After a one week furlough we resumed flying and by late December 1944 had completed a total of 23 missions. Our targets included railroad marshaling yards, aircraft or other assembly plants, manufacturing and fuel storage facilities as well as ground troop support missions to destroy bridges and enemy troop and supply concentrations. We also had some free time between mission due to weather which was either too bad for flying or obscured the target. Our two day passes helped us get our minds off of the war and enjoy a semblance of relaxation. Even in wartime London was a joy to visit, in spite of the fact that the stained glass windows had been removed from the cathedrals and most of the buildings were sandbagged as a protection from the German bombings. Although never a serious threat, there were times when the V- 1s and later the V-2s were landing unpredictably all across this part of the country and did occasionally hit the City.

It would be redundant to recount the details of every mission, since in many ways they all had similarities. Some were much rougher than others and each was approached with the realization that the possibility of being shot down, killed or captured was ever present. One of the unusual aspects of our missions was the random assignment of aircraft. Unlike many of the stories that came out the war about flying one aircraft during the entire combat tour, in our group this was the exception rather than to rule. Probably the reason was that during the period between late 1944 and the end of the war in Europe most groups had more crews than airplanes. In the case of our crew, we flew at least six different planes during our tour, some were good, others very good and a few were war weary wrecks. On the good side, we had two favorites; one was a B-24H named "Witchcraft" - an all round fine bird, maintained to perfection by a dedicated ground crew and responded to our every need including six round trips into the continent with nothing more serious than the loss of an engine and/or minor battle damage from anti-aircraft fire. This aircraft would, by the end of the war hold the ETO record for flying the largest number of bombing missions without aborting for mechanical reasons. I believe the number was 125. Amazing as it may sound, no crewman was ever injured by enemy action while flying in this airplane.

Another of our favorites was an almost brand new B-24J which was delivered to the group during the last half of 1944 and assigned to the 790th Squadron. We shared the use of this airplane with other crews, but considered her ours and flew her on a number of missions between September and late December. Most new planes delivered during this time were not painted olive drab, but instead were gleaming aluminum with group and squadron colors. This one had no nose art, but had the last three digits of the serial number "962" painted in bold black, on both sides of the fuselage just aft of the nose turret. She was a true lady in every respect and handled beautifully. Take off performance with full fuel and bomb load was almost effortless with normal power settings, often becoming airborne in less than the normal amount of runway. Response to the controls in formation was light and almost immediate. The entire crew had high hopes that this bird might outdo the "Witch", but the fortunes of war shattered that hope. ( Only recently did I learn some interesting information about the aircraft. For some unknown reason it had been transferred from another squadron and the original name “Flak Magnet” was removed; replaced by the last three digits of its serial number ).

There is one mission that we flew in this airplane that deserves special comment and this seems like a good place to describe the events of that day in detail, hoping that the readers will find it interesting and informative. The date was 31 December 1944, it was our 24th mission and the target was a railway bridge across the Rhine River near Engers, Germany; a very small village that doesn't even appear on most small scale maps. The length of the mission was not briefed to be unusually long, but due to a series of unrelated events turned out to be quite long. First, we were carrying a load consisting of four 2000 lb demolition bombs, 2300 gallons of fuel, full ammo load for the .50 cal machine guns and a crew of nine (See footnote) Next, we took off early since our position was in the lead element of the lead squadron of our group. The weather over England that morning was excellent, providing us with a rare opportunity for a VFR take-off and climb out to the assembly area. The group was airborne on time and assembly completed rapidly at an altitude well below oxygen requirements; a condition which compounded our problems later in the day.

For some unknown reason our group and some others in the wing were held in the assembly area much longer than briefed, using up an abnormal amount of fuel. When the division assembly was finally completed we proceeded on course toward the continent climbing to bombing altitude as we went. Along the route we picked up a hefty tail wind and reached the initial point (I.P.), which is the beginning of the bomb run, almost exactly at the briefed time and bombs were dropped on schedule. Flak was quite heavy over the target, but no fighters came up to do battle either en route to the target or on our way back. So far - so good.

Very shortly after bombs away as the lead crew set the course for England, our Navigator advised that our ground speed was down to about 80 knots due to a strong head wind. The engineer checked our fuel supply and advised that we might run short if the head wind continued. To conserve fuel we leaned out the mixture as much as we dared and loosened up the formation as another means of fuel economy. About an hour later our fuel supply was re-checked and found that we definitely could not safely make if back to our base and possibly not across the channel. The Navigator advised that he had a heading and distance to our briefed emergency landing field at Brussels, Belgium. Thank goodness the field was in friendly hands.

I called our group leader by radio to explain our predicament and received permission to leave the formation & proceed to the emergency landing site for re-fueling. It was still early afternoon when we left the formation and in less than 45 minutes arrived at Brussels, received landing instructions and were on the ground with what seemed like adequate time to take on fuel and be on our way back to England well before dark. We were directed to a ramp area where the fuel trucks were servicing a line of waiting aircraft. It took some time for the truck to get to us and complete the re-fueling; by then it was too dark to take off as the field did not have lighted runways and we were directed to an overnight parking area. (You may recall that earlier I commented on the length of the days during the summer months - well, in the winter quite the reverse is true at this latitude and sunset often occurs between 4:00 and 5:00 PM.)

We taxied to a designated parking area and secured the airplane as best we could, then were taken by truck to the operations building for instructions. The billeting officer assigned us quarters at a small hotel in Brussels and advised us to report to the operations office the following morning for take off instructions. We were then transported into to town by truck, given some dinner and directed to our rooms. After a rather grueling day, most of the crew was ready to hit the sack, but a couple of the young sports decided to go out and look the town over. I never did get filled in on that part of the story. Remember now, this was New Years eve 1944 - "Where were you on that night?"

The following morning we were up and about fairly early, had a bite of breakfast, and climbed aboard a truck for the ride back out to the airfield. The Operations office was located in a two story brick school building and we waited, along with several other crews, for briefing. It must have been shortly after 0800 am when we heard shooting and loud explosions. Without thinking, we dashed outside to see what all the commotion was all about - and immediately ran right back inside. The action that was taking place was a strafing attack by German FW 190 and ME 109 aircraft - which, we later learned, was part of a major offensive drive, later known as the Battle of the Bulge; a last ditch effort by the German army to try and turn the war around. For the next forty five minutes or so the field was repeatedly strafed by about a dozen planes and when it was all over dozens of American planes, several buildings and thousands of gallons of gasoline were lost. This was certainly my closest exposure to the shooting war on the ground. Dropping bombs on an unseen target from 20,000 feet can not be classified at close contact with the enemy. On that morning, as I looked out of the window, I could clearly see the German pilots in the cockpits of their planes as they made pass after pass across the field with guns blazing. That I call close contact with the enemy.

When the attack was over we rode out to the hardstand where 962, our favorite airplane, had been parked. What we saw nearly brought tears to our eyes - all that was left was the twin tail section, the wings from the outboard engines to the tips and the nose turret. The rest of the plane had been totally consumed by the fire - aided in no small measure by the almost full fuel tanks. What a disaster, just a heap of ashes where this fighting machine had been. For this crew, the war had suddenly taken on a very personal aspect and what had formerly been missions flown largely as our patriotic contribution to the war effort would now take on a considerably more meaningful purpose. The sad part of this story is that none of us had a camera to record this tragedy and document what really happened to our airplane.

After reviewing this sad event for a few minutes the truck took us back to operations and we hitched a ride back to England in a B-17, the ultimate humiliation for a Liberator crew. Shortly after noon we landed at an airfield in England, caught a supply truck back to Rackheath, had ourselves removed from the MIA list, signed the loss certificate for the airplane and the crew was immediately re- assigned to combat duty.

Quite to our amazement, this entire episode was concluded without a scratch to any member of the crew. The Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways.

FOOTNOTES:
Many groups of the Second Air Division found the ball turret not effective as offensive armament and had them removed from the aircraft - thereby reducing the standard crew from ten to nine.

In 1993, almost fifty years after this event I was able to obtain a picture of our burned airplane from Roger Freeman, editor of "The Mighty Eighth War Diary". An army photographer had taken a series of pictures after the raid and this one, and others, were published in one of Freeman’s books.