August 11. The tempo of the Breakout drove the 8th AF to become Tactical once again. Captain Hovde led the 355th on a Ramrod to escort the 5TF B-24s attacking fuel dumps at Strasbourg and Saarbrucken. The Group met the three boxes of 72 B-24s each at 20,000 feet with Marshalls 354FS flying low lead northeast of Brussels at 1400. Hendrickson led the 357FS which took position in trail and level at 22,000 feet while Hovdes 358FS flew high center at 26,000 feet. The targets were bombed at 1505. After making two bomb runs at the targets, the procession turned for home and the 355th broke escort over Metz at 1530. After B/E the Group split up and went to the deck to hunt. At 1545 358FS pilot Lieutenant Michela was hit by flak strafing a train near Pont-A-Mousson and heard to say he was bailing out. He did not get out of his Mustang and it crashed and explode. The 354FS scoured the area between Dijon and Chalon, shooting up trains and road traffic before encountering a Ju 52 landing at Tovaux airflield, Flight Lieutenant Peglar shot it to pieces and as the Tante Ju cartwheeled across the runway at least 20 German soldiers were seen flying from the wreck. In all, five locomotives were severely damaged with boilers blowing up, one ammo train was destroyed, several troop columns and vehicles were thoroughly strafed as they moved west toward Metz. Final score 1-0-0 for one loss to flak.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 14:16:24 +0000
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