398th Bomb Group
Memorial
Association


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

Beckley's Mission No. 28

21 November 1944
Target: Marshalling Yards, Merseburg, Germany

No. 28. Merseberg [Merseburg], November 21, 1944:

Flying time 9 hours 30 minutes.

Bomb load 10 five-hundred pound GP bombs.

Back at the Merseberg [Merseburg] marshalling yards again. On the way to the target we encountered light flak from New Amsterdam at the Holland coast and from Osnabruck in Germany. About twenty minutes before the IP we ran into a warm front scattering the low squadron (our squadron) all the way to hell and back. Although we could see only about fifty feet in the clouds, Rog managed to follow our squadron lead till we broke out of it about twenty minutes later. Another B-17 joined us a few minutes later and our three ship element started to head back across Germany towards home for we couldn’t locate our group to go in on the target with them.

Our #3 engine cut out on the way home out of gas so Brownie feathered it, drained the gas from the other engines to #3, but wasn’t able to un-feather it again for use so, with that handicap and the heavy bomb load we were still carrying, our gas supply was quickly being used up. Genung’s ship was having trouble too, so about thirty miles northeast of Paris, our two ships headed for an emergency landing field outside of Brussels and Hunt’s ship continued on back to the base.

Although the thermometer needle bent around the top at 50 degrees C as we were flying back across Germany at 29,000 ft we all worked up a sweat on the lookout for enemy fighters who wouldn’t have much trouble with our three Forts racing for home without chaperons. We spotted ten P-38’s, but they didn’t see us for they didn’t join us for support. The way I figured out the fuel consumption we had about ten minutes flying time left when we hit the runway at Brussels. We stayed over three days in Brussels because of the weather and had a great time, but that’s not a combat story. The morning of the 24th our ship was gassed up and we came back to our base flying contact all the way back under a 500 ft. ceiling.

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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