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| I went on my first raid on April 231. We had an 18 ship formation and
were supposed to pick up 20 P-38s for escort. The pursuits never showed up but we were
pretty eager so we went on without them. We've learned since then that it isn't good
policy to go without escort. Anyway we hit the target and did a good job of demolishing
it. There was a little bit of flak over the target but it wasn't accurate and just looked
as harmless as sofa pillows blossoming out of the sky around us. That wasn't so bad, but
about 10 minutes away from the target on the way home we were jumped by a whole peck of
Jerry pursuits. They were Messerschmitt 109's. That was our baptism of fire and it was a
sure good job. We had a 32 minute running fight with them before they finally turned tail
and went on home. That decided me right then and there that those boys were playing for
keeps and that it wasn't sofa pillows they were throwing at us. One of the Me's dove right
down through the middle of our formation, all guns blazing, and tried to split us apart.
You see, our best protection lies in holding a close formation so that we have a
concentrated wall of fire power to protect the whole outfit. I don't mind admitting that I
was plenty scared - all of us were - but it made us tighten the formation instead of
splitting it wide open. I really buck every time the 20 millimeter cannon in his nose went
off. You could see all the tracers coming at you, all of them looking like they were
headed right at my face. I did the only thing I could do -just pulled in my ears a little
bit and kept on going. Luckily we were hit only a few times in the whole fight and none of
the hits were in a vulnerable spot. Carl, up in the nose of the ship, swears that when
that Jerry went by - the maltese crosses on his wings and the swastika on the tail were so
close that they looked as if they were 75 feet high. Our gunners did a marvelous job that
day - my tail gunner had 15 rounds left when the fight was over. He started out with 1400
rounds - so you know and can imagine all the fun he had shooting. We came on home intact and felt awfully lucky. A few of us were shot up pretty badly but only one plane had to crash land and his crew all got out O.K. To date I have nine raids to my credit. That's a little above average for the crews in our group. We're still raiding and still meeting some pretty stiff opposition, but I can't tell you much about our present targets. At least we're doing some good and I guess that's why we've gone through so much training and spent so much time getting ready for this. The other raids have been much the same, we've seen pursuit over almost every target and have had varying amounts of flak thrown up at us. On one target especially, they threw everything but the dishpan at us. While we were still about 5 minutes away from the target, we could see what looked like an impenetrable wall of flak over the target. The sky was just black with the stuff. I'd have sworn that you couldn't have taken one ship through it without getting shot down. We took 36 ships through and all came back. We all had holes in our ships but again no one was hurt and everyone got home safely. We've been remarkably lucky up till now. Lets just keep on hoping that it will stay that way. I guess that's about all for this time. I'll probably be adding a little more day by day. One thing I forgot to say anything about - my personal reaction to all this fighting business. Naturally, we're all a bit jumpy right before a raid and maybe even don't sleep too well the night before we're due to go out feuding, but I've found personally that all that feeling vanishes from the minute I give her the gas for take off. Then just as I go in on the target, I get kind of jumpy waiting for them to start shooting. When they once start I find that I concentrate so much on flying a good bombing run for Carl that I don't pay too much attention to what's going on outside. Then after it's all over I get a sort of let down feeling when all the tension you build up inside you kind of breaks down and leaves you. It's a pretty rough life but nothing that I can't easily stand. |
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