Mission

ON THIS DAY...OCTOBER 7,1944

Under Field Order 442, the 3rd Division would send its B-17s to the area of Leipzig, to attack Germany’s critical synthetic oil refineries located at Böhlen, Merseberg and Lutzendorf. That day, the 3rd Division’s column of heavy bombers would be led by the 13th CBW, it is believed under the command of Colonel Hunter Harris, Jr., who would fly as wing commander. Harris, previously the Commanding officer of the 447BG, had assumed command of the 13CBW on September 25.

At the briefing, the men learned that the 100BG would be leading the 13CBW and the entire 3rd Division deep into Germany, followed by the 390BG in the 13B and the 95BG in the 13C, flying with a squadron from the 94BG. The 13 CBW’s primary target would be the Braunkohle-Bezin A.G. oil refinery, located south of the town of Böhlen, ten miles S of Leipzig. “The MP1 was an oil refinery and 1P was a Rock quarry,” an open lignite mine north of the refinery. Major John Wallace was scheduled to fly as command pilot with James Seamans in the Low while George Fory would fly with Stanley Clark as command pilot in another Pathfinder.

Flying their #1 combat mission would be the crews of Thomas Hughes, Leo Ross and Harold Sherrard. Also seated in the briefing was Fred Dace, a nineteen year-old navigator who had arrived to the 100BG as part of the Fred Parrish crew in September. Completing his #1 mission as Albert Grigg’s navigator the previous day, Dace had made it through the Berlin mission. He wrote, “While we had some flak damage, all planes returned safely with no casualties. The next morning October 7,1944 I was awakened at 4 A.M. to fly my 2nd combat mission with the same crew…” After being briefed on the Böhlen target and the fuel load, Dace remembered, “The target was approximately 75 miles farther east and the pilot said if we get back we won’t have enough fuel to fill a shot glass.” Albert Grigg would have no idea of how prophetic he would be.

Take-offs commenced at 0635 hours with each of the gunners taking their positions once airborne. Grigg’s BTG, twenty-two year-old, 5’10” Lawrence Rogers tells us, “As soon as the wheels were up I cranked my ball turret down and folded myself inside and plugged in the interphone, Oxygen, and heated suit connection. Checking power, oxygen, interphone etc. I found them all in order. I turned on the power and spun the turret around to 12 O’clock and picked up the other ships and spotted the flares shot by the lead ship. We soon fell in formation with the others and circled Buncher 28 until the groups were all formed.”

With the 13A CBW in formation, the Division assembly point was made and the wings folded into proper positions behind it, departing the English coast at Lowestoft. The enemy coast was crossed at Haarlem, close to Amsterdam and the four hundred fifty-one B-17s in the column proceeded on the briefed route to the assigned IPs.

As the IP was neared, a visual bombing attack was initially called for by the 13A wing leader with the high squadron to take the lead first over the target. However, as the High was making its turn at the IP, the type of attack was switched to the H2X method due to an effective smoke screen causing 10/10 coverage over the target area. The Lead squadron then pulled back in front of the High to get into proper wing position for the H2X bombing. The high squadron “left far to the rear, and hearing that they were to bomb on the wing leader, tried to get back into their proper position.”

As the B-17s neared the target and the flak intensified, Lawrence Rogers remembered, “We started on the bomb run and clouds of flak came up until the sky was black all over” while his navigator Fred Dace tells us, “Everything went okey until we were on the bomb run and within one minute of the target when we received severe flak hits and damage…”

Over the target, bombs were away from the Lead and Low squadrons on the lead’s PFF signal at 1223 hours but the High “was still too far out of position to drop effectively,” so its bombs were held. Nervous about flak and fighters, NAV Roland Hetrick, who had flown the 100th’s previous six missions, tells us, “…This flying so regularly is hard on you. You get to thinking too much. I fastened my chute again today. We were the only one that dropped in the target area. I don't know why the P.F.F. ship didn't drop…We were more lucky than ever today. Our formation was spread all over the sky and we didn't get hit…”

Turning off the bomb run, the 13A formation was within range of flak from both Merseberg and Leipzig and the B-17s absorbed even more battle damage. Fortresses flown by Frederick Schaffenhausen and John Lundquist picked up “serious” battle damage. NAV Art Juhlin on Donald Jones’ B-17 recorded, “Went over target at 25,000’ and encountered extremely heavy and accurate flak. Our #2 engine was hit and began throwing a considerable amount of oil over the wing and tail surfaces.” On Joseph Ricker’s B-17, WG Raymond Mainka recorded, “The flak at the target was pretty bad but as we got to the rally point we were within range of Merseberg and Leipzig and got pretty rough flak. We got too many holes to count in the plane. The stabilizer was shot up pretty bad and one of the Tokyo tanks was shot through.” Walter Charles and his copilot Richard Ames were struggling in the cockpit after Ames had been hit by flak. Their WG, James Smith tells us, “Another rough one today…We caught flak from there, Liepzig, Merzbourg, Madgeburg, and all around. The flak was as much and more accurate than that of Berlin but didn’t last quite as long. Dick caught flak in the left foot and right leg. No morphine on the ship and the guy suffered all the way back. Has he got guts! Didn’t want to leave his seat. Guess he’ll be laid up for awhile. Mac (TG Ralph McBath) had a close one today. Leaned over to take a picture and a piece came through where his head had been. The Good Lord was surely with him.”

Unable to bomb the secondary target due to coverage, a target of opportunity was found on the route out with the High squadron dropping on the marshalling yards at Hemeln, one hundred seventy-five miles northwest of the Bohlen.

Albert Grigg had pulled his battle damaged fortress out of the high squadron’s formation and as expected, did not have enough gas to make it back to England. His TG, Rogers wrote, “We had left the formation and headed for Brussels on a course given to us by the lead ship. No.4 engine was feathered and its gas was transferred to the others. We were letting down too…” Navigator Fred Dace added, “Immediate emergency procedures were activated, ie, one engine was feathered as it was damaged and other three were leaned down as far as possible. We started a slow descent across Germany with no regards to flak gun locations and we lightened our load as much as possible to stretch our “powered glide” as far as possible…As we reached lower altitude we of course came into the range of many enemy guns which were pointed up at us.” The twenty-seven year-old Grigg and his twenty-three year-old copilot Moulder tried to land at one of the fields. Rogers continued, “All at once all hell broke loose. Someone was shooting at us on the ground. I looked out the window and the air was filled with a web of tracer and puffs of small flak. We were being riddled with holes. I could hear them going off all through the ship like firecrackers. We were about 50 feet up and I could see several 20mm emplacements really throwing up a screen of steel. The engines opened up and we made a turn and limped back upstairs a little and the noise eased off a little… But somehow we made it and Al decided to try an open field nearby. We were still very low and the engines were cutting out N0.2 was windmilling already. No more gas.”

Grigg radioed the men. TG Rogers tells us, “So we made a turn and Al said to go into the radio room and prepare for a crash landing. The last words I heard him say was “If there are Jerry’s there don’t tell them sons of ---- nothing”. The descending Fortress was hit in the radio room by a 20MM cannon shell, instantly killing WG Shirley Broussard and knocking Dace, seated next to him unconscious. Following up with the bail out order, Grigg, Moulder and TTE McDonald bailed out while the others in the radio room, unable to hear the order, rode their B-17 to the ground where it crashed four km behind enemy lines.

Meanwhile, after an eight and one-half hour mission, with six and one-half of those hours spent on oxygen, the remainder of the 100BG had returned safely to Thorpe Abbotts although others had experienced close calls due to damage received and low fuel levels.

Writing into his mission diary, Glen Smiley on Thomas Anderson’s B-17 recorded, “Briefed 40 guns at tar. Seemed like 400!…We weren’t hit by fighters and not many holes from flak but were hit alright, had to drop our bombs because we didn’t drop them on main target – don’t know why? So we were running low on gas tried to hit small town but without a bombsight we didn’t hit it. Navig. Had a field in Belgium picked out but we made it. Close, left formation out in North Sea so we got back O.K.. Several other ships were in same boat.” 

Calvin Dollar in Walter Bailey’s Fortress recorded, “We left the continental coast on the way back with approximately 20 gal of gas per engine remaining. Had to leave the formation at the English coast because we didn’t have enough gas to make the usual formation landing. We landed safely with 1-2-3 gas gauges on “0” & No. 4 on “5” gal. We were thinking of making a forced landing but we decided to try to make it.” 

And Navigator Art Juhlin on Donald Jones’ B-17 recorded, “Reaching the enemy coast we had to feather the engine due to low oil pressure and vibration. We left the formation and started out for home alone. Five mile from the base we lost #1 engine due to a brainstorm by our copilot and were fortunate to have a B-24 field under us at the time as we were dropping like a rock. Somehow we managed to make a miraculous landing after almost taking off the top of the control tower.”

At Interrogation, the men had reported that they thought Grigg would have made it to a friendly field. However the next day, the 100BG would list the crew as MIA. Ultimately, two of Grigg’s crew would be killed: Shirley Broussard, his twenty-two year-old WG and nineteen year-old TG Raymond Gunn. The rest of the crew would become Prisoners of War.

Crews known to be flying this mission: Grigg, Armstrong, Ivosevic, Miller, Radke, Ricker, Schaffhausen, Sherrard #1, Dickert, Urban, Anderson, Bailey, Jones, Charles, Darby, Downing, Dyatt, Fabian, Frazier, Furrer, Hempy, Hopkins, Jenkins, Ricci, Roediger, Seamans, Williams C, Rojohn, Ross#1, Hughes#1, Fory, Lundquist, Goodwin