Date: 7 july 1944

BASE: Castelluccio dei Sauri

TARGET: Blechhammer, Germany--North Synthetic Oil Refinery

SHIP: Jesse James …808

ESCORT: 40 P-38’s and 20 P-51’s. The 332nd Fighter Group--Red Tails--failed to rendezvous probably because the 332nd Fighter Group followed plan B and the 451st followed plan A which took us to Blechhammer instead of Vienna, with a different rendezvous time. Apparently the 332nd Fighter Group did not receive the Fifteenth Air Force message to go with plan A.

BOMBS: 10 x 500 lb. General Purpose from 22,700 feet.

ENEMY AIRCRAFT: Fifty encountered. FW-190’s, JU-88’s, ME-110’s, ME-109’s,  & ME-210’s attacked from Lake Balatan to target and back.

FLAK: Intense Volume,Inaccurate Aim, Heavy Caliber at target.

RESULT: Smoke pots covered the target area. The bombs were dropped by pathfinder (radar “mickey” ship). Photographs are poor. Not much damage is believed to be done to target. Some bombs dropped on marshalling yard in Kosel area.

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NARRATIVE:  Flak and loads of fighters. The enemy fighters were encountered south of the target area, after the bomb run. They were flying in two groups. The group with ME-109’s led the assault, trying to decoy the P-38 escort from the bombers. The P-38’s chased them away and then returned to the bombers but couldn’t stay because they had cast off their belly tanks during the chase. Garland Jarvis, the pilot in #4 position, 2nd Flight of the Group saw aircraft #808 JESSE JAMES(in #5 position) attacked by ME-109’s causing large holes in the right and left fins and one wing. The wing caught fire and was burning fiercely when he saw 10 men bail out. A few minutes later, after another attack the plane burst into flames and went down in Yugoslavia, near Durdevac (20 miles east of Zagreb)--very close to the  border of Hungary.

Four of the crew evaded capture and returned to base. The other six became POW’s.