Mission

With forty crews having checked in with the attendance man at the door, the main briefing started at just forty-five minutes into the new day. It would be twenty-five year old S-2 Intelligence Officer, James D. Shirley that would brief the crews that early morning. Shirley, having served with the North Dakota National Guard before enlisting into the Army, pulled back the curtain from the map and the crews followed the red line into Germany to Fallersleben, fifty miles E of Hannover.

The 100th’s Primary target would be the Volswagenwerk factory, where inexpensive cars had been produced under Germany’s “Strength through Joy Project” and where its was also manufacturing war materials: JU88 wings as well as jeeps, armored cars and possibly ME110 components.

The 100th would fly two groups and Shirley told the men that the MPI for the 100A would be the machine and press shop while the 100B would target its assembly and machine shops. With Fallersleben as both the Primary and Secondary target, Shirley relayed that if PFF was needed for bombing, then both groups would have the machine and assembly shop as their MPI. Fassburg, fifty-one miles NE of Fallersleben would be their target of last resort.

The 45A CBW would lead the Division line followed by the 45B, 4A, 13A, 13B and 4B CBWs. The 13 CBW’s ‘A’ Wing would be led by the 95A BG, with the 100A flying as its High group and the 95B as its Low. The 100B group would fly as the High formation in the 13B Wing, with the 390A in the Lead and the 390B as its Low group.

With the ‘A’ formation to be led by Mason and Giles, the ‘B’ would be led by Zeller and Scott. Additionally, the crews were warned about the twenty-four guns expected from the IP to the target. Each Fortress had been loaded up with two thousand six hundred gallons of fuel and carried two 1000 lb bombs with take-off scheduled for 0400 hours.

While the groups formed up, the spare ships that had also taken off were needed as there were ultimately six pilots with early aborts. Kemp aborted over the field at 0445 hours at 2500’ due to an oil line out on his #1 engine. Dickert, flying as a spare for the ‘A’ Group filled in his position in the formation. At 0631 and 0635, the spare ships for the 100B, Major and Ryan, returned back to base due to no open positions. At 0650 hours, Kohler left the formation due to the oxygen feeder line rupture. Johnson, already flying in the same Low squadron, moved up to take his spot. At 0700 hours, Gustafson left the formation from 16000 feet due to his #1 prop governor leaking oil and #3 supercharger out. Rogers, flying as the second spare for the 100A filled in Gustafson’s position.

Ransom’s ship would be the last one to leave the formation before the target. His ROG, Emmett Schmitt tells us, “…While rendezvousing at 6,000ft we got a hard jolt when a B-24 exploded on the ground while taking off. Flames shot 3,000ft into the air. I could see burning pieces of the ship spread out over a large area. We climbed to 26,000 ft over the North Sea and crossed the German coast at 8:20 Am. One supercharger went out over the North Sea but we stayed with the formation. We ran into some light flak at the German Coast that did not do any damage. A couple minutes after we crossed the German coast, number 4 engine started throwing oil and got hot so we aborted…” Ransom’s CP Keith Lamb adds, “Doing a foolish thing, we decided to go on with the engine anyway, even though we had to use full power to stay in formation carrying a full load of gas and bombs. This proved to be too much for our old engines and two of them burned out just before we got to Hanover. We started to go down fast. Immediately after feathering the prop we dropped our bombs. Some farmer probably got a real surprise when he saw his corn field erupt into the air. We were at 25,000 feet, losing about 300 feet a minute. Ransom and I were so busy trying to get the maximum power out of' the two remaining engines without burning them out that we neglected to watch where we were going and flew right over a German town. Knowing that we were in trouble, they waited until we were directly over their immediate area and then opened up with everything they had in the way of antiaircraft. Ransom did some fancy diving and turning, but we still lost a lot of precious altitude. I thought we had had it. We had a long way to go on two engines with no escort—and German Fighters in the area, but Waldman, our navigator, gave us a course back to avoid most of the flak.”

Meanwhile, the 100th’s formation continued on to the target. Clear conditions were over most of the continent although smoke screens were observed over many of the major cities. At 0820 hours, a dog fight was observed between P-38s and enemy aircraft, 3000 yards from the 100th’s formation. At 0900 hours, just before bombs were away, two ME-109s passed 1000 yards in front of the Group with two P-38s in hot pursuit. Seen to be heading toward the lead squadron of the High group, they were driven off by fighters.

Encountering out of range flak on the way in, at the target the flak was also meager and inaccurate and there was no battle damage received. From an altitude of 26000 feet, bombs were away by the 100A and 100B at 0905 and 0906 hours.

At the rally point, the 100th’s B17s followed the course out for home, with all landing safely and without any battle damage from flak. The Interrogation room had been set up with thirteen tables and guards were ordered for the doors at 1140 hours. With nine Officers interrogating the crews, they received an earful with several comments about the friendly fighters. Crew #12, commented “4-P-51s pointed nose at us at 3 o’clock level - asking for it.” Crew #18 stated, “Several rounds fired at P-47s coming in. Suggest recognition signal. Confirming the need for better recognition, Crew 33 commented, “Friendly aircraft are coming in nose first and are being fired upon. There should be a recognition signal set up. One mission per crew a day is sufficient.”

At the end of the day, Red Bowman recorded into his journal, “Our old friend Fallersleben, many times briefed but never before hit by the Hundredth, found out the facts of life today. Photos showed hits on Mean Point of Impact…Excellent results were obtained by bombardiers Harris Skelton and Arthur Holtz.”

That evening, the base went under restriction orders, and the shuttle mission, codenamed “Frantic” was on again. Red Bowman continued in his journal, “For the rest of the evening, the specially selected crews gathered equipment to last a week including extra blankets, bug repellent, field rations, toothbrushes, changes of underwear, socks, money and escape packs.” Robert Satchel, TG on Wolf’s crew, recorded into his diary, “Just found out tonight that the Russian shuttle deal is up for tomorrow - Pass coming up - Maybe next time Rowe (ROG) writes in his book he will have dined on Vodka and borscht.”

Crews flying to Fallersleben:

100A Led by Mason/Giles with Elbel and Lambert. 2nd Element lead Rosine with Kassebaum and Steussy. High lead by Herres with Woodall and Harding. Townsend 2n lead with Gustafson and Williams. LOW SQ led by Chadwick with Smith and David, followed by Allen with Kemp and Gallagher.

100B led by Zeller/Scott with Dille and Cumming. 2nd Element led by Wolf with Bennett and Ransom. High SQ Led by Harris with Roth and McEwen, then Anderson with Jones and Rice. Low SQ led by Schomp with Kohler and Delaney , then Simmons with Johnson and Rowland.