Mission 29 July 23, 1944

Today was our first mission since returning from the rest home.  We flew the Calais Clipper and led the 389th.  Capt Henchman flew command.  We bombed an air field near Paris.  We flew at 24,000 feet and bombed G.H.  as there was an overcast - for which we were thankful for.  Our chaff worked against their radar cause the flak was low & behind us.  No fighters.

Mission 30 August 8, 1944

It seems that my roughest missions always come on the 8th of the month as my four worst missions have been on that date.  Today was the last one in this tour and I’m greatly relieved.  I flew with Capt. Darughty today as his radio operator is finished.  We went in at 14,000 feet which is the lowest yet and a mile or so too low to suit me.  We were by ourself  but this time I was glad cause if we’d had a formation with us I don’t think we would be here to tell it.  We were to drop five British flare bombs on the target which was a small village just in front of our own troops.  The reason was to make it so the first & third division of forts could pick up the target easier and be sure on not getting behind our own lines.  It was very interesting as we went in over Cherbourg.  There was a couple of convoys heading into the port.  It looked like the harbor was pretty well cleaned up as it was full of shipping.  I could see about five small vessels the Germans had sunk to block the harbor.  The shell holes in the large harbor forts were very visible.  From there on I saw lots of villages that were mainly shell holes & crators.  The red crosses marking the hospitals were very plain to see so there really shouldn’t be any excuse for the Germans to bomb them.  They’ve built a great number of aircraft landing strips.  I was really enjoying it till we got to Vire and turned on the I.P.  At about that time we crossed the German lines and did they ever give us the works.  I never saw so much flak in my life and it was accurate.  I think a lot of it came from German tanks cause their 88 mm will reach 14,000 feet easily.  Anyway as we were by ourself we did violent evasive action to try and get through safely.  We turned as high as 90o turns but is was still too close for comfort.  We got the flares on the edge of the target but I don’t know how we did with such a bomb run.  If we held a course for a few seconds the flak was right on us but the navigator & bombardier did a grand job.  The bombardier took the shortest run I’ve ever known but it was good.  By the time I got the bomb doors shut after watching the flares hit, we were at 16,000 feet and climbing fast.  It was just a couple minutes till we were back over our lines but we were in that heavy flak for about 15 minutes. I think there were 10 of the scaredest men on that ship I’ve ever seen.  Maybe it was because it was the last mission for 8 of us & 29 for the other two.  We really came home in a hurry.  The forts were suppose to come in at 12,000 feet and they couldn’t do very much evasive action as they were in formation.  Flak got the first three forts.  Our fighters were down on the deck strafing every gun they could find so it was quite a sight to see.  We were very lucky cause we only got hit about 15 times.