February 6,1945 – Today we made our first combat mission; target was Chemnitz, Germany, nine and one half hours, full cloud coverage, dropped our bombs from 25,000 feet. No flack, (flack was steel shrapnel from anti aircraft shells) landed at Ridgwell airfield in fog, our field was closed down because of fog. At nine and one half hours it was a long mission for B-17’s and this being our first mission, the men’s nerves were as tight as fiddle strings.

We had been called from bed at 2A.M., 02:00 hours military time, mission briefing at 03:00 hours, breakfast at 04:00 hours after which the gunners picked up the barreled actions of their .50 caliber Browning machine guns and were driven to their airplanes in a weapons carrier truck. Here we installed the actions in the gun housing and adjusted the headspace.

We then took our stations and plugged our microphone into the planes system and reported to the pilot. When all was ready the four engines were started and the pilot taxied into the waiting line for takeoff at one- half minute intervals. It took about 25 minutes to get all 36 planes of the group in the air. They would climb to about 5000 feet and fly to a rendezvous area where they would circle till all planes were in combat formation, at which time they would head for the target of the day.

On this day our rendezvous was the coast of England and as we left the holding pattern we started to climb for altitude, southeast over the North Sea. At this point the gunners all fired about 25 rounds with each gun to be sure they worked. At 13,000 feet every one put on their oxygen masks and by the time we crossed the coast of Holland were up to about our cruising altitude of 25,000 feet. This put us above the solid cloud coverage that covered most of Europe that day. We dropped our bombs by radar through the clouds.

After dropping our bombs we flew west into France. The front lines by this time was roughly along the Rhine River, so after crossing the lines the whole group descended below 13,000 feet and the crew were able to remove their oxygen masks, a big relief as they were tired by now. Riding alone as I was back in the tail position, with the warm sun coming through on my face soon relaxed me. I fell asleep at my post, a court martial offence in combat. The next thing I knew was the sound of an empty .50 caliber shell casing striking close to me thrown by the waist gunner.

Opening my eyes I glanced out the window and could see nothing but fog. (What the heck is going on???) I checked in on the intercom and the co-pilot told me to watch for a runway as we were circling an alternate airfield, ours being fogged in. This meant that most of the Eighth Air Force, over 1,000 planes were flying blind in fog trying to find a place to set down, any place would do as gasoline by now was getting low.

We soon had glimpses of the ground and crossed over the field, but at right angles to the runway. The pilot circled to line up with the runway but lost sight of it for a while. When it came into sight of it he was not lined up for a landing and by the time he was, half the runway was used up so was forced to go around again. On the second trip around another B-17 crossed in front of us. The pilot jerked the stick back going over the top of the other plane. Man that was close.

We continued around and had used up a lot of runway before getting the wheels on the ground, and when the end of the runway came into view through the murky air, what was sitting across the runway and blocking it but a semi-gasoline truck and trailer. The pilot judging his speed, the wet surface of the runway and the distance to the truck doubted he could stop in time. He shut down all four engines and applied all the brakes he could. At long last we came to a screaming halt.

The tail wheel on a normal landing would have been on the ground by the time our speed had dropped to about 40 miles an hour. This time it didn’t touch the ground until our forward movement stopped, at which time it crashed to the runway. I was still in the tail position, and it bounced me around like a rubber ball. Never the less I was glad to be on the ground. When I crawled out I saw the nose of our plane all to close for comfort to that gasoline truck. Combat didn’t seem so bad, but this coming home sure was rough on the nerves.