398th Bomb Group
Memorial
Association


Lt. Robert H. Dee, Jr.'s Diary
Co-Pilot, 601st Squadron

Dee's Mission No. 13

1 January 1945
Target: Marshalling Yard, Kassel, Germany

No. 13
January 1, 1945

The target was Kassel. The MPI was a marshalling yard. We carried 10X500 GP’s. We assembled over the Debden buncher at 5,000 ft. in a night assembly. Two Bassingbourn ships hit head on and exploded. It was really a fire! One fighter crashed and burned in the North Sea and one of our ships ditched there also. One man jumped (They figure you’ll live 30 minutes in the North Sea). One guy who watched the ship said it sunk immediately. There was really alot of aborts. The flak started the minute we hit the coast, and fighter were also in the area. However we didn’t see any. One of our fighters dived passed us and it’s tail came off (P-51), he didn’t have a chance. We went to one target and it was cloudy, so we went to our PFF secondary target. The flak was moderate and inaccurate (For us - some ships were hit bad). We got no holes and there were no fighters. Take-off 6:45 AM-landing 4:50 PM.

Editor's Note:

  1. "Two Bassingbourn ships hit head on and exploded" most likely was the 91st Bomb Group that was based in Bassingbourn, although it could also have been a fighter group from there.

Notes:
  • Lt. Robert H. Dee, Jr. was the regular Co-Pilot for the Byron L. Magness 601st Crew. On occasion, he flew with other crews.
  • The above transcription was provided by Marty Dee, brother of Robert H. Dee, Jr.
  • 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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