Chapter 4

Our first real combat mission was to Meresberg on November 2nd 1944. We were as green as grass and hadn't seen flak before. Well, we certainly saw FLAK that day! Meresberg was the site of the Leuna Synthetic Oil Refinery, the largest such oil complex in Germany. German scientists had perfected a process in which they extracted oil (which was very scarce) from coal (which was still plentiful in the Reich). This synthetic fuel was the lifeblood of what remained of the German Army, Navy and Luftwaffe. Germany at that time had plenty of tanks and planes, but had a chronic shortage of fuel with which to run them, and there is nothing so useless as as a tank that can't move, or a fighter that can't fly! A full 15 minutes before the target we were in Very Heavy Flak, and it stayed with us all the way in! This vital target was so vulnerable to destruction from the air, that it was surrounded by close to a thousand heavy flak guns (88mm and 105mm). Flak came up in mass barrages of exploding shells. When each shell explodes, black smoke puffs out in a pattern that reminds one of the image of a little man, with a head, arms and legs. It sends red hot fragments of steel into the surrounding sky. These hot fragments can rip an engine open, can rip a fuel tank open which flames into an unstoppable fire, can rip a human body open with terrible results. If a shell explodes near enough to the aircraft it can blow off an engine or even a wing, sealing the doom of the whole crew in an instant. The sky is loaded with these explosions, and as the smoke of each burst is thinned by propwash, many more new bursts appear. Soon the sky is black! You are on a bomb run and accurate bombing demands a steady straight course with no deviations. It's a "crapshoot". The next flak shell might go right through you, but if you don't destroy the target, all of this will be for naught, and you'll be back... forced to go through this again. Please Lord...Let's get it done...

Meresberg that day cost the eighth 56 aircraft, 40 of these were bombers. We picked up only eight flak holes and considered ourselves very lucky.

We went to Hamburg on the 4th. The Oil Campaign is continuing. Heavy flak but off to the side mostly. This shows the effectiveness of "chaff" or "window". These are small packets of metallic strips which are periodically tossed out by the waist gunner They fan out in a glittering trail in the slipstream and botch-up the accuracy of radar-laid flak. One of the few good things about Bombing Through Overcast (P.F.F.) is the flak is usually less accurate because of this ability to "jam" flak radar. When conditions are visual for bombing, they are also visual for Flak guns. You can't "jam" visual aiming of AA guns. No holes at Hamburg. We had a bomb rack malfunction, but got rid of the bombs.

On the 5th we go to Ludwigshaven. This target has a bad reputation. This city and its almost twin across the Rhine, Mannheim are always tough targets. The flak is always heavy and if the ground is visible it will always be rough. We were after the I.G. Farbenindustrie Chemical plant. Bombing was visual with good results... AND the the flak was also visual and very accurate. A rumor had started that the flak guns at Ludwigshaven were manned by female flak crews. The "Ladies of Ludwigshaven"...No verification of this but they were damn good with AA whomever they were. Many times flak is not close enough to hear the explosions, but this time each flak shell explosion was so close that they sounded like heavy, giant doors being slammed by a huge giant, followed almost simultaneously by a sound like heavy gravel being thrown onto a tin roof. The gravelly sound was the fragments going through our aircraft. Again, to bomb accurately we have to stay steady on the bomb run. No evasive maneuvers allowed. The heavy close flak continues when suddenly we heel over into a hard right bank and head for the ground. I call on interphone...no answer...I call again... still no answer. I am beginning to wonder if ol' Mac is all alone in this diving B-17. I grab my chest pack and clip it on. I'm very close to making a move to the escape hatch when we level out and start to climb. Someone is flying this thing. Still no voices. Shortly thereafter, Abe crawls back to the tail wearing a walk-around bottle and taps me on the shoulder. He gives me an OK? query with the thumb and index finger. I point to my earphone and shake my head side to side. He reaches over to my radio selector and turns the knob back to interphone. Why didn't I check that? I had inadvertently bumped the selector with my shoulder, knocking it off the interphone channel. It was our toughest mission yet. Bombing visual with good results. Flak intense and accurate. Lost #2 supercharger...Cracked bulletproof glass windshield in front of pilot. 30 to 40 flak holes in aircraft...No injuries.