed to be running smoothly, but the number three engine could not be controlled. Whenever Ward attempted to adjust the throttles, the number three engine would race temporarily, throwing the plane out of control. No attempts to reduce the RPMs of the engine seemed to have any effect.

Ward was also unable to apply enough pressure with his one useable foot to work the flaps, "so I set the throttles at 3/4 open and flew with the trim tabs," he later said.

Despite the seriousness of his wounds, Ward "would not hear of bailing out over enemy territory," according to Butler. "It was his fervent wish to return his aircraft and its crew to Allied forces so that we could all fly on another day." But with every minute that went by, "our position was rapidly becoming [more] perilous."

There was a very real question how long Ward, who continued to lose blood, would remain capable of flying the plane and an equally real question how much longer the plane would continue flying. "I could not have held control of the ship had the [number three] prop completely run away," Ward later said.

With a lake in view that they thought was Balaton, it seemed that the Russian lines were almost within reach, but Lt. Ward "felt that at the rate we were losing altitude, we might not make it across the lake - and at a lower altitude, we would not be able to parachute," Butler recalled. So the co-pilot gave the order for the crew to bail out, but continued to fly the plane until everyone had bailed out except himself and Trimmer.

Ward then circled back toward where the other crew members had jumped, so that he and Trimmer would be bailing out as close as possible to the same spot, before putting the plane on automatic pilot. Then, with the help of his bombardier, he made it to the bomb bay. Trimmer then tried to extricate the pilot’s body from the pilot’s seat but was unable to do so.

Butler later recalled, "Shortly after my parachute opened, I saw our B-24 return toward me, and then I saw two parachutes leave the plane. I later learned that these two officers had concerns about my welfare and rerouted the aircraft back toward me so that we could be re-united on the ground. This act of unselfishness would very quickly increase the degree of difficulty in their lives, as a flight of B-17s appeared on our general area and a great deal of anti-aircraft fire resulted."

As the crew descended to lower altitudes, they could see "a major road cluttered with vehicles and troops." They were all German, and Butler said he later learned that they were "in retreat from the Russian Army" which was then at the outskirts of Budapest.

The German troops fired at the descending parachutists as the wind carried them across the highway. But "fortunately, we had just enough altitude, their fire was inaccurate, and none of us was hurt."

The ground "came up pretty fast for me," Butler said. But the two officers, who were at a little higher altitude, drifted downwind several hundred yards further. It would be 34 years before Butler and Ward would see each other again.

The plane went down about a mile from where he had landed, and he saw it crash and burn upon impact.

When Butler reached the ground, high winds made it difficult for him to collapse his parachute. "I would get up on my feet and then be knocked down again and be dragged along the ground as the wind would catch my chute," he said. He found himself thinking about how much more difficult a time Jack Ward would be having, given his condition. It must have been an "excruciatingly painful experience for my co-pilot," he said.

The other downed airmen were apparently spread out over several miles. No doubt, all were anxious to collapse and dispose of their parachutes so they could reunite with their crew and formulate plans to evade the enemy and make their way to Allied lines. But the wind was making that difficult to do.

As Butler struggled with his chute, suddenly he became aware of "a form standing over me." A large man in overalls who Butler said looked like Li’l Abner was armed with "a long-handled pitchfork which he appeared ready to use," and the man had "a most menacing look."

Then a German officer rode up on horseback, said something to the man, and "the threat was over," he said. "I might add that we were all unarmed."

The nine survivors of Lt. Ralph Campbell’s crew were all taken captive by the Germans and spent the remainder of the war as P0Ws. As such, they suffered a variety of indignities and "unfavorable experiences," not only at the hand of their German captors but by some of the locals as well. "There were those of us who were stoned and spat upon by the populace," Butler said.

When Ward was taken prisoner, he was taken to a local hospital in Gyor where he received only the most superficial medical care. As the Russians advanced, the German forces retreated, and they evacuated the hospital, including the patients. Ward, in spite of his condition, was forced to march with other POWs as the Germans retreated toward Germany. He spent the remainder of the war in Stalag VII-A in Moosburg, Germany.

On December 21, word reached the parents of Lt. Charles Ralph Campbell from the War Department that their son had been reported missing in action.

On January 21, 1945, Ken Trimmer wrote a letter to his mother from the POW camp in Germany where he was being held. "Seems like the winter will be long and cold," he said. "They say the snow doesn’t melt ’til May. Jack and I are still a stone’s throw of each other. We think it best that you write to Chuck’s dad. He was killed by flak over the target. We bailed out. At least his folks should know what happened, rather than wait endless months and then perhaps get no word of his whereabouts. Address, C.N. Campbell, Rupert, Idaho. Forgive me for putting the burden on you, but we thought it best."

The St.-Avold American Military Cemetery in France where Lt. Charles Ralph Campbell is lies interned along with thousands of other brave young men and women who gave their lives in the cause of freedom. Let us never forget.

When the war ended, all members of the crew came home, with the exception of their pilot.

It was not until the following July that the army confirmed officially that Lt. Ralph Campbell had been killed in action. His remains were later interned at the St. Avold U.S. Military Cemetery in France.

On June 23, 1945, Jack Ward send a letter directly to Ralph’s parents. In it, he described their son as "the hardest working, steadiest pilot in the squadron.... His crew felt so safe with him that they wouldn’t fly with any other pilot. He was a successful pilot and leader who knew what he was fighting for."

Charles Clark wrote to Mr. & Mrs. Campbell a few weeks later. In his letter, he said, in behalf of the crew, that their pilot and leader had been "like a brother to us and the truest friend and comrade a person could ever have. All of us respect Chuck for his companionship and leadership. He gave his all for the defeat of our enemy, and we pray that it will not be in vain."

It was not in vain. Five days after Lt. Campbell died in action over Vienna, on December 16, 1944, the Germans launched their Ardennes Offensive in eastern Belgium – the famed Battle of the Bulge. The fighting went on for six weeks, resulting in 81,000 American casualties, including 19,000 killed. It was the largest land battle of the war, and the Germans threw everything they had into the offensive in one last all-out effort to push the Allied forces back into the sea. But they failed – largely because their tanks literally ran out of gas.

Although the fighting would continue for several months more before Germany surrendered, an Allied victory was now assured. The courage, faith and sacrifice of Lt. Ralph Campbell and his crew, and tens and thousands of other airmen who risked and sometimes gave their lives in the strategic bombing campaign to turn off the oil spigot of the German war machine, paid dividends. That effort and that sacrifice did, in fact, hasten the end of the war and help crush the brutal Nazi regime.

We who breathe free air today owe an eternal debt to Lt. Charles Ralph Campbell and his crew, and to all other Allied military personnel who fought and died in World War II. We can repay that debt only by remembering, and by doing all within our own power to safeguard our freedoms for generations yet to come.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I owe a debt of gratitude to my cousin Colin D. Campbell of South Jordan, Utah, who is, like me, a nephew of Lt. Charles Ralph Campbell and who is author of a limited edition book entitled Charles Ralph Campbell Pictorial History, for generously furnishing most of the research and documentation and most of the photographs that made this project possible. I am aware that there are some discrepancies among the various accounts of events described in this narrative. I have chosen to use the versions that seemed to me most plausible, given the information available to me, and I would welcome comments from any reader who may have information that that would shed further light on these events. -- Rand Green

*This story was originally published in the January 2003 issue of Perspicacity Press and posted on PerspicacityPress.com
on Jan. 26, 2003. It was subsequently reproduced in the June 2006 issue of Perspicacity Press.