Mission

ON THIS DAY...MAY 12, 1944

Orders for Plans ‘A’ and ‘B’ had been coming in through the night with Plan ‘B’ eventually canceled at 0148 hours. The thirty-six crews alerted were seated for the 0500 briefing where S-2 Officer, Captain Mackesey, a former lawyer before the war, divulged their target. The men followed the string from England across the map into Czechoslovakia where they would be attacking a synthetic oil plant at Brux, thirty-five miles S of Dresden, Germany. “Red” Bowman commented in the Group's diary, “Distances mean nothing to this bunch anymore, and they would not be surprised at being briefed for Ceylon, Tokyo, or Celebs any day.”

Their Primary target was the largest producer of synthetic oil controlled by Germany, with the expectation that its production would soon double. If it was destroyed all production would stop. The 100th’s Secondary target was an automobile and machine tool manufacturing plant at Chemnitz while a ‘C’ target was designated as a tire factory NW of Schweinfurt at Furth.

The Division line would be led by the 45A wing, followed by the 45B which would include one group from the 4CBW. The 13A would follow, followed by the 13B and with all wings flying at only a one and one-half minute interval between them.

Leading the 13A formation would be the 95A which would also fly the 95B as its Low Group. The 390A would fly as its High. The 13B formation would be led by the 100A formation while the 390B would fly as its Low Group with nine additional ships flying as the 100B in a composite with the 390th in the High.

Commanding the 13B CBW would be Magee C. Fuller, who would fly with Stanley Clark. Robert Rosenthal would fly as the Deputy Lead command pilot with Randall Chadwick. Chadwick was flying for pilot Frank Valesh who had been temporarily grounded due to a broken eardrum received on the April 29 mission. Elmer Ferbrache would lead the 100th’s High SQ and Robert Lunsford the Low. Flying lead ship for the 100th ships in the Composite would be Andrew Gorski flying with Francis Malooly.

The ships flying in the Composite formation had all been loaded with thirty-eight 100 lb bombs while those flying in the Lead Group carried ten 500 lb bombs. Mackesey also briefed the men that they were to ensure they followed the briefed course to avoid the flak defenses over Belgium, the eight guns at Koblenz as well as those at Frankfurt. While at Brux, they could expect thirty-five heavy guns.

With all B17s airborne, Group and Wing assemblies were successful although not easily accomplished due to the short interval of one and one-half minutes between the wings, causing a heavy congestion of ships in the assembly area.

Having crossed into enemy territory, the Gunners were on heightened alert when “between the hours of 1225 and 1240, a terrific dog fight took place in the distance ahead and to the right of our course. 6-12 A/C were seen to go down in flames…” Richard Kendall remembered, “I saw four planes shot down in flames in about two minutes.” Enemy fighters were also observed flying below the 100th’s formation but fortunately none attacked.

As the formations neared Brux, visibility was good and the Squadrons began the peel-off at the IP for the bombing runs. Heavier flak than had been briefed was encountered, intense, accurate and with a three gun rocket battery. The 13A formation over the target first waited while two of its groups make a second run over the target, making wide turns while the 100th’s formation leading the 13B made its run. Bombs were successfully away at 1406-1407 hours with good hits observed.

At 23000 feet in the Low SQ, the ship piloted by twenty-three year-old Jack Moore and Robert Blais received a direct flak hit. Flying 2nd Element lead, “ the A/C peeled off on its right wing, slipping down 2,000 feet. One chute came out. Plane then started a controlled glide and six more chutes came out. A/C seen to explode before hitting the ground." A second ship hit by flak, flown by Alexander Kinder and Theodore Schmuck, lost its #1 and #3 engines. And ship 007 flown by Carroll Woldt was seriously damaged when flak hit his #2 tokio tank, putting a hole in right outboard wing panel.

Proceeding to the Rally Point, the 13B flew ahead of the 13A formation due to its delay caused by the second bomb run and remained in that position on the entire route out which was not uneventful. Fighter attacks were observed again over Belgium. TG William Hohman in Ruppert’s ship remembered, "It was one of the longest missions we have been on and it was the first time the target had been hit by heavy bombers. We didn't run into much flak except over the target and it sure was heavy and accurate on our way back…"

The damaged ship flown by Kinder and Schmuck continued to lag behind the formation on the route out. According to German eyewitnesses, “they had seen the plane flying alone, a long time after the bomber formation had passed by. The plane had been attacked by three German fighters. There was no fighter support” and the ship ultimately crashed in Niederbachheim, Germany.

By the time the 100th's bombers landed at 1700 hours, two ships and twenty of the men that had departed Thorpe Abbotts nine hours earlier had not returned. At Interrogation, observations were gathered and comments recorded. Complaints ranged from poor food and dirty silverware to a more serious nature. Many of the enlisted men thought the Gunner’s briefing poorly done,“got everything wrong: temperature, clouds, taxi times and ETA.” The Evans Crew, #35, complained that they had flown nineteen missions straight without a leave and Elmer Ferbrache commented, “For God’s sake clamp down on VHF. One group told altitude on bomb run.”

Later, “General LeMay called to congratulate Colonel Jeffrey. Whole Division kicked hell out of the plant, but the 100th was the only Group to hit its MPI directly.”

Crews flying that day:

100A: Eichen, Evans, Ferbrache, Haralson, Jesperson, Keys, Kinder, Lacy, Lunsford, Moore, Roeder, Rumley, Schomp, Scott, Townsend, Williams, Wolf, Woldt, Zapf

Composite: Malooly, Mullen, Noble, Pearson, Rogers, Rosine, Ruppert, Siewert, Shelly

Spares: Major, Roth, Schwank