458th Bombardment Group (H)

We got off the ground at 0745 and proceeded to form our flight. The various groupings were “snafu” so we tacked onto another group going on the same mission. We left the English Coast at 0930 at 17,000 ft. crossing the French coast at 1006. We reached our first attack of “ack-ack” midway to the target - it was a strange feeling to see the black puffs of smoke a little below us and only a few hundred yards away. Temperature was comfortable - a -22°. We reached the initial point and the purpose of the mission began to take shape. As A.J. was operating the nose turret, it was up to me to release the bombs. So I set up the switches to release the bombs and anxiously awaited sighting the airfield. The moment came at 1152 and with a flick of the finger three tons of demolition bombs went down toward the airfield. The radio operator, watching through open bomb bay doors, noted four of the bombs headed for a cluster of buildings and hangers, soon there was just smoke, fire and debris. Our bombs away we headed for home after circling somewhat away from the target for the other groups. At Cognac, France we received heavy “ack-ack” and too accurate for comfort. It exploded shell after shell along our right and at our level and followed us for eight minutes. Flak seemed to be everywhere. We finally reached the French coast and the English Channel at 1430. No fighters were sighted by our crew, although other crews reported being attacked by FW-190’s and ME-109’s. Plenty of our own escort fighters, mainly P-51’s, P-47’s, and P-38’s were on hand to take care of attacking Jerries.

It was a good feeling to see the English coast again and to soon be on the ground again. After a slight mishap, we landed at 1600. The mishap being some slow-thinking pilot who shot in front of us as we came in for a landing. He changed his mind, gunned his engines, and left us in a heavy prop-wash which momentarily put our ship out of control, so we gunned the throttles and went up and around again for another landing.

The total time in the air was 8 hours and 15 minutes - approximately five hours on oxygen. Altitude 17,000; temp -22°C. Winds from the north at 60 knots. Visibility about five miles - at times complete under cast. Target however was clear. After the various interrogations and evening briefing, I am quite exhausted.

Everything went off pretty well. We crossed the Dutch coast about noon and continued on our way to Berlin. It wasn’t until we were deep in Germany until we hit heavy flak, which hit our ship and tore a hole through the tail end of the fuselage. With the heavy fighter support, we didn’t get attacked by fighters. How I love those boys for keeping the fighters away. We saw numerous dogfights, but Jerry was always outnumbered. We cut south of Berlin, made a quick turn north and then west straight over the industrial site on the edge of Berlin. We dropped our bomb load at 1439. The smoke and fires rising from Berlin were tremendous, they could be seen for miles. The whole town of Berlin was visible. Funny thing, all the other large German cities we passed were all covered with smoke screens and Berlin wasn’t, don’t think they expected a raid on Berlin itself.

Some 850 Fortresses and Liberators with a fighter support of 1000 P-47’s, P-38’s, and P-51’s. We headed straight for home, with heavy flak coming up all over and fighters, which were promptly taken care of by our boys. Some 38 of our bombers and 11 of our fighters were lost - to 130 of Germany’s planes. We saw a Liberator go down in flames just before reaching Berlin. Five men parachuted out and three of our P-47’s went down to cover them as they went down. The Lib tore apart in air and crashed in flames in a wooded area near Berlin. [This was most likely Lt Adamson's crew] We felt swell on reaching the North Sea again after leaving Germany and Holland. We wondered what all the people thought of below as they saw almost 2000 planes go by during the day. The ceiling was quite low over England we came in at 400 feet and landed at 1740.

The total time in flight was 8 hours and 5 minutes. On oxygen 6 hours. Altitude 25,000 feet and temp -37°C. winds from east at 40-60 mph. Our target was really plastered today, a real accomplishment carrying the war to the capital of Berlin itself.

P-47’s went along with us from the channel and over Holland. P-38’s and P-47’s gave us good coverage. when we went through we couldn’t see any German fighters, but there were quite a few during the days operation. We were attacked by flak four times and the hits were very close - close enough to clear part of the paint off of our flying white horse and all that remained was shiny metal and a dent. From our I.P. to the target, flak was very heavy. A.J. was in the turret, and from his signal I released the bomb load on Brunswick. There was an almost complete under cast below, but through a few holes in the clouds I could see fires. Bombing was by P.F.F. Only three bombers were lost on today’s raid and five of our fighters - compared to 36 German fighters shot down. Altitude was at 23,000 feet, temp -40° below.

Our target was an airfield at Metz, France and our secondary target was an airfield at St. Dizier, France. We hit our secondary airfield as the first was completely covered with clouds. The flight itself was rather uneventful except when we crossed the coast of France at Dieppe. We received a volley of flak fire and again at a place about thirty miles inland. That was the only flak or fire of any kind. The Luftwaffe failed to show up, and we had clear sailing. We went to bomb the airfield at Metz, but found under cast conditions - so we altered course and headed for St. Dizier. The field was already under fire as smoke climbed to heights of about a mile or so. We dropped our 240 X 20lb fragmentation bombs - I watched them go all the way down. They dropped on a group of 50 - 75 buildings - that airfield was completely destroyed.

Weather was clear and visibility was good. I wondered how many stray bombs crossed the river to the French town of St. Dizier. The mission took 7 hours of flight and 7 hours of ground preparation. If it wasn’t for the fact that I took a number of aspirin, I don’t know how I would have carried on. We need rest badly, and hope we get it. Altitude was 17,000 feet, temp was -20°C. Bomb load 240 X 20lb fragmentation bombs - 4800lbs all total. Could see Paris and the Eiffel tower on the way to the target.

We lost an engine while still over Germany and slowly fell from the formation. When we reached Holland and the channel we were alone, except for another Lib that wanted to stay with us in case of attack or going down in the water. We were all set for ditching the plane. I had the radio operator break radio silence and send SOS messages every ten minutes with our position. I left my navigation and stood by on the flight deck near the radio operator. I navigated in my head - we were just a little south of the field when we made landfall. I felt good about that. Land was beautiful to see - we cancelled our SOS and shot red distress signal flares and landed immediately. Really sweated this one out - thought it was our last.

After spending a two-day leave in London, I returned late last night to find I was on the alert. Went to bed at 0100 and was awakened at 0300. During those two hours of sleep we had two air raid alerts, which interrupted what little sleep I could have had. Our mission today was to bomb an airfield at Paderborn, Germany. Our group led the division. Again, fighters chose not to come near our formation and flak was very meager. With a clear day and all possible conditions - the bombardier missed the target. A perfect mission, if only we had hit that target.

Took off at 0700 for Osnabruck, Germany with 12 X 500lb demos to be dropped on the marshalling yards. Complete under cast, bombs were dropped by P.F.F. Heavy flak, but no fighters. Very cold, -38°C. Landed at 1130.

Before we even took off we were scared stiff. About four planes crashed on takeoff due to heavy frost on the wings. The sky was filled with smoke towering several thousand feet. We shot off a red flare on take off, taxied around and cleaned our wings off again. Took off and returned again because a gas cap was loose and the gas was siphoning out. We filled up with gas and took off a second time and tried to catch up with the formation. We noted one plane that crashed - several homes were demolished - nothing left of the plane. Our target was the airfield three miles north of Brunswick. Fighters were fighting us in the target area. I watched numerous dogfights and saw three planes go down in flames. Our tail gunner saw eleven B-17’s go down. About forty ME-109’s headed for our formation, but turned suddenly and made an attack on the B-17 formation. Three fighters made a pass at us on the bomb run, one hit in the nose turret - no one hurt. The Grace of God is what brought us back from this mission. It was really rough.

[While planes from nearby group's may have crashed, only one plane from the 458BG crashed shortly after take off.  Lt Paul Kingsley and crew from the 754BS]

Bertrix, Belgium [Marshalling Yards]