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Posted on 12/24/2003 12:00:38 AM PST by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans.
Where the Freeper Foxhole introduces a different veteran each Wednesday. The "ordinary" Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine who participated in the events in our Country's history. We hope to present events as seen through their eyes. To give you a glimpse into the life of those who sacrificed for all of us - Our Veterans.
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In 1944, I was a 21-year-old kid and a long way from my hometown of Southport, Connecticut. The U.S. government had invested a ton of money, and one and a half years in training, and now entrusted me with a 10-man crew and a battle-ready B-24 Liberator that, in 1944 dollars, had cost $210,943 to build and equip. From the day I enlisted as an aviation cadet, until I found myself flying combat missions out of Italy, my life passed in a whirl, and I was dragged ever further from my youth. It seemed as if one moment I was trying to make gas money so that I could borrow my father's car for a date, and the next, I was pushing the throttles forward on more than 5,000 horsepower and was enveloped in a daily "game" of kill or be killed.  My crew—back row (left to right): John Stack, waist gunner; Walter Harris, top turret/engineer; Bernard DiBattista, navigator; Ev Johnson, copilot; John Hannon, waist gunner; front row (left to right): Francis Hynes, ball-turret gunner; Troy Sprott, tail-turret gunner; Olin Hotchkiss, bombardier; Roger McCollester, pilot; and Slim Hughes, radio operator (photo courtesy of author). It was hard for us to completely understand the enormity of what we were involved in. Heavy strategic bomb groups were poised in the north and south of Europe, like pit bulls eager to get at their prey. Hundreds of airfields in Britain and Italy were rapidly being supplied to equip the largest armed armada the world had seen before or has seen since. The goal was to smash Germany's ability to supply its war effort by obliterating oil refineries and major manufacturing and shipping centers. One of the Allied Forces' prime targets was Regensburg, Germany. Regensburg and its environs were among the most strategically important areas in the entire Third Reich. It was a major manufacturing center of all types of military equipment, including ball bearings, fighter and bomber aircraft, tanks, trucks and artillery. In addition, the area harbored one of the largest synthetic-petroleum plants in Europe, and it was also a major railroad hub, with marshaling yards that were among the largest in Europe. In addition to its large cadre of skilled labor, Regensburg was also a major center of higher learning and culture, especially in the performing arts. From every perspective, Regensburg and its suburbs were important to the Reich's war effort and, for this reason, the city was heavily defended with fighters and heavy antiaircraft batteries.  Just before Christmas 1943, our crew arrived in Tunisia to begin a month-long rigorous formation and combat training. Our B-24, Mac's Flophouse, saw us through many a mission but was lost in combat on May 10, 1944, when flown by another crew while we were on a well-deserved break (photo courtesy of author). It was amazing how quickly we learned Germany's geography. A few months earlier, although I knew where Germany was, I had never heard of Regensburg. After a few weeks, however, I knew the names and locations of most of Germany's major towns and many of its smaller ones. That knowledge was part and parcel of being a round-trip tourist who couldn't stop to see the sights. The maintenance and ordnance boys almost never knew where the squadron would be headed. All they knew was that they would have to spend the night before every mission working their butts off. While they slaved, those who would fly the mission were also blissfully unaware of the next day's target. The 724th Bomb Squadron engineering officer and his men fueled and serviced the 20 aircraft of our squadron that were all parked in revetments on either side of the perimeter taxiway.  On February 25, 1944, the 451st BG was sent to Regensburg, Germany, to bomb the Prufening Aircraft Factory. One of several major plants that manufactured the Bf 109, it was just outside the city. The Group was awarded its first Distinguished Unit Citation for this raid (photo courtesy of the 451st BG via Bob Karstensen). This was a huge job that had to be done very carefully because they dealt with tens of thousands of gallons of high-octane aircraft fuel. Every aspect of each airplane had to be attended to, including the oil tanks for each engine; there were four on each aircraft so, 80 engines in the squadron had to be topped off. Once the aircraft had been serviced, the squadron armament officer and his detail took over. With heavy-duty prime movers and bomb trailers, they began the delicate process of loading the aircraft bomb bays with 12, 500-pound general-purpose (GP) bombs that carried instantaneous fuses that would explode on impact. Of course, these bombs weren't armed when they were loaded into the aircraft; once we were airborne and on the climb out to bombing altitude, the bombardier would arm them. While the bombs were being loaded, other crews would thread the required thousands of rounds of .50-caliber ammunition into the gun turrets. It was backbreaking work for the ground personnel teams. They worked feverishly all night, right up until the aircrews boarded their aircraft, which was usually around 0430 hours, one hour before start engine time. On February 25 at 2:30 a.m., the duty officer stuck his head into our tent and yelled to wake us up.  "McCollester, we're ordered out on a maximum effort today; breakfast will be at 0300 hours; briefing in the War Room at 0400 hours." "OK; thanks, but no thanks, Charlie. Can't we just sack out for another hour or so?" "Come on, Mac; up and at ‘em!" We all grumbled quietly as we struggled out of our cots in the dark. I looked over at my co-pilot, "Ev" Johnson. Lt. Evert M. Johnson was from West Hartford, Connecticut; prior to joining the Army Air Force, he majored in engineering at the University of New Hampshire. Our bombardier was Olin E. "Hotch" Hotchkiss from Oneonta, New York, and he was a teaching major at an upstate New York college. Navigator Bernard "Dibi" DiBattista from Cranford, New Jersey, was a graduate of Fordham College and Fordham Law School and was a practicing attorney before his National Guard unit was called to active duty in early 1941; he later transferred to the Army Air Force and graduated from navigation school. Our radio operator, and the oldest man on our crew, was Harold F. "Slim" Hughes, age 33. The engineer and top-turret gunner was Walter A. "Georgia" Harris, from Atlanta, Georgia, and he had the most pronounced Southern accent that I had ever heard. Our two waist gunners, John M. Hannon from Indianapolis, Indiana, and John L. Stack, from Phoenix, Arizona, the ball-turret gunner, Francis D. Hynes, from Portland, Oregon, and our tail-turret gunner, Troy O. Sprott, from Corsicana, Texas, completed our 10-man crew.  Our group, the 451st, was to be the second group over the target. Our group commander, Col. Robert E.L. Eaton, would sit in the command seat in the lead aircraft of our lead squadron, which happened to be the 726th. Eaton had graduated from the Point and was an exemplary officer; in fact, I owe my life to him. He alone, with his firm discipline, his no-nonsense critiques and especially his insistence on close-formation training, allowed our group to incur relatively light casualties. Col. Eaton's concept of tight formations coincided with the ideas of Gen. Ira C. Eaker of the 8th Air Force and Gen. Curtis LeMay, also of the 8th, and both close friends of his. The concentrated firepower of an attack unit's .50-caliber machine guns—10 to each aircraft; 200 for the 20 bombers of an attack unit—was a huge factor in keeping us alive. In a normal mission, we were certain that we were attacked less often than other groups because our very close formation made it obvious to the Luftwaffe ground controllers that our machine-gun coverage would be extremely dense and hard to penetrate safely. Therefore, they would instead vector their fighters toward the looser formations. On this occasion, we would be more vulnerable to attack because we would be the second group in the 15th Air Force to approach the enemy targets. In total, 76 bombers were going to the target.  "Regensburg - before the raids As we milled around in the briefing room and found seats to drop into, we tried to ignore the curtain that hung over the blackboard at the front of the room. It covered the target for the day, and I'm sure that we were each silently praying for a milk run. Some targets were so heavily defended that we sometimes had nightmares about them. Others, by comparison, were walks in the park. The only clue we had that this would be a serious mission was that it had been described as a "maximum effort;" the high command only did that when they had someplace important they wanted removed from the map. If our commanders thought it was important, so would the German commanders, so a milk run was definitely out of the question. The briefing officer pulled aside the curtain and 320 guys involuntarily sucked in a breath and quietly muttered "Oh, my God!" Our guts constricted with fear when we saw the target. The red string ran from our Italian bases to the Prufening Aircraft Factory, one of several major plants manufacturing the Bf 109—and it was just outside Regensburg. Regensburg! Just hearing the name told us we were virtually guaranteed a very tough mission with a high likelihood of heavy casualties.  Regensburg - after the raids Briefing officers must have been carefully selected for their ability to deliver bad news in exactly the same tone of voice as they used when delivering good news. On this occasion, the briefing officer calmly told us we could expect to be met by at least 200 109s and 190s; they would be vectored in from bases all over southern Germany, and from what had formerly been known as Austria, but which Hitler had claimed and then renamed Ostmark. He tried to make us feel better by telling us that there would be 10 U.S. fighter squadrons and that 200 P-38s and P-47s would join our bomber stream over the Adriatic on the climb-out to altitude. On the one hand, we were happy to hear about the help, but on the other, we knew those fighters would have to leave us shortly after we crossed the German frontier at Brenner Pass. After that, we would be on our own, and the Germans knew that. So, the enemy fighters just waited until we were alone and then pounced on us by the hundreds.  Ball-turret gunner Hynes wrote in a recent letter to me his memory of his combat experiences: "I remember being attacked by a couple of 109s—one of the few times I actually fired the guns of our ball turret at the enemy. They came in about four o'clock and did not seem to be using any deflection as they came at us but were firing their 20mm cannon directly at us. I could see the guns flashing. I had done pretty well at gunnery school and thought I was a pretty good shot, but the speed at which they came in at us completely confused me; my training had not prepared me for this. From being a mere dot in the sky until they filled the window of the turret, their speed left me amazed. I could see the flashes of the 20mm cannon as they fired, but they were not using deflection when they should have been. Thus, two German fighter pilots and one American Liberator plane and its crew lived to fight another day. Those 109s had the yellow noses of Göring's own élite squadron. When it seemed as if they would crash into our plane, they flipped upside-down and dived straight down."
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