With the flying of Mission No. 324 to Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, on April 25th, 1945, the bombing career of the Wing in the ETO came to a close. We didn’t know it at the time. Nobody even thought of it as the last mission. But the incredibly swift overrunning of Germany by our Ground Forces, once the Rhine Crossing had been firmly secured and the effective fighting power of the Wehrmacht crushed by the classic double envelopment of the Ruhr, proceeded to eat up all of our remaining worthwhile targets before we realized what had happened.

 

It should be noted that none of the sixteen missions flown during April was strategic. Our efforts were spent in the useful task of smashing German communications, airfields and supply depots in advance of the victorious Allied Armies. That we were engaged in purely tactical operations is hardly surprising, for strategic bombing, according to the definition, is that which precedes the successful offensive of the Ground Forces and denies the enemy the wherewithal to resist the attack when it begins. In this final phase of the war, the strategic phase of our operations was definitely past; the last offensive was rolling. Our job was to prevent the enemy from re-grouping and reorganizing, to help keep the Allied Armies on the move by steamrolling enemy facilities in their path, to play our part in preventing the Luftwaffe from returning the compliment.

 

There was great satisfaction for us in the final collapse of German resistance, in watching the eastern and western bomb lines on our planning maps spread like an encroaching tide over the remnants of Nazi Germany until the fateful day when they met on the Elbe, not far from our old friends Megdegurg and Merseburg and Leipzig and Dessau, while at the same time the inner bomb line, depicting the last stand of the western armies in the Ruhr pocket grew smaller and smaller until it finally disappeared. It seemed incredible that the ugly red splotch on our map, denoting the murderous flak of Happy Valley, had lost its meaning.

 

For we, as a part of the Eighth Air Force, had played our part in making these things possible. Even the stand and conservative “Times” of London acknowledged that, but for the strategic air offensive over Europe, these things could not have been done. When the final breakthrough came, it was evident to all, even the most skeptical, that the air war had slowly but inexorably turned Hitler’s “Fortress Europe” into a hollow shell whose last failing strength had been drained into the maintenance of a crust. When that crust was broken nothing remained except to march into the vacuum left by the smashing of what had been the most highly integrated and closely-knit industrial fighting machine the world has known.

 

What had been the steps that led to all this? We knew, because we had taken part in all of them. First, there had been the trial period, starting from small and humble beginnings, while we learned about the air war the hard way. Then the summer and fall of 1943, when, with increased forces we tried unsuccessfully to mount an ambitious air war without fighter escort. In retrospect, we realized that our missions to Schweinfurt and Anklam in that period were staggering defeats for us, great victories for the Luftwaffe; that, had the entire character of the air war not been changed by the advent of our escort fighters, today’s victorious history could not have been written. But the fighters did come, and with their advent came the six days that charted the future course of the war just as surely as its tide was reversed in the Battle of Britain, at Alamein and at Stalingrad; the six days of good weather in February of 1944 when our boys fought and won the battle of German Aircraft production. For from that battle the Luftwaffe, although it had its brief spells of recuperation, was never capable of sustained offensive or defensive action. The fruits of this action were many and of the highest importance. The pre-D-Day softening and isolation of the invasion beaches was made possible; our invasion forces could cross ninety miles of channel in the teeth of the enemy practically unopposed; the beachheads could be exploited and developed and the liberating armies built up and deployed with absolute impunity while the tactical air forces massacred the enemy’s opposing forces in a one-sided carnival of destruction; Patton’s Armor, after the Avaranches pocket with complete disregard for the security of his flanks, which could be furnished by the unchallenged air: when the flying bombs came, delayed and whittled down by our constant pounding for the air in which we were supreme, it was possible to re-deploy the entire air defensive of Great Britain without fear of orthodox German bombing. Then when the Wehrmacht had withdrawn to the borders of the Reich, our attacks on rail transport and, through oil, on motor transport had reduced German mobility to the vanishing point. The prepared positions of the Siegfried Line became Germany’s last hope: the defenders had to fight where they stood because they could not move. Once the final line had been breached, the end was a foregone conclusion. And now, unbelievably, we stood on its threshold, for the turn of the month and the first days of final smashing and surrender of the German Armies in Italy, the ignominious deaths of Mussolini and Hitler, and the final collapse and ruin of the Third Reich.

 

Not a few important events of the months were closely related to a substantial addition to the Wing family in the shape of a beautiful shiny new B-17. This was to be the General’s own baby, and quite a baby it was. Destined for immediate purpose of serving as a Command Scout airplane and also to perform such other tasks as might seem appropriate, it was lovingly modified in certain respects under the careful supervision of Major Ace Akins, the Wing Engineering Officer. Top turret, ball turret, and chin turret were removed and the interior fitted with extra seats in the cockpit, no less than three full -length bunks for the accommodation of the weary (or, in honesty, the airsick). And aft of the radio room, near where the ball turret would have been, was an electric galley. Ultimately these conveniences would serve us well should the time for redeployment arrive, for in this airplane the General planned to cart his staff to the next place and job, whatever that might prove to be.

 

The new arrangements did not permanently change the ship’s character. No basic structural changes had been made. The homelike facilities could easily be removed and fight apparatus restored. Meanwhile, however, we had a lesson in what a truly wonderful ship the B-17 can be when shorn of its lead-splitting bumps and protuberances, when restored to the true air-form the designer had envisioned. For this ship, with all its size, flew and handled like a fighter. When a full complement of joy riders, sightseers or like, she would loaf along at 180 to 190 IAS pulling only 29 inches manifold pressure, and if you wanted to put on a little coal, over 200 was easy.

 

The formal christening was delayed until after this dove of peace had been honorably wounded in combat. Twice during the month, the General took her off to war as a Command Scout. The general idea was to go along on a mission, not as part of the formation, but to tag along on the fringes of the battle and slightly kibitz the proceedings. On the first such occasion, the target for our groups comprised on the ground offenses on either side of the mouth of the Gironde River, where isolated German pockets left behind when the Germans abandoned France were still denying our ships the use of the harbor of Bordeaux. Our Groups bombed well, and the General and guests had the pleasure of watching the bombs burst on the target from their aerial OP, while only a few puffs of flak and no Jerry fighters made feeble protest. A day or two later on the other hand, the story was slightly different. The target was Dresden. The Boss planned it so that he would fly with the first box on the bombing run, then circle alone and come in with the second, and so forth. The procedure proved unhealthy. While circling from the first combat box to the second, three ME-262 jet fighters came out of nowhere, made one pass and disappeared before the tail guns could say, “HA-HA-HA”. One shell, caliber unknown, took effect in the bomb bay, putting a not-too-neat hole in the side of the ship, tearing out any amount of electric wiring, and sadly mangling the bulkhead that had been installed to hold luggage on any one-way trips that might come up. Whereupon, the Command Scout made tracks for the nearest formation and stayed with it until the friendly troop-line had been crossed on the return ride.

 

But the damage was soon repaired. With her newly acquired personality, the ship was ripe for naming. There was no doubt whatever on the score: obviously, the ship had to be named for our good companion, Ella Prentice. Nor was a name lacking, for old Hugo Toland, who dubbed us all with our permanent aliases, had left her the affectionate handle of “Bridget O’Prentice”. There was no hesitation: the General declared that the ship would be called “OUR BRIDGE”, and all concurred.

 

Due and fitting ceremonies were accordingly held on the fine afternoon of the 25th. With a name and a goodly likeness of Miss P. proudly painted on the nose, the ship was parked on the grass in front of the Control Tower, while all and sundry: the characters, officers, and men in their Sunday best, stood in formation and at attention. At the appointed hour, the car drove up bearing Bridget in person and the General as her escort. While all came to the salute, Cpl. Hakeem presented the lady with a bouquet of pink and white carnations. Appropriate remarks were made by the General, whereupon the guest of honor mounted the platform and proceeded to whang a bottle of putative mountain dew against the number two prop. Then followed the presentation of a scroll commemorative of the occasion, and “OUR BRIDGET” took her first formal flight. Loading list for the flight was as follows:

 

GROSS, WILLIAM M., BRIG. GEN

SMITH, ROBERT W., LT. COL.

AKINS, ARREN A., MAJOR

DEWLEN, WARREN E., MAJOR

DELANO, JAMES, E., MAJOR

HABERMAN, PHILLIP W., MAJOR

HANES, HAROLD J., CAPTAIN

HAMAKER, DEAN O., S/SGT.

PRENTICE, ELLA

 

On the 26th, we put into effect a project long planned, but long delayed; a sightseeing tour over Germany. The General led the show with McDaniel as co-pilot, Delano as navigator, Dreiling as acting flight hostess and Haberman as the interphone barker of our flying rubberneck wagon. Briefing was held in the Wing War Room at 0930 and at 1020 we were off for a “Ruhr Tour with a reat pleat”.

 

Our route was short, but interesting. We flew from Bassingbourn to North Foreland, then across the North Sea. Landfall was at Ostend, the famous Belgium watering place. Then, maintaining our altitude at 2,000 feet or less, we passed by Burges, with its famous medieval bell tower, and on to Holland, over smiling and beautiful country, justly famous for its snug, red-roofed towns, its geometrical network of canals and orderly, tree-lined fields. Here the marks of war were few. Every once in a while, we passed over the evidence of battles: pockmarks and tank tracks and foxholes. But the Dutch and Belgian countryside was generally untouched, and the towns and villages showed no outward signs of spoil or damage. The results of four long years of German occupation and tyranny are not visible from the air.

 

Eindhoven airfield was a different story. Here in the latter part of 1944, airborne troops had landed in the operation that led to the failure of the Arnheim bridgehead. Before the paratroops went down, we had bombed Eindhoven airdrome. Although the runways had been repaired and the field displayed a polyglot collection of airplanes of every nation and type, the results of our bombing were very much in evidence. Here for the first time, we had an opportunity to inspect, at low level, the deadly flak emplacements that had been our targets in the Eindhoven operation. We were amazed to spot on the ground a B-17 bearing our own Wing markings: an “L” ship from Ridgewell. A few moments later we saw another crashed in a field not far from town. The town of Eindhoven was untouched with one exception: we saw plainly the wrecked Philips radio tube plant, a frequent low-level target for Mosquitoes of the RAF.

 

We flew on, skirting the famed but ineffectual forts along the Albert Canal, until presently Delano announced over the interphone that we were over Germany. The announcement was hardly necessary, for bomb damage on all sides proclaimed that this was the sacred soil of Hitler’s Reich, upon which Goering had vowed no Allied bomb would ever fall. “If the Allies bomb Germany”, said he, “you may call me Hermann Meyer.” On what we saw during the next two hours, his name had turned to Meyer.

 

We saw destruction aplenty before we reached the Ruhr proper. Munchen-Gladbach brought forth exclamation and expletives that strained the wiring of the interphone. A huge P/W cage in the vicinity invited and received inspection at close quarters. But all the damage seen West of the Rhine was a mere curtain-raiser to the awful scene of desolation presented by the cities of the Ruhr. We crossed the Rhine. What symbolism lay in the spectacle of the mystic German River, subject of legendary and patriotic emotion for Germans since the beginning of their history, flowing between the ashes of recently proud cities and swirling in forlorn eddies around the hulk of vast bridges demolished by the Hun in his last retreat.

 

Dusseldorf was our first major spectacle. No longer a city, a shattered and broken thing. Here the doom pronounced by the advocate of airpower had come true. The air forces had executed the sentence pronounced by Churchill a scant two years ago, when he said that the cities of Germany would lie dust and ashes before the Hun went down to final defeat.

 

We visited other targets. Throughout the Ruhr the story was the same. Essen, the home of Krupps, Munster, Hamm, Dortmund, the whole industrial monster, cradle of Germany’s military strength, hotly contested for three long years of classic all-out air struggle, lay dead beneath our eyes with its defenders expelled form the scene of battle and its thousands of venomous flak guns silenced. It was indeed a strange fabric, for between the blackened skeletons of the sprawling cities and industrial areas lay stretches of peaceful-looking, lovely countryside, green and seemingly ignorant of the many days and nights of literal hell on earth that had transpired around them. And as we saw, we wondered what on earth people with such a beautiful country of their own wanted other peoples’ countries for.

 

All the previous devastations in the Ruhr Valley were as nothing compared to Cologne. The condition of Cologne has been described so often and so adequately that we have nothing to add except a report that we have no words to describe what we saw. For what we saw could hardly be described as ruins; Cologne was merely a geographical expression, a place where formerly ruins stood. From the air it looked like a disorderly sand pile where children had built sand houses and then kicked them into disorder.

 

The trip back to base was pleasant and uneventful. We were profoundly impressed by what we had seen and highly approved the policy laid down a few days later by the Eighth Air Force that all personnel, both air and ground were to be afforded the opportunity of making a similar trip.

 

There were few personnel events during the month. Haberman, the local G-2, arrived back from the United States after getting the big diploma from the Command and General Staff School at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. He was closely followed a day or so later by a large wooden crate containing his new education. Dewlen, our Signal Officer, went home on TD to attend school. Later we learned that he would not return.