Mission

ON THIS DAY...JUNE 10, 1944

June 9 had been a rainy, misty ‘Stand Down’ day and the men at Thorpe Abbotts enjoyed a much longer and needed sleep. That evening however, orders came through for another mission with a lead crew pre-briefing scheduled for 0130. By 0200, forty-one crews had already checked in with the attendance man stationed at the main briefing room’s door when they were called to ‘Attention’ for the entering Executive Officers.

Reseated, Captain Paul Mackesey briefed the crews for another tactical mission. The 100th would be part of the first operations of the day, with a Primary target of the Morlaix fighter field, located just three miles inland from the North coast of Brittany on the Brest peninsular. The air depot would be one of three targeted by the 4th and 13th CBWs. Mackesey told the men that Morlaix was of “topmost priority and from all indications is high in the counter-invasion plans of the enemy. The latest coverage shows that A/C are being moved into these fields and all are extremely active. It is hoped that bombing of these targets will make the fields themselves untenable and will force the enemy to withdraw to more Southerly bases not so favorably positioned with respect to the Channel coast.” Their MPI would be the middle of the runway and there would be no Secondary or last resort targets. Zero hour would be 0700 hours.

The Division line would be led by the 4CBW, followed by the 13CBW, which would fly two wings, an ‘A’ and a ‘B’ wing. The 100BG would fly as the Lead and High Groups in the ‘A’ Wing while the ‘B’ Wing would be flown by the 390A and 95A BGs.

Leading the 100th’s formation would be twenty-six year-old Major Magee Fuller as Command Pilot, flying with Stanley Clark while twenty-six year-old Robert Rosenthal would lead the Low Group, flying with Francis Kincannon.

As Mackesey outlined their route in and out of the target area, he warned that Brest should be avoided due to its ninety defensive guns. The target however, was believed to be undefended although six heavy guns had been observed under construction.

The A’s B17s had been loaded with twelve 500 lb GP bombs while the ‘B’ ships would carry thirty-eight 100 lb GP bombs. With each ship also loaded with two thousand three hundred gallons of fuel, take-off was set for 0416 hours.

All of the 100th’s Fortresses made a successful take-off although many were unable to easily find the Group after becoming separated during their climb to assembly. Assembly was eventually made and the formation began crossing the Channel.

However, due to the “dense persistent contrails and middle and high clouds up to 29,000 feet making assembly impossible,” the attacks against the three Brest airfields by the 4th and 13th CBWs were abandoned with the 100th’s formations turning back while still over the water.

All ships landed safely, although individual landing times were strung out due to the poor weather conditions back at the base. Frustrated that they had gone through all the mental preparations and flying hours without a mission credit, most of the crews thought the mission should have been scrubbed from the beginning.

Crews on the formation sheet:

100th Lead Group

Lead: Major Fuller PFF Fuller/Clark, Lischer, Valesh, Schwank, Anderson, Roth

Low: Evans, Rowland, Rice, Major, Fory, Ryan

High: Scott, Dille, Zapf, Greiner, Cumming, Delaney

100th A Low:

Lead – Rosenthal/Kincannon, Brewer, Rogers, Chadwick McEwen, Elbel

Low: Gibbons, Dunlap, Steussy, Tiahrt, Rosine, Keys,

High: Herres, Gustafson, McKeague, Townsend, Harding, Woodall

Plus 3 Spares Kemp, A.D. Williams, Ransom