RichardHowe.com – Voices from Lowell & Beyond

Masters of the Air: Lowell Connection

Yesterday I posted a review of the Apple TV series, “Masters of the Air” a drama about US Army Air Force aviators flying B-17 heavy bombers over occupied Europe during World War II.

Many men from Lowell served in the USAAF during the war and endured experiences much like those depicted in “Masters of the Air.” Some of them did not survive the war. Here are several stories of Lowell residents who were killed in action while flying.

Costas A. Ivos was born in Lowell on November 22, 1924, the son of Anthony and Garifelea Ivos. Costas graduated from Lowell High School and was a captain in the “Lowell High Regiment” which was a predecessor to today’s JROTC program. Costas entered the US Army Air Force in the fall of 1943. He was assigned to aerial gunnery school at Yuma, Arizona, and after training was assigned to a squadron of B-17 bombers as a radio operator/gunner. On March 15, 1945, Ivos’s aircraft, nicknamed “TNT Katie” was hit by German antiaircraft fire while on a bombing mission to Oranienburg, Germany. With the plane going down, the pilot ordered the crew to bail out. Three made it safely to the ground and became prisoners of war, but the remainder of the crew, including Costas Ivos, died in the aircraft. After the war, the city of Lowell dedicated the intersection of Worthen and Broadway streets Costas Ivos Square.

Wallace E. MacRitchie was born in Lowell in 1924. He was the son of Mrs. Violet MacRitchie of 31 Chelmsford Street, Lowell. Wallace entered the US Army Airforce and was assigned as a gunner to a medium bomber operating from the island of Corsica on bombing missions over Italy. On one such mission on July 12, 1944, MacRitchie’s aircraft experienced engine trouble and one of the plane’s two engines stopped running. The pilot continued on to the target and dropped the plane’s bombs, however, the remaining engine began malfunctioning. Expecting the plane to go down sooner rather than later, the pilot flew directly to the coast so he could land the plane in the water with the hope of being rescued. As the plane continued on, the pilot ordered the crew to throw overboard all unnecessary items. Once over water, the remaining engine failed and the pilot landed the plane in the water. The crew deployed a life raft but two members of the five-man crew were missing. The other three made a quick search of the rapidly sinking plane but the two crew members who were stationed in the rear of the plane, one of whom was MacRitchie, were not there. The pilot concluded that the two had misunderstood his order to eject unnecessary items and thought he ordered them to bail out. Consequently, the two bailed out of the plane over the ocean but since no one knew they had done that or when, they had no idea of where it had happened so were unable to direct a search and rescue mission to their location. The three crewmembers who made it into a life raft were soon rescued by an U.S. amphibious aircraft. The two who were lost, MacRitchie and Harold Winjum, were declared missing in action. They are memorialized at the Florence (Italy) Cemetery and Memorial. In 1947, the city of Lowell dedicated the intersection of Westford and Grand Streets Wallace MacRitchie Square.

Paul E. McErlane was born in Lowell on May 3, 1923. He attended the Bartleet School and Lowell High School, graduating in the class of 1940. He was best known as a golf caddy who won the city’s “caddy championship” in 1940. Paul enlisted in the US Army Air Force and was assigned to the 333^rd Heavy Bomber Squadron as a gunner on a B-17 operating from England. On a mission over the Netherlands on April 9, 1944, McErlane’s aircraft was struck by antiaircraft fire as it dropped its bombs over the target. Crew of other aircraft saw the McErlane’s plane spiral down and crash into the sea, exploding on impact. All aboard were deemed to be killed in the crash. Seven months later, Paul’s brother, Peter McErlane was killed in action in ground combat in France while serving as a First Sergeant in the United States Army. In 1947, the city of Lowell dedicated the intersection of Mammoth Road and Fourth Ave McErlane Square in honor of Paul and Peter McErlane.

Review of “Masters of the Air” TV series

Masters of the Air

Review by Richard Howe

Masters of the Air is a World War II miniseries on the Apple TV streaming service. There are nine episodes in all, released weekly beginning on January 26, 2024. If you’re into binge watching, all are now available.

The show follows pilots and crew of the 100th Bomb Group which flew B-17 bombers from England over occupied Europe from 1943 until the end of the war. Masters of the Air complements Band of Brothers from 2001, and The Pacific from 2010, to form a trilogy of World War II streaming series. Now all we need is one about the U.S. Navy, although as far as I know, nothing like that is being considered.

This latest edition does not sugarcoat the experience of these aircrews, many of whom died in combat. In the early years especially, flying these planes was near suicidal and the show emphasizes the strain and trauma that surviving crews endured, especially with the knowledge that they had to go back and do it over again the next day and the day after that and the day after that.

The program strives to depict many of the experiences of these men including the struggle to jump from an out-of-control airplane; the extreme cold they operated in due to the high altitude they flew at; the experience of surviving a shoot down only to be placed in a prisoner of war camp; how the western European “underground” helped some downed flyers make it safely back to England; and the importance of the maintenance workers who kept the planes flying.

The show also explores the morality of strategic bombing in World War II. The planners and theorists maintained (publicly, at least) that only military targets were being bombed, but the crewmembers knew full well that most of the bombs fell on neighborhoods, killing hundreds and even thousands of civilians.

An early episode features an argument between the newly arrived American flyers and more experienced British bomber crews over the wisdom of daylight bombing which the Americans did versus nighttime raids done by the British. American theorists maintained that flying in daylight made aiming the bombs more precise and that, with 10 heavy machine guns each, the American “Flying Fortresses” (called that because of all the machine guns) could protect themselves from enemy fighters. The British maintained that dropping bombs from 30,000 feet was inherently inaccurate, day or night. Whatever accuracy was lost by operating at night was offset by carrying more bombs due to the reduced weight of fewer machine guns and crew members. It’s an argument that has no winner, although given the high toll taken on the American planes by German fighters and antiaircraft artillery, the British approach seems to have made more sense.

The show’s title, “Masters of the Air,” comes from a book by that title but refers to the air superiority that was achieved by the Allies by the middle of 1944 and the D-Day invasion. A big part of this was the deployment of more advanced American fighter planes, particularly the P-51 Mustang, which had the range to accompany the bombers all the way to their targets and the capability to outperform almost every German fighter plane.

This development is depicted on the program by a squadron of Black American fighter pilots, some of the esteemed Tuskegee Airmen. The program uses these characters to highlight the racism endemic in American society at the time.

Even if Allied air superiority reduced the threat from enemy fighters, German antiaircraft artillery, known as flak, was still deadly to the bomber crews. One of the final episodes graphically depicts this, and builds upon the experience of a surviving crew member who bailed out over Russian lines and, before being repatriated, observed firsthand a recently liberated Nazi concentration camp and all the dead civilian prisoners inside of it.

If you’re interested in military history and have an Apple TV subscription, I recommend watching Masters of the Air.

In Pencil

In pencil – (PIP #28)

By Louise Peloquin

L’Etoile published many accounts of young locals serving abroad during World War II. Here is an example:

L’Etoile – June 30, 1944

Soldier Marcouillier proud of his experiences

Words of gratitude addressed to the Franco-American Club of Dracut which is interested in the soldiers.

     In a letter of thanks to Joseph Chanelle, President of the Franco-American Club of Dracut, soldier Raymond Marcouillier, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Marcouillier, 120 Colombia Street, says he is proud to have participated in the campaigns in North-Africa, Sicily and Italy. Member of the American Army third infantry division, one of the best he says, he drops details which suggest his proximity to danger.

     “The other day” he said “I had the happiness of getting my hands on a famous New York newspaper. The first thing I noticed was the column stating that everything was calm on the Italian front. Alas, this was not the case and our casualties attest to it. Those were not birds flying at night making an infernal racket; those were not apples crashing on the ground and exploding to create holes twice their size.”

     He added “I do not want you to fear the horrors of war but too many people seem to believe that it does not exist. What threatened to weaken the morale of our fighters here during these most somber days was seeing that a certain percentage of people refused to work in order to receive more money. What would happen if we, the soldiers, had done the same thing? I am convinced however, that the Franco-Americans are not in this category.”

     And to end, solider Marcouillier, who is the son of the Franco-American Club treasurer, offers his best wishes for the increasing success of this organization and expresses the desire to join it upon his return. He also explains that his letter is written in pencil because “the other day a bomb hit close to me and broke my pen.”

     Soldier Marcouillier attended Saint Joseph High School and joined the army two years ago. His military training took place at Fort Meade Maryland. (1) 

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1) Translation by Louise Peloquin.

Book Retells our Lives with Love, Loss and Hope by Marjorie Arons Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog.

An Unfinished Love Affair: a Personal History of the 1960’s by historian and biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin is the book I have been waiting for, and it doesn’t disappoint. It is an intimately told, stunningly impactful history of the 1960’s told through the eyes of her husband, presidential speech writer and himself a shaper of history, Dick Goodwin. Full disclosure: Doris is a dear friend, a relationship spawned 45 years ago when she was a panelist on my Sunday morning political discussion program Five on Five. My husband, Jim Barron, and I hold dear the friendship we shared with both Doris and Dick.

Dick was, with Ted Sorenson, speech writer for JFK and had been one of the driving forces behind the Alliance for Progress in Latin America, the Peace Corps, the work with Jackie Kennedy on the arts that became the National Council on the Arts, and other New Frontier initiatives. After the Kennedy assassination, Dick stayed on with Lyndon Johnson, crafting the most memorable speeches of LBJ’s “Great Society” program, which term he coined, as well as history-making civil rights addresses.  (Doris met Dick in 1972 and married him in 1975, just after she had helped Johnson write his memoirs and just before she published her own Lyndon Johnson and The American Dream.)

For readers of a certain age, stories of the battle for civil rights, the challenge to LBJ’s war policy, the grassroots building of the anti-war movement, the spirited youthful campaign to back Gene McCarthy’s presidential bid will resonate. So, too, will Dick Goodwin’s anti-war passions taking him to support McCarthy when his friend Bobby Kennedy demurred, his moving to RFK when Kennedy finally got into the race, and, still grieving after the assassination, returning to McCarthy. Goodwin, a brilliant, intense personality often described as a loner or enfant terrible, would turn afterward to teaching and writing, including a play based on Gallileo’s challenge to the Pope about the solar system. Dick’s take on that epic battle between titanic powers was surely informed by Dick’s own experience among the most potent players in our country.

This book is an emotional trip down memory lane. What were you doing during this event or that? For those of us who took sides between JFK and LBJ, this book provides an opportunity to rethink our views of each.

Dick had saved everything – speeches, drafts of speeches, transcripts of conversations, tapes,memorabilia, letters, diaries – in hundreds of boxes stored in their Concord home, not even in chronological order. Doris, in her ‘70’s, and Dick, in his ‘80’s, together went through these materials in preparation for this new book, truly a product of her love of him and their shared love of history and politics. An Unfinished Love Affair includes their ongoing conversations over three years about the events of the sixties, and Doris’ ancillary research following up Dick’s unfinished stories. After Dick’s death in 2018 at the age of 86, she turned to writing this book, a triumphant history-infused, deeply personal memoir.

Dick’s writing remains powerful to this day.  His famous “We Shall Overcome” speech that LBJ delivered to a joint session of Congress to launch the push for the 1965 Civil Rights Act still brings tears to the eyes. Dick’s deep knowledge of the law (he was editor of the Harvard Law Review and clerked for Justice Felix Frankfurter), his memory for history, literature, including poetry, and his visionary dreams that America might one day fulfill the promise of its founding documents have stunning impact. His writings are stark reminders of the dearth of such lofty and inspirational writing today.  I didn’t start writing professionally until 50 years ago, and his writing is of a quality to which, even half a century later, I can only aspire.

The book is occasionally more dewy-eyed than a hard-hitting expose of the underbelly of the political world, and various events and people, of necessity, are omitted. Doris has done a remarkably deft job of weaving together history, her personal relationship with her beloved husband, their parallel lives at different stages, his singular writing and activism, her own political coming of age, and her rise to prominence as a notable historian and biographer. It is silken in its tapestry.

An Unfinished Love Affair” captures the spirit of the 1960’s, when, despite three shattering assassinations, urban riots, and the buildup of the war in Vietnam, people had hope and the will to push for fulfilling the promise of our national ideals. As Doris so eloquently puts it, the lasting gift of the sixties was not the violence and turmoil but “the spark of communal idealism and belief that kindled social justice and love for a more inclusive vision of America.” This reader wants to reach back, scoop it up and force-feed it to the so-called leaders of 2024. Better still, require it be read by the young adults among us, to quell their cynicism and inspire them that they have the capacity to bring about change for a better world.