398th Bomb Group
Memorial
Association


Dresden/Prague Mission Recollections
14 February 1945

By Don MacPherson
Group Radar Navigator, Lead Ship

Col. Ensign was the Command Pilot and Lt. Van Opdorp was the First Pilot.

Everything was normal until after we had crossed the Ruhr. But then my radar equipment started to black out and shortly thereafter the scope went blank.

I notified the pilots of this and it was decided that the deputy ship would have to take over. I believe that Lt. Doyle was the radar-navigator with the Deputy and that his set was working satisfactorily at the time.

From then on I was just a passenger.

I remember being surprised at debriefing to learn that we had hit the wrong target.

That was the only mission I ever flew where I had a failure of the radar equipment. I know positively that a 65 mile error could never have happened if my scope had been working.


Article transcribed by Lee Anne Bradley, 398th Group Historian, October 2007.


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Printed in Flak News Volume 20, Number 1, Page(s) 5, January 2005

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