23 Jun 43

A.C.U. Hdgs; Hdqs Sq 328^th G.P.
A.P.O. 634
New York, N.Y.
Crew # 39E

Robert L. Hughes "Saunders Provisional Group #1. Senior Staff Officer and Junior Staff Officer. Appointed Commanding Officer to take GP to England. Twenty-five crews and planes.(B-17’s)
Lt Col Saunders returned to Blythe, California.

30 Jun 43

Picked up nine Lib’s, "B-24’s" and crews at Bangor, Maine on night of (June) 27 28^th (1943). Crossed the North Atlantic and delivered planes to Mod (modification) Depots and crews to combat training schools. All thirty-four planes and crews arrived safely. Command surrendered to more senior officer and assigned to Combat Crew Training.

Thorpe Abbotts to Coast of France
Aircraft 3499-418
Diversion Mission

Duck #1 "Nine Little Yanks & a Jerk". Lt Wickens not along – Lt Pascal flew as Navigator.

A "Duck" (Diversionary Mission) is a mission flown to draw off enemy fighters from some other operation – hopefully to draw enemy fighters away from the primary mission force. This date P-47’s were making their first strike in force against coastal air fields in France. We flew down the channel (English Channel) and flushed the enemy fighters, or so was the plan.

One can (only) imagine what some people will do just because they have the Lead.

(Comment from Robert L. Hughes Diary; Probably refers to actions of the Mission Leader which Hughes may have disapproved of) ..pw

Romsey
November 11, 1943 –
"Flak Leave"

Arrived at Rest Haven and found it a very lovely place and know that I will enjoy it while I am here.

Romsey
November 12, 1943 –
"Flak Leave"

November 12, 1943: Spent a lovely day taking photographs, hiking, shooting skeet and visiting with Lt Close, Lt Dille, and others.

Place: Romsey
Skeet shooting, photos, reading, and writing took up most of the day. After tea I took a little stroll. Double timed for about a mile and half, legs are kinda of sore tonight. Wrote Elaine, ????, * Mary.

Leading the 100^th

To Lead the 100^th over Gelenskirchen with Major Ollen Turner as Command Pilot in ship 307. Engine #1 went out and #2 engine supercharger failed over the French Coast. We were forced to turn back. On return attempted to make a bombing run on a small cargo ship off the French coast, but bomb release failed. Returned to base safely. Major Turner made a nice 3-engine landing. Enough of ship 307 for awhile.

Lead High Squadron in High Group composite. Lead Group was 390^th – Low Group was 95^th.

Very rough mission from the standpoint of flying. Was able to hold our squadron together but could not keep in well on the Lead Group. Bombs ringed target to South West. Ran into heavy stratus clouds which caused us to increase our altitude to nearly 30,000 feet. Southwest edge of Bremen was wide open. Our Group missed most of the flak, although there was a lot of it at 20-25,000 feet! Some higher - no fighter attacks – returned safely to base.

Scheduled to lead second element in high squadron. Group failed to rendezvous, eight ships departed English coast in formation and continued to target, bombed and returned to base safely.

The boys though we were going to return to base. Ball-Turret out and tail guns out as we reached the enemy coat. Was safer to go on with the formation that to try to return to base with a major part of the ships gun inoperative.

Target: Bordeaux
Lead of 3^rd Element High Squadron

(Other sources credit Hughes with leading the entire 351^st Sqd on this mission – probably with Luckadoo (John) as the Command Pilot) pw

Group Lead – Captain Roland Knight as Com-Pilot

It was his 4^th mission and our 17^th Don Davis flew as Tail Gunner on his 16^th mission. Lt Elliott, Bombardier 21^st, and Lt Wickens, Navigator, on his 19^th.

Takeoff was made through an overcast and the Group assembled on top of the overcast. Rendezvous with Combat Wing was made easily and we were able to setup iron mike and fly most of the trip by using the turn knob on the autopilot control box.

Were give quite a scare by loose formation flown by the 2^nd Air Division’s B-24’s. At first we though they were enemy aircraft and were very relieved to see they were B-24’s.

Our bomb run was made over ten tenth cloud cover and flak, which was nearly as thick. The thickest flak seen to date. Bombing was believed to have been good. The flak seemed thick and accurate; we were with God’s help able to come out of it as a Group essentially unscratched.

Visibility was poor at the field, we let down through ten tenth cloud cover and landed safely. All ships returned to base.

……somewhat with the 385^th before T/Sgt Gulich could get me back on oxygen and recovered enough to see where we were. I came to long enough to pull the Group clear of the 385^th and to where Major Ollen Turner could see that I was still too unsteady to fly smoothly so the Major flew for a while and made very sure I was OK before he gave it back to me.

Before passing out I had asked Gulich to give me a walk around oxygen bottle. Then I was seized by a tingling helpless feeling after which I knew very little until Gulich hooked my oxygen mask to the engineers hose and turned on constant flow for a few seconds.

Although this was a PFF mission we broke out into the clear over the IP and sighted the Hauge R.E. Stayed right in tight and made good show of it. Our bombs hit all over the MPI area. One group passed right through us over the target with their bomb-bay doors open and their bombs still aboard. Flak today was even thicker than the time before, but we were higher than last trip. Again God was with us because we came out un-scratched. Not even one ship lost an engine, 20 of 21 ships crossed the target. One returned early bombing a Target of Opportunity.

Many enemy fighters were seen, but none attacked us and all ships returned to base safely

 Ludwigshaven
January 7, 1944

Wakened at 0330 and started getting ready for 0500 briefing. Found our crew leading the Gp. Capt Roland Knight riding as Command Pilot. As the target was revealed the "red string" stretched from Friton - On – the – Sea to nearly into Happy Valley Germany. At this point the course marker stretched to our I.P. about six minutes run from the target at Ludwigshafen (A large chemical plant.) The course showed lots of fighter support, also a lot of enemy aircraft. Could be very rough into the target. Our fighter support was to out number the E.A. by about two to one. Though rather deep in Germany it didn’t look too tough.

It was the usual briefing except that Major Minor Shaw forgot his inevitable remark. "In case you are forced down give only your name, rank and serial number." Even Lt. Col. Ride was disappointed that Major Shaw forgot. This did not sit well with some of the crews who thought it could be a bad omen.

Taxi was at 0735 with take-off to follow at 0750 hours. Still dark but GP assembly was very good. Climb to 12,000 was good but some clouds and contrails caused some trouble. Wing rendezvous was not affected as scheduled and due to weather we tried to form over Scole instead of Cromey. Never did get into good combat wing formation. The course out across the Channel was very fast and steep so I jockeyed into a wing lead position. This after the Command Pilot suggested a heading change.

…because we could not get into our own Combat Wing climb was about 400’ per minute @ 169 mph.

We had flak at the Enemy Coast and then flew un-molested to our turning point at the Ruhr (River).Here moderate, accurate, heavy, and medium flak was encountered. Rather violent evasive action was taken and no harm was done. Our group was flying to the right of the Low Group of the Combat Wing ahead. Very good Group formation, also good Wing formation. Were at about 22,500’.

As we reached the I.P. our Group swung rather steep first right and then back left in order to uncover. We slowed our air speed from 162 to 150mph and as flak tracked the Combat Wing ahead we were far enough back to be free of all of it but those fluffy demoralizing black puffs which we turned into and flew through and under to drop our bombs directly on the red flares. We could plainly see at bombs away that we were again over running the bursting flak shells. The red "hearts" were clearly visible. As soon as our bombs were clear, we peeled off to the right and very steep, losing about 1,000’. This put us in good position to catch our own Combat Wing since they had gone to the Rally Point and were turning into us. We let our airspeed built to over 185 mph, but the boys were following close on to us in, yet, good formation. The flak also followed us for what seemed to be ages, but was really not more than 90 second if that long. It was heavy and coming from at least ten guns.

Before pulling up abreast of the Group, some of our 21 ships fell behind for just a few moments, but fighter cover was excellent so this was not too dangerous a maneuver. Never in my 20 missions have I seen so complete fighter cover. 47’s, 51’s, and Spits, "BEAUTIFUL."

The route out was rather un-eventful, only a few bursts of flak and a lone enemy fighter over Abbeville. No flak there though we passed well within range.

The Combat Wing split up at the English Coast and each Group returned home by it’s self. Visibility was very poor, one mile or less. The Group came in over the runway in good formation and peeled off and the landing was good. No known damage.

Col. Kidd stated, "this was the nicest formation to ever return to the base and especially in such poor visibility with and only a 2000’ ceiling." Guess they had to fly close to keep from getting lost.

May the Century Bomb Group have many more just like this one. A swell Group to fly with.

24 Jan 44

Target Frankfurt:
Takeoff and Group assembly were made during the hours of darkness.

Target was Chartres Airport, in central France.

Take off was made around noon or just slightly after. We circled and climbed to 9,000 feet with two groups in trail. 100^th B leading. By the time we had reached the coast we had gained bombing altitude of 12,000 feet. We crossed the English Channel and nearly at the French coast split into Squadrons and bombed the target by Squadrons.

Posen (Aircraft) and Rostock (Secondary Target)
February 24, 1944

Crew:
Col Neil Harding
Lt Robert Hughes
Unreadable
Lt L. A. Wickens
Lt Joseph Armanini
T/Sgt G. A. Gulick
T/Sgt H.T. Laimore
S/Sgt Talmage Buntin
T/Sgt T.E. Spinhoff (Spenhoff)
S/Sgt R.L. McKimmy
S/Sgt Albert L. Olsen

This mission was probably the deepest penetration made to date into German occupied territory Due to reasons beyond our control we were unable to bomb our Primary Target.

Takeoff and assembly were made in very excellent manner. Sgt Gulick thought this was the best takeoff and assembly we had ever made. The five (5) Squadrons from this group and one from the 95^th all fell into position on our second trip over the field forming into two Groups. 100^th A leading and 100^th B trailing in the low position where they flew during the entire mission. It was a normal climb to 6,000 feet. Rendezvous was made with the High Group of our Combat Wing on time at our First Control Point. Air Division assembly was made on time and as briefed at our Second Control Point.

Our trip over across the North Sea was un-eventful. We climbed to 12,000 feet before reaching the Danish Coast. A little flak was met at Coast in Point. One ship had an engine knocked out and was forced to return to base.

As we continued on across the Baltic Sea five enemy fighters appeared and made frontal attacks on our Low Group, High Squadron. One fighter was known to have been damaged. One B-17 was also slightly damaged. One of their gunners was wounded in one arm and hand. There were no other casualties.

We continued on until we had made the deepest penetration into Germany over made only to find our target under an overcast. Our "Micky Ship" experienced radar problems and we were forced to turn around and give the lead to another Combat Wing and follow them to the Last Resort Target north of Berlin. Results of the bombing are not yet known. Conversations heard on VHF were not concise. I thought the transmissions were foolish and careless to the extent they enabled the Germans to know our course, airspeed, and altitude. Never the less Wickens did a wonderful job of bringing us home.

We were over the target with only one ship short of two full groups. This ship made it back to the Thorpe Abbotts from the Danish Coast. Only one man in the 100^th was wounded. Colonel Harding helped me make a very good landing out of a very poor approach. He just dumped the flaps as soon as we touched down. It was a very long and tiresome mission yet it made Capt. Armanini and Lt Wickens very happy. It was the last mission of their combat tour.

On this date Lt. Brockmann an I test flew Col Roosevelt’s personal plane. A new silver G. Number one engine quit in flight but was restarted again by turning fuel selector to Crossfeed. Left fuel pump failed.

Took my first flight in a P-47. Really enjoyed myself; first single engine ship of any horse power I have flown since BT’s.

25 Jun 44

This date T. Gospodar and I test flew and made ready B-17F 263 for Gen LeMay .He took off Monday for the states – nine men aboard.

Monday General LeMay signed my letter of recommendation. Loaded documents he had signed in the E.T.O. and then took his own ship off the field.

This date checked out in a C-64. Some ride – Some ship