Warbirds reunite for flight of memories
By BURLON PARSONS bparsons@journal-spectator.com

Staff Photo by Burlon Parsons Former World War II B-24 Liberator pilot Si Grider sketches the plane he flew as he talks about being shot down 100-miles from Portugal when four of the crew were lost and the six survivors spent five days and nights aboard rafts in the Atlantic Ocean.

Silas "Si" Grider, 88, formerly of Wharton and now of Paris, thought he had taken his last flight in a B-24 Liberator in August of 1945.

But last Wednesday the former World War II pilot and pilot instructor was reunited with one of the only flying B- 24 Liberators left in the world.

He didn't get to pilot the plane, but he was a passenger aboard the B-24 Liberator "Witchcraft" for a flight from Victoria's airport to San Antonio.

It is part of the Wings of Freedom Tour which takes veterans on nostalgic flights accompanied by members of their family. The plane is restored and owned by the Collings Foundation in Stow, Maine.

Starting its 19th season the tour includes the Liberator, only flying B-25J Mitchell, a B- 17G Flying Fortress and a TP- 51C trainer.

For Grider the experience brought back many memories. Born and reared in Davis, Okla., he graduated from Sulphur High School in 1936 and headed to Oklahoma State University until graduation in 1940.

With war imminent, Grider became a flying cadet in training as a bomber pilot at the Spartan School of Aviation. He moved to Randolph Field in San Antonio for basics and then on to Kelly Field for advanced flying on April 25, 1941.

He completed training as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps. Grider had trained in the Fairchild PT-19, North American BT-14 and the North American AT-6.

Upon graduation he immediately married the girl he met in San Antonio, Kathryn Hershey, on May 12, 1941.

Lt. Grider's first assignment was with the 97th Observation Squadron attached to Fort Benning, Ga.

He underwent training in the Martin B-10 Bomber and Douglas B-18 Bolo Bomber. One of his instructors was Paul Tibbets who would drop the first atomic bomb on Japan from his Boeing B-29 dubbed the Enola Gay.

Photo by Gary Eldridge Si Grider waits on the Victoria Regional Airport tarmack awaiting his ride in the B-24 Liberator dubbed Witchcraft. The type plane he flew on anti-submarine missions from England in World War II.

With German submarine activity going on in the Atlantic Ocean, Grider was moved Miami, Fla., to fly North American O-47 on submarine patrols.

He flew observation missions from there from May of 1941 to Dec. 7, 1941. Moves were made to Cape Cod and Rhode Island patrolling for submarines with the 19th Squadron of the 479th Antisubmarine Group.

In the fall of 1942 Grider was checked out to fly the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-25 Mitchell at Langley Field in Virginia.

"Things in the war were moving rapidly," Grider said. "The President had called on manufacturing to produce 50,000 aircraft. They were doing their job, but we needed lots more pilots."

"On one mission covering a convoy in the North Atlantic, I had a co-pilot who had never been in a B-17 before," he said. "That's how desperate the military was for pilots."

In March of 1943 the group was station in Newfoundland with their B-17s.

"One day a flight of B-24s arrived. Our B-17s were flown out and we had to learn to fly these new planes from the tech manuals," he said. "Things were really moving fast."

The B-24s were faster than the B-17s, could fly farther, carried a comparable bomb load, but had a flight ceiling 5,000 feet lower than the B-17.

"It (the B-24) was a pilot's aircraft," Grider said. "It was a great plane."

On July 2, 1943 Grider was piloting a new crew across the Atlantic.

"We had pretty primitive instrumentation in those days," he said. "Our first landing was in Scotland and it was fogged in. I made two instrument approaches and couldn't land. They had to set off flares to get us down."

He joined the 19th Squadron of the 479th Antisubmarine Group in Southern England.

Since the B-24s had the greatest range of bombers at the time, their crews were given the farthest quadrants to patrol. These were within easy reach of German aircraft.

The "magic number" for bomber pilots was 25 missions and you could go home. Lt. Grider was on his 23rd mission when he and his crew were shot down in B-24 "George" 100 miles off the coast of Portugal.

"I was pilot on the mission to train the copilot who was going to be the pilot of the aircraft," he said. "We got jumped by 10 Junker JU-88 fighter/bombers."

Armed with up to seven 7.9 mm machine guns, the JU-88s swarmed on their lone target.

The B-24's copilot and navigator were killed by machine gun fire. Two of the plane's engines were also set ablaze by the machine guns.

In addition a rudder steering cable was also shot away. His ditching speed was 140 miles per hour.

Grider called the belly and tail gunners to brace against the bulkhead as he prepared to ditch the wounded B-24.

The waist gunners remained at their positions to keep the JU-88s at bay.

The plane ditched and the two waist gunners were killed when they were slung against the bulkhead. Grider's head crashed into the windshield. He had to swim out of the hole caused by the crash from about 20-feet deep. He was cut on the jagged glass and metal.

The six survivors lashed their two rafts together and spent five days and nights in 45-degree water.

The impact on ditching the plane had caused Grider to go blind for two days.

They were drifting slowly in the Gulf Stream toward France when spotted on the fourth day. The seas were too rough and a ship picked them up the next day.

On the day he was shot down Grider reached the rank of captain. His wife and mother knew it before he did.

"They got a telegram saying that Capt. Grider was missing in action while we were still on the life rafts," he said. "They knew about my promotion before I did."

Back in the hospital in England Capt. Grider was given a couple of options.

"I could stay in England for another 25 missions and could gain a couple of promotions or I could go home and train B-24 pilots," he said. "I opted for the later."

In October of 1943 the pilot came home to the states. He spent the next two and one half years training hundreds of pilots.

"Some of those flights were as terrifying as facing enemy planes," he quipped. "And when you trained pilots it was a seven-day-a-week job. But, I was with my wife."

Raising to the rank of major, Grider made his last flight in August of 1945.

He became and ag instructor and worked many years for the U.S. Rice industry in markets around the world.

When he moved to Wharton in 1965 he had just come back from Switzerland.

He is still a rated instructor and aerial navigation instructor. His one regret is not having flown some of the smaller civilian planes.

His comment on Wednesday's flight, "I never realized how uncomfortable it was to be a passenger in a B-24. It was not built to be a passenger plane and I always rode in the pilot's seat or right behind it."

But Grider said he was glad to get a flight in the World War II war bird again.