Luck of the Draw: My story of the air war in Europe

This article is from Military History Matters issue 138

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REVIEW BY COLIN POMEROY

Luck of the Draw, which has just been adapted by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks into the new television series Masters of the Air, is in effect the autobiography of the late Frank Murphy.

It tells the story of Murphy’s entire life, but particularly his career flying with the 100th Bomber Group of the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) during the Second World War. Murphy took part in exciting and intense daylight bombing raids over Europe, but was shot down on his twenty-first mission and spent many subsequent years as a prisoner of war.

Written in first-person, matter- of-fact style that makes little unnecessary drama out of the events recounted, it’s a very readable book. And despite Murphy’s often grim wartime experiences, there are some laughs. For instance, I had to chuckle when reading his thoughts on the contrast between the USAAF and the RAF: the British swinging of the arms to shoulder height when marching seemed to amuse their American cousins.

Murphy’s poor eyesight took away from him his first choice of flying career, that of navigator (where his love of mathematics would have been a great asset). Instead, he joined his first operational B-17 Flying Fortress crew, captained by Lieutenant Charles Cruikshank. ‘Crew 31’, known unofficially as ‘Crankshaft’s Crew’, was based at RAF Thorpe Abbotts in East Anglia’s ‘Bomber Country’.

Murphy vividly recounts the many daylight raids over occupied France and Germany, in which the agile fighters of the Luftwaffe were a constant threat. He describes in detail the infamous raids on Schweinfurt and Regensberg in August 1943, from which more than 600 USAAF aircrew and 60 aircraft failed to return. Crew 31 made it out, after dropping its bomb load on their target of Regensberg’s Messerschmitt factory, but only avoided enemy fire by landing as far away as North Africa.

Crew 31’s days aloft came to an end, however, on 10 October that same year, during a raid on the railway hub at Münster. This was intended to be a major attack to avenge the high casualties of Regensberg and Schweinfurt, but Murphy’s group aircraft numbers were down to just 13 B-17s, making them vulnerable to enemy fire. When their aircraft was inevitably struck, the crew ‘hit the silk’, with Murphy, despite a shoulder wound, exiting after the co-pilot through the forward crew door. The description of his parachute descent is so vivid that the reader can fully imagine being in the same situation.

Murphy was treated well by the Germans he encountered on landing, although they did still hand him over to the authorities. After periods in various interrogation centres, he was moved to a prisoner-of-war camp to become a ‘kriegie’ (a POW). The traumatic journey, mostly in uncleaned cattle trucks, took him to Stalag Luft III – best known for the legendary ‘Great Escape’ that was later dramatised by Hollywood.