Date: 22 FEB 1944

MISSION #5

BASE: Gioia del Colle

TARGET: Messerschmitt Assembly Plant at the Airdrome near Obertraubling, Regensburg, Germany

SHIP: Sakinshack …256

ESCORT: 25 P-38's on the way home from the 1st, 14th, and 82nd Fighter Groups.

BOMBS: 8 x 500 lb. General Purpose from 21,000 feet.

ENEMY AIRCRAFT: This is our first real fight with enemy aircraft. 20 to 30 ME-109's, ME-110's, JU-88's and FW-190's attacked in Regensburg area, near Klagenfurt and at Graz. The enemy aircraft came up through the clouds in formations of 6 to 8 then broke off in pairs which joined at 4, 5, and 7 o'clock high, diving under formation going into a wide sweeping turn. Attack followed from all angles. All of our gunners opened up. We had quite a fight on our hands for 40 minutes. Several of the enemy aircraft were shot down. Some ME-109's had yellow cowling with white spinners, FW-190's had yellow diamond shaped designs on cowlings with white spinners.

FLAK: Intense Volume, Very Accurate Aim, Barrage Type Heavy Caliber over Graz and Munich. Inaccurate flak over target.

RESULTS: Weather foul. Complete cloud cover over target. Doubtful if anyone hit target.

SORTIES: 2 Total: 6

MISSION TIME: 8:30 Total: 30:15

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NARRATIVE: Flew over the Alps. Saw the Danube River. The rendezvous was snafued and some aircraft ended up in the wrong wave. It was a long haul, our first time to fly over Germany. It was colder than usual even though all of our heated equipment worked. I thought we would never get there, but when we did the target was completely overcast, so we didn’t hit it after all. We had to rid our bombs because the weight was causing us to use too much gas. We finally saw a railroad and dropped the bombs (sorry about the little town nearby). It was pretty rough today, but not on us because we stayed in pretty good formation. Enemy fighters sat up at 30,000 feet just waiting for someone to drop out of formation. All of our ships returned. The 376th, 450th, 449th all went. The 449th and the 450th each lost 4 ships. Every group had some cases of severe frostbite. Ran into stinko weather coming home--haze so bad it cut visibility to half a mile--then had to turn to avoid clouds. We finally had to let down to 1500 feet over the Adriatic coming home. I hope we never get involved in such weather again. They are giving us credit for two missions every time we go into Germany. They should since we have to bomb the same targets as the boys in England do, and they fly only 25.