Oschersleben, January 11, 1944
THE JANUARY 5th attack against Kiel marked the last mission mounted by the man who had nurtured the Eighth and watched it grow from humble beginnings in the early months of 1942 to the powerful Air Force it had now become. Effective January 6th, General Ira C. Eaker was transferred to command of all American and British air forces in the Mediterranean. Eaker bitterly regretted the change, but the shuffle was part of Allied planning for D-Day, and all but inevitable in light of General Eisenhower’s preference for his own man to direct the Eighth’s fortunes.
Ike’s choice was Lt. Gen. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle, the aggressive combat leader famous for his prewar aviation exploits and his daring Tokyo raid with a tiny force of twin-engined B-25s launched from the Navy carrier Hornet (CV-8) on April 18, 1942. Doolittle went on to serve Eisenhower well as air commander during Operation Torch, the November 1942 invasion of North Africa, and General Arnold was hard put to deny Eisenhower his choice as the Supreme Commander of SHAEF, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, now building in England for the invasion of Europe.
Doolittle reported to an intermediary, General Carl A. “Tooey” Spaatz, as did Eaker in his capacity as operational commander of the second U.S. strategic air force in Europe, the Fifteenth, based initially in North Africa and later out of Foggia, Italy. Spaatz was responsible for coordination of the two U.S. heavy bomber forces as commander of the United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe (USSTAF). His chief operational deputy in USSTAF Headquarters at Bushy Park, near London, was General Fred Anderson, who had worked so closely with Eaker in planning the raids of the previous autumn.
With these organizational changes, VIII Bomber Command was officially disbanded, and the name “Pinetree” passed into history. Direct command of the Eighth now lay in Doolittle’s hands at a new Headquarters in High Wycombe.
He would not wait long before putting his new weapon to a supreme test.
The first Doolittle mission was set for January 6th; it was scrubbed after briefing due to bad weather. Next day the bomber crews were up again for a return to Ludwigshafen and another crack at the chemical works the Eighth had sought to eliminate on December 30, 1943.
Due to heavy clouds this raid was a PFF strike, like its predecessor. Five hundred and two bombers were dispatched, supported by no less than 571 fighters. The 303rd put up 36 aircraft: 18 and a 482nd PFF ship as lead group of the 41st CBW under Major Kirk Mitchell, 358th Squadron CO, plus 18 more under Lt. Woddrop in the low group. The Group’s war diary noted that “32 A/C dropped their bombs on the target” but as with most PFF missions, “Results of the bombing were unobserved due to the heavy cloud cover.” A total of 420 bombers dropped 1001 tons of bombs for a loss of five B-17s, seven B-24s, and six lost fighters. Total claims against the enemy were seven aircraft by the fighter escort and 30 from the aerial gunners. It was a typical mission, very unlike the one that would follow.
The next three days at Molesworth gave no hint of what was to come. The 303rd’s war diary noted: “Normal routine duties throughout the period. No missions were scheduled and local transition and formation flying were held.”
Hullar’s crew was given the go-ahead for a few days leave and while Elmer Brown and Mac McCormick stayed on the base, Klint and Hullar set out for London. The enlisted men went to one of the Eighth’s “rest homes,” a place George Hoyt remembers as Mouldsford Manor:
“It was a very large country estate on the Thames River, with a marvelously beautiful 18th Century house surrounded by formal gardens. The Squire had his own nine-hole golf course, a private fishing dock on the river, and a staff of servants you wouldn’t believe. There were several butlers, and one of them kept the fireplaces stoked at all times. There were upstairs and downstairs maids, nightly entertainment, and the company of the pretty Red Cross girls. There was a barrel of beer in the Great Hall at all times, and the meals were just sumptuous. We loved it.”
While Hullar’s crew relaxed, their comrades back at Molesworth were getting ready for General Doolittle’s first “maximum effort.” The strategic objective was the German aircraft industry, in particular a complex of plants bunched together in the cities and environs of Brunswick, Halberstadt, and Oschersleben. It was the deepest penetration since Second Schweinfurt.
The field order stipulated that the First Division would lead, followed by the B-17s of the Third Division and the B-24s of the Second, making up a force of more than 650 bombers. The 303rd’s objective was the A.G.O. Flugzeugwerk A.G. at Oschersleben, responsible for approximately 48 percent of FW-190 output and last visited by the Eighth during Blitz Week on July 28, 1943. The Hell’s Angels were to put up two groups—the lead and low in the 41st CBW—with the 379th Group taking the high group position.
This time, long-range fighter escorts were supposed to make the route less dangerous than it was for the bombers in 1943. There were now 12 P-47 and two P-38 groups available to take the heavies to and from the target area. But only the Mustangs of the 354th Fighter Group had sufficient range to protect the “Big Friends” over the target itself, and for the plan to work against the heavy German fighter opposition that was expected, the Eighth needed clear skies and flawless coordination between bombers and fighters. In the event adherence to the plan proved impossible.
303rd Bomb Group Mission Route(s): Oschersleben, January 11, 1944. The map inset shows 303rd aircraft losses en route to and from the target. Losses are: (1) Bad Check, Lt. G.S. McClellan; (2) Flak Wolf, Lt. J.W. Carothers; (3) No. 896, Lt. R.H. Hallden; (4) War Bride, Lt. H.A. Schwabe; (5) Baltimore Bounce, Lt. WA. Purcell; (6) S for Sugar, Lt. T.L. Simmons; (7) No. 865, Lt. PW. Campbell; (8) Sky Wolf, Lt. A.L. Emerson; (9) No. 794, Lt. W.C. Dashiell; (10) No. 448, Lt. H.J. Eich, Jr. Positions are approximate. Source Harry D. Gobrecht, Might in Flight (2d ed. 1997). (Map Courtesy Waters Design Associates, Inc.; inset added by author.)
A good gauge of the calamity that befell the 303rd is provided by Brown’s diary, in the only entry he wrote of a raid he did not fly:
“January 11, 1944 (Monday)—I didn’t get to go on the raid again today. I am grounded by order of the Eighth Air Force except when they can use me for lead. The raid was quite rough. They hit an FW factory about 70 miles SE of Berlin. They really flattened the target. We lost 10 of the 40 planes our Group sent, and our Squadron lost three planes and crews. They were McClellan, Carothers, and Simmons—all a nice bunch of fellows. Kaliher, Cornish, and Fisher, a former B-26 pilot on his first mission as copilot, were all with McClellan. The other three (Kaliher, Cornish, and McClellan) had 17 raids in. Really tough.”
Elmer Brown wasn’t alone in compiling the casualties. That evening in the 358th Squadron area Lt. Bill McSween made his own grim accounting:
“Not my mission; 303rd put up two groups; 358th put up two squadrons, high squadron, low group and low squadron, lead group. Emerson led low squadron, lead group in No. 562, Skywolf. Campbell led high squadron, low group…Group lost 10 ships; 358th lost four ships and five crews. Campbell, Emerson, Schwaebe, and Dashiell went down. Watson bailed his crew out over the Zuider Zee—plane on fire—and landed back in England. Lost 865 and 562, all lead ships, all DR compasses and GEE equipment.”
Completing the catalog of losses were three other planes and crews. The 359th Squadron lost B-17F 42-3448, flown by Lt. H.J. Eich, Jr.’s crew, and Baltimore Bounce, carrying Lt. W.A. Purcell’s crew. In the 360th Squadron, Lt. R.H. Hallden’s crew failed to return in B-17G 42-37896.
Neither Brown nor McSween got to go on the raid, but Lt. Darrell D. Gust did. January 11, 1944, was an especially important day for him. Like Elmer Brown, Gust had married before going into combat and this day marked both his first wedding anniversary and the last trip of his tour. Few Eighth Air Force airmen ended their combat careers in a more terrifying way, but Darrell Gust is quite capable of telling the tale himself. His recollections are confirmed by the navigator’s log that he has kept all these years.
“In January 1944 I was the 359th Squadron Navigator, having transferred from the 358th Squadron to this slot in December 1943 after the 359th Squadron had lost its Squadron Navigator on a mission. At the time the Group Navigator was Captain Norman Jacobsen, a fellow classmate of mine from Mather Field Navigation School, Class 42-15.
“Jake called me early in the evening of January 10 and said, ‘Come on down to headquarters and inspect what the teletype is bringing in.’ When I arrived, the message was that the 303rd would not only be leading the Wing, but also the 1st Division and the entire Eighth Air Force! And the 359th was to be the lead Squadron in the Group, which meant that Jake and I would fly together with Brig. General Robert Travis, Air Commander of the First Division, and Lt. Col. William Calhoun, our Squadron CO and Group lead, in the first aircraft of the whole show! Jake and I completed all the pre-mission navigational details and hit the sack around midnight.”
Also slated to ride with General Travis was Capt. Jack B. Fawcett, the same bombardier whom Elmer Brown felt “did a pretty good job” during the December 24, 1943 attack on the V-l site at Vacqueriette. After the mission Fawcett, writing as “an exuberant 22 year old,” prepared an outstanding narrative of his experiences. His writings, together with Darrell Gust’s account, provide a fascinating dual look at the events that were to unfold in the lead ship’s nose.
Fawcett explains his presence on the raid this way: “My 24th mission (Vacqueriette) and 25th (a ship in the Bay of Biscay) were so easy that I persuaded myself to go on an extra five. Nothing to it, so I thought. Colonel Calhoun was going, Jake was going, so I figured I’d go too. It was to be a deep penetration and our Group would be leading the Eighth Air Force, and General Travis accompanied us. It was a meaty target.”
Gust continues: “It seemed I had just gotten to bed when the orderly awakened me for briefing. The emphasis at briefing was on the importance of the FW-190 assembly plant at Oschersleben as a target, plus the number of enemy fighters we could expect to encounter—around 300 single and twin-engine fighters, as I recall. But then we were briefed that we would have P-47 and P-51 escort, which made it a little more palatable.
“It had been several months since my last mission (the October 8, 1943, raid on Bremen), and at the aircraft after briefing my old stomach was really doing flip-flops. I went behind our plane, The Eight Ball and tossed my cookies—‘Nervous in the service.’ we used to say.
“We took off per my log at 08:10 1/2 Z time and climbed through the overcast on what was known as ‘B-Plan.’ We got the Group assembled and left Molesworth at 09:18 Z time. We then assembled the Wing, and the Division, and left the English coast at Lowestoff, climbing over the Channel and crossing the enemy coast at 10:33 plus, right on course. All this time Jake and I worked as a team, ascertaining our position, getting winds, making out ETAs, etc.”
At this point Jack Fawcett was busier than he thought he would be: “As we assembled over the field I wanted to steal a few winks, but in the dawn’s gray brown I had to keep alert for wandering aircraft from other squadrons and other neighboring air fields. Planes were all over. I could see the winking Aldis Lamps and the pyrotechnic flares, their colors denoting the different groups. It was an early, busy sky. The weather across the coast didn’t look too promising. Maybe we’d have to use our Pathfinder. Well, that wouldn’t be so bad. I’ve hollered long for permission to accompany a pathfinder mission. But of course as bombardier, I naturally prefer visual sighting.”
The initial engagements began as soon as the Group crossed the enemy coast. General Travis reported that “The fighters started their attacks at the Zuider Zee despite our fighter escort and came at us in bunches—Our first attacks were four FW-190S, the next was 30 FW-190S, the next was 12, and they just kept coming. They attacked straight through the formation from all angles without even rolling over. They came in from all sides and it was quite apparent that they were out to stop the formation from ever reaching the target.”
Fawcett felt the same way: “We were hardly across the Zuider Zee, when I looked up to discover what seemed like hundreds of planes milling around. Friendly and enemy. A formation of enemy fighters pulled up at nine o’clock level, ten o’clock, then at eleven o’clock they peeled off and came at us in threes and fours—in rapid succession. This wave barely engulfed us before another was positioning itself for attack. Some squadrons had 12 planes, others had 30. It had been so long since I had seen the type of ferociousness now attacking us that I was momentarily spellbound. One o’clock and eleven o’clock; wave after wave—they certainly were determined. Most of their attacks seemed to begin on us as the lead ship, but then were diverted to lower squadrons or groups.”
One of the enemy tried to ram the lead ship, causing Lt. Colonel Calhoun to comment: “The fighters were desperate today. A group of 30 FW-190s came at us head-on and I had to lift a wing once to keep one from hitting us.” Jack Fawcett relates what the experience was like:
“Oh, oh, here comes a fellow—after us—Good Lord, I fired as well as I could, but the gun position was awkward and the Plexiglas was a bit dirty at that position. He kept boring in at us, but I could no longer bear on him—I could only stand there with my mouth hanging open, watching and trying to convince myself that this fellow couldn’t hit us. Hit us, hell! He wasn’t concerned with fire power, he was going to ram us! My aching back! Cal lifted our right wing and just then the FW passed right through where we had been. Whew they shouldn’t do that. One of our men called out to say he thought the German was wearing a new type of oxygen mask, another said that only 15 rivets were used to hold the FW tank brace on. The FW was close! Nice going, Cal!”
The Eight Ball* did not go down but Darrel Gust recalls that “On their first pass they got the ‘Mickey’ aircraft on our left wing.” This aircraft was B-17F 42-3486, an H2X “Mickey” aircraft from the 482nd Group, based at Alconbury, ten miles from Molesworth, which had joined the formation over England. It crashed in the Zuider Zee, where its remains were discovered by the Dutch military in March 1968, together with the bodies of all ten men aboard. A second H2X ship from the 482nd Group, B-17F 42-3491, piloted by Capt. Lecates and crew, took off from Molesworth just after General Travis, and took station off of The Eight Ball’s right wing in the No. 2 position. This PFF ship made it on into the target and back home.**
Fawcett continues: “I don’t know how long these attacks continued. The general was calling them fast and furious until one gunner, not knowing who was calling fighters, said in exasperation, ‘Yes, yes, but don’t call them so fast, I can’t shoot at ‘em all anyway.’”
The Group’s report to First Division provides further details: “The number of E/A seen range from 30 to 300 with the predominant figure being about 150. At least half of these were FW-190s and Me-109s. The others were Me-110s, 210s, and Ju-88s. There are a few reports of Ju-87s: one report of FW-190s with long noses and inline engines [FW-190Ds], and one report of a single-engine ship which resembled a Miles Master [a British advanced trainer]. This E/A was firing rockets.”
“The S/E attacks by FW-190s and Me-109s were made with outstanding vigor and pressed home to minimum range. Formations of 10 and 15 E/A came right through our formation in line and abreast, making their attacks from ten to two o’clock and level to low…There were some tail attacks and a few reports of E/A coming almost straight up from below to make belly attacks…Rockets were fired by T/E ships from ahead into our approaching formation.”
The battle reached its peak around 1105, near the town of Minden, continuing along the inbound route south of the line Hannover-Brunswick. As Gust recalls:
“We were somewhere over Germany near Dümmer Lake when General Travis called up and said, “The weather is closing down over England, so the 2nd and 3rd Divisions are being recalled, but because we are this far into Germany and weather is constantly improving, I’m electing to continue on and bomb the primary target.’
“At the time we had P-47s all around, but the General no more than told us this than the P-47s did 180s and headed for home. I’ve always thought there must have been some mix-up in signals by the fighters at this time. No sooner had the P-47s left us than we were hit hard by about 50 to 60 190s making frontal passes at us, wingtip to wingtip in groups of six to twelve. This occurred at 11:06 Z per my log, and their attacks were vicious; they were certainly the cream of the Luftwaffe! They always tried to down the lead aircraft and for the next half hour I went from navigator to gunner, manning the two cheek guns in the nose…On their second pass they got our second element leader and one of his wingmen.”
Gust’s memories are partly confirmed by Lt. Vern Moncur, whose crew was flying Wallaroo in the No. 6 slot of the lead squadron. Moncur’s journal provides a gripping account of these fierce German attacks and their effects on both the lead 303rd group and the low Hell’s Angels group echeloned below them to the left.
“The first pass made at our group included 30 to 35 ME-109s and FW-190S. The low group, to our left, had three Forts go down from this first pass. We also saw three German fighters shot down by this group during this time. The No. 4 ship, lead ship of our element and on whose wing we were flying formation, had its No. 1 engine hit. It immediately burst into flames and dropped out of formation. A few minutes later, this plane exploded.”
It is impossible to say who was in the “No. 4 ship” that Vern Moncur saw go down. The fight was far too concentrated and violent for an accurate accounting of all the casualties, and the Group’s records are unclear.*
It is easier to account for the first three losses in the Hell’s Angels low group that Moncur recorded. Bad Check, a Fortress Hullar’s crew had flown early in their tour, and one of the Group’s original aircraft, was one of the first to go. Lt. G.S. McClellan’s crew was aboard her in the No. 7 slot of the low group’s low squadron. Lt. Robert Sheets’s crew aboard the City of Wanette in the squadron lead saw Bad Check at 12,000 feet circling in a tight turn. Other crews reported her going down with the wheels down, and Lt. James Fowler learned that night that 10 chutes were seen to come from her. Lt. McClellan was on his 18th trip and the rest of his crew was not far behind except for Lt. W.A. Fisher, the copilot from B-26s who was on his first B-17 raid. Bad Check was on her 45th mission. She reportedly went down some time between 1055 and 1105 near the town of Lienen, 20 miles Southwest of Osnabrück.
Next to die was probably Flak Wolf, Woddrop’s favorite and the Queen that had taken Hullar’s crew on their first mission. She was flown by Lt. J.W. Carothers’s crew, most of whom were on their fourth mission. They were in the No. 6 slot of the low group’s low squadron, and from the nose of The Flying Bitch, at the head of the low squadron’s second element, Lt. E.L. Cronin, bombardier of Lt. K.A. Hoeg’s crew, “saw Carothers pull off to the left and explode. Had time to get men out. Saw three chutes plus some objects, perhaps men.”
Flak Wolfs end was also observed by Lt. T. Lamarr Simmons aboard S for Sugar in the No. 5 low squadron slot: “I saw several bombers explode before this, maybe three or four, but this one made a really vivid impression on me. I saw a wing fall off the plane, and then the whole fuselage just came apart with a whole bunch of pieces in the air and fire all over the place. I didn’t see anybody get out.” Flak Wolf was on her 40th raid. She crashed at Kloster Oesede, just South of Osnabrück.
Lt. Hallden’s No. 896 in the No. 6 position of the low group’s lead squadron was another early loss. From the No. 4 squadron position, Lt. F.F. Wilson’s crew in B-17G 42-31471 saw Hallden’s bomber at 1055, just as an FW-190 was attacking from seven o’clock low. They reported his ship “in distress at 19,500 feet on a heading of 120 degrees…The aircraft was on fire and went out of formation into a spin. The tail section came off. Three men but no parachutes were seen.” Most of Hallden’s crew were on their fourth raid. No. 896 crashed near Kirchlengren, due East of Osnabrück and North of the Group’s inbound track to the IP.
The 190 that got them did not get away. Lt. Wilson’s tail gunner, Sgt. W.G. Hubley, opened fire and “the fighter blew up and pilot bailed out.” Hubley got credit for a kill.
At 1110 Lt. H.A. Schwaebe’s crew, flying the War Bride in the No. 2 slot of the low group’s high squadron, peeled out of formation. This Fortress, which had taken Lt. Jack Hendry home from so many missions, was last seen at 17,000 feet by Lt. E.S. Harrison’s crew from B 17G 42-39885 in the No. 6 position of the lead group’s low squadron. They reported her going down “under control” but no chutes were noted. It was the War Bride’s 35th mission, and the seventh for half of Lt. Schwaebe’s crew. The ship crashed near Detmold, about 30 miles Southeast of Osnabrück.
These observations are consistent with what Lt. N.E. Shoup’s crew, flying B-17F 41-24605 in the No. 5 slot of the low group’s high squadron, reported. At 1113 they saw a “B-17 out of control, eight chutes,” together with another B-17 that exploded with no chutes. Two minutes later they saw a third Fortress with the tail shot off and no chutes.
At 1117 another Fortress fell. This bomber was Lt. W.A. Purcell’s Baltimore Bounce. Lt. Purcell’s crew had gone on the raid as a spare, taking a position in the lead squadron for one of four 303rd ships that aborted from the two group formations. Vern Moncur had the best view of her end:
“Soon after [the loss of the No. 4 ship], the No. 3 ship ahead of us also caught on fire in the No. 1 engine and peeled out of formation. This ship exploded, also. Lt. Purcell was the pilot, and he and his crew didn’t have a chance. (Purcell and I had been together through all of our training.) I then moved my ship up into the No. 3 position, flying on the left wing of the Wing Leader, General Travis.”
The Eight Ball’s crew saw Baltimore Bounce blow up, as did Lt. H.S. Dahleen’s crew from B-17G 42-31183 in the No. 5 slot of the lead squadron formation. Other crews saw the ship “leaving formation and later rolling over on back and going down,” while from the No. 2 position of the lead group’s high squadron, Lt. G.N. Bech’s crew in B-17G 42-31843 observed Purcell’s plane catching on fire, “with the left wing coming off.” Only two chutes were seen before the explosion, but all aboard were killed. The remnants of the aircraft came down near Laubke/Lippe, Germany.
Moncur continues: “Several fierce attacks were made on our squadron—the other groups were getting worked over by the Krauts, also. We were all really catching hell. We made several evasive maneuvers to get away from the fighters during this time. It looked like the Germans thought we were headed for Berlin on this mission, and were making an all out effort to stop us.”
The low Hell’s Angels group was being especially hard hit with Lt. Dahleen’s crew reporting “seven B-17s leaving their formation in various forms of distress from 1117 until 1215,” while Lt. Darrell Gust in The Eight Ball’s nose observed that “the Germans were exacting an even heavier toll down there.”
Oschersleben Casualty. S for Sugar, B-17F 41-24619, GN
S, was one of three original 303rd B-17s lost on the January 11, 1944 Oschersleben mission while being flown by Lt. T. Lamarr Simmons’s crew. She belonged to the 427th Sqdn. and was considered a prime Squadron symbol because of the “Bugs Bunny” nose art, which was very similar to that on the 427th Squadron’s flight jacket patch. This publicity photo of S for Sugar was taken during “Black Week,” on October 10, 1943, and it is believed to be the first time it has ever been published. Note the immaculate condition of the aircraft and the words “Hi Doc!” barely visible to the left of the rabbit’s left ear. [(Photo courtesy National Archives (USAF Photo A-60921 AC).]
One of the Forts in distress during this time was the 427th Sqdn.’s S for Sugar, now one of only two ships left in the second element of the low group’s low squadron. From the pilot seat Lamarr Simmons recalls her last moments:
“It was a great shock getting shot down, because of course you never think it’s going to happen to you. But on this mission I had my doubts. I saw those other planes go down, I didn’t see any of our own fighters, and the German fighters just came in and kept battering us. They were coming in from all sides and my gunners were screaming at me to shake the plane around. We had already taken some hits. Part of the left wing was shot up and the left waist gunner told me that the rudder was shot up, too.
“Then we got another attack from the rear and these two 190s also came in from about one o’clock. They fired at us, rolled over, and went down underneath us. It was real pretty flying on their part. The ball turret gunner reported to me that No. 1 engine was on fire right after this, and I started to have trouble holding the plane. We fell off to the left, and I had the copilot help me try to hold it.
“We flew on as long as we could, maybe three minutes, but the fire kept getting worse and I realized we couldn’t stay aboard. I expected that the plane would explode. So I hit the alarm bell and everybody started to jump.
“I was the last to leave. I went back to the bomb bay, and saw the engineer there hung up on something, and I helped him get loose. It didn’t take long and then I jumped. I delayed opening the chute because I didn’t want to get shot at, and I landed okay.”
Most of Lt. Simmons’s men were on their fourth raid, and all bailed out safely. They spent the rest of the war in German POW camps, where one died of pneumonia.
Pilotless S for Sugar flew on to the northeast, finally crashing in a dense forest near the town of Oberhaus. The Germans salvaged the wreck, using its scrap metal for their own fighters. S for Sugar, long-time symbol of the 427th Squadron and the second of the Group’s original ships lost this day, was on her 52nd trip.
Another of the Forts “down there” was the 358th Squadron’s Yankee Doodle Dandy, which had been second element lead of the low group’s high squadron. This B-17F was manned by a familiar crew: Lt. John Henderson’s. On board were 11 men: Henderson in the pilot’s seat; Lt. W.J. Ames, the copilot; Lt. Warren Wiggins, the navigator; Lt. Woodrow Monkres, the bombardier; Sgt. Ralph Burkart at the tail guns; Sgt. Stan Moody in the top turret; Sgt. Ed Ruppel in the ball turret; Sgt. Bill Simpkins at the left waist; Sgt. Robert Jeffrey at the right waist; Sgt. Robert King at the radio gear; and Sgt. Cyril Dockendorf in the radio room with his aerial cameras. During the half hour that the 303rd battled its way from Dümmer Lake to the IP, Henderson’s crew put up a fight unparalleled in Eighth Air Force history. The skeleton of their story lies in the Group’s records, but Ed Ruppel and Bill Simpkins bring it to life again.
Bill Simpkins’s account begins when the Group received word of the recall:
“There was a recall out and everybody else went back. I don’t know why we went in, but we did. We wondered why. The clouds opened up. We had very little fighter escort, if any, and there were very few bombers going in that we could see. Then the Germans came.”
The first attack against Yankee Doodle Dandy took place at 1110 hours at 21,000 feet near Minden. Fending it off from the right waist was Sgt. Jeffrey. There was no airman in the Eighth that day who had a stronger desire to fight. Ed Ruppel remembers Jeffrey as “an overweight boy, on the ground, who wanted to fly. He went on a very severe diet, ran every day, and finally got down to flying weight and they let him fly. This was his first trip up.”
Simpkins explains that “He came out of the mess hall, and he was going to be a regular member of our crew. He had an English girlfriend, and she had been killed in a bombing raid, and he was really eager for combat. This was his first mission. He wanted to kill Germans.
“I was coaching him. An FW-190 came over the top on my side, and around the back. I knew it was coming around and in the waist you could see out both windows. So I watched on the other side for it, and it came in around three o’clock, right in toward Jeffrey. I was looking over him, and I saw him fire on it. I saw it catch on fire then.”
The combat interrogation form for this attack adds that “Pieces started to fly off the FW-190 from all around it. It caught on fire and went into a spin with flames shooting back well beyond the cockpit.” Jeffrey was awarded a “probable.”
It might have been this same German fighter that caused Yankee Doodle Dandy to fall out of formation. As Simpkins recollects:
“One of the enemy aircraft raked us up top. It hit the vertical stabilizer where it comes down over the waist. All the control wires above the waist came flying down on the first rake. The cables were hanging down, and they were in my way, in the window. That’s why we dropped back out of formation, and from there on we were under attack from all sides. I don’t know how Henderson kept the plane up. I think he used automatic pilot a lot.”
Henderson’s problems were worsened by further damage to the bomber’s tail. As Ed Ruppel remembers:
“We had a nice big hole in the tail. It was from a rocket. It came from a 110 laying out there, tail down and nose up. He was hanging right off the wing at nine o’clock. There were three of them out there, but he was the only one that launched. And he lobbed it right in. I came around to him, but I didn’t have a chance to shoot. As soon as he fired, the three dropped off. They were gone in a fraction of a second.
“It startled me to see this rocket coming at me. It was like a football spinning. It was a swirling mass, twisting and coming right towards me. I swore to God it was coming right for my lap.
“All of a sudden I didn’t see it anymore. I kept looking and looking for it and it was nowhere around. I didn’t even know it hit. The plane didn’t vibrate at all.”
The rocket nonetheless found its mark, knocking a hole in the vertical stabilizer the size of the bomber’s “triangle C” marking. As Ruppel explains, “We talked about it later on, and figured the rocket didn’t explode because it had a predetermined fuse, and he was too close. The tail section was all eaten out. There was nothing from the forward rib back, just a big hole. The rudder was all torn up, and Henderson had to be flying on trim tabs.”
Yankee Doodle Dandy was now all alone, trailing the group formation, surrounded by a swarm of German fighters. Bill Simpkins saw them “queuing up about 15 at a time on us, peeling off, and coming in one after the other at ten o’clock.”
They were attacking from all sides, however, and Lt. Warren Wiggins, up in the nose, was the crewman who scored next. At 1113 an FW-190 approached at eleven o’clock, coming in “100 feet above to attack. Gunner fired at 500 yards, long bursts. FW came in to 200 yards. When hit FW smoked and flame came from under cowling. Then pilot bailed out.” Henderson and Moody confirmed, and Lt. Wiggins got credit for a kill.
Back in the tail, Sgt. Ralph Burkart was firing as well, but the details of his last moments will never be known. All that can be said with certainty is that he died at his guns, fighting for himself, his crew, and his country. Ed Ruppel will never forget seeing him after the battle:
“I went back to the tail. Burkart was slumped over his guns. I reached up, and pulled him back by his helmet. His helmet came kind of loose and I pulled it a little more, and I saw that the whole back of his head was laying in his flying helmet. I looked at his face and he had a small hole in the right side of his nose between the nose and the eye. It was from what we called a 7.9 ‘liner,’ a smaller caliber bullet that the Germans used to line their shots up before pumping the 20mms in. I knew Burkart was finished then.”
Sometime during the fight Bill Simpkins also went to the tail to find out why the guns were still, and “I saw they were all shattered, and I can remember seeing that Burkart was dead and telling Henderson to move the plane around just like I did on the mission when Buske got hit back there.”
At 1118, however, Simpkins was at the left waist gun, and it was then that he scored a kill. The interrogator wrote that “A/C was lagging behind because of damage and was by itself about 2000 yards behind formation. FW-190 was skidding in from eight o’clock and slightly high. Tail guns were out. Left waist started firing at E/A when 300-400 yards out and held it under fire when cowling came off and E/A started to slide off and then blew up.”
Bill Simpkins provides further details: “I remember it coming in, and I had to wait for it to get past the end of the wing so I could shoot at it. You could shoot your tail off if you didn’t watch it. You had to wait till they got past that so you could fire at them. I just did it automatically. You didn’t think about it. No time.”
Sgt. Moody confirmed Simpkins’ kill, and moments later the man Simpkins called “the gun expert from Maine” claimed the first of three fighters he would score against this day. With the tail guns out of action, many of the enemy were now attacking from the rear, and at 1120 an FW-190 “came in just over [the] vertical stabilizer—Top [turret] opened up at about 600 yards—came into 100 yards. Gunner held long burst and plane exploded at 100 yards. FW fired at 100 and 150 yards. This E/A could not be corroborated due to [the] position that [it] exploded,” the interrogator noted, but Moody got credit for a kill anyway.
Three minutes later two more FW-190S fell to Sgt. Ed Ruppel’s guns. He remembers neither, but the interrogator wrote of one that: “was climbing straight up to make a belly attack. It was slightly down and ahead of this A/C. As E/A came into range, ball turret opened fire and as E/A slowed up in its climb, it exploded.” Henderson confirmed, and Ruppel got credit for a kill.
Ruppel told the interrogator that the second FW-190 “was about 200 to 300 yards below our A/C when he spotted us. He immediately pulled his nose up for an attack. I first fired when E/A was 150 yards away. Hit him at 100 yards away. He rolled away and I shot another burst and he burst into flames. Saw cowling and small pieces fly off. Spun down and lost sight of him at cloud base, which was about 15,000 to 17,000 feet below our A/C.” Henderson saw this one too, but Ruppel only got a “damaged” out of the encounter.
Meanwhile, other enemy fighters were continuing to attack from the tail. At 1124, Moody encountered another FW-190 that “was following [the] one that attacked three minutes before and came in at six o’clock in the same fashion. Top turret opened up at 800 yards with long burst. FW came into 400 yards, where he exploded.” The kill was confirmed by the radioman, Sgt. Robert King, a man who Simpkins remembers “was so tall he could stick his head out the radio room and look out the side.”
Sgt. King himself was to score sometime between 1125 and 1130 against an FW-190 that “attacked from seven o’clock and quite high. E/A was first seen at 300-400 yards and 10 rounds were fired. E/A leveled off and something was seen to fly off his plane. E/A caught on fire and was seen by top turret to dive down and to explode a short distance below.”
Unhappily, Sgt. King was also on the receiving end of enemy fire. Ed Ruppel recalls that “He got hit in the side, shattered his bone between the knee and the hip.”
Without question, the cruelest blow against Henderson’s crew came at 1127. It occurred during a combat encounter so close and intense that Ed Ruppel retains photographic recall of it even now.*
“I was facing forward, and the battle seemed to be on line and above me. The fighters were making head-on attacks coming over the nose.
“Then something told me to turn around, and I did and saw this German fighter. It was a 190 laying underneath our wing. He was directly in line with our tail, tail low, and nose high. He was about a hundred yards back, but he seemed so close that I could reach right out and touch him. Everything he had he was firing at the time. He was ablaze from wing to wing, and it seemed like he was firing right at me.
“It was an awesome sight, believe me, but I had no sense of what the German was doing, I didn’t think about it at all. All that was going through my mind was to line him up, set him up, and pump it to him. I dumped about three nice bursts into him, and he staggered a bit and swung over to my left, and silhouetted real nice. He was vertical to the ground. I framed him, pumped two more nice big bursts right into him, and he lit up like a match. Then he disappeared. He blew all to pieces.”
When this happened, Simpkins remembers Ruppel yelling on the intercom, “I got one! I got one!” But Ruppel recalls it differently.
“It scared me at first. To this day I have a vision of something coming out of the cockpit area. I think it was the pilot. I looked to see if a chute would open up, but I never saw anything. I set back for a second and said to myself, ‘What did you do?!’
“Then I heard the crackle of gunfire on my right. I swung around, saw more Germans, and got back into action. It was over in seconds. Combat is very fast, terrifically fast. Two minutes of combat is a lifetime.
“I think this plane was the one that got Jeffrey, from the angle it was firing, and what happened to him. Jeffrey got hit in the lower groin with 20mm fragments.”
Bill Simpkins was standing next to Jeffrey at the time, and he agrees:
“A 20mm shell came up between us. I’ll tell you why Jeffrey got killed and I didn’t. He was wearing his flak suit and I wasn’t wearing mine. I was standing on it. And my flak suit took all the brunt for me, but the fragments came right up between his legs and killed him. All I got was hit in the back—pieces of twisted metal. I had several pieces in me. It stung, and my heavy fur-lined jacket had fur all sticking out where the shells had hit it and my flak suit on the floor got all tore up.
“I had my back to Jeffrey and he was down. I turned around to help him but there was nothing I could do. He was out cold, and I couldn’t really help him. It wasn’t like Buske, where I could patch him up a bit. His flak suit was all tore up too, and he was hit pretty bad—all through the stomach. I moved him forward a little bit but we were still being attacked.
“When I was in the hospital recovering from my wounds, they came in and they asked me why I was alive, ‘cause it looked like I was wearing the suit too. I said I wasn’t wearing it. So from there on they made what they called ‘flak mats’ that they put in the plane so you could stand on ‘em. Jeffrey got hit with a 20mm with phosphorous. The shell penetrated from underneath.”
When the interrogator recording Jeffrey’s “probable” learned of the gunner’s wounds while interviewing Simpkins, he wrote down something not strictly required by the combat form: “This gunner was on his first mission and was mortally wounded in combat.” One gets the feeling that he wanted this death to mean something.
The battle continued. In the same minute that Ruppel blew up the fighter that got Jeffrey, Moody scored against yet another German. The “Top turret was facing backward looking for [A/C] supposed to be B-17 on wing when he saw Me-110. Gunner called to pilot to take evasive action. Pilot dropped A/C abruptly, bringing Me-110 into range of turret at 400 yards. Gunner fired long burst; Me-110 started smoking one engine. Pilot bailed out.” Moody was awarded a “probable.” Nor was this the only time that Henderson’s quick action facilitated a kill. Though what follows is not mentioned in the Group’s mission file, Ed Ruppel is certain it took place on this raid.
“There was an Me-109 coming in, sliding in over the nose at a 45 degree angle around ten o’clock between No. 1 and No. 2 engines. I don’t know why he was sliding that way. It seemed like he was drifting in, having trouble of some kind or another, just laying out there asking for it. But I couldn’t get a shot at him because when I tried to fire, the interrupter cam stopped me. It kept me from shooting our props up.
“So I yelled to Henderson to raise the left wing a little bit. Henderson was aces, and he did so right away. He could see the German, too. I popped the German with a couple of good bursts and he blew, went all to pieces; there must have been a million and one of them, and we flew right through the debris. There wasn’t even enough left to disturb us in flight.”
In the nose, Lt. Woodrow Monkres may have been the next to score. His victory occurred between 1120 and 1130 hours, against an “FW-190 with belly tank, one of several which had come through the formation 2000 yards ahead of this A/C. The particular E/A came in on a head-on level attack against this straggling A/C and was fired on by Bombardier with a single nose gun at about 500 yards, rolling up on one wing at about 100 yards, then leveling out. At that time pilot of E/A bailed out being seen by Top Turret Gunner and then E/A burst into flames and blew up.”
At 1134 Ruppel fielded yet another belly attack, by an Me-110 coming in very low at six-thirty o’clock. He informed the interrogator that the “E/A flew below us milling around for a position to attack. He pulled up very sharply, hitting all along our belly. He was about 400-500 yards away when I hit him. He rolled over and flames and grey smoke were seen coming from the engine. He continued on down, but couldn’t tell whether he was under control or not.” Ruppel was given credit for a “damaged” fighter.
The Group was now five minutes from the IP and Yankee Doodle Dandy fought on. Despite everything the enemy threw at her, Lt. Henderson’s crew was one of 20 Hell’s Angels that bombed the target that day.
But other Group ships were being lost heartbreakingly close to the objective.
The lead ship of the low group’s high squadron, B-17F 42-30865, was the first to fall during this period. One of the survivors was Lt. John Nothstein, her navigator.
He recalls today that “We were flying a brand new B-17 with a chin turret, and it hadn’t been named, only designated No. 865. This was a maximum effort, and every ship and man that was available flew. Consequently, our crew was somewhat of a mixture or pickup, and I was not too familiar with the others. However, I did know Paul Campbell, the pilot, Lt. Doty, the copilot and Lt. Millner, the bombardier, from contact in the Officers’ Mess and Club. I had seen the enlisted men, too, but I was not familiar with them. Campbell was the only one I had flown with before.
“Our ship was a squadron lead in the low group, which was a rather vulnerable position, but I gave no thought to that. I felt I was soon on my way home, having to complete only nine more missions to end my tour in England. But the other two divisions got a weather recall, and our route to Oschersleben was the same one we would have had to take to Berlin, and I later understood their beloved Berlin is what the Germans thought was our objective. They threw everything up at us, determined that we would not get there.
“We were hit by enemy aircraft of all sorts and from all angles. Our biggest worry was mass frontal attacks of mostly Me-109s. We also experienced mass attacks from the rear by massed rocket ships. Campbell took violent evasive action, and I was standing with my head on the ceiling most of the time. I navigated and made entries in my log book as best I could. I estimate we had to abandon ship about 12 minutes from the target.
“We got repeated word from the men in the rear that they had been hit, but we could not find out the extent of their injuries because of a fire in the bomb bay. Finally Millner, the bombardier, was hit and knocked back on my Gee box. I was able to check him out, and made a report to Campbell on his condition. He caught a direct blast to the midsection and was definitely gone.
“Shortly thereafter I got a blast myself. I was hit in the leg, breaking my femur, and also received hits in my right arm and the right side of my chest. I unhooked my intercom and made my way as best I could to the bombardier’s guns, which were better than mine. About that time I looked over my shoulder and saw the pilot go out the escape hatch. That brought me to realize I had better find a way out, too, as there was no one flying the plane!
“I crawled back to the hatch and made my way out, which is something I never thought I would have to do, but there was no one pushing me. The plane must have been going straight up, since I barely cleared the bomb bay doors. My right shoulder actually touched one of the doors.
“When free of the plane I pulled the ripcord. The chute had barely opened when I saw the plane blow up. I received a blow to the side of my head. It was probably a piece of the plane debris, and it knocked me out. I later learned I had a fractured skull.
“I did not regain my senses until I was underwater. I thought I was in Hell. I managed to struggle to the surface and saw that I was in the middle of a lake. My adrenaline must have taken over at that point. I unhooked my chute and swam to shore. The Germans were waiting for me and I was immediately taken prisoner.”
Lt. Nothstein spent the next 13 months in POW hospital camps, returning to the United States in February 1945 as an exchange prisoner.
The crew’s two pilots also survived, as did the engineer, Sgt. Stan Backiel. He was still in No. 865 when she exploded, and he came to in the air, not knowing how his chute opened. The pieces of No. 865 came down near the town of Nordhausen. The other members of the crew found final resting places in France, where they were buried in a military cemetery.
Oschersleben Casualty. Sky Wolf, B-17F 41-24562, VKA, was a second original 303rd B-17 lost on the January 11, 1944 Oschersleben mission while being flown by Lt. A.L. Emerson’s crew. The main photo provides an overall view of the aircraft (with Capt. Don Gamble’s crew) and the inset is a much earlier view (March 1943) showing the distinctive “Sky Wolf artwork that graced her fuselage behind the radio room window. The “Sky Wolf artwork shows a winged wolf with a “bow and arrow” (the arrow is actually a bomb) and the long-time service of the aircraft is indicated by the fact that the 358th VK squadron code was painted over the artwork. The third original 303rd B-17 lost on this mission was Bad Check, pictured on p. 69. (Main photo courtesy Charles S. Schmeltzer, the right waist gunner on Gamble’s crew. Photo inset courtesy Frank Hinds, the early 303rd veteran who took the picture).
Also lost in the target area was Sky Wolf, the favorite ship of Captain Don Gamble’s crew, and yet another of the original B-17s the 303rd brought with them when they first arrived in England in October 1942. She was flown by Lt. A.L. Emerson on his 20th mission, together with the remnants of Lt. Bill Fort’s old crew, who were about halfway through their tour. One of those aboard was Fort’s old engineer, Sgt. Grover C. Mullins, who had won the Silver Star on the November 26, 1943 Bremen raid. Mullins recalls this remarkable heat-of-battle exchange with Lt. Emerson, his new pilot:
“I remember we lost an engine and started to fall out of formation. I tried to get the pilot to salvo the bombs and get us back into formation, but he wouldn’t do it. I remember getting out of my position [in the top turret] and shoving the throttles forward to get us back in formation, but the pilot told me it would burn up the engines and he was going to court-martial me when we got back, and I told him we weren’t going to get back if we didn’t get back into formation, and sure enough we got shot down.”
Lt. M.L. Smith’s crew, flying B-17G 42-31239 in the No. 3 position of the lead group’s low squadron, reported Sky Wolf “in distress at 20,000 feet in target area…peeled off although all four engines seemed OK. A/C was apparently hit on bomb run. No chutes were seen.” Sky Wolf was on her 60th raid. She crashed in the town of Wolsdorf.
As the Group neared the IP, in The Eight Ball Lt. Darrell Gust had switched from the role of aerial gunner back to his principal job of navigator. He picks up the narrative from here.
“According to our flight plan, we should have been at the IP at 1131. Since I was manning the guns, Jake was really doing all the navigating and it took me a few moments to realize that we had not yet reached the IP. The fighters let up a bit and I went back to the job of assisting Jake in navigating to the target.
“At 1139 we were at the IP. I could see the primary target plainly, the bomb bay doors were open, and for lack of anything else to write in my log, I recorded: ‘God, this run seems slow.’”
For many below Darrell Gust there was no opportunity to think of time. At 1147 Lt. H.L. Glass in B-17G 42-37841 was filling what had been the No. 6 position of the low group’s high squadron. His tail gunner, Sgt. James Roberts, reported an “FW-190 [which] attacked a ‘stray’ B-17 that had taken position behind our ship. B-17 exploded (one chute came out). Attack was from six o’clock and FW-190 held its course and attacked us from six o’clock. I fired quite a number of bursts from both guns. FW-190 exploded in midair and was blown to bits.”
This “stray” Fortress was B-17G 42-39794, flown by Lt. William Dashiell’s crew. Most of them were on their eighth raid and they had taken the No. 3 slot in the squadron formation, but they were all alone after the loss of their wingmen in the first element, Lts. Campbell and Schwaebe. Since Lt. John Henderson’s bomber had long since been knocked out of second element lead, Dashiell would naturally have sought cover from the two planes left in the squadron formation: those of Lt. Glass and Lt. N.E. Shoup to his right.
The pilot of one of these ships reported Lt. Dashiell taking a direct hit just as the Group was going over the target, and he also believed they fell out of formation and started down in a long glide. He thought they could have gotten out, but he was unaware of Sgt. Roberts’ report. The pilot also had no way of knowing what Sgt. Bill Simpkins observed from Yankee Doodle Dandy’s left waist.
“I saw a ship fall out of formation on my lower left. It was below us, and it started to spin, and all of a sudden it blew up. It was a big explosion, with parts just falling through the air, and it got my attention because of that. I remember seeing control cables from the plane just falling through the sky.”
Sgt. Roberts reported one chute emerging from the explosion, but no one in Lt. Dashiell’s crew survived.
Just one minute later, at 1108, the 303rd’s bombers dropped their loads. Jack Fawcett’s account describes both this moment and the nine minute run up to the target which Darrell Gust had found so slow.
“We came in south of the IP, but Jake spotted it and we headed straight for it. I was able to confirm it by a nearby stream. Then we were off to the target. Surprising view… thirty miles away was the forest near which my factory target was located. The woods showed up clearly, but the little town was lost in a gray haze. So I put the sight on it and just waited. In fact I had time to set up my camera so I could possibly get some target pictures. As we approached. I had time to check my preset drift, etc. It was all good. Soon, I could discern the runway, the town, and then the target. I had plenty of time and good visibility, so my synchronization was good. Because of the time we had, everything was quite deliberate; I would have no excuse for missing. I had one eye on the indices, and one on the bomb rack indictor. The indices met, the lights disappeared. No, two lights remained, so I jumped my salvo lever to make sure all the bombs dropped. With the plane again in Cal’s hands, I grabbed my camera and crawled under the bombsight, camera poised for my bomb-fall. Oh, boy, there they were, right in the middle of the assembly hanger I had aimed for. The nose glass was smeared, so I imagined the picture would be no good. But I watched the bomb pattern blossom, covering the target completely. That, then, was my justification for number 26. That FW shop would be closed for a long time.”
According to Darrell Gust “Bombs were away at 1148 and our tail gunner-observer reported an excellent clustering of bombs right on the target.” The Group’s photo interpretation report provides further confirmation of just how good Fawcett’s aim had been:
“The pattern of bomb bursts is seen centered squarely on the target with a heavy concentration of both high explosives and incendiaries scattered on and among the buildings of the plant. Three hits are seen on a storage area in which aircraft are stored under a camouflage netting. An undetermined number of hits are seen on the Main Machine Shop, the Final Assembly Shop, and a probable Components Erecting Shop. Direct hits or near misses are seen on another Components Erecting Shop, a possible repair shop, and seven other smaller unidentified buildings…In addition, high explosive bursts are seen scattered over approximately one-third of the factory airfield and on an adjacent road and railway. Incendiaries fell in the target area and across the railway sidings and the freight depot immediately south of the target…The high explosive bombs on the target were dropped by the 303rd lead Group and apparently by the 303rd low Group. Incendiaries dropped by the 379th Group flying high fell on the target and also immediately south of it…Fires appear to have been started in the plant as a result of the attack.”
The Hell’s Angels had succeeded in their mission, but the enemy continued to make the Americans pay. As the formation pulled out to the north, homeward bound on a westward track running from Brunswick to Hannover, the German fighters were making attacks only slightly less intense than those going in. At 1152 Lt. Shoup’s crew saw a Fortress going down. It carried L-K markings on the tail and was, in all likelihood, the sole bomber from the high 379th Group that was lost. The 379th’s ships carried a “triangle K” marking on their tails, and the L would have been an individual aircraft identifier. Ten chutes were seen.
One minute later Sgt. Bill Simpkins got his second kill of the day. The combat form stated that “Soon after turning off target, FW-190 came in at ten o’clock level and was in to 200 yards when left waist gunner opened fire. Part of FW-190’s right wing came off and other pieces started to come off. FW passed under wing of this A/C and ball turret gunner saw pilot bail out of E/A.” The interrogator added, “At this time, the left waist gunner had been wounded in the left arm, leg, and back.”
Ed Ruppel remembers “the aircraft tumbling underneath and breaking up. I didn’t know who fired at it. When I called up, Simpkins said he had fired at it and I said the pilot had bailed out. I saw him go out and a few moments later the plane ‘puffed,’ blew up.”
Lt. Darrell Gust saw much of the action during this period, and his narrative continues:
“After dropping our bomb load we ran into some fairly accurate flak. At 1204 we were still under fighter attack. The FWs were red and silver with belly tanks. At 1209 one of the few P-5 Is which managed to stay with us got an enemy fighter, and at 1230 a twin-engine Me-110 started to make a frontal attack on us. Out of nowhere a P-51 came blazing down and the 110 blew up in a burst of smoke about 600 yards in front of our aircraft. A fraction of a second later we flew through the black puff. I remember thinking, ‘Christ, a couple of seconds ago that was an airplane with two Germans aboard!”’
The German attacks lessened as the bomber formation limped westward, but the enemy continued to cause casualties. At 1253 Lt. W.R. Kyse’s crew, flying B-17G 42-37893 off The Eight Ball’s left wing, “reported an unidentified B-17 on fire at 20,000 feet…near Steinhuder Lake. Ten parachutes were seen.” This was probably Lt. H.J. Eich, Jr.’s No. 448 flying the No. 4 position in the lead group’s lead squadron. His aircraft crashed in Steinhuder Lake, and the body of the only member of his crew who was killed, Sgt. D.S. Harvey, washed up ashore near the town of Nienberg on March 6, 1944. The rest of the crew became POWs. Eich’s men was on their eighth mission and their ship was on its 13th trip.
Lt. Vern Moncur recorded other casualties as the Group approached the German border.
“I…saw another Fort (ahead and to our left) do a very steep wingover, nearly going over on its back, and then go down in flames. About this time I saw a German fighter get hit by a flak burst and explode. This made us all chuckle! High above and ahead of us, a P-47 hit a German fighter, and the Jerry’s plane exploded. And to our left, a P-47 knocked down a JU-88 at about the same time. (We had a few P-47s and P-51s come out to help us on our withdrawal as soon as Bomber Headquarters found out that there were two wings of bombers which had gone on to their targets.) As an added feature during all of this time, we were continually being shot at—and far too accurately, too—by some very good Kraut flak gunners.”
There were other, more startling sights in store for the 303rd’s crews as the homeward trip continued. Darrell Gust noted that:
“At 1310 we began a slow letdown. Somewhere near Amsterdam, Holland, I witnessed an event that left me dumbfounded. Down below us and slightly ahead were a couple of crippled B-17s streaking like hell for home. The one at the higher altitude suddenly began jettisoning everything they could get their hands on to lighten the load. Someone threw out a full box of .50-caliber ammunition. It went plunging down and hit the lower B-17 right in the wing between No. 1 and No. 2 engines, leaving a gaping hole. At 1331 1/2 I noted in my log that five men bailed out of a B-17 of the ‘C-K’ Squadron. I’ve often wondered what happened to the other five—maybe they made it back, but I doubt it. What a hell of a way to go down!”
Since there was never a ‘C-K’ Squadron on the Eighth’s rosters, this ship had to be Meat Hound, B-17F 42-29524, carrying the 358th Squadron’s ‘V-K’ code and the individual aircraft letter K. Many crews reported the strange sight of men bailing out of a crippled B-17 that later rejoined the formation, and Lt. Shoup’s crew positively identified this aircraft as No. 524. Shoup’s crew saw the plane with two feathered props, and three parachutes. Other crews saw nine men jumping from the bomber over Holland “making mostly delayed jumps.”
Meat Hound was being flown by Lt. Jack W. Watson and crew, most of whom were on their eighth raid. He ordered them to hit the silk after the bomber had lost two engines and had caught on fire, and was about to jump himself when the flames abated enough to risk staying with the airplane. Watson managed to land Meat Hound at Metfield, but “didn’t have much to say” about the incident during interrogation.
Meanwhile, Lt. Gust was helping to guide the Group’s remnants home:
“I got Gee fixes going across the Channel and we crossed the English coast at 17,000 feet at Great Yarmouth. The weather was really starting to sock in and B-17s were scattering like quail and heading for the first field they could find because of fuel shortages. Molesworth put out magnesium flares to help us find the runway. We landed at 1505, home from a mission that lasted just under seven hours for our crew.”
For Jack Fawcett, the trip home from mid Channel to Molesworth was actually the most frightening part of the whole raid:
“We penetrated the overcast in midchannel and came through at 3500 feet. All too soon there was nothing to see but fog. (Jolly Old England.) We were 700’ above ground but couldn’t see it. Nothing seemed visible! Whooee! Jake was pinpointing like mad. Just a little patch of ground was all that was visible.
“Obviously, too soon I had thought ourselves safe. Zoom-zoom, an element of B-17’s drifted by. We saw them when they were half way past. Ulp! Now I was really sweating! Harder than ever before. This was sudden death staring us in the face. Plane after plane loomed, then disappeared. Yi! That was close, really close. Much too close! Ahh there was the 360th area. Good God, I’ll bet there are thirty unseen planes circling the field. Many at our level! For the first time I began to resign myself to fate. This was a horrible mess—far worse than being fired upon and being able to fire back. At this point I can honestly say I was afraid. I’m not exactly sure of what I was afraid of, but I was shaken. It seemed such a senseless way to end up.
“Cal was flying at close to stall speed and only 300’ off the ground. He spotted a runway, flew up one side, and turned sharply around for position to land. As we came in, we found a ship just ahead, and planes were appearing from every which way. But we settled to the runway behind three other ships. Good piloting and safe at last! As we rolled down the runway, we could see that landed ships were sitting everywhere on the field. Some wheel-deep in mud. Hmmm—we still risked having a desperate ship settling on top of us. But of course we still had our marvelous luck, and finally ended up in The Eight Ball’s dispersal area.”
Fawcett adds today: “When the flak and fighters of the Oschersleben experience appeared, you can be sure I questioned the sanity of my decision to do five more [missions].”
Of the 41 ships that had taken off from Molesworth that morning, only 20 came home from the mission, the last setting down at 1523. Four had aborted, turning home early; nine landed away from the base, including Yankee Doodle Dandy, Meat Hound minus all but her pilot, and Captain Lecates’s PFF ship; and 10 would never come home at all. Of those that returned, 19 had battle damage. Despite the great bombing—and claims that resulted in credit for 29 fighters destroyed, five probables, and nine damaged—the day had been a disaster for the 303rd.
Darrell Gust sums it up this way:
“We attended the postmission briefing as a crew, gave the facts as we saw them, and called it a day. Captain John Lemmon, the pilot of my original crew, was at briefing to meet and to greet me. He also gave me hell for picking this type of a mission as my 25th and final one.
“I told him, ‘Vince, more than once today I realized I had somewhat volunteered for this mission and thought: What have I gotten myself into?! I somehow had to get myself out. I prayed a lot.”
“Looking back, I know there was an Almighty looking out for our crew. As the lead aircraft we should have been one of the ones that were shot down, but by some miracle we were alive to tell about it. The 303rd’s losses were 10 out of 42 lost by the First Division on this mission, an almost 24 percent loss rate, and 25 percent of all aircraft dispatched by our Group. I believe it was the worst loss we ever experienced, and as compensation we were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation.”
The story was much the same at General Doolittle’s new Eighth Air Force Headquarters. No fewer than 60 bombers were missing, together with five Category Es and five missing fighters, making raw losses equivalent to Second Schweinfurt.
The whole First Division, and the Third Division’s 94th Bomb Group, were given Presidential Unit Citations for going on to their targets, and bombing heavily and accurately against the ferocious opposition of over 300 German fighters.
The 303rd lead crew on the infamous January 11, 1944 mission to Oschersleben pose beneath their ship, The Eight Ball, the morning after the mission. Pictured L-R, Top Row are: Lt. R.H. Halpen, tail gunner/observer; Capt. Jack B. Fawcett, lead bombardier; Capt. Norman N. Jacobsen, lead navigator; Brig. Gen. Robert F. Travis, copilot/mission leader; Lt. Col. William R. Calhoun, pilot; and Lt. Darrell D, Gust, assistant navigator. The pictures of the enlisted men in the front row cannot be matched with their names but they are: Sgt. K.P. Fitzsimmons, radioman; Sgt. G.R. Keesling, engineer and top turret gunner; Sgt. L.L. Mace, ball turret gunner; Sgt. A.C. Santella, right waist gunner; and Sgt. H.F. Jennings, left waist gunner. (Photo courtesy Darrell D. Gust).
Nor did the efforts of the “Little Friends” go without notice. The P-51s of the 354th Fighter Group claimed 15 of the 31 German aircraft shot down by the escorts that day. And one of their number—Major James H. Howard, a veteran ace of Claire Lee Chennault’s famous Flying Tigers in China—won the Medal of Honor for single-handedly taking on 30 German interceptors, shooting down six, and foiling their attack against the First Division’s 401st Bomb Group.
These future honors afforded no comfort to the men of the 303rd in the immediate aftermath of the mission. Though Lt. Gust’s combat days were through, the rest of the Group had to carry on somehow. There was some consolation from the outstanding job of bombing the Group did, but the mood at Molesworth was black that night and was best summed up by a single, bitter line from Lt. Bill McSween’s notebook: “We took an all-time whipping.”
