Mission No. 11
Date – July 13, 1944
Assigned Target – Munich, Germany
Target Attacked – As briefed
Results – Good. PFF
Aircraft Number – 7190-L
Bomb Load – 4 500 lb. General Purpose; 6 500 lb. Incendiary Clusters
Position in Formation – Lead of High Group
Time – 9 hrs. 30 min.
Altitude over Target – 25,500'
Casualties – None
Damage – Moderate flak damage
Losses – 7346-R Lt. T. K. Foster and crew
Loading List
Pilot – Capt. Arlin, A. A.
Co-P – 2nd Lt. Stallings, H. O.
Nav. – 2nd Lt. Walkup, C. A.
Bomb. – Capt. Strickrott, Charles J. (Group Bomb)
Eng. – T/Sgt. Chmielewski, R. J.
Radio – T/Sgt. Delorey, William J. (Capt. Frazier’s crew)
Gun. – S/Sgt. McCort, J.
Gun. – S/Sgt. Wilson, W. C.
Gun. – S/Sgt. Carter, C. M.
Gun. – S/Sgt. Hoffman, A. W.
Mission No. 11
Date – July 13, 1944
I feel that I have earned my two dollars today. This was one of those missions that Group felt that one lead pilot was enough for the group leads. Capt. Davidson led the High Group in the "A" Wing and I led the High Group in the "B" Wing. Capt. Strickrott, the Group Bombardier, flew with me in Baxter’s place.
Munich has been taking quite a plastering lately; this is the third day in a row that we have gone down there. The weather has been such that PFF bombing has been necessary. Munich is a nice large target.
The mission started off rough. We took off before daylight in a heavy, cold rain. We were just off the ground when we were into the clouds and didn’t break out of them till we were above 6,000'. Up there, the skies were clear and after the sun came up, it was a beautiful day – above the clouds. We made a good assembly and left the buncher of time.
Our route took us across Belgium and Luxembourg, and into Germany just north or the border of France. From Luxembourg, we went straight into the target. The cloud cover below was 10/10 all the way in to the I.P. We didn’t have any trouble with flak going in. We were following directly behind another wing as long as they were not being shot at, but as soon as they would fly over a flak area, we could see it and would go around. We sweated out enemy fighters but none were reported anywhere going in.
At the I.P. [Initial Point], the clouds broke to about 6/10 and stayed that way over the target, making it possible to see some of the fires and damage done during the last three days. From what little we could see, it looked like our bombs have not been wasted. We didn’t have a PFF ship so we stayed in formation with the lead group and dropped our bombs when they dropped theirs. Carter said he could follow our bombs down and saw them burst in the built-up part of the city.
The flak here was plenty thick, but most of it was put up in a barrage. Some batteries were following us and doing a good job of shooting. There was a lot of 105 coming up with the 88. As soon as the bombs were away, I swung over and behind the lead group and took advantage of the shield they offered. We still had to fly through the rest of the barrage, but got away from that Pointed Fire. My group was shot up quite a bit and some of the ships had engines shot out, but all of my ships came out of the flak and managed to stay in formation without too much trouble.
The 500 miles back to the Channel were the longest I have ever seen. All the way back, it was quite difficult to keep my formation together and in our place with the lead group because of heavy prop wash and the damaged ships. Now, it was absolutely necessary to keep all the ships close together because "Bandits" had been reported hitting wings both ahead of and behind us. All through that trip back, we dodged flak areas and sweated out the enemy fighters. We had a good fighter cover of 38s and 47s, but they were being kept too busy trying to keep Jerry off. When we came out over the Channel, [[the word is light but thought to be ["two"] ] wings behind us were still reporting fighters attacking them. In spite of this being the 13th of the month, we made the 1,000-mile trip over enemy territory with lots of enemy fighters in the area, and our group wasn’t hit once. We were sure thankful to see the shores of England and once more relax.
I saw the Alps for the first time today. They stuck up above the clouds and were very close as we left the Munich area. They sure looked good, too, because if we had been badly shot up over the target, we could have gone down there and made a landing in Switzerland. It sure helps the morale to know you have some place to go if you can’t make it home.
On the trip back I saw a P-38 get it. There were three of them flying a short distance off to our right. I just happened to be looking at them when a flak gun let go with a few rounds. One of the bursts him a 38 dead center and he blew into a thousand pieces. The sky was suddenly filled with flame; when it died, it left a huge black smudge with small pieces floating toward the earth, leaving small smoke trails behind them. It sort of reminds me just what one of those bursts can do when it is in the right place.
All of the ships in my group got back O.K. The other group we put up didn’t fare quite so well. Lt. Foster received a direct hit over Brussels. The shell exploded in the waist of his ship, cutting it in two. One man was seen to bail out.
When we got back to land, we had to break up the formation and make an instrument let down through the clouds, and come on in individually. It was still raining like the devil at the base when we landed. It had continued to rain here all day.
