398th Bomb Group
Memorial
Association


T/Sgt. Armand Fugge's Diary
Engineer/Top Turret Gunner 600th Squadron

19 May 1944
Berlin, Germany

May 19, 1944
The boys hit Berlin, today. It was plenty rough. Lots of flak. We lost our first crew flying 399. Went down over the target. It was O’Neal’s crew and Nelson dropped his bombs on their plane. Lost young Jerry, Big Bob, Cone and the others. We’re all taking it real badly. Fighters raised hell with the formation. Hope they’re alive and safe.

Editor's Notes:
  1. Armand Fugge was not on this mission. Above is his diary entry as to what happened.
  2. Ira O'Neil's 601st squadron plane was 42-97339 H, so perhaps the 399 is a typo, or perhaps Armand meant 398th.
  3. O'Neil was the first 398th loss in combat, two crew members lived and were POWs. They were Howard F. Baer and George Graham. Armand was probably unaware of who survived at the time the diary was written.
  4. There was one previous 398th loss. This was the Kiernan crew on 17 Jan 1944 in a night training flight.

Notes:
  • T/Sgt. Armand Fugge was the Engineer/Top Turret Gunner on Donald Lowe's 600th Squadron crew.
  • The above transcription was provided by Raymond Borys.
  • 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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