US Army Air Corps Tech Sergeant Woodrow Wilson "Ted or Woody" Allen was born in Gates, Tennessee on December 22, 1919, the son of Walter Theodore Allen (1892-1940) and Clara Belle Blackburn (1898-). His father was a night watchman at the time of his death in 1940 although he occupied other jobs during his lifetime. He and Clara would divorce between 1935 and 1940 and she remarried George R. Hurd. The family was from Memphis, Shelby County, Tennessee but George and Clara moved to Pensacola sometime after 1940 with some of her children. Here, George went to work for the San Carlos Hotel Coffee Shop & Grill.
Although not a Pensacolian by birth or marriage, Ted was connected with many of his family who settled here. Clara's son John D. Allen became the assistant manager of the Coffee Cup restaurant on East Cervantes Street prior to his premature death in 1963 at 46-years old. As for Ted, he would graduate from Humes High School in Memphis before marrying a Memphis girl. He then went to work for the Memphis Publishing Company as an assistant pressman and later for the Memphis Press-Scimitar paper (out of business in 1983).
After Pearl Harbor, Ted enlisted in the US Army Air Corps on August 31, 1942, and was sent to Keesler Airfield in Mississippi for training as an engineer/gunner. He received advanced training at Sheppard Field, Texas before being sent overseas. Upon arrival in March 1944, he was assigned to the 722nd Bombardment Squadron of the 450th Bombardment Group (the Cottontails) operating out of the Manduria Airfield near Taranto, Italy. His squadron had been assigned to the 15th Air Force in January 1944 operating against targets in Romania, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the Balkans.
But the most feared mission of the war was the Ploesti oilfields in Romania. This complex alone supplied Hitler's war machine with 60% of its crude oil. Thus, it had to be eliminated! But waiting for them were some of heaviest concentration of anti-aircraft weapons of the war. Additionally, there were the dreaded German 88s that encircled the entire area plus smoke generators and barrage balloons that were tethered by steel cables that could rip the B-24 winds completely off.
Then on July 15, 1944, the squadron received orders to strike Ploesti once again, a place where so many young Pensacolians had already gone down. The order of the day was for Ted and his 450th Bomb Group to lead the 47th Wing's attack followed by the 449th, 98th, and 376th Bomb Groups. Ted's B-24, known as "Toni Gayle," took off from Manduria at 0612 hours along with 35 other bombers of the squadron. Each was loaded with ten 500-pound bombs. They were told they would be facing 241 heavy flak guns plus over 100 German fighters. The crew of the Toni Gayle for this mission was piloted by LCol William Snaith, co-pilot 2Lt Clyde O. Primrose Jr., navigator Capt. Jerome R. Goldvarg, bombardier 1Lt. Robert Stricklin, engineer TSGT Woodrow Wilson Allen, radio operator SSGT Penn W. Crawford, gunner SSGT Andrew N. Johnson Jr., observer 1Lt Earl W. Tautfest, radar navigator 2LT George H. Fritz. Author Neil Hunter Raiford in his book "Shadow: A Cottontail bomber crew in WWII" stated that this crew was handpicked for their skill and coolness under fire.
As they flew over their target, there were no enemy fighters aloft, but the area was obliterated by smoke from the 5th Wing's bombing fifteen minutes earlier. The Toni Gayle was the lead bomber of the entire 47th Wing's attack and flew on through the smoke never wavering in their duty. The thick smoke forced their bombardier to use their new radar to lock onto the target and release their hell from above at 1018 hours. As they pulled out of their bomb run, they received a direct hit in their bomb bay causing the Toni Gayle to erupt in a huge explosion. As it plummeted straight down in a mass of flames, no parachutes were seen. But by some miracle, Lt. Col Snaith was blown clear of the plane and at 200 feet below his burning plane, he pulled his ripcord. He survived to be captured and became a prisoner of war. In all, the mission only cost the squadron two planes lost but the squadron would return to Ploesti three more times before Romania capitulated within six more weeks. In the meantime, his mother in Pensacola and his wife Mary K. and child were notified of his demise. After the war his remains were recovered and returned to Pensacola in 1951 and buried in the Barrancas National Cemetery.
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