First mission: Hanover

Sixty years ago today, Daddy flew off on his first bombing raid. I can only imagine what he thought about on his way to the target, and on his way back, but it must have been quite an experience for an 18-year-old farm boy.

This first part is from the official US Army Air Force Chronology, describing all the activities of the Eighth Air Force for the day. The scale of these operations--in terms of manpower, machinery and money--really boggles me:

STRATEGIC OPERATIONS (Eighth Air Force): 3 missions are flown.
Mission 886: 1,262 bombers and 804 fighters are dispatched to hit oil, rail and industrial targets in Germany; they claim 17-0-1 Luftwaffe aircraft in the air; 3 B-17s and 2 fighters are lost:
1. 526 B-17s are sent to hit oil refineries at Nienhagen (58) and Misburg (56), the Gebruder munitions plant (75) and Maschnbau (61) and Eisenwerke (74) factories at HANNOVER and the Seelze marshalling yard (80); secondary targets hit are Osnabruck (29) and the marshalling yard at Hannover; attacks were made visually and with H2X radar; 2 B-17s are lost, 1 damaged beyond repair and 188 damaged; 3 airmen are KIA, 6 WIA and 19 MIA. 192 of 204 P-51s escort; 2 are damaged.
2. 449 B-17s are dispatched to hit the bridges at Vlotho (72) and Bad Ostenhausen (114), the marshalling yard and road junction at Lohne (144) and industrial plants at Hildesheim (60); 39 hit Osnabruck, a secondary target; targets of opportunity are the marshalling yards at Hameln (12) and Wetzlar (1) and Diemonde (1); all but one target is bombed visually; 1 B-17 is lost and 56 damaged; 1 airman is WIA and 9 MIA. Escorting are 182 of 194 P-51s; they claim 1-0-1 aircraft.
3. 272 B-24s are sent to hit the marshalling yards at Holzwickede (31) and Gutersloh (126); 110 others hit the secondary target, the marshalling yard at Giessen; attacks are made visually and with H2X radar; 4 B-24s are damaged; 1 airman is KIA and 5 WIA. The escort is 185 P-47s and P-51s; they claim 3-0-0 aircraft; 1 P-47 is lost (pilot MIA).
4. 6 B-17s fly a screening mission without loss.
5. 29 of 33 P-41s escort Ninth AF bombers.
6. 50 P-51s fly a sweep of the Stein-Huder-Kassel area claiming 11-0-0 aircraft without loss.
7. 82 P-51s fly a sweep over the Remagen bridgehead; 1 P-51 is lost (pilot MIA) and 1 damaged beyond repair.
8. 20 P-51s escort 33 F-5s and 3 Spitfires on photo reconnaissance missions over Germany and Czechoslovakia.
9. 26 of 27 P-51s fly a scouting mission claiming 1-0-0 aircraft.
Mission 887: 9 B-17s use DISNEY rockets weapons on the Ijmuiden submarine pens without loss.
Mission 888: 7 B-24s bomb the marshalling yard at Wiesbaden by PFF during the night without loss.

TACTICAL OPERATIONS (Ninth Air Force): In Germany, 350+ A-20s, A-26s and B-26s hit 3 airfields, 4 rail bridges, a junction, 5 towns, and 3 targets of opportunity as the interdiction operations continue; fighters escort the bombers, attack railroads and other special targets, fly patrols, sweeps, and armed reconnaissance, cover the Remagen area, and support the US XII Corps as it begins a drive from the Mosel River to the Rhine River, and the XX Corps operations W of Trier and Saarburg. HQ 367th Fighter Group moves from St Dizier to Conflans, France. The 410th Fighter Squadron, 373d Fighter Group, moves from Le Culot, Belgium to Venlo, the Netherlands with P-47s.

And Daddy was somewhere in the middle of all that. Found a few memories recorded by others who flew that day:

We had a Group stand down on Monday and Tuesday but on Wednesday, March 14, 1945 we flew our third mission. Our primary target was an oil refinery at Mienhagen, Germany. Our secondary was a railway junction at Hannover. No. one engine went out near the primary. We couldn't keep up with the formation and couldn't drop our bombs. Losing altitude we went over the target alone and turned for home. Two P-51 fighters, one on each wing escorted us to England. We had to drop our bombs in the channel. We were carrying fourteen 500-pound bombs. We had a lot of flak today but no fighter interception. Good weather little friends, God, a good pilot, a good navigator and teamwork brought us home. We flew ship No. 820 and our flying time was 7 hours and 10 minutes. -- Lyman R Huffman, Jr, 832 BS, 486th BG

Target: marshalling yards. Intense flak. Two men (waist gunner and tail gunner) were killed in squadron. A number were wounded. Lost one plane from group and one crash-landed in Belgium. Bombing was visual. -- Harvey K Wingard, 350th BS, 100th BG

His whole back side was shot off - his flesh was hanging on the control cables in the fuselage where I worked. Del Siadek and myself had attempted to give Kuzma morphine, but the little syrettes we had were just frozen hard. And I can picture this today - - the two of us with these syrettes in our mouth, where we thawed out the morphine, injected poor Kuzma, and helped to save his life. -- Maynard Stewart, 95th BG

This last bit is from a book Mom loaned me about the history of the Snetterton Falcons. Snetterton Heath was where Daddy was based. It's in Norfolk, England, very near Little Walsingham, where his Grandpa Alfred was born in 1848. How circular is that?

Take-off was even later today at 1030 for the Hannomag tank factory. H2X was used but the bombing was only fair. Many new crews were flying with the 96th now. Peder Larsen's diary hints at the frustrations of the more seasoned fliers: "Had new boys on each wing and they tried to fly too darn close. Don't know how Brandt missed me once when he overshot." No casualties, no damage.

Brandt was the pilot of Daddy's crew. If he hadn't missed that day, none of us would be here.