DIARY OF S/SGT CLARENCE F. KOOI

Ball Gunner, Stevenson’s Crew

(transcribed by Lynda and Claire-Marie, Clarence's daughters)

835^th Heavy Bombardment Squadron

486^th Heavy Bombardment Group

4^th Combat Bombardment Wing

3^rd Bombardment Air Division

8^th Air Force

US Strategic Air Forces, Europe.

This is the part of the diary I kept during my service in World War II. It contains all of the entries from December 18, 1944 to May 7, 1945, the end of hostilities in Germany with accounts of the 28 missions I flew as ball turret gunner on Lt. Stevenson’s crew. Our airplane was “Miss B Havin”.

Our crew consisted of pilot James W. Stevenson of Hickory, North Carolina, co-pilot Wayne A. Scott of Letcher, South Dakota, navigator Harold C. Burgan of Baltimore, Maryland, nose turret gunner Joseph Ferreri from Baltimore, Maryland, engineer-top turret gunner Bill Rodgers from Ozone Park, Long Island, New York, radio operator-gunner Charles J. Lantz from Salem, Ohio, ball turret gunner Clarence F. Kooi (me) from Sheldon, Iowa, waist gunner Cloyd R. Merk from Smithton, Missouri, and tail gunner Melvin Morley from Belleville, Kansas.

We came together as a crew in August, 1944 at Drew Field, Tampa, Florida. By December 3 we were at Hunter Field, near Savannah, Georgia where we picked up our airplane, then, in rapid succession we flew to Dow Field near Bangor, Maine, and Gander Lake AAF, Newfoundland, where we waited four days for the weather to improve so we could fly to Europe. A B-24 crashed while we were there. Then a twelve hour flight from Gander to Valley, Wales; then on to Burtonwood field near Liverpool, England where we left our airplane; then, by truck to the replacement center at Duncan Hall, which appears to be near Birmingham, and finally, by train to Sudbury and the 486^th Bombardment Group, Eighth Air Force.

My daughters, Lynda and Claire-Marie, typed from the hand-written diary verbatim, with no corrections or changes. I added comments and explanations in curly brackets {---}.

DECEMBER 18, 1944 MONDAY

To-day we arrived at the spacious replacement center, Duncan Hall, where we will be entertained with KP, guard duty, processing and meals which any good porker would relish. We do have one consolation, however. That is that we will probably only be here for a few days. We do have very good living quarters with four men to a room and even mattress covers on the mattresses. We came by truck from Burtonwood this morning. Burtonwood is about 75 miles from here. A day ago, Sunday, we came from Valley to Burtonwood Via B-17.  We left our plane there and resorted to trucks. The day before that, Saturday, we came, via B-17, from Gander Field.  It took us 12 hours and in that time we covered about nineteen hundred miles, mostly over water.

JANUARY 13, 1945 SATURDAY {Our mission 31, 486th mission 131}

We made our first mission to-day. We got up at 4:45 ate breakfast and were at briefing a little late. Since we were a little new and didn’t know our way around we didn’t get our guns and equipment out to the plane in time so we took off about a half hour late at 8:30. We went on oxygen very soon and after circling over England for almost two hours to form we had only 200 pounds left out of the 400 we took off with. It was cloudy all the way over but in France we could see the ground which was mostly covered with snow. I was very air sick and vomited a few times in the ball turret. We were at about 26,000 ft. by this time and it froze immediately - all over my coat. I couldn’t get out of the turret because we were quite near the battle lines and our target which was a small railroad bridge at Mainz. As we went over the lines we hit some flak. I was still sick and the oxygen was down to about 70 pounds. We had two groups of P-51’s and one group of P-47’s for escort now. We did not see any enemy planes at any time. We were soon over the target and each plane of the group dropped their five 1000 lb. bombs. There was more flak here and much closer to us. We weren’t hit though. My oxygen was down to ten pounds now and I only had a few minutes left. I got out of the turret and broke my oxygen mask while disconnecting it. Merk {Cloyd Merk, our waist gunner} got another one for me out of the emergency kit while I held the broken one together as well as I could. We soon descended so we could go off oxygen. We went over a solid overcast all the way back. It was sunny up on top and the clouds looked like huge puffy white heaps of wool. We made an instrument let-down and came out a few hundred feet off the ground in drizzle and fog - in sharp contrast to the sunny world up on top. I was in the ball turret for about five hours and air-sick every minute of them. We bombed through clouds so we could not see them strike.

JANUARY 24, 1945 WEDNESDAY

We got up at 0330 this morning and briefed at 0430 for marshaling yards just across the front lines in the Ruhr Valley. The flak was supposed to be heavy and a lot of fighters were in the vicinity. We had all our guns in and ready to go when the mission was scrubbed on account of the weather which was closed in right to the ground. We were sorry we couldn’t go since it was a very short mission and it would have helped the ground forces on the front very much since a panzer division was moving through these yards. We are alerted again tomorrow. This is the 12^th time we have been alerted and we only have one mission yet.

This afternoon five of the crew fired the 45 on an indoor pistol range. I fired six rounds from a Luger 9mm. German gun also.

I am on the thirteenth lesson of my USAFI geometry course now and I’m going to two classes of German a week now.

I went to London for two days starting Saturday and ending Monday Jan. 20-22. I like London much more than I thought I would. I went on a taxi tour sponsored by the Red Cross and saw, among other notable places, Buckingham Palace, House of Parliament, London Tower, London bridge and I went through Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral; two of the most beautiful and largest churches I have ever been in. Westminster Abbey has a musty smell that is in perfect harmony with its more than eleven hundred year age. Many famous people are buried there including eleven? kings and four queens. There are statues, busts, and inscriptions on marble or metal plates distributed profusely about the sides of the abbey. St. Paul’s is another much newer piece of massive artistic construction. It took the greater part of the builder’s professional life to build it and of the painter’s to paint the murals on the inside of the dome. During the blitz a five hundred pound bomb hit it and a 1000 lb. bomb was removed after penetrating the roof and floor and coming to rest unexploded deep underneath the cathedral. The roof has been reinforced with steel girders as a temporary measure. Since the cathedral is built of a special type of Italian marble it will not be repaired until after the war when it will be possible to again import marble from Italy. The next time I go to London I am going to the London Tower for one thing and also to as many other historic landmarks and buildings as possible.

JANUARY 28, 1945 SUNDAY {Our mission # 2, 486^th mission #137}

Yesterday we were briefed to hit submarine pens at Hamburg, a long over water hop and plenty of flak at the target along with the very imminent threat of fighters, but it was scrubbed before I had my guns in. A few weeks ago a Lieutenant of the Royal Navy talked to us and said that submarines would soon be a high priority target. He was right-they now are and this is probably due, to some extent, to the sinking of a troopship, and loss of several hundred lives, by a sub.

To-day we hit marshalling yards at Hohenbudberg, where a panzer division is moving through. It was visual bombing but from our usual altitude of over five miles it is very hard to see what damage is done. I did see a brilliant billow of orange fire which was perhaps a fuel dump. The flak was heavy and quite accurate but we did not have any holes in our plane.

I put a bolt switch in wrong this morning and I had to change it in the air, which in the ball turret is a very difficult operation.

This afternoon was a sunny Sunday afternoon in Germany but it all seemed distant and cold from altitude and it is very hard to realize that death and destruction are rampant down below where the bomb explosions are small and seem to expand lazily. The flak up by us seems to appear from nowhere. Suddenly there are a bunch of black puffs in the sky and they go floating rapidly toward the rear, seemingly as harmless as smoke rings. This is my second mission. We had 12 five hundred pound bombs to-day.

To-day is the 3^rd anniversary of the 8^th Air Force. I also saw Holland for the first time to-day when we crossed the coast south of Rotterdam.

{The 486^th mission log says we went to Hohenberg on January 28. Hohenburg, Germany is east of Nurnberg which would make it at least a nine hour flight rather than the 5;15 hours stated in the log. We carried 6000 lbs of bombs which indicates a short mission.

It is unlikely that a panzer division (which is what we were bombing) would be passing through Hohenburg since it is a very small village off the beaten path far from any of the battle fronts at that time. Hohenbudberg is near the battle lines and a short flight from Sudbury so it is likely that Hohenbudberg, instead of Hohenburg, is the correct target. Check it out on Google and Google Maps}

FEBRUARY 12, 1945 MONDAY {Our mission # 3, 486^th mission # 141, Feb. 6}

It has been almost two weeks since I have written in my diary. On Feb. 2 we went on our second 48 hr. pass. I went to London again and went through the tower of London and the Zoological gardens which is just a zoo. However that was the first time I ever saw a tiger or jaguar. There were also some of the most beautiful birds there that I have ever seen. They were pheasants of some kind. Even our pheasants in Iowa are beautiful but these surpassed them and even the peacocks near them. The Tower of London was also interesting with its long, colorful, or rather, sordid history. During our stay in London the 8^th A.F. went to Berlin and dropped over two thousand tons of bombs. The morning before we had been briefed on Berlin the morning our pass started but it was scrubbed because of the weather. The significant part of that Berlin raid was that the center of the center of the city was the MPI, not factories, marshaling yards or anything of that sort. Government buildings were given as the target but it was, quite evidently, a plan to simply blow the heart out of the city civilians and all in the same way as the Germans tried to blitz London and Coventry. That is one reason why I would hate to bail out over Germany. The civilians would love to get their hands on any one of us.

On Feb. 6 we went to Chemnitz south of Leipzig hitting a large oil refinery. The bombing was through solid clouds by H2X. On the way back we had a 110 mile per hour head wind with the result that we had to land in Belgium. Our navigator passed out from anoxia when his mask froze up but the nose gunner saw it in time and revived him. Then we got lost and thought we were over England. Our radio compass was out, No. 3 turbo was no good and the command radio was not working. Also we only had a little gas left. We finally found a field and landed. Only six planes of our group got back that day. One crashed near London killing the whole crew which only had one more mission to make. Even the group leader for that day, our C.O. Major Newman who was all-American from Tennessee in 1934, landed in Belgium.

We landed on a reconnaissance field at Charleroi, Belgium, stayed there two days, then flew to field B-58 near Brusselles. The next day we flew back to Sudbury carrying twenty men- a B-24 crew and another man besides our crew. We slept in the former German Headquarters while in Charleroi. The people in Belgium are quite hungry although most of them wear clothes that are just as good as the English clothes. Some people pick out the better pieces of food that we throw in the garbage can and the American soldier who thinks he owns the world and is much better than the Belgians or English or French for that matter, just keeps right on throwing good food away while other people starve. The children all seem to be very clean in spite of being hungry and their clothing looks as if it is warm enough. A lot of people wear wooden shoes. When we landed at Brusselles we cleared to land, then suddenly, flak started bursting around us. Some ack-ack gunners must have been off the ball. We were at Brusselles one night and while we were there we saw four British jet planes come in. They are twin jet jobs, very streamlined and look a little like the ME-262 jet or like the Westland Whirlwind. We also saw some FW-190’s and a JU-88 that had been hit by us when the Nazi’s held this field. An A-26 came in the same afternoon with its right wing shot up from flak and its right engine on fire. The fire was put out but the whole right wing and engine was just a bunch of junk.

Yesterday morning we were briefed for Hanover marshaling yards through which the 6^th Panzer army or division is passing to the Russian front. The mission was scrubbed because of weather but in the paper to-day I noticed that a small force of bombers hit it anyway. 

FEBRUARY 15, 1945, THURSDAY {Our mission #4, 486^th mission #143, Feb. 14}

Yesterday - Valentine’s Day- we went to Chemnitz the same city we hit on our last mission when we landed in Belgium. This time, too, we had a strong head-wind on the way back and barely got home. This time however we simply hit the center of this city of 400,000 instead of an oil refinery. It seems that lately the main target has been civilians. A lot of government files and officials are supposed to have been moved from Berlin down to southern cities like Dresden, Chemnitz, and Munich. That is what we are trying to hit. We are indirectly supporting the Russians on these long raids. I felt better than usual on this, my fourth mission, even though on the way back we hit an awful lot of slipstream and I had to stay in the turret for about six hours. We did not see any fighters and there was not any flak at the target but on the way out near Frankfort and over the battle lines we had moderate but accurate flak some of it of large guns (105 and 155) which is white instead of black like 88mm. The temperature was only –38^oC which is       -36^oF at 23,000 ft. our bombing altitude. Our bomb load was six five hundred G.P. bombs and four 500 lb. incendiary clusters. We did not see any fighters (enemy) although we saw plenty of our own. To-day we are on pass. They had a very short mission to-day. Guess why? (FOURTH MISSION)

{During the night of February 13-14 the RAF had bombed Dresden setting up the much-discussed Dresden firestorm of February 14, 1945. We, the 486^th, went to Chemnitz on the 14^th. Chemnitz is about 30 miles southwest of Dresden. I saw an enormous column of black smoke rising at some distance from us. Not knowing my geography very well and not knowing that the RAF had gone to Dresden, I assumed that I was seeing Munich burning. It was the nearest thing to a nuclear ‘mushroom cloud’ that I’ve seen. It was very black, like a giant black stove pipe, but I don’t remember whether it mushroomed out at the top.}

FEBRUARY 17, 1945, SATURDAY {Our mission #5, 486^th mission 146}

5^th Mission

We had a 48 hr. pass on the 15^th and 16^th and to-day we made our fifth mission. The target was Frankfurt. Plan “A” had been an oil plant at Plauen or something like that but when we were over France we were called to abandon Plan “A” and complete Plan “B” which was marshaling yards at Frankfort. Frankfort is just over the battle lines now. The flak was moderate but very accurate. However there were so many groups over the target at almost the same time that they could concentrate on only a few groups of which we were not one. A plane from another group blew up and another caught fire over the channel and blew up when it hit the water. Three men bailed out before it hit. Two very unfortunate accidents happened when we took out our guns to-night. A ball-turret gunner was killed when a gun he was taking out went off and a ground man was hit in the thigh from either this same gun or another gun. I don’t know the details but I’m certainly going to be more careful from now on. I don’t want to go through a lot of flak, then come down and get killed with my own gun. The temperature was about –35^oF to-day at 25,000 ft. our bombing altitude. We had twenty 250 lb. bombs. The bombing was by H2X (radar, PFF, instrument or whatever you want to call it.) through a partially cloudy sky. We could see the ground before and after the target but not on the target itself. The persistent contrails (vapor trails) were partially to blame for this, I think.

FEBRUARY 22, 1945 THURSDAY {Our mission #6, 486^th mission #148, Feb. 21}

{Our mission #7, 486^th mission #149, Feb. 22}

Yesterday I made my sixth mission so now I am elegible for the air medal. We went to Nuremburg (or Nurnburg) and hit marshalling yards. The day before yesterday Nuremburg was hit by 900 heavies and yesterday by 1200 heavies from the 8^th Air Force dropping 3000 tons of bombs. Our load was five 500 pound general purpose (GP) bombs and five 500 lb. incendiary clusters. The temperature, which was supposed to be –38^oC, was -53^oC which is –63^o Fahrenheit. We were in the air about 8 ½ hours. Our bombing altitude was 26,000 ft. The flak was moderate but very accurate for radar shooting. The bombing was by H2X through solid clouds.

To-day the 8^th A.F. did something new. We were briefed to bomb a little country village in southeastern Germany by the name of Hof. However we did bomb Ansbach another little town with a railroad in it.

We took off at about 0700 and formed at 6,000 ft. We began our climb about the middle of Belgium to 20,000 ft. to cross the battle lines way down by Switzerland. Then we went down to 8,000 ft. (about 6,000 ft. above the ground) and dropped our 12 five hundred pound G.P.’s on the marshaling yards. Since it was low and visual we could see everything. Our bombs hit a large stone and brick building, which disintegrated completely. One bomb landed in a reservoir of water and made a lovely geyser. One plane’s bombs fell squarely on the end (choke point) of the M.Y. and a lot of the bombs hit on the other end of the yards. There were 38 planes in our group and we dropped 248,672 lb. of the high explosive. One plane was shot down a few miles past the target presumably by small arms fire from the ground since there was no flak. The crew (on their 31^st mission) bailed out. Then we climbed through a snow storm to about 17,000 ft. to go over the lines. One burst of flak the only one we saw burst right off our tail. We dropped down again over France and came back at low altitude.

The 1^st division of the 8^th A.F. bombed small marshaling yards in N.W. Germany. The second bombed small yards in Western Central Germany and we of the Third Division went way out to south-eastern Germany. Dozens of little towns got it to-day. It is much different to bomb at low than at high altitude. At 26,000 ft. you can barely see the bombs explode- if there aren’t any clouds- while at low-alt. everything moves fast, the explosions shook the planes and the smoke and flame billows up. Some of the railroad cars down in the yards had Red Crosses on the tops. They were well interspersed between oil cars. However we didn’t hit hardly any Red Cross cars even if most of them were phony.

We got a new chaplain this week (Protestant). He is a dope. When I get to know him better I’ll write more about him.

{There was a story going around in Sudbury at about this time about a tail gunner who had accidentally disconnected his intercom and missed the pilot’s order to bail out. The rest of his crew bailed out in German territory. He soon discovered he was alone on an airplane whose wing was on fire flying on automatic pilot westward into French occupied territory; where he bailed out. Now, in 2009, I read in the book ‘War Stories of the O and M’ that this story is true and even better than I had imagined. It was, indeed, small arms fire which set the wing on fire; but friendly fire, not enemy fire.}

FEBRUARY 24, 1945 SATURDAY {Our mission #8, 486^th mission #151}

We went to Bremen to-day and bombed the docks (S) sub. ass. yds. (P) there. They receive prefabricated parts from other sections of Germany and assemble them there. We got up at 0330 and briefed at 0400. Our takeoff was delayed twice but we finally took off assembled at 21,000 ft. and took off for Bremen across the North Sea, passing north of Amsterdam across the Zuider Zee and on to the target. The flak was moderate but very accurate. Since we had a tail wind and went across the target at more than 250 mph. we were not in the flak as long as we would be otherwise. I could see the flak guns flash and the rockets start out from the ground leaving their vapor or smoke trail all the way up and usually exploding above us. The flak of 88mm. and larger caliber burst right at our level and most of the planes had holes in them. Two planes went down both from other groups - that we could see. Only one man got out of one of the planes and he was hit with 88 mm. flak which blew his chute to pieces and probably killed him before he got to the ground. We had one large hole in our left wing and a small hole in the waist near the tail wheel. A lot of smoke came from the target and through the 8/10’s cloud, through which we bombed by H2X, I could see a lot of fires and bombs exploding. We carried 12-547 lb. bombs which we dropped from 24,500 ft. The temperature was about –41^oC, at bombing altitude. I had a full flak suit in the turret with me for the first time. Our P-51 escort must have tangled with the Luftwaffe because they weren’t around very much. A lot of jet-fighters are getting into action now although I haven’t seen any yet-and I hope I don’t.

FEBRUARY 27, 1945 TUESDAY {Our mission #9, 486^th mission #152, Feb. 25}

{Our mission #10, 486^th mission #153, Feb. 26}

(9^th mission) Feb. 25 we went to southern Germany. The main target was Munich but the 486^th had a large underground oil storage depot in a patch of woods near Neuberg as its target. Only our squadron bombed it however and the other two squadrons went to Munich. We dropped our bombs in a patch of woods, that is all the squadron except two planes one of which was ours. We didn’t hit anything so we must have had the wrong patch of woods. Lyon’s crew dropped their’s on the bank of a river trying to hit some locks and we dropped our six 1,000 lb. bombs near a railroad probably hitting it with one. Our altitude was about 25,000 and temperature was –36^oC. We were in the air about nine hours and on oxygen about 5 ½ hrs.

(10^th mission) Yesterday Feb. 26 was Peter’s birthday. We, that is, the entire 8^th A.F. went to Berlin and dropped 3,000 tons of explosives and incendiaries. We bombed from 26,000 ft. pff. with moderate flak and temperature of -35^oC.The oil temperature on one engine was too high already when we left England but our pilot hasn’t aborted yet and I don’t think he will. We barely had enough gas to get back. We had to leave the formation over Holland to save it. (10^th mission)

 I never saw as many planes in the air before. As well as B-17’s there were formations of Liberators which slowly gained on us on the way back. We had some P-47’s for escort as well as the usual P-51 escort. Two P-51’s chased a twin engine plane back toward Berlin about an hour after target time. It seemed to be getting away from them so it could have been a jet- probably an ME-262. Over Holland I could make out some of the flooded areas and also the polders at the north end of the Zuider Zee which  are nicely divided up into rectangular fields compared to the wide variety of shapes that the other fields in Holland have. In England at least in eastern England all roads are curvy and each farm has a curvy border and wavy hedge-rows dividing the fields while in Holland everything is straight and neat (northern Holland). Belgium and Western Germany look quite a lot alike as far as farms go- some curves and some straight lines. Holland takes the cake for canals though. Every field seems to have a canal around it. I saw a regular old Dutch windmill yesterday- turning slowly- from 16,000 ft.

We had an hour of jam- handy and an hour of turret trainer this afternoon and also got paid. (31 pounds)

MARCH 3, 1945 SATURDAY {Our mission #11, 486^th mission #155, Feb. 28}

FEB. 28 we went to Kassel to hit the Henschel aircraft engine factory. In case of cloud coverage our secondary target was the heel of a large L- shaped marshaling yard. We hit our secondary target and saw a large amount of smoke come up through the clouds. The bombing was from about 25,000 ft. with a temp. of –35^oC. The flak was moderate and also only moderately accurate. We led the entire eighth air force on this mission which set a record for the number of tons of bombs dropped over any period of equal length which I think is about two weeks. We also carried more bombs than usual. By cutting our gas load to some extent we carried 7000 lbs. instead of 5000 or 6000 which is the usual load. We did not see any fighters (enemy).

MARch 1 I went to London and spent the night there coming back the next day. I bought some birthday gifts for the girls and Stanley and saw “Henry V” the wonderful English picture in technicolor. It was pretty good with a lot of costumes and a lot of Shakespeare.

MARCH 4, 1945 SUNDAY {Our mission #12, 486^th mission #158}

(Our crew went to Ulm, our group went to Ingolstadt)

To-day I made my 12^th mission- to Ingolstadt which is on the Danube west of Munich. We dropped our 8-500 lb. G.P.’s and four M-17 incendiary clusters from 22,500 ft. through 10/10 clouds by H2X.

We formed over France south-east of Paris. We didn’t find our group so we got on the tail of another group. A B-24 and another plane from our group also tagged a long with this group. We took off at about six o’clock and landed at about 1430 making an eight and a half hour mission. Last night the Jerries came over and we were not only alerted but had to get in the shelters for a while. One JU- 88 made one strafing run on our bomb dump but missed it. The rumors are that there were 37 JU- 88’s over of which three were shot down.

Our group hit a town by the name of Englestadt or something like that.

{The primary target was Neuberg, Germany but the 486^th went to the secondary which was Ingolstadt. However, we, Lt. Stevenson of the 835th, went to Ulm, Germany.}

MARCH 7, 1945 WEDNESDAY

To- night I went to the Young Men’s Christian League at the Chapel. This consists of about ten boys. I was there two weeks ago and I think I’ll go from now on.

Starting last Saturday night we have been having air raid alerts all night long- red alerts for buzz bombs and purple for piloted aircraft. Saturday night one plane made a single strafing run on our bomb dump but didn’t hit anything. Since then the base has five {should be 25} top turret gunners alerted every night- five from each squadron. On an alert they have to go down to the line and man the top turrets of twenty planes. That makes forty machine guns plus a few ground guns permanently emplaced around the field. Soon the moon will be out and perhaps the Jerries will be forced to stop. As it is, the raids are very small and do almost no damage although four planes dropped bombs on Ipswitch about twenty miles east of here.

MARCH 8, 1945 THURSDAY {Our mission #13, 486^th mission #160}

We went to Frankfurt to-day- going into the continent over the Zuider Zee and then south to Frankfurt making a circle after the target and out over France across General Patton’s big offensive. We dropped our seven M-17 incendiaries and seven 500 lb. G.P.’s on an aircraft factory that made a lot of different aircraft parts including jet units for the ME- 262. The flak was light and we saw no enemy fighters. Most of the eighth Air Force hit in the northern end of the Ruhr Valley except for us. We took off at 1045 and landed at 1830 dropping our bombs from 24,000 ft. through 10/10 clouds. (temp. –36^oC.)(13^th Mission)

MARCH 10, 1945 FRIDAY {Our mission #14, 486^th mission #161, Feb. 9}

Yesterday, March 9, we again went to Frankfurt hitting the large marshaling yard in the east end of the city. A few groups also hit the aircraft plant that we hit yesterday {March 8}. We carried 42-100 lb. G.P.’s and two 500 lb. incendiary clusters. We bombed from 24,000 ft. visual. I saw our bombs hit the built- up part of the city north of the west end of the yards. Some bombs also landed on the yards. Most of our group missed the target but the group ahead of us did a very good job. The flak was very accurate and quite heavy. It is the second worst target as far as flak is concerned, that I have been to, the first worst being Bremen. To-day we were briefed for Dortmund but immediately upon becoming air-borne about a dozen things went wrong with the engines so we had to abort. That is the first time and I hope- the last. Since we aborted today we have to go tomorrow even though we have a squadron stand-down.

MARCH 11, 1945 SUNDAY {Our mission #15, 486^th mission #163}

We made our 15^th mission to-day hitting an oil refinery at Hamburg. It was a short mission, only a little more than six hours but even though the target was 10/10ths and we bombed by H2X, the flak was heavy and quite accurate. We had one hole in our left wing. On Friday’s mission Lyon’s crew had holes in their plane. We went in over the north sea and came out over the Zuider Zee. Our load was 38-100 lb. G.P. bombs. Bombing alt: 25,000 ft. alerted again tomorrow.

MARCH 13, 1945 MONDAY {Our mission #16, 486^th mission #164, Feb. 12}

I made my 16^th mission to Swinemunde, a little north of Stettin, to-day. Our target was a pocket battleship that was anchored in the harbor and a bridge over which the Germans are retreating from the Russians who are only eight miles from the target which we bombed to-day. That, I think, is the closest that any of our planes have bombed to the Russians. We went over the North Sea north of Kiel and across the Baltic Sea to Swinemunde, then out the same way again. We saw a lot of shipping in the Baltic, minesweepers with ships following them and a lot of smaller fishing boats.

We dropped our five 1,000 lb. bombs from 22,000 ft., no enemy fighters and moderate inaccurate, tracking flak.

MARCH 15, 1945 THURSDAY {Our mission #17, 486^th mission #165}

Yesterday we went to Osnabruck, hitting marshaling yards. This was my 17^th mission. Our primary target, however, was an oil refinery in the country N.W. of Hanover. The lead and high squadron missed it because of clouds and so, went to the last resort which was Osnabruck. The other two squadrons dropped on the primary but missed. Our five 1,000 lb. bombs along with the rest of the squadrons and the high straddled a M.Y. in the center of the city. First our’s -the lead- walked through some buildings and across the yards, then the high’s bombs did likewise but a little to the side of ours. The flak was light, tracking and very accurate. Two planes had to each feather an engine when flak hit them and some planes were pretty well shot up. One man was wounded. Some tires were also shot out and there were a couple of terrific landings when we got back to the field.

We bombed from 25,000 ft. temp. –35^oC. Visual. The primary target was Nienhagen (Oil refinery).

MARCH 17, 1945 SATURDAY {Our mission #18, 486^th mission #167}

18^th mission to-day to Ruhland, an oil refinery as primary target but the weather was so bad and contrails so thick that the formation broke up and did not drop their bombs and went to another little town somewhere. I’ll get the name of it and what we hit there later. We had 20-250 lb. G.P.’ s which we dropped pff. through solid cloud. We got a little flak near Leipzig and some tracking flak near Chemnitz. Also meager flak over Ruhland- no damage- no enemy fighters. We had six groups of P-51’s escorting the third division. We were briefed to bomb from 23,000 ft. but clouds forced some up as high as 27,000. Our temp. at bombing was –46^oC a lot colder than we’ve been having lately. There was a lot of confusion because of the clouds and persistent contrails and at least two collisions took place. We hit southwest of Leipzig- marshaling yards- communications. (LAST RESORT). (Plauen). {We went to Plauen}

MARCH 19, 1945 MONDAY {Our mission #19, 486^th mission #168, Feb. 18}

Yesterday, Sunday Mar. 18 I made my 19^th mission. The target was a goods station about two miles north of the center of the city. We had 18-100 lb. bombs and 8-M-17 500 lb. incendiary clusters which we dropped at 100 ft. intervals. This would cover 2600 ft. or more than half a mile on the ground so it is easy to see the goods station was merely a point to aim at in the direction of the northern section of Berlin. The entire 8^th Air Force- about 1300 planes were up- went to the capital city of Germany.

When we hit to I.P. No.2 supercharger went out so we were on 3 engines the rest of the mission. We also had high clouds and contrails at the I.P. but over the target it was mostly clear and we could see the smoke coming up from Berlin. A large number of planes had already gone over so a lot of the northern section of the city was covered with smoke. The flak was the worst we have had yet. It was almost entirely tracking and very accurate and after I thought we were through the flak area we started getting it again, almost as much as we had had. We had a little less than fifty holes in the plane which coupled with one engine out had us a little worried. One piece of flak hit the rim of my sighting window under my foot but it was spent and only made a small dent and cracked the window. Another piece made a six inch hole in a gas tank. Our bombing altitude was 25,000 ft.- time on oxygen five and a half hours- temp.-43^oC. No enemy fighters.

Lt. Stevenson got a telegram when we came down that he has a seven pound baby daughter now so last night he celebrated the completion of his 20^th mission {he had flown one more mission than we had}  and the birth of his daughter by drinking Champagne, bourbon and corn alcohol. (mountain dew from Caroling).

{Steve, as we called him, had a gallon of North Carolina corn whiskey (moonshine from his home state). He must have carried it with him on the B-17 he flew over from the states in anticipation of the birth of his daughter. He insisted on pouring it down our throats, paying special attention to me as sober man; and I owe the cure to Steve. Three days later we were back over Germany.}

MARCH 21, 1945 WEDNESDAY {Our mission #20, 486^th mission #170}

I made my 20^th mission to-day. The third division went after airfields in the Bremen- Hamburg area. We hit one near a town named Marx- I think. It was a 5 ½ hr. mission with 4 hrs. on oxygen- we formed at 20,000 ft. Bombing altitude was 24,000 ft.- visual- Our 38-100 lb. G.P.’s hit all on the field but not too many fell on the runway. It was good bombing for a change. Flak was light and inaccurate and no bandits were sighted. I was air-sick so I slept most of the afternoon after we came back. It was a beautiful day to-day just as it was yesterday. This is, I think, the first day of spring.

MARCH 22, 1945 THURSDAY {Our mission #21, 486^th mission #171}

To-day I made my 21^st mission- to the Ruhr Valley. Our target was an army barracks area just east of the Ruhr river near Mulheim. The Ruhr Valley which I saw very well to-day is the most thickly populated and highly industrialized area I have seen surpassing the English Midlands around Manchester or the Liverpool area. When you are over the center of the Valley, known as “Happy Valley,” you see one city after another so close that they could almost be classified as one city- Dortmund, Essen, Mulheim, Duisberg, Dusseldorf, Wuppertal, and near the southern end, Cologne. The small towns are too numerous to name. Now the western part of the Valley is one mass of debris as the Allies are moving in and we are bombing it. I went to the Valley once before- to Hohenbudburg where we hit marshaling yards- but that day there was too much cloud and haze to see much.

We carried 2- M-47- 500 lb. incendiary clusters and 36- 100 lb. G.P,’s which we dropped from 25,000 ft.-temperature –36 deg C. We formed at 20,000 ft. over England, were on oxygen about four hours and the mission took about six hours. Flak was moderate.

MARCH 23, 1945 FRIDAY [Our mission #22, 486^th mission #172}

I made my 22^nd mission to-day to a marshalling yard near Holeswick {Holzwickede} in the north- eastern part of the Ruhr Valley. We are trying to isolate the Ruhr from the rest of Germany by cutting all rail lines and communications leading from the “Valley” in preparation, evidently, for a big push by the Allied armies on that front. We had small towns and marshaling yards burning all over that area to-day. On the front, from Cologne north, there was a gigantic smoke screen to-day. We had no clouds at all to-day so I saw a lot- ruined Aachen, more than a hundred barrage balloons in the water approaches to Antwerp, Cologne, Coblenz, massive steel bridges lying twisted in the Rhine, small towns and fields in France, Belgium, and Germany full of shell and bomb holes, long convoys in the channel composed of squat, slow-moving freighters with a sleek destroyer or two in front. The battle lines which would seem to be very easy to see, are invisible. There is no way to tell where the Yankees and Jerries face each other from high altitude mostly because in the day time they must keep under cover fairly well except, perhaps, when a big push is on and, sniping and small arms fire of any kind is impossible to see from 20,000 to 25,000 ft.

Our bomb load was six 1000 lb. bombs which we dropped visually from 25,000 ft. They hit slightly before a small marshaling yard, walked across a small field, then across the edge of a block of warehouses and ended up on the tracks. Flak was moderate and inaccurate but one group ahead of us got quite a lot. We got two holes in our left wing from a few bursts of flak over the front lines. No enemy fighters bothered us but we saw a lot of ground support planes of all kinds down low near the front lines. Holeswick is a few miles east of Dortmund.

MARCH 31, 1945 SATURDAY {Our mission #23, 486^th mission #176}

Easter of 1945 comes along tomorrow. This will be the second Easter I have spent in the Army the last of which I spent at Des Moines.

Usually as is apparent I write in this diary only on the days when I have flown a mission. Then I write an account of that mission. It would seem from that that the missions I go on are the most interesting incidents that occur. That isn’t always true however. Some of the things I’ll remember just as well are the bicycle rides through the beautiful hedged- in fields down the quaint winding roads that are just wide enough for a car to pass a bicycle and my trips to London where I saw many historic, architectural, artistic and organizational wonders some of which are London Tower, Westminster Abbey and Cathedral, Lloyd’s the unique insurance establishment, St. Paul’s Cathedral, London Art Exhibit, Shakespearean Plays.

Some of the other interesting things about London are the city itself. The largest in the world at present with winding streets, old theaters, rows upon rows of brick houses. Then the V bombs that land there are capable of holding anyone’s interest. This week I saw where a V-2 rocket hit in Hyde Park near Marble Arch. On our journeys over Germany we often see the great crooked vapor trail of these tremendous rockets as they climb miles into the sky and hurtle down on London. There is absolutely no defense against them except by attacking the launching site. V-1 flying bombs which often come over the field enroute to London can be, and are usually, shot down.

I made my 23^rd mission to-day the target being communications at Brandenburg near Berlin. Our primary target was an underground oil storage depot but since it was not a PFF target and it was covered by clouds we went to the secondary and cut a railroad and knocked out the Schultze Drug Store on the corner of Wilhelmstrasse and 22^nd Strassse. We dropped our 22-300 lb. bombs from 23,000 ft- temp. –36^oC. I could see the squadron’s bombs hit the south-eastern part of the town in a built- up area. Flak was meager and inaccurate and a few bandits were sighted but none attacked as they did at Hamburg yesterday. We were on oxygen about six hours which is a long time. The Allies are really going to town on the Western Front namely Berlin. They are near Kassel and Hanover two rough targets and most of the great Rhine cities with their heavy flak concentrations have been captured. We went in over Gen. Patton’s salient and didn’t get any flak like we usually do over the lines.

APRIL 3, 1945 TUESDAY {Our mission #24, 486^th mission #177}

Today I made my 24^th mission- to Kiel. Our target was the Admiral Scheer, Hipper, and a light cruiser in the harbor. These ships got out of the harbor before we got there I think. We dropped our 6-1000 lb. bombs from 26,000 ft. on the dock area and houses at the south end of the bay in Kiel. The flak was moderate and inaccurate- no enemy fighters. The weather was quite bad but at the target there was a break and bombing may have been visual. There was a good smoke screen which a long with the fact that the battleship and cruisers were out of the harbor indicated that the Jerries have a good spy system around here. We took off at about 1330 six hours delay on the original plan and we got back at 2030. We formed on oxygen and stayed at altitude until we came back to England.

APRIL 5, 1945 THURSDAY

Yesterday the enlisted men of our crew came down here to Lymington to the flak home. Formerly this was the estate of some rich people but the army took it over and with the help of the Red Cross made a lovely flak home out of it.

To-day I went horseback riding at a stable about ten miles from here. The horses weren’t very good but we had a lot of fun. Mary, the little girl with red Veronica Lake hair went along with us. This afternoon we had a soft-ball game in which our side lost. The things to do here are, in part, tennis, basketball, soft-ball, volley-ball, badminton, golf, horse-back riding, boating, skeet-shooting, archery and football and baseball although they are a little too strenuous to be compatible with a rest home. For indoors the main recreation is cards which I don’t play. Badminton is indoors too. Also there are books to read, letters to write, a workshop to paint, build or sculptor in and a dance once a week and movies three times a week. We have breakfast about 9:30. At about nine the butler brings us fruit juice in bed. Luncheon at one, tea at 4:30 and dinner at about seven and also snacks at 10:30 P:M. That keeps one filled up very nicely. At meal times one Red Cross hostess sits at the head of each table. They also supervise and organize games and all the recreation. I was on team this afternoon. We are going to stay here for a week. I hope the war is over by that time.

APRIL 6, 1945 FRIDAY

This morning I got up a little while before the butler came in with the juice. I haven’t been able to sleep very well since I came here. Even though I go to bed after twelve I still wake up before eight in the morning and find it impossible to go to sleep again. That wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t wake up a couple of times in the night also.

I played a few games of badminton and a few of volley-ball already this morning. Yesterday I played badminton, ping-pong, soft-ball and my first game of tennis. All of this coupled with the riding horse back and playing I did the first day I was here have rendered my muscles in a very painful and partially useless condition. I suppose I’ll spend the rest of my time here recuperating from this instead of from combat as I’m supposed to be doing.

APRIL 9, 1945 MONDAY

To-day I spent my time riding bike, playing tennis, ping-pong and badminton. I’m learning fast how to play tennis and I really like it. Yesterday morning I went to an Episcopal church not far from here. The church building is more than a thousand years old. During the last two days Walhampton has won two ball games against two officers rest homes and won back both of the cups we lost last week.

APRIL 14, 1945 SATURDAY

Back at the field for the last three days we have nothing to do yet. While we were gone the group lost seven planes {actually nine planes} over Germany. Some of the old familiar planes like 020 are gone now. We won’t be seeing them sitting out beside us for hours on end anymore.

The last three days have been beautiful- very conductive to making one homesick for the flak home. It was such a wonderful place that I can’t help feeling homesick for it. I had the same feeling when I left Des Moines for Las Vegas.

Yesterday morning we heard that Roosevelt had died. Everybody is very sorry that we no longer have him. Also everybody is somewhat leery of what kind of a president Truman will make. It will seem odd to see the big three at San Francisco -Churchill, Stalin, and Truman. Over the radio we have been hearing some very sad music. This with the gloomy feeling brought about by leaving the rest home has lifted me right out of the world at times putting me in a very dreamy and melancholy mood although not a sad one.

{The 486^th lost 2 planes on April 7, 3 planes on April 8, and 4 planes on April 10; nine planes in four days. We, Stevenson’s crew, were at the rest home from April 4 to April 11, just when the 486^th sustained the heaviest losses of its entire tour of duty in the European theater.}   

APRIL 15, 1945 SUNDAY {Our mission #25, 486^th mission #186}

(Royan?) Belmont- 25^th mission

I made my 25^th mission today- to the Belmont beaches down near Bordeaux. The target was some guns in a wooded area. The Germans still hold a lot of scattered points alo ng the French coast and since they most likely won’t give up we have to get them out. A French force is attacking by land and as we went over on the bomb runs we saw some large ships shelling a wooded area on the coast. This is the second day the 8^th A.F. has gone down there. We carried six-600 lb. gasoline jelly bombs of the Tokyo fire- bomb type. They are made by putting gasoline and oil and I believe something to make it jell into a fused P-51 wing tank. They have no fins so they tumble out like a bunch of big oblong silver barrels. They make a large, boiling flame when they hit accompanied immediately by a lot of smoke.

We bombed from 15,000 ft., visual and had no flak or fighter opposition. We got up at one o’clock this morning and I didn’t have a single wink of sleep. We were on oxygen for only a short time- about two hours.

{ Mission was to Royan, France on April 15, 1945. In 1967 my daughter, Linda Kooi, spent a summer vacation in Royan.}

APRIL 16, 1945 MONDAY {Our mission #26, 486^th mission #187}

My 26^th mission came off today. The target was a road (and tank trap), which we hit squarely, on a point of land sticking out toward the north near Bordeaux (Point de Grave). By tomorrow the French should be going in. The bombing and shelling that the territory held by the Germans has taken during the last few days should have everything pretty well softened up. Our bombing deadline today was 1200 so after that there might have been a little action on the ground. Again today there were ships standing offshore shelling some woods.

The Allies are really going to town in Germany now so I hope the war will be over here before my tour of missions is.

We carried 12-500 lb. G.P.’s today which we dropped from 15,000 ft. There was no flak or fighter opposition. Bombing was perfectly visual.

APRIL 20, 1945 FRIDAY {Our mission #27, 486^th mission #190}

Today I made my 27^th mission- to marshaling yards at Wustermark near Berlin. Planes were bombing railroads and communication all around the west side of Berlin today the object being to cut everything to and from Berlin. It shouldn’t be long before they take Berlin. We carried 10-500 lb. bombs which we dropped from 22,000 ft.- visual. On the way back we dropped down to about 10,000 ft, and got a very good view of Germany from Berlin across Hanover, which has thousands of craters around it and few intact buildings in it and along the western edge of the Ruhr Valley where German resistance ended yesterday. Just west of the Ruhr near a bend in the Rhine a lot of American gliders were scattered around. Evidently a large landing had been made here. The ground was full of shell holes which are much smaller as a rule than bomb craters and long zig-zag trenches and traps.

When we came over the Dutch coast it was very much changed since the last time I had seen it. There were many brightly colored fields of flowers- tulips most likely. Another change was the inundation of the large polder at the northern edge of the Zuider Zee- west side. The Germans blasted a few large holes in the sea-wall about half way up from the south end.

Our bombs hit to the right of the MPI but still did a lot of damage as they fell fairly well on the south- bound track and some also on the junction of two tracks one coming from the west and one from the south.

We had no flak and no fighter opposition. Yesterday an ME-262 jet attacked our group and was shot down. An ME-109 also attacked.

APRIL 22, 1945 SATURDAY {Our mission #28, 486^th mission #191, April 21}

Yesterday, April 21, I made my 28^th mission- to Ingolstadt. Our primary target was a road south of Munich along which a couple of hundred fighters were supposed to be parked - hidden in the woods. It was not visual so we went to the secondary, an airfield northeast of Munich but that was also covered with clouds so we went to the last resort PFF target which was the old city of Ingolstadt which is one of those old cities with a geometrically shaped wall and moat around it. The MPI was the center of town so we dropped our 228-20 lb. fragmentation bombs on the civilians. Plauen and Ingolstadt are two of the unluckiest little towns in Germany. Every time somebody doesn’t hit their other targets they go and drop on them it seems.

The Allies entered Plauen now and I saw some pictures of it. The place is just a mass of rubble. Coming back from Berlin the other day I saw some rubble too. Hanover and a town on this side of it were blasted and burnt so bad I don’t see how any body can live in them. Looking directly down on a town from altitude you can’t tell if it is wrecked or not unless you look for shadows. If you see broken shadows with windows in them you can be sure something is wrong with the building that casts that shadow.

We bombed from 20,000 ft., yesterday, formed over France, mission lasted over ten hours and weather was very bad, our group being about the only one that bombed as a group. Since we didn’t see any flak except to our left at Dunkirk and the 8^th A.F. lost six planes it is reasonable to assume they collided in the clouds.

{Shortly after this we were told we had completed our tour. Of course, it was also the last combat mission of the 486^th.}  

MAY 5, 1945 SATURDAY

My last entry was made April 22 a day after I had made my last mission in ETO. At the time I didn’t know it was going to be the last one and it might not be. The 8^th A.F. still has been flying. Last week about 400 planes dropped food in Holland. The combat men in this squadron have been divided into 2 flights for the purpose of starting ground school and training flying. For us the war seems to be over in Europe. Berlin fell to the Russians last week after a few days of fighting inside the city and in the underground railways. Hitler and Goebbels were reported dead and Admiral Doenitz took over Hitler’s place. The Germans in northern Italy surrendered unconditionally and yesterday all the Germans in Holland and Western Germany gave up. There is a large pocket down in southern Germany and Austria and also Denmark and Norway are still in enemy hands.

So now we start standing retreat, going to school, taking PT and all the undesirable activities associated with training back in the States. As long as I get paid as I have been I won’t be so bad off. I think one reason all the chicken starts just as the European war ends is so that we won’t be happy.

This afternoon we are to have a parade but it has started raining and the revue has already been postponed an hour so our hopes are beginning to rise as the rain continues to descend.

MAY 7, 1945 MONDAY

This morning at about 10:30 this station received a teletype report that all German Forces had surrendered unconditionally at about 0130 effective 9 May 45 at 0001. Until then fighting will stop except for troops of Germany who have not been notified yet because of communication difficulties. Tomorrow Stalin, Truman, and Churchill will officially announce V.E. day. We had a Group meeting in front of Hdqr. this afternoon and Chapel Services afterwards. Flares were going up all over the field this afternoon and tonight in the dark we had a beautiful pyrotechnic display. Flares make very good fireworks.

Last night we were notified that we would go home in a few weeks. A bunch of the older crews are going- Hinze, Lyons, Ellersick and Stevenson from the 835^th. Our orders should come out in five or six days.

{But the old crews didn’t get out until September. I sailed up the Hudson river on September 6, 1945 (my mother’s 45^th birthday, incidentally). The ‘old’ crews had finished their tours and would not be needed in the Pacific theater. The ‘new’ crews were the ones that were gone in a hurry – on their way to the Pacific. And what a great summer vacation we had!}

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