The first month of the New Year has passed bringing us ever closer to the complete destruction of the Hitler-ite machine. This was the month of the great Russian drive from Warsaw to within 50 miles of Berlin. On the Western Front the German salient in the Ardennes was eliminated and our Armies were jockeying for position in what we hope will be the final push.

 

Communications centers again were objects of our own private war. Of the seventeen targets attacked, ten of these were Communications Centers. The majority of these targets were attacked by instruments, so results could not be assessed. On the three occasions on which the weather did allow us to sight visually, the results were good. 69% of our bombs fell within 2,000 feet of the assigned Aiming Points, which placed us first in the 1st Air Division.

 

The second priority targets seemed to be the Rhine River bridges, seven of which were attacked by this Combat Wing. Three of these targets were attacked visually with good results. At this rate the Rhine will soon become a bridge-less river. The importance of depriving the enemy of use of these bridges will become more evident in the approaching campaigns. They were presumably attacked to attempt to trap enemy forces west of the Rhine and prevent reinforcements from moving from the West Front to the East Front. These attacks should have far-reaching effects. Time will tell.

 

Of the remaining three missions, two were flown against industrial targets and one against the synthetic oil plant at Sterkrade in the northwestern corner of the Ruhr. The industrial targets were attacked by instruments, but the weather was clear over Sterkrade making visual methods possible. We took advantage of the break as evidence by cameramen was confirmed by strike photos of the target area. It was evident that a great deal of damage had been caused. This mission was one of the most successful of the month.

 

The total weight of bombs for these seventeen missions was 3,873 tons of which 2,434.4 tons were dropped on primary, 1,199.5 tons on secondary and 239.1 tons on last resort targets. We led the 1st Air Division in tons of bombs dropped on primary targets.

 

During the month we scheduled 1,505 aircraft of which 4 failed to take-off. Of the 1,501 aircraft airborne, 54 or 3.6% of the aircraft returned early leaving us with a credit of 1,447 aircraft sorties only 4 aircraft or 0.3% failed to return. Two of these were due to flak, the remaining two were lost to unknown causes.

 

This creditable performance rates the Wing first in the Division in the following categories:
 

The use of the Gee-H method of bombing an obscured target increased this month. Thus far we have been compelled to borrow Gee-H aircraft from the 41st Combat Wing, but it is easier to modify an aircraft to Gee-H than it is to check out a navigator on this system, our main shortage is Gee-H operators. But with our present training phase, that situation should be remedied in the not-too-distant future.

 

Although we still did not have an adequate number of aircraft and operators, we managed to run our first Gee-H mission on January 20th with our own personnel and equipment. The target, Mannheim, was attacked thru an overcast with results unobserved.

 

The advent of Gee-H leaves us with three radar methods of bombing an obscured target, namely Gee-H, H2X and Micro-H. The latter method has not yet been used organization.

 

Misfortune struck us this month with the loss of Colonel Frank P. Hunter, Commanding Officer of the 398th Bombardment Group. His aircraft failed to return from the Neuss mission, January 23, 1945. About 2 minutes before bombs away his aircraft received a direct hit in the right wing. The aircraft was last seen rapidly losing altitude and skidding to the right. No chutes were seen, but we are hoping for the best. He was well liked by all members of this Command and his loss will be keenly felt.

 

We also lost Captain Hillard C. Alloway, but under much pleasanter conditions. Captain Alloway was the Combat Wing Mickey Navigator. He had completed his tour of operations and, after 4 months staff duty with us, was transferred to the United States.