Planes I Flew In

The records report that I flew with Bernie, as "First Pilot", for the first time. We now had what we referred to as a, "bastard crew". Made up of crewmembers who were not assigned to a specific crew. We flew together for eight missions -- until Bernie completed his tour of combat.

"Mr. Takoma" flew a total of 34 combat missions -- from August 20 to December 6 -- it was recorded as, "shot down".

B 17: #952 “Norah”

September 21, 1944

Our target for today was the huge chemical plant at Ludwigshafen, Germany. There was a solid wall of flak over the target area, but we somehow managed to slip through. We were alerted to be on the lookout for enemy fighters today but our great fighter escort kept them away. On our return home, we again found our base "socked in". But Bernie made a hot landing. No losses today.

"Norah" flew a total of 99 missions -- from August 1 to April 12 -- the records state, "returned ZOI". (back to the States).

B 17: #972 "Ula Lume"

September 28, 1944

Today's mission was the roughest to date (for Me). We hit an oil refinery at Merseburg, Germany. Lots of flak. On the bomb run, shortly after we dropped our bombs, I saw the lead ship of the high squadron break in two right before my eyes. They must have taken a direct hit in the bomb bay area and no chutes could be seen coming out of the two halves. It was a horrible sight, believe me. The front half, with all four props still turning, seemed to "peal off' to the right -- while the tail portion hesitated for a moment -- still in formation -- before it started to slowly flutter backwards toward the earth. Debris from inside the plane also seemed to float through the formation. It was as if it was all taking place in slow motion. I don't know if any planes were damaged by this falling debris, but I'm sure some were hit.

We had a few new crews flying today and some of them started to break formation. It was a mess. The lead plane fired flares to attract close by planes to re-form again. There were' 1 7's all around and pilots attempted to tag on to any nearby plane for protection. Luckily, our flight managed to stay together.

It soon became apparent that not all the planes were flown by Americans, because one of them began to fire at another B 1 7 attempting to slide into position. More than one gunner burned out his gun barrels shooting back at it. We had been alerted that the Germans had a few B 24's and B 17's that they repaired -- and their strategy was to fly them off to the side of our formations and radio our altitude and airspeed to the gunners below in order to make their flak barrage more accurate (and it worked). Fortunately for us, there were no enemy fighters to contend with. Our fighter escort did another great job today.

If the sight of a B 17 breaking up in front of me, and the appearance of the "strange" B 1 7 in the formation were not enough -- one of the bursts of flak came through the nose and showered my face with Plexiglas splinters. I was so scared that I

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