Subject: B-17 Boomerang Barbara, mission 19
From: [email-masked] (Michael Fitch)

SUBJECT: B-17 Boomerang Barbara, mission 19 

        From William J. Watson's diary:

February 10     Nineteenth raid - Target Brunswick - The toughest raid I
                ever saw. Fighters hit us at the enemy coast and just
                came in waves till we left the coast coming back. There
                were as many as 200 at a time attacking the formations.
                Every place you looked you could see fighters, 17's
                blowing up, wings coming off, ships breaking in half.
                Dogfights and parachutes. The sky was black with the Huns.
                They had 190's painted like 47's and we thought they were 
                our escort. We had eight of our fourteen guns frozen up.
                46 degrees below. Got no. 2 engine knocked out over target.
                Then #3 broke an oil line. We were keeping up with formation
                on two outboard engines till we started under overcast. Then
                #4 lost all its power. We were then 40 mi. from English 
                coast at 500 ft. and losing alt. fast. Bob said send SOS. 
                While I was sending SOS the rest was throwing stuff out to 
                lighten the load. On one engine we crossed the coast at 150 
                to 200 ft. We landed at a B-24 base. Had a 20mm hole in 
                verticle fin and horizontal stabilizer. It was the third 
                raid on the ship. I never will forget that raid. We sure 
                thought we would go down in Germany or the North Sea. There 
                was a destroyer standing by to pick us up in answer to my 
                SOS.

        From Albert Soriano's memoirs:

Mission No.     19                              Date    Feb. 10, 1944
Target          Brunswick, Germany
Time            2:36                            Trip    8:00
Altitude        27,500 to 31,000                Temp.   (C) 64 below  
Damage          Three 20 MM explosive shells in the tail. One 20 MM armour
                piercing shell thru the right inboard engine, one 20 MM
                shell thru left out board engine. Flak holes, we stopped
                counting at forty-seven.
Memo            If we ever didn't expect to get back, this was it. The ball
                turret, tail, left waist, chin turret and one of the top
                turret guns, were not firing. We had only two guns left to
                fight off the attacks by fighters. Our right and left wing
                men were shot down. Four men from one ship and six from the 
                other bailed out. Ten were lost in those two ships. We had 
                only one good engine left and one pulling only 1700 RPM. 
                This is just enough power to pull it's self along. We had 
                fighter attacks, all the way from the coast and back. We had 
                to leave the formation and come back by ourself. By the time 
                we hit the coast on the way home, we were down to 500 feet. 
                Just to stay up we had to throw overboard anything that we 
                could. Twice the pilot told us to prepare to bail out, to 
                abandon ship, but of course this was not possible, by this 
                time we were only 275 feet up and losing altitude. As we 
                were about to lose hope, we saw England, we made the most 
                beautiful landing on one engine. We landed at a B-24 base 
                near the coast.....Amen.....

        From James Baldock's log:

        No. XXI - Feb. 10, 1944

Took off at 730 hrs. & climbed to bombing altitude of 22,000 ft. before 
leaving England. Crossed Dutch coast west of Zuider Zee and went straight
to target of Brunswick, Germnay. Dropped our bombs at 1159 hrs. on clear
target. Left target and proceeded to England on same route as we went in.
Met about forty F.W. 190's as we crossed Holland, the 190's stayed with us
until we reached our I.P., where JU-88's picked us up & stayed with us
around the target, where we were again met by about eighty F.W.-190s, &
ME-109's. These stayed with until we left enemy territory. Flak was very 
heavy & accurate over target. No escort due to perfect tactics of the whole
Luftwaffe. Landed at B-24 base at 1500 hrs. on about 1 1/2 engines; minus
armour, flak suits, ammunition, etc. No damage to crew but ship in bad way.
                                                TOTAL TIME = 141:00
PILOT - LT. BAILEY, R.M. - B-17-G - 707

        A newspaper article, possibly the Tampa Times:

        Tampa Air Gunner Survives Lurid Raid Against Heavy Odds
                        Special to The Times
        An Eighth AAF Bomber Station, England--Staff Sgt. Albert Soriano,
Tampa, was ball turret gunner on an Eighth Air Force Flying Fortress which
came back to England through swarms of German fighters from an attack on
targets at Brunswick, Germany, with two engines out and only two guns,
operating.
        Actually, the Fortress came back with only one engine operating
efficiently as the other had a runaway supercharger but was still providing
power. The other two had windmilling props, left that way so the Germans 
couldn't see that the ship was in trouble.
        The Fortress managed to stay close to its formation during the Nazi
attack, but the tail section near Soriano was badly damaged by enemy 20-
millemeter shells. However, he and other members of the crew escaped injury.
        "They really tore up that tail," Soriano remarked. "We were lucky
to come through that one."
        Over the Zuider Zee the ship began to fall behind its Fortress
formation, because of its slower speed. While crosing the English Channel
the crew threw out flak suits, radio equipment and other articles to lighten
the load.
        Losing altitude steadily, the Fortress reached a Liberator station
to make an emergency landing with the crew safe and sound. It had flown
nearly two hours on two engines, and it had flown in formation through the
best fighter opposition the Germans could offer with only two of its guns
operating.
        The son of Mr. and Mrs. Armando Soriano, 1810 1/2 Nebraska Ave.,
Tampa, Soriano was a mechanic before entering the AAf on Aug. 5, 1942, at
Camp Blanding.

        From a local British newspaper:

        Hordes of Fighters Fail to Stop Blow at Nazi Aircraft Plant
                                ----------
Terrific Dogfights Develope; New Luftwaffe Tactics Force Some U.S. Escorts
                        Back; Libs Raid Holland
                                ----------
        Flying Fortresses, striking a new blow in the concerted pre-invasion
campaign to wipe the Luftwaffe from the skies, yesterday smashed through
some of the heaviest fighter opposition yet encountered to carry out the
Eighth Air Force's third heavy blow in 30 days on Brunswick, where a large
portion of Germany's warplanes are produced.
        The Luftwaffe, judging from early reports of returning American 
crews, hurled everything it had into a desperate--but vain--effort to keep
the bombers away from the target.
        For 2 1/2 hours--from the time the Forts roared across the enemy
coast for the 450-mile pentration to Brunswick, until they reached the
Channel again on the way back--the bombers and their escorts blazed away
continuously at swarms of German fighters. Many said it was the roughest
mission yet for the U.S. heavies, and others ventured the observation that
the Luftwaffe must have had orders to halt to attack at any cost.
                        Direct Hits on Targets
        No official announcement of bombing results or its losses had been
made at Eighth Air Force headquarters late last night, but preliminary 
reports of crew members indicated that the great central Germany aircraft
manufacturing center had received a severe pounding. Direct hits upon 
targets were reported.
        Fortress bombing "raised hell in the center of the target" despite
the heavy opposition, crew members said.
        "We really got the target good today 2/Lt. Orris Traub, of Mason
City, Ia., bombardier, said. "I bet I saw a thousand fires."
        Brunswick has at least four major aircraft component factories,
manufacturing parts for the Me110s and Me210s, plus large repair facilities 
and aerial-engine manufacturing plants. Gun and bomb sight, artillery
tractors and tanks also are built at Brunswick.
        As the Fortresses carried on the already-effective drive to cut into 
Nazi fighter production, Liberators pounded the German fighter base at Gilze-
Rijen in Holland, the Marauders again lashed at the unidentified but much-
battered secret military targets in France, though snow and sleet in the 
Straits restricted operations. Marauder crews again reported a minimum of
fighter resistence, but heavy flak.
        "Looks as if the raids on Nazi fighter factories are paying off,"
said one Marauder pilot.
        Desperately striving to avert another crippling blow at its waning
strenght. The Luftwaffe appeared to have marshaled every fighter and used
every tactic to stop the Fortresses. Ferocious dogfights raged between
Allied and enemy fighter planes as the bobmers plodded steadfastly toward
Brunswick.
                        Many as 200 at One Time
        Attacking the Forts themselves were never less than 75 fighters and 
sometimes as many as 200, said crews at one base. Sometimes German fighters
15 abrest plunged in at the bombers, while others dived through the for-
mations in line from astern.
        Hundreds of Me109s, FW190s and Ju88s mixed it up with escorting
Thuderbolts, Lightnings and Mustangs.
        One new trick reported in use by the Nazis was that of concentrating
on a portion of the escort long before they reached the target, engaging
them in such firce combat that the P47s were in danger of exhausting their
fuel supply.
        Unable to go the full distance to Brunswick, some P47s were forced
to turn back, leaving a number of Fortresses unescorted to fight it out 
alone.
        The air battle was described by some crewmen as even fiercer than the 
Jan. 11 attack on Brunswick, Oschersleben and Halberstadt, when the USAAF
lost a record 60 bombers but shot down 152 Nazi fighters.
        On the subsequent raid on Brunswick and Hanover Jan. 30 the American
losses were held to 20 bombers, while the enemy lost 91 aircraft.
        At one point in the battle 25 Thunderbolts roared down on 35 Messer-
schmitt 110s and in the mad scramble that followed the bombers flew on,
leaving the fighters behind.
        Crews told of Fortresses exploding and going down with the German
fighters which had attacked them.
        "It was like something out of the movies," said one pilot. "Only it
was worse. More than 100 German fighters attacked a wing of bombers about a
mile to our right. I watched through fieldglasses as they smashed through it
and then dived under and qued up for another.
        "When a Fortress started straggling they would all hop on it until
they battered it down. Then they went back for the rest of the formation.
Any straggler was a dead duck. I saw plenty of fighters falling, too. Twice
I saw three going down in flames.
        "Parachutes, some black and some white, seemed to fill the sky, 
mixed up with black puffs of flak and orange streaks that had been bombers
or fighters.
        "At one time 12 Focke-Wulfs came in head-on at us but our fire broke
them up before they could do any damage."
        Another pilot said: "We had the whole Luftwaffe there trying to get
a lick at us. Look anywhere any time and all you could see was dogfights.
The Germans threw everything into the battle except the bathtub.
        "There was lots of destruction upstairs, including one Fortress
that exploded and took another one with it, but most of the destruction was
on the ground. The formation ahead of us put their bombs right on target and
I don't believe it left us anything to hit. We dumped our bombs right in the 
middle of the flames and the smoke which covered the whole target."
        Flying their eighth mission of the month, the Marauders crossed the
Channel shortly after dawn to continue their offensive in the Pas de Calais
area.
        The Marauders, virtually unhampered by enemy fighters in all of their 
February missions, again were protected by RAF, RCAF and Allied Spitfires.        
They encountered heavy anti-aircraft fire. One bomber is missing.
        Commenting upon the continued absence of enemy fighters, Capt. Harry
E. Ekberg, of Dedham, Mass., Marauder pilot said: "It looks as if the raids
on Nazi fighter factories are paying off."
        "Toughest flak I've seen in 36 missions," said S/Sgt. J. O.
Lampkins, of Tell City, Ind., engineer-gunner on the Marauder piloted by
1/Lt. Lyle G. McGlockin, of Bonners Ferry, Idaho.
        "The days of the milk run are over," said Sgt. H. T. White, of
Syracuse, waist-gunner of the B26 piloted by 1/Lt. A. W. Bouquet, of San
Antonio.
                                ---------
                        P47s Kayo Barrage Ballon
        A FORTRESS BASE, Feb. 10 (UP)--
A stray barrage ballon drifted into the middle of a Fortress formation
forming up for the attack on Brunswick today. Two Thunderbolts were 
assigned to deal with it and later shot it into the North Sea.

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