Mission Date: April 6, 1945
LEIPZIG, MY
100th BG Mission #: 295
Mission Summary
ON THIS DAY...APRIL 6, 1945
‘Briefing in one hour’ was heard by the thirty-eight crews located across the base as they were awakened for their next mission. Their target for the day would take them deep into Germany, to Leipzig, where their Priority visual target would be its marshaling yards and the Secondary its railway traffic center.
The 3rd Division would only fly six group formations with the 13th CBW leading the 45th CBW. Leading the shorter 3rd Division column would be the 95th BG, with the 390th flying as its “B” group and the 100th as its “C .” The 100th’s formation would be under the command of Major Wooten, flying with Jean DePlanque. Leading the High would be Liljenquist/Hutchinson, the Low by Champion and the Low Low by Wofford.
Anxiety levels rose as the details of their deep penetration into Germany were laid out for the crews. William Wellings tells us, “We were actually going after a M.Y. about 4 miles west of the town itself but they had us routed to go straight across the center of town from E to W on one Bomb Run.On top of that we were flying directly into the wind and our G.S. was nothing more than 143 M.P.H. Also, it was briefed to be visual and that just about did it for me. I got so damn flacked up that I just about made up my mind that I’d never get back today.”
The thirty-eight bombers took-off successfully that morning, each loaded up with thirty-four 150 lb. T-1 bombs, two 500 lb incendiaries plus the maximum load of high octane fuel.
Due to the weather over East Anglia, assembly had been briefed to occur over France and the clouds and dense persistent contrails gave the pilots trouble. Having crossed the sortie line but before reaching the IP, a runaway propeller caused Raymond E. Blohm to abort early, flying back to base alone again.
As they neared the IP for the turn onto the Primary target's bomb run, the men were on edge as they anticipated the flak bursts that they were sure would come. When Champion’s copilot James Plough called on the interphone to say the IP and target were 10/10 and they were to attack the Secondary, BOM Wellings remembered, “I never in my whole life heard anything that sounded so nice. You could just feel the tension go out of the whole plane and everybody started talking again. Got lost just about that time in some contrails and sweated out the rest of the group but we finally found them again.”
As the formation approached the Secondary, the anxiousness returned when the smoke bombs over the target and flak barrage on the groups ahead were visible. Making a wide turn in order to peel off in squadron formation for their bomb runs, Wellings added, “It had been a good 5 minutes or more since a sqdn had bombed and we thot sure as hell they were tracking us like mad, but we never had one single burst shot at our whole group.” Bombs were away from as high as 26300 feet between 1021-1022 hours.
Reforming at the Rally Point, the 100th headed back to Thorpe Abbots in Group formation, encountering more bad weather. As the English coast was crossed, copilot Hank Cervantes wrote in his book Pilato, “The formation entered low clouds and we broke out at 500 feet in rain and fog. Everyone scattered. It was like playing a deadly game of dodge ball in an arena bound by clouds on one side and death-dealing church steeples and radio towers on the other.”
All ships landed safely back at the base at 1430 hours but due to the weather and the number of aircraft in the vicinity upon their approaches, many of the pilots had to circle the field, making multiple attempts to land. It took Champion’s ship four approaches to finally land and James Lantz remembered, “There were hundreds of B-17s and B-24s all over the place and we kept our heads on a pivot to keep from running into one. We squeezed into the traffic pattern and had to go around on our first approach. The second time around we were too close to the plane in front of us. I slowed down to about 110 mph to let down full flaps. We were about 100 feet off the ground when the prop wash caught us and brought our airspeed down to 90 mph and flipped us on one wing. Why we didn’t go in I’ll never know, but we somehow righted it and got on the ground and made a quick stop…”
Lady Luck had flown alongside the 100th’s crews on this mission with no losses and no ships returning with battle damage.
That evening, the alert light was back on and soon names and ship numbers were chalked onto the boards. Returning very late from their pass spent in Norwich, pilots Griswold Smith and William Howard and Howard’s NAV, Douglas Jones viewed their names on the board. Sleep would not come easily to them that night.
Bombing Results
Bombing Results:
Aircraft Lost: 0
Crew Lost: 0
Claims of Enemy Losses (CLS): 0
Aircraft Returned:
