Batter Up! First Combat Mission
When the training ends…the fighting begins
On 8 April, 1944, thirty-five B-24 Liberator bombers of the 453rd Bombing Group joined the 2nd Air Division of the 8th Air Force to raid Brunswick, Germany. Five of the group’s bombers would return early having to abort due to various malfunctions. Eight hours after take-off, only twenty-three B-24's returned to the Old Buckenham airfield, England. Seven aircraft— each with a ten man crew — had been lost to German fighters and flak. On that one mission, the 2nd Air Division lost thirty B-24's and 300 aircrew. April soon became the costliest month of the war thus far for the bomber crews flying massive daylight missions to strike strategic targets in France, Belgium and Germany.
To help fill the void at the 453rd— which included the Commanding Officer and Operations Officer — a freshly arrived crew from the States was redirected from the 448th Bomb Group. Arriving the same week as Major Jimmy Stewart who stepped in as the new Ops O, 2nd Lieutenant Phil Meistrich, navigator, and 2nd Lieutenant Bill Norris, pilot, now faced the uncertainty of their first combat mission.
After an epic journey of 10,000 miles via four continents to deliver their aircraft, Slick Chick, to the 448th, the crew made its way to Old Buck to join the war.
In their own words:
Phil: “The planes were built to combat specifications in the USA but since then, other tactics had been learned and changes had to be made. We were told that Slick Chick, our plane, would be ferried to a modification center.
We boarded an English train that took us to an indoctrination and reception center at Stone Hanley, England. There, they kept telling us, ‘Flak is only a deterrent.’
March 21, 1944. It was the first day of Spring, but in England or Ireland it doesn't mean a thing. We hadn't seen sunshine since the day we arrived, but it wasn't important because we were attending school, learning about the war.
March 25, 1944. General Doolittle himself came to look over the school. The instructors told us that the RAF chases the population out of the German cities at night with their bombing and we chase them back during the day by dropping bombs all around the target. We were told Ploesti was attacked during noon hour while the production men were out to lunch. We lost 30 out of 200 Liberators for being so considerate.
April 8, 1944. It was a memorable day for many. Everybody at Cluntoe School was told to be ready to move. We traversed more of England; overnight to London. We spent three hours waiting for the next train. During this wait, we took a taxi ride and saw the blitzed areas of St. Paul’s, Picadilly Square, and Leicester Square; we were convinced there was a war going on in England. We arrived at Beccles, Sunday at 9 PM. The town was closed for the day. By 11 PM the trucks arrived and delivered us to Seething, home of the 448th Bombardment Group (H). We signed in, ready to help win the war, but the following morning we signed out. Due to the other unfortunate circumstances of others, it seemed the replacement crews were urgently needed. The 453rd Bombardment Group, who had been called upon to bomb Brunswick, Germany the day before, had suffered heavy losses — seven aircraft of an attacking force of 30. We were the replacement crews.
April 10, 1944. Jimmy Stewart. the movie actor, was assigned as Operations Officer. We were told he was a good Joe. We were in the 735th Squadron of the 453rd Bombardment Group (H), located at Attleborough, 16 miles from Norwich.
We moved into our hut. Some one was moving out the gear that belonged to the previous tenants. They cut a notch on the headboards of several of the bunks, indicating that aircrew member had not returned from a mission.
The group had lost seven more at Brunswick, it was easy to see who had been on missions and who had not. The 453rd had been on 3 missions in 6 days.
I met two navigators who I had trained with in Ellington Field in the States, Carl Powell and Reed. Art Lamy, a navigator from Hondo, TX, was also there (after flying nine missions, he went down in the Bay of Biscay). Dooley and Baccus told us all about their first four missions; it sounded rough. The very next day, they went down in Switzerland.
Willie, our pilot, was alerted four days in a row to fly as co-pilot on orientation missions with experienced crews. All were canceled and we made our first mission as a crew.
April 20, 1944. Our day had arrived. Our mission was to Wizernes, France. Major Stewart conducted the briefing.”
Bill: Following a brief stop at the home of the 448th Bomb Group, Duxford, England, we were assigned to the 453rd Bomb group, 735th Bomb squadron., Old Buckenham Airfield Station, England. The move was required due to heavy losses the day we arrived and replacement crews were badly needed. As pilot, normal procedures called for me to fly one orientation mission as co-pilot with an experienced crew.
After being alerted four days in a row and canceled - and due to crew shortages - the orientation flight was waived and we flew our first mission as a crew in the “Purple-16” position — way out on the end of the formation where the fighters could pick you off — out of range of most of the formation fire-power.
Operation CROSSBOW
As it turns out, the crew’s first mission was part of an ongoing effort — Operation CROSSBOW— to disrupt the use of two of the Nazi’s lethal secret weapons, the pilot-less aircraft known as the V-1 flying bomb and the first rocket-powered missile, the 24,000 lb behemoth V-2. The April, 20, 1944 mission was the second one for the 453rd. As documented by George and Margaret Lindsley in their 1999 online publication, Always Out Front, The Bradley Story:
“The target was Wizernes — the location of more V-1 sites. This was Eighth Air Force mission #309, 453rd, #36…and was a maximum effort. Twenty-four V-weapon sites were attacked out of 33 briefed. The bomb types used were 1000 GP and 500 GP…each of the 28 B-24s of the 453rd carried eight 1000 GP bombs — the heaviest bomb load yet carried by them. The 453rd again flew lead for the 2nd Combat Wing. A total of 842 bombers were dispatched by the three Air Divisions from 31 bombardment groups; 570 bombers were effective in bombing their targets.
The Eighth lost nine of its bombers and crews that day: two were B-24s of the 2nd Air Division — one from the 2nd Combat Wing’s 445th Group. 345 bombers were damaged, three additional planes were damaged beyond repair, principally a result of flak. The casualties included 12 KIA, 34 WIA, and 89 MIA. Other problems beset several bombers of the Eighth: two planes were ditched north of Calais — only six crewmen were rescued. One B-17 had crashed on take-off, crew safe; two B-24s crash-landed — one from the 445th Group. Six crewmen of one plane were killed. Nearly 2,000 tons of HE (high explosive) bombs were dropped.”
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Phil, Bill and their ten-man crew went on to fly and survive two more missions as Purple-16.
Before returning to the States, they completed 32 combat missions including D-day.
If you enjoyed this true story, you’ll want to read this brief one about the same crew as they find out the hard way that they have a deadly serious problem and no obvious solutions:
Problem Solving On the Fly (circa 1944)
This one details their epic adventure secretly flying their B-24 (and a stowaway monkey) from the US to England, a journey of over 10,000 miles via the Amazon jungle, crossing the southern Atlantic Ocean at night and navigating the Sahara desert with stops in the far reaches of Brazil, Dakar and Morocco:
Monkey Business…Adventure on the Way to WWII
These stories are follow-ups to the original published via Medium.com. Though super short, it offers more goosebumps per word than any you have probably heard:
