Mission

ON THIS DAY...May 13, 1944

After complaining the previous day about flying nineteen straight missions without a break, the Evans crew found themselves once again seated at the morning’s briefing. S-2 Officer Charles W. Terry divulged the day’s target and briefed the crews for an attack on the Osnabrück marshaling yards. Its locomotive shed and turntables would be the Primary target. Capable of handling two thousand one hundred goods wagons in twenty-four hours, it was a main line for the Ruhr to Bremen. The Secondary target would be the Handorf Airfield at Münster while the Target of Last Resort would be the Deelen Airfield in Holland.

Terry warned the crews to stay on course and avoid the various flak guns on their route and to expect seventy-five guns located at Osnabrück.

The Division line would be led by the 4CBW, followed by the 13CBW and then the 45CBW. The target for the 4CBW would be NNE of Osnabruck while the 13th and 45th would have the same target.

Leading the 13CBW would be the 390BG, with the 100B flying as its High group. In addition, seven B17s making up the 100A, were scheduled to fly in a composite Low group, along with seven ships from the 390th and the 95th. Flying as Command Pilot for the 100B formation would be Joseph Zeller, flying with Raymond Monrad while Floyd Mason and John Harrison would lead the seven ships in the 100A.

With bombs already loaded by Ordnance by the time the crews were trucked to their ships, forty-two 100 lb bombs were in each of the B17s flying in the Composite formation while the remainder of ships in the 100BG’s main formation carried twelve 500 lb bombs.

Take off and group assembly were uneventful and the 13CBW began its assembly. Difficulty occurred when at 23000 feet, the 390th had problems with persistent contrails and clouds. The 100th, flying as its High formation, also caught in the contrails, rejoined the Wing formation at 25000 feet.

Aborting at the English Coast due to engine failure, Stanley Major turned back at 1145. Wolf and Roth flew as spare B17s and with no vacancy to be filled, they turned back at 1253 hours. After crossing the sortie line, Herbert Howard leading the Low Squadron and Seymour Eichen in the Lead Squadron also aborted due to engine problems.

The formations encountered several flak areas. No flak was encountered as the formation crossed into Holland until Herpen. Additional low continuous pointed flak was put up from the airfield south of Meppen, Germany and all of the airfields in the Dummer Lake area put up continuous flak, low to level but inaccurate. At Osnabruck, the flak was intense and fairly accurate especially on the 100th’s B group flying at 26000 feet.

From 26,600-27200 feet, bombs were away at 1419-1420 hours, although there were problems picking out the MPIs due to the smoke and haze created by the previous bombers. No enemy fighters were encountered on the route in or out and all of the 100th’s bombers returned to Thorpe Abbotts with no losses. Although the Prescott Haralson ship returned with a flak damaged ship and one wounded man aboard, they had just completed their last mission and tour of duty. The John A. Evans crew returned with serious battle damage to their B-17 while Simmons and Zapf returned with minor damage.

At 1700 hours in the Thorpe Abbotts church, twenty-three year-old Roland W. “Rollie” Crider, a radio mechanic in the Communications Section, was married to twenty-two year-old Catherine Drummond Johnston, a Scottish WREN from Glasgow. A reception was thrown by the Communications Section with the 100th’s orchestra playing. Rollie and Catherine would return to the States after the war and live their lives in Indiana where they would be happily married until both Rollie and Catherine died in 2006 after 62 years of marriage.

That evening, a Stand Down alert was communicated throughout the base.

Crews flying this mission: Main - Dille, Eichen, Evans, Gibbons, Giles, Haralson, Howard, Major, Monrad, Noble, Rake, Rice, Rosine, Roth, Rumley, Rupert, Schomp, Schwank, Shelly, Simmons, Woldt, Williams, Wolf, Zapf

Composite - Harrison, Herres, Keys Mullen, Roeder, Rogers, Townsend