Remember, gentle reader, that since December of 1943 we have been conducting a two Group operation. Where other Wings of our Division had three Groups and three stations to call on, we had but two. Nonetheless, we pulled our weight for April of 1944. The statistical record for the month contained little to suggest that our Wing had to fly one patched-up Group on every mission. In spite of the extra drain on our operational and maintenance personnel, we still managed to lead the Division in percentage of sorties accomplished and in keeping down the number of aircraft returning early. We did some good bombing, too, with our Wing placing second out of the thirty operational Groups that were giving Mr. Hitler the once-over-lightly. And our loss ratio was lowest in the Division.

 

What is more, it was another big month. Not the biggest ever, but tied for top, with sixteen operational missions equaling the record we had thought incredible in March. Best of all, however, in April we rounded out our Wing when the 398th Bomb Group under Col. Frank Hunter took a lease for the duration at the neighboring village of Nuthampstead and moved into our Wing, lock, stock, and barrel.

 

The 398th didn’t go operational during the month. A small advance guard, consisting of the Deputy Group Commander, the S-2, the Communications Officer and an assistant S-4 came to Bassingbourn the early part of the month. Then, on the 18th, a detachment headed by Col. Terry, our Executive, departed the creature comforts of Bassingbourn for the rugged Nissen huts of Nuthampstead to make ready for the newcomers and take over the management of the station until the new outfit arrived and got squared off. The detachment consisted of Colonel Terry commanding, Major Akins for engineering, Major Toland for bombing department, Captain Chima for operations, Capt. Dewlen for communications, Capt. Haberman for the intelligence department, and Cpl. Hays to drive Terry’s car and press his pants. Special mention must be made of Lt. Paul Dreiling, alias “The Fox”, one of our trusty duty officers, who came along just in case and remained to earn the title of “Dean Dreiling” by his excellent work as manager of the ground school for the new crews. Our two old Groups also came through with some key personnel: Maj. Marvin D. Lord of Ridgewell and Capt. Bill Martin of the 91st came through handsomely as tactical instructors and we had call, when needed, on such people as Lt. Col. Robert P. Hare and Major Otto Cahill of the 91st to help with ground problems. And yeoman work had already been done for months by S/Ldr. Quayle of the RAF and his staff of sergeants by way of setting up the target files and supervising the preparation of the physical layout of Briefing. Also, we and the new Group were lucky enough to procure the service of Lt. Johnny Battle, formerly S-2 section chief at Thurleigh, who had later organized the S-2 section at Glatton after he graduated from OCS.

 

We liked the looks of the new Group when it arrived. For some reason, they had never flown the Combat Box formation exactly as it is flown in this Theater, but they knew the principles of formation flying and readily adapted themselves to the system in use here. On the ground, they were a good-looking bunch of youngsters; eager to get into combat, eager to learn what they could from the course of sprouts we put them through. And we laid it on fairly thick. We knew that Division wanted to send them into combat as quickly as possible, so we gave them a concentrated dose of ground school, starting at 8 in the morning and lasting until 9 at night, with short intervals for meals. We gave them just the bare essentials; security, escape and evasion, tactics, flak, air discipline, communications and so forth. Then we flew them in practice, first by themselves, then in combat Wing formation, which they had never flown with one of the other Groups in the lead and the 398th putting up the high and low boxes. This they could easily do, as they arrived in the Theater with strength up to the new Table of Organization calling for seventy-two airplanes per Group, something the older Groups had seen some of the new un-camouflaged airplanes, but this was the first outfit to be entirely equipped with them.

 

As we ended the month, the 398th was about to go to war. The time and manner of its going will be reported in our next installment.

 

Operationally, April started with a dull thud. March, we recalled, had been a whale of a month. For the first seven days of April, nothing happened except that the weather was strictly no good. This was especially tough on the Boss, who was due to lead the next job and to sweat out one scrub job after another. Every night he would work himself up to the point of going to Berlin or some place we couldn’t even pronounce, such as Oberpfaffenhofen, and then before takeoff would come the old scrub. Finally, on the 8th, April got started and the Boss got it off his chest with a trip to Oldenburg, near Bremen, where the local GAF airdrome was attacked with good results and credit for all.

 

On the 9th, we started for Gdynia, ‘way down east in Poland, but ol’ man weather interfered. Our boys broke up in a cloud bank and had to abandon ops. It was just one of those things and the powers didn’t count it against us. Three of the ships tagged on to other outfits and bombed targets in Poland and East Prussia. The Groups had a long sweat waiting for these lads to check in.

 

Brussels on the 10th kept the pot boiling. We found bad weather at the target and the lead Group went on to bomb secondary, which was Woensdrecht airfield in Holland. Communications were unaccountably poor, with the results that the high and low boxes waited until they found a hole through which to bomb the primary. Results were good and although the Groups came home without rejoining, there were no losses.

 

On the 11th they threw the boys another long ride. Targets were the presumably out of range airplane factories at Cottbus and Sorau, both southeast of Berlin, the latter almost on the Polish border, and both outside the 600 mile circle on our situation map. How wrong Jerry was: our Tokyo tank ships were not only able to make the trip, but even to return by going around Robin’s barn, going due north to pick up a secondary near Stettin and then coming home via the Baltic, Denmark and North Sea. The round trip was nearly 1,900 miles, which is no small stakes in any language. We put up a total of 73 ships from our two stations, flying a combat wing of our own and contributing one Group to a composite wing. In our own Wing, only the lead box was able to see the primary, which it bombed with good results. The other two Groups were unable to see either the primary or the assigned secondary and bombed the naval dockyard and stores at Stettin as a target of opportunity, also with good results. The lead Group waited on the edge of the flak while the other two went in for their attack. Then they joined up again and came home. Meanwhile the fourth Group found and bombed its primary at Sorau, also with good results. We lost two aircraft, which was modest enough by the standard we had learned to accept for far shorter rides. But times were different and we hoped things would stay that way.

 

On the 13th we took another crack at Schweinfurt. There had been repairs and the great Kugelfischer works was still standing as though it bore a charmed life. This time, the charm broke. Smoke from pots and the bombing of preceding Wings gave our bombardiers their troubles, but a good job was done nonetheless. It was nearly impossible to tell what outfit did it. Our losses were only one ship and we remembered the day when our little Wing alone had paid 27 ships as its share of the admission price to this classic of targets.

 

Of the remaining missions for the month, the outstanding fact is that we flew eleven in thirteen days. The boys made a successful attack on the Heinkel airplane works at Oranienburg, a suburb of Berlin, on the 18th. The next day we lost five ships on a routine job on the airdrome at Eschwege, near Erfurt. This was just bad breaks. One of our Groups took a second pass at the target and while they were off freelancing, 25 single-engine Jerries made one pass and knocked down the five ships. They came out of the sun and it was just bad luck that they were positioned for the attack at the moment of our vulnerability. Significance must be attached, however, to the fact that this was Jerry’s worst in the month of unusually high activity, at least as far as our Wing was concerned.

 

On the 20th we had the first of the two “Crossbow” missions that robbed us of the distinction of again leading the Division in percentage of airplanes attacking targets. Crossbow target, the first “military objectives in Northern France”, were fiendishly difficult for the bombardiers to find in good weather. When they were obscured or socked in the bombs had to be brought back, for random bombing in the occupied countries was forbidden. And this was just what happened to us on the 20th and again on the 27th.

 

Other jobs were more or less routine. Good bombing and few losses was our happy lot. On the 22nd the whole Eighth Air Force dumped on Ham marshalling yards, probably the most bombed target in Europe. On the 24th the boys did a magnificent job on Erding airdrome, near Munich, where two Groups deposited their demolition bombs right on the MPI and the third Group laid its incendiaries right in the middle. Then followed a good job on Metz/Freseaty airdrome, in Alsace, on the 25th, a Pathfinder job on Brunswick on the 26th, another good attack on Avord airfield in central France on the 28th and of all things, a routine Pathfinder job on Berlin on the 29th! How quickly came the day when Berlin had become a milk run! Only two months before we quaked at the very idea.

 

Finally, on the 30th, we obliged with a single composite Group for an attack on Lyon airfield in southern France. We were permitted to withhold two Groups to fly a practice mission with the 398th. The attack was brilliantly executed, considering that our leader lost an engine at the IP and couldn’t feather it. The deputy took over without a second to spare and put the bombs smack on the button. And all, including the crippled leader, came safely home, ending what must be considered a whacking good month for the good old First and Worst.

 

Statistically, we shaped up something as follows: we flew 822 sorties and delivered 1,787 tons of bombs on targets. We had only 23 abortives for the entire month, for an average of 2.7% as against a Division average of 4.2% and 4.0% for our nearest rivals. We lost 15 aircraft in all, or less than one per mission. Our loss ratio was 1.7% against a Division of 2.3%. But for that one unlucky pass at Eschwege, ---! In May, by George, we would do even better, said we.