Mission Date: March 14, 1945
SEELZE "A & C GROUP"
100th BG Mission #: 279
Mission Summary
ON THIS DAY...MARCH 14, 1945
After a Stand Down the previous day, thirty-eight crews watched as the S-2 Officer revealed the target at the 0745 briefing. The red string went to Seelze, five miles west northwest of Hannover where the Primary target would be its marshaling yards. The Secondary target via H2X would be the main railway station in the center of Hannover with Osnabruck designated as the Target of Last Resort.
The Division’s column of B-17s would be led by the 4th CW, with the 13th flying last in the line. The 13th CW, led by the 95th BG, would fly the 100th as its ‘B’ group and the 390th as its ‘C.’ Major John Robinson would lead the 100th along with the Wilford Murray Lead crew. The High squadron would be led by Staples and Raiford and the Low squadron by Robbs and Champion.
Weather conditions would be CAVU and as the flak corridors were pointed out, the crews knew to expect a great deal of flak. Flying his #10 Mission, Tail Gunner Donald Becker recorded, “We were briefed for 200 guns at Hanover today — that’s half of Berlin’s defenses — so we knew we were in for a rough one - But a visual target makes the flak guns twice as effective because they don’t have to use radar aimers.”
With their ships carrying thirty-four 100 lb. GP bombs and two 500 pounders filled with incendiaries, the pilots took off, with the Group’s assembly accomplished over Buncher 28. Continuing their climb to higher altitude as they flew across the Channel, the 100th’s Command pilot was told to level his formation off for a “considerable length of time” due to a high wind differential that was causing the 95th’s High squadron to overrun its own Lead. Resuming their climb before crossing the front lines, Check Point 3 was made good at 20,000 feet.
BOM William Wellings tells us, “It was visual as hell and Jerry could see us plain as day but we couldn’t see him because of a terrific ground haze…” A turn was made south of the IP and the 100th began its peel off for individual Squadron runs. As they did so, devastating flak burst up through the formation. TG Donald Becker recorded, “The flak was the worst I’ve seen yet and they really shot hell out of us…After a fairly long haul we hit the I. P. and were blasted constantly and accurately for a solid 18 minute-bounced and blown all over the sky by bursts right under us — it even surpassed Berlin - I was never so damned scared and tense in my life - I must have aged 10 years from the suspense — the expectancy of the next shot hitting you or your plane — maybe you’ll have time to jump, maybe you’ll blow up in flames without a chance — maybe you’ll be killed from shrapnel — its that kind of a rampant mind that makes you flaky.”
BOM Robert Fitzgerald, tells us, “The flak was heavy and accurate. We were receiving many hits. One large garment hit just behind Cekutis our radio man and went through his transmitter then into the waist where it hit 3 oxygen bottles all of them exploding. One shell exploded just in front of our left wing and filled the left wing with holes. It was so close our ears rang for an hour. The main span of the wing was cut in half and was riddled with holes but #1 and #2 just kept running… We had 15 large holes plus so many small ones we gave up counting…”
As the ships continued through the flak, the target was reached and bombs were away at 1440 hours but not before several of the enlisted men were killed and several more injured.
In the Earl Cullimore ship, nineteen year-old TG John L. Orr was killed when a flak shrapnel came through the ship’s tail, tearing his leg off. The young West Virginian died immediately.
Disaster also struck in the 349th’s Edward Aubuchon ship when an 88 mm shell exploded in the waist, resulting in the death of twenty-one year-old Garland S. Miller. Copilot Hal Higgs remembered, “We were hit a fraction of a second after our bombardier had dropped the bombs. I knew that’s when it was because our aircraft was trimmed for a load & just after bombs are released the pilots would re-trim the aircraft to fly with a different weight load. We didn’t have time to retrim. For the next three hours we flew the aircraft that was in a continuous stall position…” The 88 mm shell caused so much damage to the control cables that 22 year-old Celeste Rossi, TOG and injured himself “took his position in the radio room to give an account of the havoc caused by the shell…" Rossi was quoted as saying, "we didn’t have time to think about being hurt. Two other gunners cared for the waist gunner, who was badly hurt, but there was nothing we could do for the engineer, as he was killed outright.” It is believed that Cyrus Cacioppo was also flying with this crew on this mission. He too was injured when a shell fragment went through his heal.
Meanwhile, in the Stanton Lawrence ship, flak shrapnel hit WG Alexander Nazemetz, slicing across the length of his throat. Although wounded, he would have been killed if he had not switched to the old fashioned throat mic that morning due to an inoperative mic in his oxygen mask.
After bombs were away, the 100th quickly reassembled at the Rally Point, leaving the Continental Coast at 1607 hours at an altitude of 15000 feet.
All ships returned to the base at 1730 hours but not without red flares being fired, signifying wounded aboard and needing priority landing. Aubuchon’s ship had lost its hydraulic system, and the pilots had to go around the field again while Don Bridge, manually cranked the tail wheel down. Touching down but with no way to slow their Fortress down, the ship hit a ditch one hundred feet off of the runway and bounced into the air. Higgs tells us, “Thank God, everybody had their seatbelts on or else, hell, we would have hit the stuff up above the cockpit. So anyway, we got it down, and they came out. That’s when we - that’s when Ed (Aubuchon) and I learned that Garland was dead.” Fourteen ships would return that day with battle damage caused by flak.
That evening, the Mission light burned red again for another mission except for the fortunate 418th Squadron, which would be stood down.
Bombing Results
Bombing Results:
Aircraft Lost: 0
Crew Lost: 0
Claims of Enemy Losses (CLS): 0
Aircraft Returned:
