Up at 0300 for briefing at 0400. It was a pre-dawn takeoff and boy was it ever black. We were about 1000 ft up when the gyro horizon tumbled - gave us quite a start at first but it righted itself when we switched vacuum. It was really beautiful when we broke out of the
overcast - it was just beginning to get light when we broke out on
top and the top of the clouds were a gentle roll. The mission was
to Cologne again, and the primary was a chemical plant about 5 miles north of town. We were carrying 6/500# GP and 6/500# M-17's. When we got there it was 10/10 undercast so we bombed the secondary PFF - a marshalling yard on the east side of Cologne. No flak on our formation although we did see some. Crossed the front lines near Aachen, but couldn't see it because of clouds. George went to the funeral today of the bombardier who was killed a couple of days ago.. His name was Smith, and we had known him at Boise. George said they buried about 30 fellows - some from France and all over. Had a critique at 1500 and then went to sleep till 1830. Wrote home and went to bed.