Flew 7:20 on this one & carried 40 150-lb. G.P.

They claim that there was some flak but I didn’t see any. The target was an oil refinery, the first time it was ever hit. [4] Didn’t see the bombs hit. Bandits were in the area Me 262’s & F.W. 190. As far as I know two 190’s were shot down by fighters & three P-51’s & two P-47’s were chasing a Me 262 & I think they got him. Had a good nose turret. We bombed from 18,000 ft. I saw Lancasters hit Hanover with the 10-ton bombs. Smoke clouds from the bomb hits went 18,000 ft. into the air. They had a lot of flak thrown at them. I also saw some of the places that the RAF and B-17’s hit. Those places were really smoking. I wasn’t nervous like I was yesterday. We flew tail end Charlie, number six in the last squadron. We had one heck of a time getting into formation. We picked them up over Splasher 5 but lost them again because of clouds. We finally found them over the coast of Holland. I sweated out the assembly and the gas coming back more than I did the mission. We only had a couple of hundred gallons [sic] when we landed.


[4] Actually it was a secret underground tank farm. Being visible on the surface, the pumping and loading site was probably the MPI. The local newspaper carried this story on the 2020 anniversary of this raid: “They would have become accustomed to the daily thin white condensate strips in the sky, combined with dull rumblings of many engines. But this time, on the morning of March 25, 1945, it was different. Suddenly, a plane pulled unusually low over us and knocked out a few bombs, pulling thick white plumes of smoke behind them like a tail. One of the strange vertical columns of smoke stood motionless in the air a few hundred meters from the center of the village. We knew what was coming and ran for our lives. The roar in the sky swelled enormously and finally passed into an infernal howl. In the forest towards Wifo [tank farm] and to the eastern part of our village, flashing lightning flashed through the bright morning, air pressure waves almost ripped us off our legs. Then, first at some distance, then at second intervals, a huge drum fire of dull, heavy explosions set in."