This was a month to be remembered. In it our Wing participated in the Battle of German Airplane production. Nobody fooled himself to the extent of thinking that Jerry had met his Waterloo. But if the air strategists are right, then perhaps the historian of a future day will say that the air battles of the six days from the 20th to the 25th were Trafalgar of this war. For, as Trafalgar had foreshadowed Napolean’s and by denying him the sea, this possibly fateful week might ultimately mean that Jerry was to lose the sky over his own country. If that should happen, the parallel could hardly fail to materialize.

 

For this was important business. Till now our major contribution to the war was, perhaps, that we had thrown Jerry on the defensive in the air. By our daylight attacks, we had forced him to specialize in fighter production. Then, by the increasing power of our force and the extension of our range until we covered practically the entire Reich, we forced him ever and again to regroup his fighters in defense of his home industrial centers, even though in so doing he was obliged to strip the Russian and Italian fronts and even his installations in the occupied countries of the west. That he felt obliged to do so was pretty good proof that he agreed with us on the importance of the struggle for the skies over Germany.

 

Our past experience had shown us that Jerry had planned his fighter production to meet the needs of the situation. He was building fighters fast enough to provide for the defense of the Reich. The intelligence reports said that we had him down to the point where his reserves were practically at the vanishing point, but still he managed to keep one jump ahead of the sheriff in operational first-line aircraft, and that was enough for him minimum requirements. Yes, we were penetrating his fighter defense. But as long as he had a first class fighter defense system in being, we made our penetrations as a price both in aircraft and in the reduced efficiency of our force attributed to necessary protective tactics. The fact that we were obliged to fly Combat Wing formations was a tribute to the strength of Jerry’s fighter defense. A Combat Wing formation was not the best formation for attack: similar units were more flexible and less vulnerable to flak. But as long as Jerry had large numbers of fighters against us, we would have to go on using them. Also, the existence of the defensive fighter force imposed on us a high degree of complexity in order to achieve saturation and at the same time coordinate our fighter escort to the best advantage.

 

Between the 20th and the 26th our old enemy, the weather, decided to play on our side for a while. There were funny conditions over the European land mass. A nice, big high-pressure area arrived over central Germany and decided to stay a while. It was a weather set-up that came once in seven years, they told us. And it meant visual bombing conditions over the plants where Jerry turned out his ME-109’s and FW K-90’s, ME-210’s and 410’s, and JU-88’s, Leipzig, Regensburg, Aschersleben, Czchorslahan, Gotha, Bernburg, and the rest.

 

The 20th was a maximum effort. Eighth Air Force dispatched over 1,000 heavy bombers. Our Wing ran two separate missions, putting up a total of 94 aircraft. Our targets were the airplane factories at Leipzig/Sockau and Aschersleben. For the Leipzig missions we put up 58 of our own aircraft and two Pathfinders, making a Combat Wing formation of 60. For Aschersleben, we put up two Group formations and borrowed, from our old friends the 351st, one Group.

 

Leipzig was a complete success. The weather had been called to a T. We had complete undercast most of the way and let the Pathfinder do the navigating. Then, it cleared before the target. The bombing was done visually, with results that were literally perfect. There were two factories: one on the north side of the airdrome and one on the south. We plastered both.

 

Our “B” Combat Wing fared less well, but paid its way nonetheless. The Pathfinder ship, which led our boys past the overcast, took them to Oscherleben instead of Aschersleben, and there we bombed the ADO airplane works, which we had hit on January 11th. It was a worthwhile target, but due to the hasty improvised bombing run, only part of our bombs hit the factory. Still, it was a good day’s work.

 

The remarkable thing was that both missions were accomplished for the loss of only two aircraft out of nearly a hundred. This was attributed to the coordinated planning of the attack with attacks on other targets, for which credit goes to higher headquarters, to the excellence of our long-range fighter escort, and to the first-class execution of the mission by our combat crews.

 

The following day the Boss took one. It was his thirteenth, which we spoke of as 12A. The powers decided to follow up the attack on fighters in production with an attack on fighters in operation. We were briefed to hit the fighter airdrome at Gutersleh, northeast of the Ruhr. We made the Boss a mission brief, but in vain because when he got to the target area it was socked in. Applying his own maxim, he had the crew keep their eye peeled on the way in for opportunity targets. Captain Fullick, the 381st Group bombardier, saw a juicy one; the airdrome at Brausche/Acheer, and when they went back to attack it, the blow was well and truly delivered. It was a good piece of picking although the target was un-briefed, it was the assigned target for units of the 2nd Division. The main building of the drome, on which the weight of the attack fell, turned out to be a large repair and maintenance hangar. That, we thought, was hitting the Jerry in a pretty good spot. As long as we weren’t hitting production that day, lower echelon maintenance was a good place for a wallop.

 

The next day was a bad deal. Even the best weather was fickle and on the 22nd, in spite of Washington’s Birthday, it failed to open. Our boys went deep over central Germany looking for more fighter factories, but no soap. And there was trouble, too. Flying above overcast the lead Wings wandered off course. Our Wing leader thought they were wrong and when he saw the Ruhr erupting flak ahead he knew it. He decided to stay on the briefed course, but this detached us from the rest of the force. Fighter escort was spotty because of weather and navigation trouble and as a result we caught it. Eleven airplanes out of the Wing alone, practically all from fighter attacks. And the best we could do was bomb a target of opportunity and insignificant plane, called Bunde. This one was a setback.

 

But we didn’t stay that way. We had a day off on the 23rd. Then on the 24th the big, bad wolf came up again. Jerry had repaired the ball-bearing works at Schweinfurt. We had to go back. But this time the wolf’s teeth had been drawn. We had perfect weather, perfect fighter support and everything we could ask for. We sent a Combat Wing back to Schweinfurt on which we alone expended thirty aircraft and every ship came back. That was news.

 

Bombing was good. The smoke of previous attacks obscured our aiming points when we arrived. Our bombardiers selected other aiming points and the goods were delivered where they would do the most good. Then that night the RAF followed up the attack, lighted the target by the fires we had in the afternoon. Within twenty-four hours this smallish city of only sixty-odd thousand inhabitants was plastered with nearly four thousand tons of bombs, or 153 pounds of incendiaries and high explosives per capita. Every bearing that sped a torpedo or a fighter plane or a tank against the Allies was being paid for, with interest.

 

The month closed with another day of major attacks on aircraft plants. Our target was a part of the Messerschmidt complex at Augsburg. This was a long pull. Far beyond Nuremburg. Our IP was almost in the defense of Munich. A year earlier, more or less, we had gasped when Lancasters of the RAF went there in daylight to bomb the important M.A.M. diesel works. That attack was a desperate counter-submarine measure. It had been a low-level job and it cost six of the 12 Lancasters that attempted the trip. Now, our Wing attacked with 30 aircraft for a loss of one. The attack was effective and would have been perfect had not a chance hit of flak set off a smoke bomb in the bomb bay of the 381st Group lead aircraft, forcing him to salvo early. About half the Group bombed on this misfortune. But the rest of the ships hit the target and inflicted heavy damage even though they failed to obliterate it. Then, that night, the RAF repeated the tactics of the night before. They plastered Augsburg with a major and concentrated attack.

 

Two of Hitler’s arsenal cities had been rubbed out in 48 hours. Was this a pattern of the future? Succeeding months must bring the answer.

 

We had executed six missions in six days, eclipsing the record of last July. But all this way, we hoped and believed, just a curtain raiser. Sometimes, when we lost airplanes, it was hard for us to remember the big game. To us, at the lower echelon, it was our boys against Messerschmidts and Folke-Wulfs. True, those were the primary stakes, but the ultimate stakes far surpassed them. For while we had our boys and our planes and our theories at hazard, Jerry was betting his air force, his war production, his civilian population, his morale and his towns and cities. Even his ability to continue to defend himself was on the table. Was he playing a losing game? That was the big question and we were betting he couldn’t win.

 

There were other missions. In fact, with eleven missions, February was the biggest month so far. And many other months saved face only because missions had been flown on the 30th and 31st, which February didn’t have at all.

The other missions were Wilhelmshaven on the 3rd, Frankfurt on the 4th and again on the 11th, Avord, France on the 5th, and Nancy, France on the 6th. Avord was more slogging at airdromes. Nancy was intended to be the same, but cloud interfered. Both these missions cost no airplanes and the same was true at Wilhelmshaven, which was a routine Pathfinder job with moderately good results. The two Frankfurt missions were Pathfinders. Between them, they cost three airplanes. On the first, we lost Lt. Col. Alford, Operations Officer of the 91st. His ship was hit by flak and was seen going down under control.

 

The second Frankfurt mission cost one airplane. The Pathfinder took us to the wrong target: we bombed Ludwigshaven with good results, but still, it was the wrong target. We lost one.

 

Our sorrow at losing Col. Alford was mitigated somewhat when we learned that Uncle Willie Hatcher of the 351st, lost on the last day of December had gotten safely out of the airplane and was Hitler’s guest. We hoped that Alford would fare that well, too.

 

One other thing deserves mention. In December we found out how to make lifelike target models in a hurry. The technique, developed by the S-2 of a B-26 Group, involved the use of colored sawdust and shellac to make it stick. You made a legless table with a linoleum top and projected the target photograph on to it with the epidiscope, sketching in the outlines in chalk. Then you applied fields with dyed sawdust on a shellac base, buildings of wood bits and plasticein, reeds, rivers, lakes and such in colored chalk, and when you were through you had something that looked pretty good. In February our two Groups got organized to turn models out between receipt of the Field Order and briefing time. The bombardiers liked it fine.

 

There were some personnel changes during the month. On the 11th, 1st. Lt. Vernon P. Smith joined from 1st Bomb Division and was assigned as Assistant Adjutant. On the 15th, Lt. Roger Prior was promoted to Captain. On the 5th, in a big trade with the 91st Group, Geremina – he of the save rubber campaign – were transferred to the Group in exchange for Pfc. Hanson and Pvts. Spivey and Sroka.