Subject: B-17 Boomerang Barbara, mission 25
From: [email-masked] (Michael Fitch)

SUBJECT: B-17 Boomerang Barbara, Mission 25.

        From William J. Watson's diary:

March 16        Twenty Five + Last raid - Target Augsburg - Long raid.
                6 hrs over enemy territory, very deep. We were hit by
                fighters constantly but not eagerly. For our first time
                we had rocket ship shooting rockets at us. Several were
                shot down. Flak was inaccurate and we were glad. We had
                a bad overcast to let down through coming back. Our last
                raid and we were happy about it. I am very glad and
                thank God that I am finished.

                The End of a Tour of Operations over France and Germany.

        From Albert Soriano's memoirs:

Mission No.     25                      Date    Mar. 16, 1944
Target          Augsburg, Germany
Time            3:17                    Trip    9:00 hrs
Altitude        22,000 to 12,000        Temp.   (C) 44 to 29 below
Damage          One flak hole, a few flak scratches.
Memo            This is the pilot's, radioman and my last mission and
                being the last mission for us, we sweated it out more
                than the rest of the crew. To make matters worst we
                were running low on gas and Jerry was shooting rockets
                at us. To make matters nice and cozy, my electric suit
                burned out. I had to sit in the ball turret with at 29
                below without any heat, other than the heat my under 
                clothes provided me. Two days in the hospital with a 
                cold. Thats all brother---Amen.

        From a local British newspaper:

                1,000-Bomber Blow By RAF Followed By Heavy U.S. Raid
                                        -----
   22 Heavies Lost, but Fighters Destroy 76 Luftwaffe Planes; British Rain
                        3,300 Tons on Stuttgart, Other Targets
                                        -----
        American bombers smashed through waves of desperate German fighters
yesterday to attack Nazi targets deep in the southern Reich and hammer home
the daylight half of the greatest 12-hour aerial offensive in history.
        A record force of more than 1,000 RAF bombers dropped more than 
3,300 tons of bombs on Stuttgart and other German targets late Wednesday
night, and it was in their wake that the USSTAF Fortresses and Liberators
went out in daylight early yesterday for the 12th operation of the month and
their second deep thrust into the Reich in two days.
        As targets once considered beyond the reach of massed forces came
under open Allied bomb bays, the German high command was faced with the fact
its own dream of aerial conquest had been realized by its enimies: The RAF
now can put up more than 1,000 four-engined bombers by night and the USSTAF's
ability to do it by day was proven in the mass raid Feb. 20.
                                        -----
                        Augsburg, Ulm Struck, Reich Says
        Frotresses and Liberators, escorted by American fighters which 
chalked up one of their best day's scores of the war, bombed multiple targets 
in southern Germany yesterday to carry out the USSTAF's half of the heaviest
12-hour air assualt in history.
        Thrusting some 550 miles into the Reich to what the Nazis said was
the war industry town of Augsburg, the U.S. bombers forced the Luftwaffe up
to fight for the second time in two days.
        Until Wednesday's daylight raid on Brunswick, which cost the Nazis 36
fighters, the Luftwaffe had refused combat for a week and U.S. bombers had
droned over their targets unopposed.
        Yesterday, 22 bombers and 13 fighters were reported missing from
what USSTAF headquarters described as a force "in very great strength," but
for their losses the long-range Mustangs, Thunderbolts and Lightnings, as 
well as Allied Spitfires, claimed 76 enemy planes destroyed in aerial combat.
The number destroyed by bomber gunners was still being checked. The pilot of
one missing fighter later was reported safe.
        First official announcement of the attack did not specify target
cities, but German radio went on the air while the American formations were
still over the continent and after describing vast air battles all across
the Reich named Augsburg and Ulm, on the left bank of the Danube, as the 
day's objectives.
                        Aircraft, U-boat Parts
        Augsburg is the site of the huge M.A.N. factories which turn out more
than half of the Nazis' submarine power plants as well as a substantial
percentage of their aircraft engines. Ulm is a minor manufacturing town,
although plants making military cars and iron foundries are located there.
        While most Liberator crews came back to base in England with reports
of only moderate opposition from the resurgent Luftwaffe interceptors, 
Fortress crews described almost endless air battles, and individual estimates
of the number of Nazi planes ranged up to 200.
        Squadrons of twin-engined German aircraft which wheeled in formation 
and loosed broadsides of rockets at the bombers were described by some B17
crews, who added that the Nazis followed up their rocket attacks with close-
range thrusts by cannon-firing single-engined fighters. Some rocket-planes
were in units of as many as 40, gunners said.
        Although some bombardiers reported breaks in the curtain of clouds
over-hanging the entire continent, bombing was carried out with with the
"through clouds," technique.
        Berlin radio's evening news broadcast said that both Augsburg and 
Ulm were hit by the daylight bombers, and "in both towns bombs fell on 
densely-populated residential areas and there were many casualties among the
civilian population."
        After repeating those usual claims, the broadcast once again referred
to "bad weather" as an excuse for the failure of Luftwaffe formations to
keep the attackers from their targets.
        An official communique issued in Switzerland reported last night
that seven U.S. bombers had come down on Swiss territory, three of them in
crash landings. One airman was reported killed, two others wounded and the
entire crew of one plane could not be found.
        Returning crews reported enemy fighters attacking some formations in
large numbers.
        Fire and smoke were reported at some of the day's targets by crews
flying over breaks in the clouds. The same breaks also confirmed, in part,
German claims that their fighters were snowbound.
        2/Lt. Robert W. Wood, of Columbia, Ohio, pilot of the B17 Daring
Doris, said 40 fighters attacked his formation with rockets. At least 150 to
200 were encountered over enemy territory on the entire mission, according
to Wood.
        The daring tactics of some formations of Luftwaffe fighters were
related by T/Sgt. Kirk O. Wels, of Brainerd, Minn., a B17 radio operator.
        "The Jerries showed some of their old fight today but never while
our escort was there," he said. "A few hundred attacked in tens, blazing
away from head-on and snap-rolling through the formation."
        1/Lt. Quince L. Brown, of Bristow, Okla., an Eighth P47 pilot,
became the third pilot of the Eighth Air Force to claim four German fighters 
in one operation.
        Brown brought down three of the Luftwaffe planes in the air and
destroyed one on the ground. He also claimed to have damaged two others on 
the ground. The other two four-in-one pilots are Capt. Don S. Gentile, P51
pilot from Piqua, Ohio, and 1/Lt. James M. Morris, of Detroit, who shot
down his four Jerries while flying a P38.
        The first plane claimed by Brown was an Me109 which was trying to 
land at a German base. He shot it down when the German pilot was no more
than 20 feet off the landing strip. The Oklahoman destroyed a Ju88 on the 
ground at the same field. Later he brought down one of two FW190s which he
engaged in a dogfight and shortly before heading for home he got his last,
another Me109.
        Lt. Jack R. Warren, an Eighth P51 pilot from San Jacinto, Cal.,
claimed three German planes yesterday.
        Another claim for three enemy aircraft destroyed was put in by 2/Lt. 
William J. Simmons, of Los Angeles, a Ninth Air Force Mustang pilot in the
group commanded by Lt. Col. James Howard. Simmons reported he got three
enemy craft in 30 seconds, possibly a record. He jumped two FW190s just
after his engine had momentarily developed trouble, destroyed them both and 
then went on down to get an Me109.
        Lt. Col. Thomas Conroy, of Douglas, Ariz., flying in the B24 Fighting 
Sam, reported enemy aircraft taking off on a field below his formation as
they were about to cross out over the Channel. A formation of P47s dived on 
the hapless German fighters and scattered them.

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    Michael R. Fitch    DISO/UNRIA    (DSN) 850-9961    (614) 692-9961    
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