European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 26, 1945, Darmstadt, Hesse Lonewolf Mission one of the first night bombing heavies to Fly Solo from Italy Over Germany loses three of its engines and crashes in the by George Barrett yank staff correspondent four fifteenth air Force b17 Crews stood in the Large Stone room with the secret listening to the intelligence your target will be the Blech Hammer South Oil refinery in the major nobody moved for a then someone in the Back of the room sighed and a Pilot sucked in his son of a he your Call sign is said the the sign was we were to Fly this night As Lone wolves without fighter pro if we it meant that american heavy bombers would no longer have to remain As they did last Winter when Weathe made formation flying escort the four fortresses from our group were to take off at close and bombers from other groups were to Fly at the same time to the same the each flying Over a different route and at a different Altitude and come in Over Blech Hammer one after the our Mission was to end the bogey of bad this is the fourth night we have bombed the target this the major on other nights the Crews have been instructed to return to base without dropping their bombs if they could get no Cloud cover Over the your planes Are fitted with delayed action so you cannot land with therefore you will bomb regardless of Cloud that you will bomb visually if by but you will there is a probability that 25 two engine night attack make careful it will help later the major stepped aside and another Intelli gence officer took his this is where you can expect he he took a piece of a kind of bombers from his pocket and read tone Lessly sixteen heavy guns at 25 Miles West of course 163 guns at Blank 310 heavies at his voice droned in the Large room without Reading the list of where death could be met and the briefing went on for two then we walked out on the dark we dressed heavy putting on All the paraphernalia to compensate for cold and Lack of oxygen and flying Shrap i was to go As left Waist relieving David Dykes of we took off on schedule and turned upward in the night in rapid sequence each gun aboard the plane was fired to Clear for spurting flames like acetylene we were ordered to Black out a Blue Light Over the belly gunners Turret vaguely lit the narrow somewhere a Bell tinkled faintly As the Pilot checked the signal for abandon we climbed very High and the cold came my hand brushed the Waist Armor it burned like dry most of the time the Black Ness was like flying in a but once the under cast broke for a moment and the lights of a town polka dotted the darkness and then the oxygen flow fouled briefly and the Tail gun Ted Scott of called Over the interphone that he was seeing things but he switched to pure oxygen for a while and reported All once some search lights probed to our but they get water swept into the ditched b17 against the men in the radio through the overcast and blinked once i looked Down and saw the Flash of artillery i pointed it out to the right Waist James Goodrich of Royal its the he the flight went i got then the voice of the Tail came Over the inter phone Beaucoup Goodrich and i pulled on our flak letting them drag from one shoulder to Blanket the Side of our bodies not protected by the Armor the flak was heavy there were some lights below shining through the thinning and i figured that was then the Bombardier announced the bomb sight was no Over with ice from the 68 below Zero cold despite a special heated the Raymond Tuwalski of called to the radar operator Byron Martin of and i to target on a course Martin Over and sighted for Range on his which is now so sensitive that ground features Are roughly reproduced through the worst we started the the flak was heavy but seemed far there they somebody said Over the the bombs were followed by news and the sky filled with paper like we turned from the it looked As though the Mission had been a eight in the target somebody then the 3 engine the Robert Draper of and the James Miller of tried to help the Pilot Feather but the engine froze too then the prop sheared off by itself and wind milled Down and out of sighs of Relief came Over the the lights of Blech Hammer were gone and the under cast was shielding then the 2 engine flamed in Brilliant streaks and blew three Cylinder the Gyro instruments suddenly went out and the radar quit cold from Lack of switch off your electric the ack ack Worth of i need the juice for my How far Are we from base asked the Isaac Pederson of about 600 Worth that the radio operator put he was Carmine Noce of the ship was losing Altitude in four min utes we were Down from to get ready to bail the Pilot Spring the the emergency catch was pulled on the door and it catapulted i snapped my Parachute on the harness and yanked at the Crotch to make sure it would be snug when i i took off my glasses and slipped them into a knee pocket How about throwing some of the heavy stuff Over the Pilot Scott came Forward from the Tail and we be Gan to throw out the gun the right Waist gun was cleared first and 97 pounds of shells clicked across the Jamb and snaked the other Belt and then our flak vests and anything we could eight thousand the Copilot Shes taking the Pilot losing Only 300 feet a minute no one said anything for a what those yugoslav mountains the Pilot think we can Clear them if we can hold Worth they should be about in going to play a Long shot and try for the emergency Landing strip on Taftt Adriatic the Pilot minutes the plane seemed to be hold ing its own the navigator Cut course a Shade and we flew along a were Over the the navigator i relaxed and looked across at Scott and and then the navigator added Shes covered Over with visibility ceiling the useless without penetrate the guess we cant make it was still dark we were still drop and there were 100 Miles of Adriatic the Pilot said i say stick with the the Copilot said i say Check with i one after in tones that were almost the Crew voted to at we levelled there was a Pale strip of Dawn ahead of it was still but every once in a while i could see water we started to go Down at the radio operator began sending the distress May in the distance i could see the italian then the 1 engine ran out of Gas and sputtered and Here we Scott the ship began to fall weve got to the Pilot get you men in the Waist and Tail pile into the radio Compart we snapped off our chutes and went vhf fortress cracking the surface of the i water time suspended a we saw the water burst in and almost simultaneously sweep against us in the radio i gasped and struck and the water lifted me neatly out through the radio Hatch and into the i scrambled Back onto the the others were already two dinghies were floating in the everything seemed very then i was in one of the and the plane was foundering slowly in the water be Hind in the distance we could see an italian fishing boat coming after the fishing boat picked us up and took us into where there was an ambulance when we got there we were told that two of the four planes in our group had not but the other planes that had gone out from other groups that night had proved that night bombing could be successful during the no one talked much after we heard the news about the other two but when we were piling into the ambulance the Copilot looked at his watch and said those bombs we dropped Are just blowing up 11
