Mission # 30: Saarbrucken then Home!
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Memories of WWII Pilots
& Crews
the 8th Air Force, 305th Bomb group, 364 Squadron based in Chelveston England. It
never ceases to amaze me that these young men could get back into a plane once they
had experiences like the ones described here. Somehow they did, and we should
always remember their courage for without that, the world would surely be a different
place.
This is my story of a raid on Saarbrucken, Germany May 11, 1944. Lead
By��Group C.O. My Position��#2 Lead Squadron�Deputy Group Lead
Altitude�� 28000 feet, speed��150, Ground speed�215 Enemy action�Few
fighters, very heavy Flak, and accurate. Lead bombardier screwed up on our first pass over the target and he didn�t drop his load of bombs. Col. chose to make a second
pass, same IP, same altitude. By now we were all full of holes and a couple of planes
were out. Someone screamed on the radio �are you nuts�. By now the gunners had us
zeroed in and were just waiting for us. The second pass proved to be the Cols. last.
He became a big ball of fire right next to us. The Group scattered and we dove 5000
feet to avoid any more hits. After we left the target we tried to re-group the planes and
as they started to get into formation I heard one of them say �get away from him, he�s
going to blow.� They were referring to me. At that same time the ball turret gunner
asked to be brought out of his turret because it was filling with gas. One of the waist
gunners confirmed that gas was running down off the wing like a fire hose. He also
told me the other waist gunner had been hit and he was going to check him out. The
crew chief started to transfer fuel from the ruptured tank to one of the others because
we had a long ways to go home and could not afford too great a loss of fuel. Now, we
are alone, one wounded, one engine shut down, low on fuel, and at least three hours
from England. We decided to stay with the plane as long as we had three engines
running. Luckily we saw no more fighters. We threw out everything that we could
including all the guns and ammo, everything but the chutes. Our wounded gunner was
responding OK so we settled in for a long ride home. When we got to the channel we
decided we had enough fuel to cross. We found a glider base just over the coast and
landed straight in. We put our gunner in the hospital and went to the base bar to stress
out. And so it goes.
Liberty MUST remember that Freedom is not Free.
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