Subject: B-17 Boomerang Barbara, mission 14
From: [email-masked] (Michael Fitch)

SUBJECT: B-17 Boomerang Barbara, mission 14.

        From William J. Watson's diary:

January 30      Fourteenth raid - Target Brunswick - What a raid. The
                weather was so bad. We got into prop wash and contours
                of another group. The formation was broke up and we were
                all over the sky. We lost our group and had to climb to
                31,000 ft. We tied into the 96 group and ours was
                attacked by fighters. Bianchi went down. We dropped our
                bombs near Hanover so we could catch the group. 91
                enemy fighters shot down and 31 of our forts. We were 
                very lucky to get back.

        From Albert Soriano's memoirs:

Mission No. 14                          Date    Jan. 30, 1944
Target          Brunswick, Germany
Time            1:37                    Trip    7:00 hrs            
Altitude        25,700                  Temp.   (C) 46 below
Damage          Seven large flak holes, several small ones. One 20 MM hole
                thru our left wing.
Memo            It seems as though the Germans have something very important
                in Brunswick, because whenever we bomb this city, they throw
                every thing but the kitchen sink at us and in this raid, I
                think they threw that up too. We lost a couple of ships this
                day, but we plastered the target. In fact we made it nice
                and warm for them, with all the fires we started.

        From a local British newspaper:

        Brunswick Battered After Record Raid on Frankfurt Sunday
                                -----
   Over 800 U.S. Heavies in 1,800-Ton Smash, First of 2 Giant Attacks;
                 Berlin is Hit Second Straight NIght
                                -----
        American bombers yesterday struck their second major blow in two 
days at Germany's war industry and carried the Allies' heaviest air offensive 
of the war into it's 72nd hour.
        Brunswick, 120 miles west of Berlin, was sledge-hammered by a
force of Fortresses and Liberators almost as great as the record fleet of
more than 800 heavy U.S. bombers which in daylight Saturday dumped a record
1,800 tons of high explosives and incendiaries onto Frankfurt, in the 
southwestern Reich.
        The two American attacks, bringing the USAAF's total for the month
to ten, were coupled with two succesive RAF raids on Berlin, stretching the
Nazi's overworked defenses toward the breaking point. The great assaults by
the heavies were supplemented by endless relays of Allied medium, light and
fighter-bomber assualts on other targets in Nazi-occupied Europe.
                Forts, Libs Ravage Plane-Building Center
        The second major force of American bombers to strike the Reich in
two days yesterday pushed deep into Germany to bomb the already battered
aircraft-manufacturing center of Brunswick.
        The attack, covered all the way to the target and back by relays of
American fighters, came before the Nazi defenses had recovered from the
biggest daylight raid in history--Saturday's assualt by more than 800 
Fortressses and Liberators on the railway and manufacturing city of 
Frankfurt, in southwest Germany.
        Bombing through clouds, yesterday's force flew in an overcast haze,
through which German fighters slashed in desperate efforts to halt the
aerial armada. Almost as many planes were in the attacking force, it was
estimated, as in Saturday's 1,800-ton assualt, which included more than
700 fighters.
        At a late hour last night USAAF headquarters had not announced the
losses.
        German radio said at least 53 planes were shot down, 41 of them
four-engined bombers. "Despite bad weather conditions," the German News 
Agency said, "the German air defense has been able to inflict another
smashing blow at the American bombers which attacked southwest German
territory."
                        Communique Names New Setup
        The report on the Brunswick attack referred for the first time in a
communique to the new administrative setup of the USAAF in the ETO--the U.S.
Strategic Air Forces in Europe--official name for the heavy bombers whose
task probably will continue to be the disruption of Germany's war manufac-
turing and transport machine behind the invasion walls.
        Yesterday's raid, like Saturday's, involved a round trip of about
900 miles. It was the second U.S. blow at Brunswick, which first was hit
by the Americans in the widespread attacks of Jan. 11, when 60 bombers were
lost in succesful attacks on aircraft factories throughout central Germany.
        In the attack on Brunswick, Capt. Walker Mahurin, of Fort Wayne,
Ind., leading ETO ace, booseted his total to 15 by shooting down a Ju88,
and Maj. Walter C. Beckham, of DeFuniak Springs, Fla., second highest 
scorer in the ETO, got an Me109, bringing his total to 14.
        A Lawton, Okla, Thunderbolt pilot, 1/Lt. Robert S. Johnson, shot
down two--an Me210 and an Me109--to tie Maj. Beckham for ETO second place
with 14 destroyed Germans to date.
        Brunswick is the site of factories turning out complete bomber and
fighter units, as well as components for virtually all the Luftwaffe's
machines. The Brunswick-Waggun plant making Me110 assemblies, severly
damaged in the Jan. 11 attack, is one of the largest of a group including
the Muhlenbau U. Industrie E.G., making fighter-bombers and trainer
components, the Brunswick-Neupetriter plant, the Niederfachsische Motor
Enwerg at Brunswick Querun, and other assembly factories. The city also 
was hit by the RAF on Jan. 14, when 2,200 tons spread devastation in a
night attack.
        The USAAF fighters escorting the bombers were taking up their 
second major battle in two days. They set a new record for enemy aircraft
destroyed in Saturday's assualt, shooting down 42 confirmed victims for the
loss of 13, while the heavy-bomber gunners were destroying 60 enemy aircraft
for the loss of 31 bombers.
        While the heavies were flying against Brunswick, the German High
Command issued a communique admitting "heavy damage" in the attacks on
Frankfurt.
        The attack on Frankfurt was being prepared even as Liberator groups 
were coming home from Friday's "milk run" attack on military installations
in northern France. Bombed-up and briefed early, the heavy bombers were 
winging on to Frankfurt only a little while after RAF Lancasters came back
from Berlin.
        As the biggest force of American heavy bombers ever to fly a combat
mission swung over the German coastline and headed for the industrial
metropolis on the Main, 900 miles airline round trip from London, the
Luftwaffe threw up major formations of interceptors.
        Using tactics which apparently have become standard practice in the
last two months, the Nazi fighters and rocket planes concentrated almost
their entire attack against single groups and elements of the bombers,
which apparently accounted for varying combat reports after the crews came 
home. Some groups met intense fighter opposition, as well as heavy flak;
others had only the flak to bother them as the USAAF fighters kept off
stray Luftwaffe interceptors.
        As they approached the target some groups had to battle through
head-on attacks not only by standard fighters but by rocket-firing craft,
which usually stay well out at long range.
        In Frankfurt, chief railway junction for western Germany, some
500,000 persons are engaged directly or indirectly in transportation, in
manufacturing chemical and machine tools for the Wehrmacht and in the
distribution of supplies which funnel into the city's inland port at the
juncture of the Main and Rhine rivers. Prime target of the manufacturing
communities in and around the city was a suburban plant turning out possibly
half of the propellers used by the Luftwaffe.
        Thunderbolt and Lightning fighter groups and long-range Mustangs
escorted the Fortresses and Liberators in relays to the target and on the
way home. More relays of USAAF fighters carried them back to within range
of Allied Spitfire escorts.
        While the heavies were hitting Frankfurt, Marauder mediums carried
on the pounding of the military installations in the Pas de Calais area.
The B26s now have flown 1,500 sorties with the loss of only three planes.
Saturday's was their eighth attack of the month.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    Michael R. Fitch    DISO/UNRIA    (DSN) 850-9961    (614) 692-9961    
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 E-mail:   [email-masked]   -or try-   [email-masked]