398th Bomb Group
Memorial
Association


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

Fugge Mission No. 17

21 June 1944
Target: Aircraft Plant, Berlin, Germany

June 21, 1944
Got up at 0100 and briefed for a mission to Berlin, Germany. Our target was a factory manufacturing aircraft Parts. Flew the North Sea route. Carried 10 – 500 lb. G.P.’s and 2 – 500 lb. incendiaries. Bombed P.F.F. from 27.000 ft. Flak was heavy and accurate.

The wing ahead of us caught hell from the fighters and from my top turret I could see Forts going down, some smoking, some in flames and several chutes. 20 mm were exploding all over the sky and they looked like thousands of mirror flashes. Dog fight were everywhere. One man bailed out of a Fort and as soon as his chute opened it caught fire and burned up and all I saw the poor fellow drop out of sight into the clouds below. Lt. Roar’s [Lt. Richard L. Rohrer's], engineer, Chiznell [T/Sgt. Douglas A. Chisnell], while cranking the bomb bay doors open fell out the bay without a chute on. The element above us dropped their bombs and they missed our plane by about 5 ft. Our supercharger control was shot out but managed to hold enough altitude. Landed OK 8 hours 55 minutes combat time.

MISSION # 17 COMLETED. Safely, Thank God. On yesterday’s mission we got 171 flak holes.

Editor's Notes:

  1. Thanks to Amy Goll daughter of S/Sgt. Frank K. Henning, Waist Gunner of the Lt. Richard L. Rohrer for the clarification on the spelling of Rohrer and Chisnell. Most likely, Armand Fugge spelled the names phonetically.
  2. T/Sgt. Douglas A. Chisnell must have had a chute as he is listed in our 398th POW listing and was in the same camp as Frank Henning.

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 [ ].

The above diary entry has been placed on the 398th Bomb Group Memorial Association web site to share our history with a wider audience. You may view, download, print, copy and link to our content as you wish as long as the uses are personal or educational. 398th Bomb Group Memorial Association web page content cannot be used for commercial purposes nor placed on other web sites whether commercial, personal or educational, unless authorized in writing by the 398th Bomb Group Memorial Association Official Board and/or the author.