Mission

ON THIS DAY...SEPTEMBER 8,1944

The 3rd Division’s orders would send its B-17 Groups to two suburbs on the eastern side and across the Rhine River from Mainz, Germany, twenty-seven miles southwest of Frankfurt. While some of its wings would target the armored car plant at Gustavsburg as their primary target, others would target a supply depot located in the suburb of Mainz-Kastel, four miles away.

At Thorpe Abbotts, there would be two briefings that Friday morning: one at 0415 hours for the crews scheduled to fly in the 100BG’s High group and a second at 0550 hours for the Lead and Low group’s crews. The 100BG would lead the 3rd Division’s column, flying as the 13A CBW under the Command of Colonel Thomas Jeffrey flying with Austin Dunlap in the lead Pathfinder aircraft. The 390BG would fly the 13B as its Lead and Low groups, along with the 95BG flying as its High. Both the 13A and 13B would target Mainz-Kastel while a second group from the 95th would fly with the 45CBW, targeting Gustavsburg.

With the Squadrons mixed into three group formations, Major Sam Barr would fly in a second Pathfinder with James Seamans and Major C.A. Wallace. Major Robert A. Goodman, assigned to HQ on September 1, would fly in a third Pathfinder, flown by George Fory. Neal Scott would lead the Low group, flying with Marquard Anderson.

Under heavy rain squalls, the “go” sign was given and at 0716 hours, the thirty-eight Fortresses, loaded with the 5000 pound bomb weight, rumbled down the runway. Requiring the use of instruments during take-off and the entire assembly climb, pilots twenty-four year-old Raymond Harney and his twenty-two year-old copilot William Kimball did not have an easy start to their #1 combat mission.

Forming up over Buncher 28 at 14,000 and 13,000 feet to get over the cloud tops, the 13A Wing was successfully formed and proceeded to the Division assembly point.

At 0930 hours, the 13A crossed the English coast at Hastings but the bad weather forced the 100th’s Fortresses to climb early to 17,200 feet in an effort to get above the tops of the clouds. Crossing the French coast close to Dieppe, pilot Walter Radke aborted from the Low Group’s formation. Returning to base, he landed with his aircraft still fully loaded with his ten 500# bombs. His NAV Roland Hetrick recorded, “Today we had our first abortion. We were on our way to Mainz near Frankfort. As we were approaching the French coast I heard Walt and Bill talking about #3 engine. They had feathered it and couldn't get it unfeathered. We decided to turn around because we still had to climb about 8,000 ft. When we got back to the base, it was really closed in. I brought Walt in South of the base the first time. Then we came in right over it. The second pass we went by it because Walt wouldn't listen to me. He made me a little mad. There was nothing wrong with the engine. One of the gauges had just gone out. We were glad we had come back though because one other fellow burned out his engines.”

As the formations penetrated further into France, an even higher cloud system was observed in front of the 100BG, so Jeffrey and Dunlap took the wing up to 19,700 feet to skirt around it. At 1046, after climbing even further to 26000 feet, pilot Wesley Carlton pulled his B-17 out of the Low group and soon after reaching CP #3 at 28,500 feet, pilot James Williams aborted from the High.

At 1111 hours, the IP was made good and the fan-out procedure was executed for group bombing over the target. Having donned their flak suits and helmets for protection against the anticipated flak, the crews could observe their P-51 escort fighters in “big dog fights among contrails.” Flying #3 off of Jeffrey’s lead Pathfinder, Pilot Harvey Dickert tells us, “Colonel Jeffery led us in Wing formation through the clouds. But we had dense persistent contrails. Target semi open…Target lay in the southern part of the Frankfurt flak defenses. Target was supply depot of about fifteen large warehouse. Carried ten 500 pound general purpose bombs. Dropped five over the target – rack failure, salvoed one in Rhine River area. Other four stopped, then new engineer (Clifford Baer) called enemy fighters and fired a few rounds. Jack (BOM John Bryce) grabbed the chin turret guns, neglecting, as he should, the bombs. When the excitement quieted we were over the bomb release line and could not drop. Ground armor almost drained my oxygen system by accidentally opening upper turret emergency valve. Didn’t abort – one large walk around bottle filled from waist. Vern (CP Vernon Keilholtz) and I on same system, his. Upper turret used our system.”

Although the crews would later report the flak as light, the 100th’s B-17s absorbed the exploding schrapnel nonetheless. Thomas Anderson’s ROG Glenn Smiley recorded “Back to Castell storage dump and we really socked it. We had 10 stacks of incendiary clusters-chemical bombs. We lead the Division and the flak was fair but not bad. We expected about 100 guns but they must have moved them or else they hit the boys behind us harder. No rockets but got a flak hole in the waist where the waist gunner should have been but he was chucking chaff out, also a piece in the nose and one in the tail but nobody was hurt. Got one close burst and I thought there’d be a large hole under me but luck’s with us.” In Oren Hopkin’s B-17, his twenty-three year-old ROG Kenneth Yeater was hit in his helmet by flak entering the radio room. Walter Bailey’s B-17 absorbed one flak hit in his #3 engine while Martin Rumley’s Fortress suffered minor battle damage.

For the Lead and High formations, bombs were away with good to excellent results. However, the Low’s bombs missed the target when its lead ship failed to drop due to problems with its bomb bay doors. Flying in the Low group formation, Glenn Smiley continued, “The lead bombardier must have been hit or something was wrong because we didn’t drop our bombs right away so our bombardier took over and spotted the nearest target - a town on the Rhine near the target, Mansa or Castell.”

Making a sharp left off the target to get out of the flak, the Rally Point was reached after the Jeffrey's Group ’S’d' long enough to reassemble his wing. Still in the clouds the entire route out, the re-formed 13A crossed back over the English coast at Dover and was seen coming in over the base at 1414 hours.

After a seven and one-half hour mission, with five of those hours on the irritating yet life-saving oxygen masks, all aircraft landed safely and the crews were one more mission closer to going home. That evening, Headquarters was notified of its next mission and the crews were soon under another mission alert.

Crews flying that day: J Williams, Streed, Grigg, Raine, Harney, Heironimus, Elbel, Radke, Bailey, Geller, Kassebaum, Urban, Allen, Dyatt, Carlton, Dickert, Chamberlain, Spurgeon, Anderson, Gay, Hopkins, Ivosevic, P Jones, Simmons, McLaughlin, M Anderson, Fory, Kramp, Rumley, Darby, Harris, Rowland, Dobrogowski, Ricci, Miller, Hempy, Dunlap, Seamans