DONALD D. BLODGETT
Age: 88
Born: Dec. 6, 1921
Hometown: 88
Residence: Rancho Mirage
Military branch: U.S. Army Air Corps; U.S. Army Air Force
Years served: 1943 - 1945; recalled in 1949; retired in 1973.
Rank: Retired from the U.S. Air Force as Lieutenant Colonel in 1973
Family: Wife Anne; two children, Lori Wiseman of McLean, Va. and Pat Higgins of Caledonia, Mich.; six grandchildren; 12 great-grandchildren.
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war.
Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
Coming tomorrow
U.S. Army veteran Raymond G. Lires of Palm Desert.
LEARN MORE: Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at mydesert.com/wwii.
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During World War II, B-17 pilot Donald Blodgett flew air-sea rescue missions over the cold North Atlantic Ocean.
Blodgett and his crew were on the lookout for airmen who had to ditch their planes around Labrador and Greenland.
Fifteen years later, Blodgett — who became a U.S. Air Force B-52 jet bomber pilot — was accidentally shot down during a training mission and had to bail out during a snowstorm over New Mexico — and found himself in desperate need of rescue.
“The B-17 played a vital combat role during World War II,” Blodgett said. “What is also significant about this aircraft is its contribution to the rescue efforts of the Army Air Corps during that same period.”
Blodgett, a member of the search and rescue service, was stationed at Goose Bay, Labrador.
Blodgett and his crew participated in a successful sea rescue near Gander, Newfoundland, and many land rescue missions.
“Because of the extreme cold water temperatures in that area, survival, in case of a ditching, was limited to a very short time period,” Blodgett said.
Blodgett said the B-17 was equipped with a 33-foot-long boat that weighed 3,300 pounds. It was attached to the aircraft using four cables that hooked to the bomb racks. The boat had two Rolls Royce engines, fuel, a sail, compasses, radios, clocks and three 40-foot parachutes.
“The procedure that was used when survivors were spotted was to fly over them at 1,200 feet,” Blodgett said. “The bombardier directed the aircraft using the plane's bombsight. When the rescue aircraft was directly over the survivors, the boat was released. Four 100-foot lines were activated to assist in helping the survivors,” get aboard the boat.
The aircraft crew would plot the survivors' position on a map with directions to the nearest port or ship. The information was dropped down to the boat, and the survivors were monitored until they reached a safe location.
Blodgett and his crew were also assigned missions to support some of the more remote stations in the area, including a weather station at Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island.
“We would fly to the station every two weeks, weather permitting,” he said. “Our mission was to take them mail, movies, fresh fruits and vegetables and personnel replacements. They were very happy to see us. On one occasion, we even brought USO troops to entertain them. That was the highlight of their tour at this very remote, isolated station.”
Blodgett survived a freak training accident on April 7, 1961, when a Sidewinder heat-seeking missile was fired from an Air National Guard F-100 jet fighter at 34,000 feet over Grants, N.M.
Blodgett, a captain at the time, was the command pilot of the B-52. He was flying a routine training mission with two F-100 fighters.
“The fighters made five passes, and on the sixth pass I heard the pilot scream the shocking message that a missile had fired,” Blodgett said.
“It sheared off the left wing,” he said. “I just sat there for a second, stunned I grabbed the control column as the aircraft veered into a sharp, left bank The controls were shaking so hard,” but Blodgett finally managed to get a hand free to hit the alarm bell, signally the crew to bail out.
“At this time, the tail gunner released his turret and the navigator fired his escape hatch,” Blodgett continued. “When the turret jettisoned, the plane was pitched almost straight down By this time the aircraft was completely out of control.”
By the time Blodgett was able to get his right hand over to the ejection handle, the plane was zooming into a violent spin through the clouds.
“I thought surely this was certain death for me, but I kept pulling and squeezing, and shortly I was pitched up into an intensely hot blast,” he said. “I was tumbling in the ejection seat. Wires from the interphone had wrapped around my leg, fastening me to the seat. I kicked and clawed until the seat finally separated from me. I went spinning like a top. The automatic chute opener released at the prescribed altitude, and I murmured a prayer of deep gratitude.”
“The weather couldn't have been any nastier,” he said. “It was snowing very hard, and the wind was blowing me up, down and sideways the swirling snowstorm prevented me from seeing the ground until a few feet before I hit.”
Blood was pouring out of his left upper arm, but finally coagulated. His flight suit was soaked with JP-4 jet fuel.
He was able to put his survival rifle together and, although hesitant to fire it at first for fear of it blowing up in his face, he fired three shots every half-hour. Soon after, his tail gunner, badly burned, appeared on the scene.
“We spent the afternoon trying to ease our wounds and spreading the chute to attract the attention of searching aircraft,” he said. “It finally stopped snowing and cleared up at,” 5:30 p.m. — more than five hours after the blast.
The men were located and were soon being airlifted out to Sandia Base Hospital in Albuquerque, N.M.
Five men aboard the ill-fated plane survived. Three others were found dead among the wreckage.
