This month, the month of the long-awaited invasion of the Continent, was fully shared by personnel of the Wing. The invasion was largely anti-climatic for us here in the strategic bombing business. We were excited, but when the first realization of the moment had worn off we looked out the window and saw no visible change in our surroundings. The missions we planned and which our boys flew were less complicated and less eventful than the proper function of a strategic force, which was to bomb the sources of the enemy’s strength in Germany; not his tactical dispositions and communications in and behind the Normandy bridgehead. Also, there was no novelty in these tactical targets. We had been bombing them for a long time and with no increasing frequency as D-Day approached.
The Boss knew about D-Day several days in advance. On the afternoon of the 5th, he summoned his Group Commanders to a briefing on the invasion mission itself. It differed from missions of other days principally in the fact that the British sky was to be incredibly filled with airplanes on the morning of the assault. There would be 11,000 planes over this little bit of earth: probably more than had ever taken the air at once since the very beginning of aviation. We were given the narrowest of corridors in which to assemble, fly to the target, bomb, and come home. Our targets were to be the defenses of the landing beaches on which our ground troops would go ashore in a matter of minutes after we had bombed. After bombing, our ships would turn right, cross the base of the Cherbourg Peninsula and round the Channel Islands before turning for England.
As we worked through the night, we heard the roar of engines before the first light of dawn. We scrambled out on the roof next to our Operations room to see the fighter lads from nearby bases wheeling through the dark, their navigation lights flowing, as they prepared to clear the area of operations of any Jerries that might interfere with the execution of our delicate task. Then, at the first suggestion of the dawn, our own boys were off. They had been told of the invasion at their briefing, in a scene whose most dramatic aspect was its utter lack of drama. Just our old pal Terry, now permanent Commander of the 91st, repeating the well-worn formula: “Well, fellow, this is it.”
Never had the boys wanted so keenly to fulfill their appointed task. And this was well, for the weather that morning was not the weather we would have chosen for our part of the job. An unbroken undercast covered the invasion coast, and our boys had to bomb without seeing either the objective or, for that matter, the negative objective which we must avoid bombing at all costs: our own fellows in their landing craft and barges teaming in the unseen Channel below. But the care and skill of the crews did the trick: the landing forces were untouched and when they reached the beach they found that all the shore defenses had been neutralized as called for by the plan, thus contributing in no small measure to the success of the landings.
On D-Day the Boss flew an observation mission over the invasion area with Lord, Hanes, Dewlen, and Villanova, and several fellows of the 91st. They flew the length of the beachhead, but all they saw was clouds, a lot of other airplanes, and a little flak. Through a hole they had a fleeting glimpse of some ships. But at least, in later years, they could say, “I not only helped plan it, but I was there when it happened.”
Personnel-wise the month was notable for the Boss’s promotion to Brigadier General. The news came through unofficially on D plus one and put the invasion two degrees in the shade as far as we were concerned. Officially the event was confirmed by War Department orders of the 21st of June, making the promotion effective as of May 29th.
Among the lesser fry, Haberman was promoted to Major effective the 15th. We lost Honke and Lt. Major, who left for that mythical paradise, the United States of America, on the 22nd. To take Honke’s place in the Navigation berth, we acquired 1st Lt. David A. McCarthy, a Ridgewell graduate. And on the 29th, Major Lord, with us on TD during the Mole’s absence on furlough, went to the 91st to take over the 401st Squadron in place of Major McPartlin, another of the lucky souls to go home.
Operationally, the month broke all records, which was to be expected during the period of the invasion. On a visit to our station some weeks before, General Eisenhower had promised the boys that when the time came, they would be worked as never before. We ran 27 missions during June. Only three missions were against strategic targets: Hamburg on the 18th and 20th, and Berlin on the 21st. On all the other missions, we were giving either direct or indirect support to the ground forces in France, even when we hit targets in the extreme south of France, such as the airdrome at Toulouse and in the Bordeaux region where Jerries had based their long-range He-177 bombers equipped with the radio-controlled glider bomb. These, it was anticipated, might have been effectively used against shipping in the Channel.
The amazing thing about all these tactical missions was the complete absence of fighter opposition. The first few days we thought the Luftwaffe had been caught napping, but as the days wore on without the expected opposition materializing, we came to the realization that one phase of our mission had been accomplished better than we knew: the job of so wearing down and reducing the fighter strength of the GAF that when the invasion came the skies would belong to us. Quite apparently we had won the battle that began in February, when we made our series of attacks on the German fighter factories. If we never contributed another thing to the final outcome, we had paid our freight in this one affair.
But even while all this was going on, we had a little time for another matter, which it was hoped might contribute in another way to the result. Our attack on Hamburg on the 20th was perhaps the most successful single mission ever flown. Here, we were after oil targets: refineries, handling facilities and storage. The 1st Division had 9 separate oil plants as pinpoint targets and destroyed every one of them. Added to the constant attacks on synthetic oil plants in every part of Hitler’s Europe and the constant hammering of the Fifteenth at Ploesti in Romania, the day might come when the Wehrmacht would cough out and come to a halt for want of gas and oil. Would this phase of our mission bear fruit, as our phase against the fighters of the GAF had paid off? Only the future would tell.
Statistically, the month was one we might equal again, but we really doubted it this time. We were credited with the amazing total of 2,100 sorties. We led the Division in daily average effective strength, cashing in on the fact that we now had three seasoned Groups in our Wing. Maintaining a daily average of 146 ships and crews ready for war, we had more weight to throw than the Eighth Air Force fought the war with during its first year of existence.
For the fourth time in four successive months, we led the Division in abortives. Again, we led in percentage of dispatched aircraft attacking targets. We had only 25 ships that returned early or 1.2%, compared with 3.1%, which was the average for the other three Combat Wings. The 381st Group had only one airplane return early out of 716 scheduled and was cited by General Williams for this amazing record. And we had 91.5% of our aircraft attacking, against a Division average of 87.5%.
And again, as we closed the books, we wondered what would come next.
> July 1944