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

SUBJECT: B-17 Boomerang Barbara, mission 17.

        From William J. Watson's diary:

February 5      Seventeenth raid - Target Air field south of Paris - 
                Dry run on primary target. Hit secondary. Air field on 
                outskirts of Paris. Flak was very accurate and heavy. In
                fact too close. Could see Paris. We hit hangers and left
                a lot of fires. We are all so tired we can hardly go.
                
        From Albert Soriano's memoirs:

Mission No.     17                      Date    Feb. 5, 1944
Target          Romilly San Seine, France
Time            1:27                    Trip    7:15 hrs
Altitude        26,100                  Temp    (C) 38 below
Damage          None
Memo            This time we did not attack the target in full force
                because, the 8th Air Force bombed several targets on
                this day. Our target was an air field. Our squadron
                was to bomb hangers and work shops. Our bombardier
                Lt. Ward, was the lead bombardier on this mission, we
                hit the target well. There was light flak and a few 
                fighters around.

        From James Baldock's log:

        No. XIX-Feb.5,1944
        Took off at 730 hrs. and climbed to bombing altitude of 22,000 ft.
before leaving England. Left England at Beachy Head, crossed Channel &
entered France just south of Dieppe.
        Primary target was an airfield southeast of Paris, was overcast so
we bombed secondary target, an airfield in Southern Paris. Dropped our bombs
at 1220 hrs. Left target and proceeded to England. Encoutered two FW-190's
which made two passes at our group, and flak three times, very heavy &
accurate for about eighteen minutes over target.
        Landed at base at 1445 hrs. no damage to crew and a few flak holes in
ship.
                                        TOTAL TIME = 128:45
PILOT- Lt. Bailey, R. M.-B-17-G-"Boomerang Barbara"

        From a local British newspaper:

                NW Reich Hit In Heavies' 7th Raid in 8 Days
                                ------
        U.S. Bombers Escorted To Targets and Back; Report Intense Flak
                                ------
        Striking their seventh blow in eight days at the German war machine,
American Fortresses and Liberators attacked targets in western Germany
yesterday.
        Details of the operation, including the specific targets, the size
of the raiding force and the losses, had not been announced at headquarters
late last night.
        Buffeted by a gale that at times reached a stength of 150 miles an
hour, the bombers flew over a solid layer of cloud thousands of feet thick
and in tempera-
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                       2000 Heavies Against Reich                         |
|                               -------                                    |
|       WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 (Reuter) --Gen. George C. Marshall, U.S.        |
|       Army chief of staff, revealed in a speech before the American      |
|       Legion today that more than 2,000 American heavy bombers were      |
|       being used against Germany and occupied Europe.                    |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|
tures plummeted to 45 below zero. Over the target, crews said, the clouds
thinned out enough for some of the raiders to see smoke and flames billowing
up from the bombed area.
        Unusually heavy flak was reported over the target. Many pilots said 
that it was the heaviest they had met for months over Germany.
        The raid was the third of the month for the U.S. Strategic Air 
Forces in Europe, Libs having hit the Pas de Calais area on Wednesday and
Forts having pounded Wilhelmshaven on Thursday.
        The heavies were escorted all the way to yesterday's targets and
back by U.S. and RAF fighters. Spitfires took them to the continent, then
P47s escorted them to and from the target, and P38s and P51s circled the
targets like watchdogs while the bombers went through their runs. Some of 
the bomber pilots said they did not see a single enemy fighter. 
        Capt. Everett Sargent, of West Concord, Mass., who is one of the
few B24 Ploesti veterans still on operations, finished his tour yesterday.
"There was a lot of flak," he said, "but the fighter support was so good
that we couldn't have seen any German fighters even if they had been there.
There is nothing so beautiful over Germany as our own fighters."
        In the Wilhelmshaven mission Thursday, two of the leading Eighth
Air Force Thunderbolt pilots shot it out for the first place on the score
sheet, headquarters disclosed yesterday.
        Capt. Walker M. Mahurin, of Fort Wayne, Ind., destroyed an Me109 to
bring his total to 16, and Maj. Walter C. Beckham, of DeFuniak Springs, Fla.,
who had held second place with 14, shot down two Nazis to tie Mahurin.
        Describing his double kill, Maj. Beckham said he came up behind
seven enemy planes flying in a line. He picked off the last one without the
others knowing it had been shot down. His second plane he bounced at 32,000
feet and followed down for 20,000 to wear the Hun plane out of control. It
went straight down.
        Meanwhile, in its first mention of the Wilhelmshaven raid, in which
1,100 bombers and fighters took part, the German News Agency yesterday 
claimed that 16 planes were shot down. This was one more than the Allied
communiques had reported lost in the day's far-flung operations, when four
heavy bombers, two fighter-bombers and nine fighters were listed as missing.

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