Lt. Robert J. Beckley's Diary

398th Bomb Group
Memorial
Association

**Lt. Robert J. Beckley's Diary**
Navigator, 600th/601st Squadron

Beckley's Mission No. 4

**8 August 1944**
**Target:** **Cauvicourt, France**
No. 4: Caen [Cauvicourt], August 8, 1944: [Editor's Note: The Official 398th Mission this day was to Cauvicourt, France. Caen is a larger city in the area.] 5 hours flying time. Bomb load 30 two-hundred sixty pound fragmentation bombs. Short, but not sweet. On this raid we were to lay down a bomb pattern just ahead of the English lines at 11:15 in coordination with a British push at 11:30. Because of a malfunction of bomb racks on a previous mission to St. Lo, in which General McNair was killed, some bombs were dropped short and landed in the midst of our own lines. To assure there was no repetition of such a thing, our bomb run was right over the Jerry lines. This way, in case our bombs were short or long, they would still land among German troops. This strategy sounds quite sound but it also let us in for heavy flak all the way from the IP to the target, fourteen miles straight of hell. They threw everything up at us but the kitchen sink and, I swear, the British must have helped load the guns since it came up so thick and fast. Our group of a 36 ship formation came back with 31. “Ike” [Isadore] Cassuto bailed out over the lines, as did the rest of his crew. Eight of them got back to the base about a week later. We had the least battle damage of any ship in our group with eight holes. This was the roughest mission that our group has flown for flak and casualties.

Notes:

Lt. Robert J. Beckley was the Navigator for the Linn R. Rogers crew.
The above transcription was provided by Ann Collins, daughter of Phillip Collins, Ball Turret Gunner on the 601st Saul Marias Crew.
This transcription is a reproduction of the original. Spelling and punctuation changes have been made to improve readability. In some circumstances, material may not have been transcribed or was rewritten.
Clarification of acronyms or special words or guesses of certain words are shown in brackets [ ].

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