3,4,5

April 10. MISSION 2.  Diest-Schaffen, Belgium

This was a lot easier than the first one, a six-hour flight We were only over enemy territory about two and one-half hours The overcast caused us to miss the primary target and we unloaded on the secondary, an aircraft assembly plant.

 Flak was light.

 We were briefed for 33 guns at the target but received no battle damage to “The Erie Ferry.”
We encountered no fighter opposition had very good fighter escort and saw no ships go down.

April 11. MISSION 3. Sietttn, Germany

Today we had it rough our primary target was Posen. Poland.  We missed it and hit the secondary, an aircraft assembly plant in Stettin, northeast Germany
The fighter support was inadequate, with no help from the Danish coast to the target and back to the Danish coast Jus before bombs away we were attacked by 12 ME, 110’s They made two frontal passes, sweeping under our formation T- did not knock down any of the ships in our group but a plane went down from the group directly behind us.
Flak was heavy over the target — 60 guns — but our ship received no battle damage. We were flying zero-one-three. One of the 332nd squadrons ships.
As we entered Germany one of our Forts aborted for Sweden with number one and number two engines knocked out by coastal flak
On the way out Vaughn’s ship went down He Just made e Danish coast, hot two of his boys bailed out over the Baltic Sea A fire was seen in the middle of the ship.
Donald Cash’s crew, that we trained with at Dalhart, went down on this one. We learned few days later.  They came across and started flying the same time we did, so it must have been one of their first five raids On that crew were Lt. John F. Harris pilot Lt Milton V. Wilson, co-pilot; Flight Officer John Marchetti, navigator; Lt Jim B Goodner, Jr bombardier; S ‘Sgt Thomas 0. Obechina, _engineer: S/Sgt. Clinton M. Gill, radio operator-gunner Sgt Edward A. Braun gunner, Sgt Jennings A. Ball, gunner; Sgt. Roger W. Fuller, gunner, and Sgt Donald L. Cash, gunner.
Some time later Fred received a clipping from his folks, taken from the Pekin Ill. Times, concerning this crew, this raid and this war.  The clipping carried a two-column picture of Cash’s crew, taken at Dalhart, and a sort of editorial which read:
“Sometimes I wonder if we appreciate the SIZE of the battle that is NOW going on over Europe.

I mean the air war.
The world was shocked by Tarawa
Worst death toll in Marine history.
Even a book has been written about it
Say — a battle as costly as Tarawa is going on nearly every day in the air over Europe.
See that picture above”
Take a good look at the man standing on the right hand end of the line
He’s a Pekin boy, just 21
Sgt Roger Fuller.
Last week is parents. Mr. .and Mrs. Dwight C. Fuller. 1220 Charlotte Street, got word that he had
been “missing in action since April 11.”

We checked up in back copies of the Times and found that 64 bombers had been lost by the U.S Air Force alone that day.

April 12. MISSION 4. Augsburg, Germany

This was to be a tough one but the mission was abandoned just after we got over France, because of bad weather and low thick clouds.
We went to bed thinking we would get credit for the mission. When we went down to the operations shack the next morning, however, there was a notice on the bulletin board’ ‘No credit for mission of 4-12-44.” Third Division Headquarters had rescinded the credit.
But on April 16, four days later, another order came through giving us credit for the mission after all. We were very glad to hear this.

AprIl 13. A Close Call for Crew 69

The thirteenth was an unlucky, or in another sense, a very lucky day for Crew 69.   On the way to Augsburg again, we got hit by three 50-caliber machine gun bullets. Some guy in another 17 in the formation was a touch careless with his test firing We always test fire the guns soon after leaving England
One of the slugs came through the nose of 493, barely missing Counihan and ripping through Getz’ pant leg, grazing the skin.
Another bullet knocked out a quarter of the ship’s oxygen supply.
The third was a tracer bullet. It started a fire in the wing, which put itself out a little later. If the tracer had been the one which tore into the oxygen system we might have blown up, they said
We aborted from about half way across the Channel, therefore received no credit for the raid McMeekin’s crew, who shares Hut A with us, claims that Lt. Wertsch is bad luck for their ship, 493. He flew his first mission in it as Mac’s co-pilot with Mahathey flying left waist. They caught a lot of flak and lost the hydraulic system. It was in the hangar for a couple of weeks and then we happened to get it the day it came out We really fixed it up good this time Since the left wing cannot be replaced they have decided to junk the ship.  A lucky day for Getz and Crew 69.

The boys from the PRO — public relations office — took Getz’ picture with his pant leg ripped open to show what a close call he had. The picture appeared in lots of stateside newspapers, especially in sunny Cal. The caption they wrote for the picture was dramatic as hell, even if it didn’t pay a great deal of attention to humdrum facts The caption read:

A bullet from a German fighter plane cut the leg of his trousers