398th Bomb Group
Memorial
Association


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

Fugge Mission No. 28

29 July 1944
Target: Oil Refineries, Merseburg, Germany

July 29, 1944
Got up at 0200. Briefed at 0300 and our time has come to hit another target. Our target was the oil refineries at Merseburg, Germany. Take off was 0540. Carried 18 – 250 lb. G.P. bombs and flew the North Sea route.

Flak at the target was heavy and accurate. Got our share of holes. No one was hurt. One of the boys from Squadron 602 got hit pretty bad and was nearly dead when they reach our home base.

Enemy fighters were in the target area but our escort was right on the ball. When we hit the English Coast the ceiling was zero our whole wing was SNAFU’ed as soon as we hit it. Flew about an hour in the soup, not knowing where any of the other 53 planes were barely able to see our wing tips. Boy !! it was really frightening and I was scared and so was the rest of the crew. Never saw any of the other planes and flew home alone. The let-down was scary too and we landed with 120 gals. of gas for four engines that use 50 gals. each an hour. Some of the crews aren’t home yet and it’s 2000 now. We lost 17 bombers.

MISSION # 28 COMPLETED. Safely, Thank God. Four more to go.

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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