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. 29

**26 November 1944**
**Target:** **Misburg, Germany**
No. 29. Misberg [Misburg], November 26, 1944: Flying time 7 hours 45 minutes. Bomb load 12 five-hundred pound RDX bombs. At briefing the target sounded too much like [Merseburg] to be comfortable. [Misburg] is a small town near Hannover and our main IP was a distillation plant in the center of the town. Coming up to the IP we spotted four 109’s maneuvering to come in on us from behind, but the lone P-51 scattered them for us and ran them away. The flak at the target was heavy. We got through it with three non-damaging hits. Bandits were reported waiting for us on our route home so we paralleled course back about 30 miles south to avoid them and take our chances with the flak areas. We hit light flak passing Osnabruck and at a point south of Zwolle. Armor’s ship was hit at the target destroying practically all of his instruments, but made it back to England and landed at a fighter base. On the way back from the target we saw fighters scrambling about fifteen miles off our right wing and saw seven of them spin down. We sweated our fighter attacks all the way back for they were reported all around us but weren’t disappointed when they didn’t show up for us.

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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