Douglas A. Schetter

Target unrecorded

Lead aircraft (circled 1)

KaiserslauternM/Y

On December 28th the crew returned to Kaiserslautern, hitting the marshalling yards as part of the continuing effort to cut German transportation lines supporting the now-stalling Bulge offensive. Defenses were lighter than previous visits. The bombing results were assessed as very good. Five flak holes in the aircraft, all crew safe.

Duppach??

On December 29th the target was a railroad bridge near Kirchweiler. Crossing the coast at Ossoe, Belgium, an antiaircraft battery found them and put flak through the aircraft. Within minutes the oil pressure on the number two engine dropped and the head temperature climbed. They feathered the engine and turned back. The group was still climbing and they couldn't keep up. Back at the base, an inspection found that a piece of flak had clipped the oil line between two cylinders. All eight gallons of oil had pumped out. The quick shutdown had prevented any further damage, and a five-cent length of hose had Ship A-Able ready to fly the next morning.

MechernichM/Y

EuskirchenR/J

WormsR/B

The next mission came on January 13th, to a railroad bridge over the Rhine at Worms. The route ran down into southern France and back up along the Moselle. Patchy low cloud forced a second run over the target before the bombs went down through the bomb bay doors. Accurate flak came up from Mannheim but caused no damage. Bombing results were assessed as very good. No fighters, no losses, all crew safe.

Harburg/Rhenania O/IO/I

On January 17th the briefing officer pulled back the curtain and the red line ran straight to Hamburg. The route went directly over the city, the fastest path through the flak area. The crew sweated the whole way to the target. The oil refinery at Harburg, just south of Hamburg, was the actual target. Their group came in behind the first wave, flew through the bomb cloud, dropped, and got out. Getting clear of Germany was another matter. The exit route crossed the Danish peninsula and out over the Frisian Islands, directly into the wind. Ground speed dropped to 80 miles per hour approaching the Kiel Canal. The flak found them there. Bursts lifted one wing and then the other, breaking the formation apart. By bombs away, only five of the original nine aircraft in the 330th Squadron were in any semblance of formation. They dropped and scattered. It was the coldest mission the crew had flown, the temperature recorded at minus 48 degrees Celsius. Two ships from the squadron were lost. One, flown by Gruener, was forced to divert to Sweden. The aircraft took several flak holes. Bombing results were assessed as very good.

KaiserstuhlO/I

The January 28th mission briefed for Osnabrück, with the pilot assigned as deputy lead for the 330th. Takeoff was in dense fog. The crew could make out two runway edge lights. The ground crew, standing 400 feet from the control tower, couldn't see it. Horizontal visibility was less than 400 feet. The interval between takeoffs was stretched to one minute instead of the usual thirty seconds. They got off the ground safely, formed up, and headed toward Germany. As they crossed the continental coast, flak batteries opened up. The left outboard engine caught fire and began to run away. Engine RPM climbed past the instrument limit of 3,200 and kept going. The left outboard was the worst engine to lose; the torque of all four engines was carried on that wing, and the propeller froze in full fine pitch, the blades flat to the airstream, creating extreme drag. They were at 20,000 feet. Three minutes later they were at 17,000. They contacted Air-Sea Rescue for permission to salvo the bombs. Clearance came in three minutes. A low cloud layer sat a few hundred feet above the water. ASR found them an airstrip on the water's edge. Every minute or so the pilot counted to five over the radio; from that and radar bearings, ASR directed a British aircraft toward them. Within five minutes a P-47 appeared off the left window, flaps down, flying formation. The British pilot gave the circle sign and said on the radio he was taking them in. It went smoothly until they hit cloud at 2,000 feet. The bulletproof glass, two inches thick, fogged immediately as the air shifted from dry cold to warm and wet, then began to build ice. Forward visibility was gone. Through the side window the pilot could still see the P-47. The airfield tower broke in: the main runway was blocked by a crashed B-24. They were to land crosswind on another runway. Wheels and flaps went down and they held position on the P-47's wing. The aircraft came down onto the runway and slid off onto her belly. The crew walked away with a few bruises. A staff car took the pilot to the commanding officer, where he was thoroughly dressed down for blocking the runway. The ground crew later found fifteen places where ice had torn chunks from the aircraft. Mission records logged the target variously as Osnabrück and an oil refinery at Dortmund. Four aircraft were lost. The crew received mission credit.

Magdeburg/RothenseeO/I

The next mission returned to Magdeburg, 75 miles short of Berlin. It was their second time to that target. Flak was moderate, one hole in the aircraft, all planes returned safely. Fair bombing results. Not as difficult as the first Magdeburg raid, but not a milk run either.

SchluchternR/R

The target was a rail line southwest of Leipzig. Heavy flak was active throughout the area and one ship with ten men was lost to it. Their own aircraft came through without casualties, but a fuel check over the target told a different story. Flying A-Able, known as a gas hog, they were critically low. They left the formation and dove for lower altitude, where fuel consumption was better, and made for the continent. They put down in France at D-53 with 40 gallons remaining. The crew returned to base the following day.

Magdeburg/Rothensee O/IO/I

The third Magdeburg mission targeted the oil refinery. The route ran in over the Zuiderzee, Zwolle, Dümmer Lake, and Hannover. Flak was a mix of tracking and barrage, fairly accurate, at a temperature of minus 38 degrees Celsius. A jet was reported in the area. During the mission the oxygen ran out, though the aircraft took no battle damage and all crew returned safely. One ship was seen to blow up. Two chutes came out. One ship and ten men were lost.

Target of Opportunity??

The briefing called for an airbase at Hall in southern Germany. The weather had other ideas. Contrails were dense and persistent from 10,000 to 25,000 feet, visibility near zero, and the formation came close to several collisions on the way in. The recall order came over Lake Constance, before the IP. The bombs went out over Germany on the navigator's own GEE readings. Results were unknown. The fighter escorts got lost in the same conditions. Back at the base, the ground crews suggested it had been the most successful mission of the war, reasoning that the smoke from the bombs would surely convince German wives to demand Hitler end things at once.

Rheine M/YM/Y

A short mission to the marshalling yards at Rheine, just over the German lines in support of ground troops. Flak was meager and confined to the target area. Two German transport aircraft were spotted. No battle damage, no fighters. Bombing results were assessed as very good. All crew safe.

Swinemunde M/YM/Y

The March 12th mission was a Russian ground support operation. The briefing map showed the red line running clear around Germany, up the Baltic between Germany and Sweden, all the way to Swinemunde on the Baltic coast, where German primary flight training schools were located. The route took the B-24s over nine hours in the air, the B-17s nearly ten. Flying up through the Baltic, the crew spotted six submarines near Kiel. Flak at the target was meager. No fighters appeared. By the time the last aircraft dropped, not a bomb remained in the entire force. At 2,040 nautical miles, it was the longest mission the crew had flown. Sweden was visible from altitude.

Hannover-HanomagAFV/V

On March 17th the crew returned to Hannover, targeting the tank and locomotive works. The day was perfectly clear and they were the first group in. Partway down the bomb run something struck the aircraft and lifted it clean out of position. The shell bursts were the largest the pilot had ever seen, some visible to the naked eye before they detonated. Most flak came from above; these guns were firing from 5,000 feet below. Their own aircraft took no battle damage. The groups behind them caught the worst of it. Bombing results were assessed as very good.

MunsterM/Y

The March 23rd mission went to Münster, one of the most heavily defended flak towns in Germany. The crew was flying deputy lead of the group. In the lead ship was Major Biggers, recently promoted and appointed commanding officer. On the bomb run the lead ship blew apart. The largest pieces the pilot could make out were an outboard wing panel burning as it fell, a wheel, and one engine. The pilot had carried a deep animosity toward Biggers since the difficult weeks following Pete Scott's death. Watching the lead ship go down, he made a decision. He would not allow himself to hate anyone again. The weight of it, he felt, was too much to carry. Their own aircraft came through without damage. Bombing results were recorded as perfect.

American Assault Area??

For several weeks the group had been practicing low-level formation flying, sometimes as low as 100 feet. The preparations were for Montgomery's Rhine crossing. Allied Headquarters had kept the entire area blanketed in military smoke to conceal the buildup from aerial observation. The crew could see it from hundreds of miles away. When the day came, the aircraft was loaded with parachute-equipped supply canisters in the bomb bay and a basket of blankets hung in the ball turret well, suspended on a quick-release toggle. At briefing the crew picked up an additional member: the official 8th Air Force photographer. The mission called for a nine-ship company front formation at 75 feet, nine aircraft flying tip to tip, with the crew in the deputy lead position on the right wing of the squadron lead. The high right flight held some 200 feet above. They came up on the Rhine on a clear day to find a massive flotilla of landing craft ferrying tanks, trucks, and men across the river. Ahead, smoke and fires marked the drop area. Individuals on the ground were firing up at them. The gunners returned fire. The bomb bay malfunctioned. They circled and made a second pass, then a third, before the canisters finally pulled free. Below them, gliders and C-47s lay crashed and burning. Men hung dead in their harnesses. By the third run they were the only aircraft left over the area, and every German gun that could reach them was trying to. Small arms fire hit the aircraft. One ship was lost from the larger force. The photographer shot thirteen pictures that day. The pilot later saw six of them.

Wesendorf A/FA/F

The 33rd mission on April 4th targeted an airfield at Pachen. No flak, but jet fighters found them again. Two hundred were reported in the area. The attack lasted roughly 40 minutes. Lee in the nose and Thorstenson in the top turret were firing throughout, the whole aircraft shaking when the fighters closed in. Lee hit one. No damage to the aircraft, all crew safe. Two men on the crew finished their tours that day.

DuneburgO/R

The 34th mission on April 7th went back to an oil refinery southeast of Hamburg, twelve miles out. The familiar anxiety returned the moment the map curtain came back. When the pilot inspected the assigned aircraft before takeoff he found that some previous crew had lined the pilot's seat and back with several layers of flak vests. He hadn't seen that done before and left them as they were. Everything went smoothly until the IP, where fighters jumped the formation. They broke off when the 88s opened up over the target. The bombs went down, and the fighters came back as soon as the formation cleared the flak. Thorstenson shot down an ME-109. Conway then called out two P-51s at two o'clock high, moving to eleven o'clock. When the second of the pair turned its nose toward the squadron, Conway recognized it as German and opened fire. The aircraft went below them, rolled over, and the pilot bailed out. With 450 jets reported in the area, and both enemy aircraft having approached from behind American planes, no one else in the squadron had fired on them. Near the end of the running fight, a fighter cannon shell came through the armor plate beside the pilot's seat, angled back, and exploded. The blast shredded the flak curtain and broke the pilot's seat belt. A piece lodged in the co-pilot Doug Schetter's left knee and drove toward his hip. The radio operator Eck was also wounded. The pilot looked at his seat after they parked. The flak vests were chewed to pieces. A distress message got through and they were given plenty of runway. Schetter and Eck were taken to the hospital. Two more gunners finished their tours that day, having volunteered for extra flights earlier. Thorstenson later received an Oak Leaf Cluster to his Air Medal for the engagement.