Lt. Paul W. Smith was a navigator with Nolan Thompson’s crew in the 602nd Squadron. He flew 21 missions between February 20, 1945 and 25 April 1945.
Lt. Smith prepared the original diary as a set of the following titled columns, “Date,” “Location of Target” and “Degree of Difficulty.” He then made brief entries under each column. In the process of transcription for some entries, complete sentences or phrases were constructed to improve readability. The entry “Smith Mission No. _“ does not appear in the original diary. Clarification of acronyms or special terminology or interpretation for certain words are shown in brackets [ ]. Incorrectly spelled words shown in brackets [ ].
In diary column “Degree of Difficulty,” the red words are verbatim. The words in black are added by the transcriber to make entry into a phrase or complete sentence.
Don Parks
December 2003
Smith Mission No. 1
Date: February 20, 1945
Location of Target: Nürnberg [Nurnburg], Germany
Degree of Difficulty: Mission was tough-scared to death.
Smith Mission No. 2
Date: February 21, 1945
Location of Target: Nürnberg [Nurnburg], Germany
Degree of Difficulty: Mission was tough-knocked out of form. [formation]. Our airplane received major flak damage.
Smith Mission No. 3
Date: February 22, 1945
Location of Target: Stendal, Germany
Degree of Difficulty: Mission was easy-sweated a lot because of low alt. [altitude] and first fighter opposition.
Smith Mission No. 4
Date: February 25, 1945
Location of Target: München (Munich), Germany
Degree of Difficulty: Mission was tough-lots of accurate flak. No hits on us.
Smith Mission No. 5
Date: March 2, 1945
Location of Target: Chemnitz, Germany [Editor's Note: The 398th Official Mission 2 March 1945 was to Bohlen, Germany. Some notes indicate Bohlen, was a secondary target that day, perhaps Chemnitz was the primary or another secondary.]
Degree of Difficulty: Mission was easy-bad weather & long mission.
Smith Mission No. 6
Date: March 4, 1945
Location of Target: Ulm, Germany
Degree of Difficulty: Mission was easy-bad weather & contrails.
Smith Mission No. 7
Date: March 5, 1945
Location of Target: Chemnitz, Germany
Degree of Difficulty: Mission was easy-no flak.
Smith Mission No. 8
Date: March 8, 1945
Location of Target: Huls, Germany
Degree of Difficulty: Mission was easy-very little flak.
Smith Mission No. 9
Date: March 9, 1945
Location of Target: Kassel, Germany
Degree of Difficulty: Mission was tough-I never will forget how I felt when I first saw the Kassel flak. I thought surely the end had come. The flak was as thick as a swarm of Bee’s. Our airplane received no damage (miracle).
Smith Mission No. 10
Date: March 11, 1945
Location of Target: Bremen, Germany
Degree of Difficulty: Some called it tough but I was less frightened than at Kassel or Nürnberg [Nurnburg ]. Lots of flak but it was inaccurate.
Smith Mission No. 11
Date: March 12, 1945
Location of Target: Dillenburg [Dillenberg], Germany
Degree of Difficulty: Mission was easy-bad time with prop [propeller] wash.
Smith Mission No. 12
Date: March 15, 1945
Location of Target: Oranienburg, Germany
Degree of Difficulty: Mission was tough in ways-it was long, lots of flak-and worry before because of expected intense fighter opposition.
Smith Mission No. 13
Date: March 21, 1945
Location of Target: Rheine (Saltzbergen Aerodrome), Germany
Degree of Difficulty: The target was a jet airdrome-accnurate [accurate] flak but minor damage. Not too tough-glad to hit this one.
Smith Mission No. 14
Date: March 22, 1945
Location of Target: Dorsten, Germany
Degree of Difficulty: This was a tactical mission-much flak. Received 1 hole-the engineer was hit on the helmet-punctuates the necessity for them. Not too bad a mission.
Smith Mission No. 15
Date: March 24, 1945
Location of Target: Osnabruck (Achmer Aerodrome) [Osnabrück], Germany
Degree of Difficulty: This was an easy mission-little flak anywhere and none over the target-hard to understand why.
Smith Mission No. 16
Date: March 28, 1945
Location of Target: Big “B” [Berlin], Germany
Degree of Difficulty: Mission was tough & rough-only a madman would fly in that weather-very long mission-much flak-no damage-lucky.
Smith Mission No. 17
Date: March 30, 1945
Location of Target: Bremen, Germany
Degree of Difficulty: Mission was tough-biggest cloud of flak yet-long time coming out-enemy fighters attacked stragglers. We let down thru 12M [12,000] ft. of thick clouds. Snowstorms and icing on all airfields. We made a good hit on the target.
Smith Mission No. 18
Date: April 5, 1945
Location of Target: Gravenwhor [Grafenwhor], Germany
Degree of Difficulty: Mission was easy-first lead mission, flew with Lt. Col. P. Rooney, Sqdn [squadron] C.O. Bad weather but no flak.
Smith Mission No. 19
Date: April 16, 1945
Location of Target: Regensburg, Germany
Degree of Difficulty: Mission was easy-very long-meagre [meager] and inaccurate flak. Col. Rooney finished today. Very many flares were fired.
Editor's Notes:
- The Diary for this date refers to the firing of flares, so we asked a 398th Pilot for his interpretation of what that meant. See paragraph below and also our FAQs.
Firing red flares was a very serious business, especially when landing after returning from a mission because it meant that there was trouble, like wounded on board. In this case, the diary doesn’t state the color of the flares used. I don’t remember anyone firing flares for fun. However, in this case it must have been a celebration, since there was ‘meager flak’ [over the target], so it could be assumed there were few flak holes in the airplane. Lt. Col. Rooney, the 602nd Squadron CO, was known as a bit of a ‘free spirit.’ He was of Irish descent, thus he designed his 602 squadron patch to include a shamrock. So he may have gotten away with firing a variety of flares during landing. He had finished his tour and what could the Group Management do to him then?
Wally Blackwell, December 2003..
Smith Mission No. 20
Date: April 18, 1945
Location of Target: Rosenheim, Germany
Degree of Difficulty: Mission was easy-very long-bad prop [propeller] wash. We flew “totem pole.” We flew over the Austrian & Bavarian Alps-very beautiful.
Editor's Notes:
- The Diary for this date refers to flying "totem pole," so we asked a 398th Pilot for his interpretation of what that meant.
In regard to flying "totem pole", the 602nd was flying in the low squadron position of the group formation on that day. His crew was at the far end of the vee formation, flying on the wing of the plane that was flying on the wing of the squadron lead. Smith’s airplane was playing follow the leader and didn’t have many options, so the remark perhaps showed some frustration. I do not recall the phrase "totem pole" ever being used to designate a particular airplane position in any of the 398th formations.
Wally Blackwell, December 2003.
Smith Mission No. 21
Date: April 25, 1945
Location of Target: Pilzen [Pilsen], (Czechoslovakia)
Degree of Difficulty: Mission was tough-all mixed up 360 degree on tgt. [target]. The flak was moderate to intense and very accurate.
Editor's Note:
- The Diary for this date refers to "doing a 360", so we asked a 398th Pilot for his interpretation of what that meant.
- To “do a 360” over the target area had real meaning. It meant the group formation lead had decided to abandon the initial run from the IP [initial point] to the target, not drop the bombs, and circle back to the IP and do it all over again. Sometimes it was obvious to the crews that the leader had made a necessary decision due to weather, interference from other groups in the bomber stream, etc. However, if the crews in the formation thought that the lead plane messed up leadership wise and exposed them all again to another run to the target, they were pretty vocal about it.
Wally Blackwell, December 2003.
