The New Year, the second calendar year of our existence, opened well enough. Our Groups were up in strength and nature in seasonings. It was getting to be pretty difficult for the Combat Wing staff to contribute to their efficiency. By this time, the pattern was well established: Combat units had fairly regular waves of efficiency. A unit would arrive in the Theater green, sometimes cocky and riding for a fall. It would be a mass of rough edges, difficult to handle. Its operations wouldn’t quite come off. Then, as combat experience was acquired, the rough edges would become smooth. Abortions would drop. You could count on the outfit to turn in a good job of bombing almost any time the weather gave them a chance. Things would stay in the groove for a while, perhaps three or four months. Then something would happen: key personnel transferred or graduated or lost on ops. A particularly bad mission with unduly high losses might temporarily send morale into a slump, and then you couldn’t look for high efficiency until it came back—usually as a result of a good mission or two.

 

January was the beginning of one of those good periods when the Wing Headquarters could afford to relax.  Between Ridgewell and Bassingbourn, we averaged nearly a hundred airplanes in commission. This meant that on the ordinary mission, we would not have to fly more than about two-thirds of our available crews, and this, in turn, had a beneficial influence on the Groups and their work. We had the lowest abortive rate in the Division and that meant that we had the highest percentage of sorties and the highest percentage of aircraft attacking. People said nice things to us when we went up to Division Headquarters. We could afford to smile pleasantly and acknowledge with becoming modesty that our outfit was in the pink.

 

There were a few personnel changes. On the 20th, our Lt. Col. Henry W. Terry, III, became a full Colonel. The promotion came as a complete surprise to everyone except the Boss and Moreau, and was the cause of wholly unprecedented rejoicing and celebrations that were fully adequate to the occasion. On the 5th Clark, our invaluable chief Duty Officer, was made 1st Lieutenant. Captain Ray Kurtz, our charter Navigator, left us to return to the States on the 4th. Captain William C. Melton, erstwhile training officer, was assigned to 1st Bomb Division.

 

The Wing gave birth to one tactical development of note during the month. While the boys were off to Oschersleben on the 11th, weather over England became critical and landing conditions began to look very touchy. Under such circumstances, it was the habit of 1st Division to broadcast weather messages and landing instructions by dot dash. Messages were also sent by VHF, but that ultra-short wave medium was horizontal-limited. Our Combat Wing had very nearly had serious trouble on one mission when the lead ship received the W/T message, but couldn’t repeat it to the other ships because the VHF transmitter had been shot out. All this was the subject of worried conversation at the luncheon table, when the idea was born of extending the VHF horizon by sending a relay ship up to circle over the English Coast. By that method, voice messages could be projected far beyond the enemy coast and all returning pilots could be warned well in advance of their return.

 

The idea was acted on at once. A B-17 was set up and set at the end of the runway for several hours waiting for an emergency, which fortunately, failed to develop. But the idea was promptly reported to General Williams. Like every other Good idea, it was adopted at once. It became S.O.P. to set up a relay ship on all missions where doubtful weather was anticipated on the return, and special relay ships were developed shortly, equipped with extra-powerful transmitters and reserved for the one purpose of carrying the idea to its fullest realization.

 

Operations flown during the month comprised missions to Kiel on the 4th, Tours on the 5th, Ludwigshaven on the 7th, Oschersleben on the 11th, “Crossbow” operations against the mysterious “military installations in northern France” on the 14th and 21st, Frankfurt on the 29th, and Brunswick on the 30th.

 

Earlier in this history we reported how we had suffered losses when we ventured beyond fighter range, how we had been restricted to operations within fighter radius, how we wondered what would happen when again our boys were called on to make the long drags into central Germany. In January we had our answer: one we had hardly dared hope for. The P-51 Mustangs could go all the way. We had been told that they were really long-range jobs, but we were from Missouri on things like that. But the Oschersleben job settled all doubts. The target was nearly 500 miles from the base in a straight line, or a mere 90 miles short of Berlin. It was almost un-creditable that a single-engine one-man pursuit job could make the trip, fight for thirty or forty minutes at the extreme end of the journey, and then get back to base. But when the boys got to the target area, the Mustangs were there! True, there were only a handful of them because only a handful had gone operational, but still, at extreme range they were there. What’s more, they functioned. They looked better at extreme range than Jerry’s best looked over his home base. Best of all was the promise that this held for the future. It was obvious to all that a Mustang, even at short range, was as good as two Thunderbolts, because it could stay with us twice as long. We heard via the grapevine that Mustangs were to replace our Thunderbolts, eventually, we hoped.

 

Oschersleben was quite a yarn in itself. It came to be known as Milton’s Kampf. Lt. Col. Ross Milton, formerly of Polebrook and now of the 91st, was allergic to tough rides. It seemed that every time he led the Wing, he would inevitably wind up in the front position, whether the mission was so laid out or not, and the mission would meet violent opposition. Oschersleben was no exception. Leading the fighter escort almost throughout the trip. Over an hour before reaching the target, the Wing was jumped by a large number of Jerry fighters. The lead aircraft was badly hit. An engine was lost, several cannon shells exploded in the cockpit and Colonel Milton and Captain Everett, his pilot, were both painfully wounded. The Wing nevertheless plowed through and bombed the target, although thirteen aircraft were lost in the attack. The 91st Group’s bombs went astray due to structural damage to the lead ship that affected the mounting of the bombsight, but the 381st’s bombs fell true and straight on the MPI and these bombs, with those Wings that followed, did a complete demolition job on the important aircraft factory, which was the assigned target. Special credit went to Lt. Col. Gillespie of the 91st who was leading our composite high Group. The lead ship of the Wing was hit a second time on the bombing run, causing it to lose speed and altitude. In the seconds that followed he made necessary readjustments in course, enough to meet the emergency, and made it possible for an effective attack to be made, notwithstanding the sudden difficulties that had emerged.

 

The other missions for the month were of purely routine interest, as far as the Wing was concerned. Tours was an excellent visual job under the hand of more airdrome slogging. Kiel was a first class Pathfinder job; although bombing was done by special equipment, a break in the clouds just over the target showed the bombs well dropped in the target area. And good jobs were done on several Crossbow targets.

 

Our results for the month were very good. We scheduled a total of 466 aircraft on operational missions. Of these, only 31, or 6.7%, returned early, giving us the lowest abortive rate in the Division. We were credited with 390, or 83.7%, attacking, which was the highest percentage for the Division. Losses were 20 machines, or 4.3% of aircraft scheduled, against which we were credited with 108 enemy aircraft destroyed, 6 probably destroyed and 34 damaged.