Flying Backwards in '44 Chapter 4. Part 1

by Ron McGinnis

Our first real combat was to Merseberg on November 2nd, 1944. We were green as grass and hadn’t seen flak before. Well, we certainly saw FLAK that day!! Merseberg was the site of the Leuna Synthetic Oil Refinery, the largest such oil complex in Germany. German scientists had perfected a process in which they extracted oil (which was very scarce) from coal (which was still plentiful in the Reich.) This synthetic fuel was the lifeblood of what remained of the German Army, Navy and Luftwaffe. Germany at that time had plenty of tanks and planes, but had a chronic shortage of fuel which to run them, and there is nothing so useless as a tank that can’t move, or a fighter that can’t fly....!! A full 15 minutes before the target we were in Very Heavy Flak, and it stayed with us all the way in!! This vital target was so vulnerable to destruction from the air, that it was surrounded by close to a thousand heavy flak guns (88mm and 105mm). Flak came up in mass barrages of exploding shells. When each shell explodes, black smoke puffs out in a pattern that reminds one of the image of a little man, with a head, arms and legs. It sends red-hot fragments of steel into the surrounding sky. These hot fragments can rip an engine open, can rip a fuel tank open which flames into an unstoppable fire, can rip a human body open with terrible results. If the shell explodes near enough to the aircraft, it can blow off an engine or even a wing, sealing the doom of the whole crew in an instant. The sky is loaded with these explosions, and as the smoke of each burst is thinned by prop wash, many more new bursts appear. Soon the sky is black. You are on the bomb run and accurate bombing demands a steady straight course with no deviations. It’s a “crapshoot”. The next flak shell might go right through you, but if you don’t destroy the target, all of this will be for naught, and you’ll be back... forced to go through this again. Please Lord... Lets get it done...


Merseberg that day cost the Eighth 56 aircraft, 40 of these were Bombers. We picked up only eight flak holes and considered ourselves very lucky.


We went to Hamburg on the 4th. The Oil Campaign is continuing. Heavy flak but off to the side mostly. This shows the effectiveness of “chaff” or “window”. These are small packets of metallic strips that are periodically tossed out by the waist gunner. They fan out in a glittering metallic trail in the slipstream and botch-up the accuracy of radar-laid flak. One of the few good thing about Bombing Through Overcast (P.F.F.) is that flak is usually less accurate because of this ability to “jam” flak radar. When conditions are visual for bombing, they are also visual for Flak guns. You can’t “jam” visual aiming of AA guns. No holes at Hamburg. We had a bomb rack malfunction, but got rid of the bombs.


On the 5th we go to Ludwigshaven. This Target has a bad reputation. This city and its almost twin across the Rhine, Mannheim, are always tough targets. The flak is always heavy and if the ground is visible it will always be rough... We were after the I.G. Farbenindustrie Chemical Plant. Bombing was visual with good results... AND the Flak was also visual and very accurate. A rumor had started that the flak guns at Ludwigshaven were manned by female flak crews. The “Ladies of Ludwigshaven”... No verification of this but they were damn good with AA whomever they were. Many times flak is not close enough to hear the explosions, but this time each flak shell explosion was so close that they sounded like heavy giant doors being slammed by a huge giant, followed almost simultaneously by a sound like heavy gravel being thrown onto a tin roof. The gravelly sound was the fragments going through our aircraft. Again, to bomb accurately we have to stay steady on the bomb run. No evasive maneuvers allowed. The heavy close flak continues when suddenly we heel over into a hard right bank and head for the ground. I call on interphone...no answer...I call again... still no answer. I am beginning to wonder if ole Mac is all alone in this diving B-17? I grab my chest pack and clip it on. I’m very close to making a move to the escape hatch when we level out and start to climb. Someone is flying this thing. Still no voices. Shortly thereafter, Abe crawls back to the tail wearing a walk-around bottle and taps me on the shoulder. He gives me an O.K. ? ? query with the thumb and index finger. I point to my earphones and shake my head side to side. He reaches over to my radio selector and turns the knob back to interphone. Why didn’t I check that.?... I had inadvertently bumped the selector with my shoulder, knocking it off the interphone channel. It was our toughest mission yet. Bombing Visual with good results. Flak intense and accurate. Lost #2 supercharger... Cracked bulletproof glass windshield in front of pilot. 30 to 40 flak holes in aircraft... No injuries.


On 11-6-44 we go to Neumunster Airfield. Flak is meager and not accurate, no fighters. A good mission. No holes... We put the 84th mission on Raggedy Ann, #42-31395. She was becoming one of the legends in the Group. We flew her just this one time. Raggedy Ann survived the war. She was salvaged with No Battle Damage on 6-5-45. NBD doesn’t mean she wasn’t hit during the war. She had hole patches all over her. It just means that she was still flyable but worn out. She was probably declared W.W. (War Weary)


Just as a matter of interest, we flew our first four missions in Back To The Sack, #42-97507, another old timer in the Group. “The Sack” also had another name... Jerry Boy. She was in Olive Drab finish with a long line of bombs indicating missions. Rumor had it that the Sack had only one man wounded in her in all her flights. And, he was her tail gunner at the time. He was hit in the buttocks with a piece of flak. Back to the Sack also finished the war, but in a bizarre accident while cleaning her just prior to her departure for the Z.I. (Zone of the Interior, a fancy name for the good ole U.S.A) she caught fire and was totally destroyed on her hardstand.


On 11-11-44 we were sent to Saarbrucken on a ground support mission to aid Patton’s Army. The Target was a railroad marshaling yard about 7 miles South of Coblenz. We flew in B-17 G 43-387000. The ground in Germany is already covered in snow. Target obscured, bombed PFF (Bombing Through Overcast). We feel sorry for our troops down in the snow.


Bombed Giessen on 11-21-44. Direct hits on marshaling yard. This was a last resort target. Several spots of flak. Primary target was Merseberg, but unable to continue because of cloud-bank in excess of 30,000 feet. I believe this was the mission where we reached 31,000 trying to get over the stuff. One must realize that a single bomber could have gotten through the weather quite easily on instruments. Taking a formation into this would have been somewhat like driving at high speed through smoke blowing across a freeway from a large grass fire. Flew in Miss Fortune, B-17G #43-381118...


Back to Merseberg on 11-25-44. Flew again in #43-38118 Miss Fortune. Fire in #2 engine on take off. Returned to Great Ashefield on three engines. Transferred to Spare B-17 #43-38320; Took off late, intercepting out formation over Dover, England and slid into position over Channel. Bombed Merseberg, PFF - Flak heavy but inaccurate, but several planes in other Groups down in flames over target. Ceiling and visibility 0-0 on return. Some difficulty in getting in to Great Ashfield..several other ships damaged in landing. We suffered no battle damage and landed safely despite hazardous conditions...


Just a word about getting home. When the weather over England is bad, a formation must reverse the procedure used in assembly. The group comes in over its buncher beacon, above the weather, and adopts a wide circling turn.... At thirty second intervals. Starting with the lower element of the formation, the B-17s “peel off” to the left and go into a controlled descending turn around the buncher beacon. Usually at the rate of 500 ft. per min.. They drop into the weather in this controlled descent. Crews with wounded aboard or those low on fuel get priority. Sometimes the weather extends almost to the ground and the last few feet can get rather “hairy”. When you do break out it’s a relief!! We look for railway tracks, roads or any recognizable landmark that leads to the base while flying the proper heading. Must keep a wary lookout for other 17s.. Things can get a little crowded coming into the landing pattern. Everyone’s tired and wants to get on the the ground. It’s not the time to rush things though, landings can bite you...


On 11-27-44 we bomb “Bingen on Rhine”. This is a front line strategic transportation target. In other words a rail marshaling yard. This is to give assistance to Patton’s Third Army position. Bingen is on a bend in the Rhine where it turns north after flowing west from Mainz. Flak was moderate, but extremely accurate. One large piece of flack about twice the size of a 50 caliber slug entered the fuselage just behind navigators position and struck armor plate beneath the pilot's seat. Another was near miss to control cables. An inverter burned out. Supposed to be 12 antiaircraft guns, but flak was visual and accurate. Flew in #43-38320 again.


Winter was really coming in with a vengeance. We had no way of knowing, but the Germans were hatching the plot for their drive on Antwerp, otherwise known as the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes Forest. Toward the middle of the month of December, they struck...The weather also struct with them. Temperatures took a nose dive... and the Allied Air Forces were grounded... There was a news blackout in the E.T.O. They NEVER have a news blackout unless we are being drubbed. From the 16th to the 24th of December the “Heavies” were grounded... We were becoming anxious for our forces buried in the snows of Belgium. Aircrews were getting edgy. They wanted the weather to lift so we could help our troops. Some brave Troop Carrier Groups of the 9th Air Force were able to get an air supply mission into Bastogne. But the tactical fighter-bombers of the 9th, as well as their mediums (B-26s) were pinned to the ground by ground fogs so thick one couldn’t see the runways for take-offs. All of Western Europe was “socked-in”.


Finally, late on the 23rd the weather started clearing. The Eighth Air Force set up on the 24th for the largest bomber operation in history. Every base was told to put up every bomber that could carry bombs. The 385th normally put up 36 B-17s on a mission. On the 24th we put up 63 B-17s loaded with bombs. We sent up even the “war wearies” and I heard some without guns, although that might have been a rumor. In any case 2034 heavy bombers were sent on the mission of December 24th 1944. The total of allied aircraft in the air that day exceeded 9,000... This is the largest air effort in history, and since large NUMBERS of bombers are no longer required with modern weaponry, the record will no doubt stand... Our targets for the 24th were German airfields east of the Rhine. The 385th was to take out Gross Ostheim Airdrome east of Frankfort. On the way in we picked up a lot of accurate flak crossing the lines. Again the skies were absolutely clear, so whatever flak came up was visually directed and accurate.


I vividly remember one B-17 in the following group getting hit crossing the lines. Two bursts from a two gun 88MM battery were tracking this group. The bursts were close together and just under these planes. All of a sudden one of these 17s rolled over and started down in a spin. He only made three turns in the spin and his tail came off. No fires as yet, but he spun so rapidly that there were no chutes at all. I watched him all the way down until he went into the ground... The tail section spun like a piece of tinfoil. No cutes. A little later on we had a mid-air collision in our Group. Vogt’s crew collided with the plane above and ultimately disintegrated. Several men were observed in the air but with unopened chutes. The other plane in the collision returned safely with a damaged fuselage and feathered #2 prop and engine. We picked up more flak over uncharted positions. Two large holes in front nose plexiglass in front of Bombardiers position... with fragments on the Navigators table. Navigator saw five planes going down ahead. We had a call over command, “Bandits in the Area”. That’s the call for enemy fighters. Bandits hit the 487th Group just ahead of us, which was the lead Group of the 3rd Air Division commanded by General Fred Castle. Five B-17s went down, one of these carrying Gen. Castle... He posthumously received the Medal of Honor. Castle Air Force Base, Merced, Calif is named in his honor. We bombed Gross Ostheim visual with good results. Flew # 43-38667.


I remember that after we landed back at Great Ashfield, formations were still in the air coming home. As they flew over they turned on their landing lights. It was Christmas Eve...