Mission Date: January 21, 1945
MANNHEIM, RAIL BRIDGE (S.T.)
100th BG Mission #: 252
Mission Summary
ON THIS DAY...JANUARY 21, 1945
As the crews were roused from their short slumber that early Sunday morning on January 21, each of their ships were being loaded with six 1,000 pound bombs. The harrowing weather that gave the crews difficulty flying the previous day was not looking any better for the thirty-eight crews scheduled to fly. The Primary target for the day would be Mannheim. The Secondary would be the same as the Primary but the H2X method would be used if there were problems identifying the target visually. The Target of Last Resort was the railway traffic center of Phorzheim, lying on the northern outskirts of the Black Forest.
The 13th Wing would fly last in the Division column. The 100th would lead its Wing, flying three squadrons as the ‘A’ group with the Command pilot of Major John B. Wallace flying with Captain Spurgeon. The 390th would fly as the ‘B’ group and the 95th the ‘C’. As they would come to expect in their briefings, the S-2 Intelligence Officer warned the boys to expect heavy flak.
Although the heavy bombers took off without incident, the "p---poor" weather conditions required the Group to assemble at 16000 feet. In order to make the Division assembly, the pilots had to continue their climb to an altitude of 22,000 feet. LT Wellings, flying as Bombardier with LT Michael’s crew in the High Squadron tells us of the difficult assembly. “…Ran into clouds about 5,000 but pulled out of it again at 12,000. Then they decided to move it up to 16,000 for assembly so up we went. The Group was half formed by that time and when we got to 16,000 we ran into some really thick stuff where you couldn’t even see your wing-men. Contrails started forming then so we made @ new altitude for assembly - 24,000. We managed to keep our own lead element insight some of the time but lost everybody else. From then on, it was really a Rat-Race —prop-wash and contrails all over the place… »
Shortly after leaving Splasher 7 and with no ability to see through the prop wash and contrails, the 390th’s formation cut right through the Hundredth’s formation, almost colliding with the 100th and causing it to break their formation apart into squadrons. Now separated in the middle of the cloud layers, both of the 100th’s High and Low squadrons were unable to see their Lead squadron to rejoin it, each flying on separately in their own formations while climbing even higher to get out of the overcast and trying to locate their air leader. LT Wellings adds, “…Headed right out across the Channel then and I counted 100 ships in front of us and not more than 20 in one group. Most of them were in twos or threes. Never saw such a mess in my life….” The 100th’s Low squadron becoming separated from the 100th’s formation in the contrails had tacked themselves on as a High squadron flying with the another bomb group, the 385th.
Just before the IP, the 100th’s Lead squadron was forced to ’S’ right to again avoid a collision with yet another group's ships. Meanwhile, the 100th’s High, following yet another group, was able to catch up with the 100th’s Lead squadron just before the IP.
On the bomb run at Mannheim, flak was reported as “moderate, barrage and with a few guns tracking,” causing damage to some of the 100th’s bombers. In LT Michael’s aircraft, flak had smashed through the nose of his ship hitting Bombardier, LT William J. Welling’s flak suit. LT Wellings recorded into his mission diary, “I felt it hit my leg and thought sure as hell that it went right thru me but I couldn’t see for a minute and I really expected to see blood all over the place. After I got so I could see, I saw that the flak suit had deflected it and tho it tore a big hole in the cloth and put a gash in the metal, it hadn’t penetrated through…"
Although ground rockets were also fired from below, none hit the formation and the boys continued on to the target where bombs were away at 1212 hours.
The majority of the 100th’s Lead and High squadron B17s bombed in the Mannheim area in squadron formation although one of the ships had tacked on with the 486th Group, another with the 447th Group and yet another tacked on to a composite group “made up of A/C with group letters “C”, “V”, and “O”. The 100th’s Low Squadron had remained with the 385th’s formation all the way to the target, bombing a marshaling yard in the southeastern section of Mannheim, after which they tacked onto another group and eventually joined a different group from the 1st Division, following them back to base.
The flying conditions that caused such formation problems also led many of the pilots to make the decision to ultimately abort the mission early, a decision that was up to each individual Airplane Commander. This would be a mission with a high abortion rate for the 13th Wing when a total of nineteen ships did not bomb the target. Nine pilots from the 100th ultimately did not attack the target: Three from the Lead, three from the High and two from the Low squadrons. Seven pilots were reported to have aborted from the 95th Bomb Group, and five from the 390th.
Six of the 100th’s B17s returned with flak battle damage but fortunately, no ships or boys were lost from the Hundredth.
Bombing Results
Bombing Results:
Aircraft Lost: 0
Crew Lost: 0
Claims of Enemy Losses (CLS): 0
Aircraft Returned:
