be striking Magdeburg and should “divert some attention away from the Berlin raid.” Tony doubted the Germans could miss noticing a thousand B-17s heading for their capital. He glanced at Jerry Chart and tried to read the pilot’s facial expression. To Tony, their skipper seemed to have a look of resolution. He hoped he was reading it right, because that was what they would need on their first mission to Berlin.
The boys in Chart’s crew were glad to see it was bomber number 015 waiting for them as they piled out of their truck. She had taken them to Reims, Cologne and Koblenz and had always brought them home. If they had to go to “the Big B,” she was as good a gal as any.
Later at several thousand feet above the English Channel, Tony surveyed the scene from his perch inside the airplane’s nose section. Ahead of the aircraft, as far as the eye could see on a beautiful clear day, were hundreds of gleaming B-17s. It was a sight that he knew he would never be able to sufficiently describe to anyone who was not there.
He also knew history was being made, and he was a part of it. For a while, the young navigator forgot about what he knew was waiting for them in the sky over Berlin—dense flak, a long bomb run and probably German fighters. His hunger to fly, along with destiny, had placed him on board this B-17 as a part of a massive strike at the heart of the Nazi government, and like every man on board, he planned to do his job.
Thousands of other Eighth Air Force airmen were also buckling down for the long trip to Berlin. Far below, German citizens on farms and in small villages ran from their homes to stare up at the fleet of American bombers that soon stretched from horizon to horizon. Most of the German spectators must have
realized how the war must now end—if an aerial invasion of such unimaginable size could cross their homeland unopposed.
From the lead aircraft to the last B-17, the bomber formation stretched for more than three hundred miles. When the first Fortress dropped its bombs on Berlin at ten thirty a.m., the last American bomber was just passing over Holland.
Tony checked and rechecked his coordinates to the Initial Point. Then he checked them again—more to occupy his mind than for any other reason. Time passed slowly as the rumble of the bomber’s engines mingled with the noise of the other 305th B-17s, flying in a tight combat box formation.
Visibility was excellent and miles away from Berlin, Tony spotted clouds of dark smoke rising from the Earth. He knew the source of the smoke was the fires burning out of control in the German capital. The first wave of American bombers had marked the target area with high explosives and incendiaries. The city’s firemen would be helpless to extinguish the fires until the last bomber was gone. The attack would last for one hour and forty-five minutes. Hitler’s vow that “we will raze their (English) cities to the ground” had come home to haunt Berliners.
As the 305th Bomb Group approached the Initial Point, Tony could see that despite the devastation she had already suffered, Berlin was still ready to put up a fight. Black flak bursts pocked the sky above the city. Twenty-five thousand feet below, veteran Luftwaffe gunners manned the flak towers that had been constructed to make the capital the most strongly defended of all German cities. The towers were augmented by numerous other antiaircraft installations operated by teenage boys and members of the German Home Guard.
Moments after Tony reported to Jerry Chart, “Skipper, we’re at the IP,” the B-17 began to get bounced around by flak concussions. Waist gunner Tom Christenson was the first of the crew
to have a brush with death. A piece of shrapnel flew by him, just missing his head—but not missing him completely as it grazed him over the eye.
In the airplane’s nose, Tony began his personal survival routine, which he had been using on the last several missions. Maybe it did not
The boys in Chart’s crew were glad to see it was bomber number 015 waiting for them as they piled out of their truck. She had taken them to Reims, Cologne and Koblenz and had always brought them home. If they had to go to “the Big B,” she was as good a gal as any.
Later at several thousand feet above the English Channel, Tony surveyed the scene from his perch inside the airplane’s nose section. Ahead of the aircraft, as far as the eye could see on a beautiful clear day, were hundreds of gleaming B-17s. It was a sight that he knew he would never be able to sufficiently describe to anyone who was not there.
He also knew history was being made, and he was a part of it. For a while, the young navigator forgot about what he knew was waiting for them in the sky over Berlin—dense flak, a long bomb run and probably German fighters. His hunger to fly, along with destiny, had placed him on board this B-17 as a part of a massive strike at the heart of the Nazi government, and like every man on board, he planned to do his job.
Thousands of other Eighth Air Force airmen were also buckling down for the long trip to Berlin. Far below, German citizens on farms and in small villages ran from their homes to stare up at the fleet of American bombers that soon stretched from horizon to horizon. Most of the German spectators must have
realized how the war must now end—if an aerial invasion of such unimaginable size could cross their homeland unopposed.
From the lead aircraft to the last B-17, the bomber formation stretched for more than three hundred miles. When the first Fortress dropped its bombs on Berlin at ten thirty a.m., the last American bomber was just passing over Holland.
Tony checked and rechecked his coordinates to the Initial Point. Then he checked them again—more to occupy his mind than for any other reason. Time passed slowly as the rumble of the bomber’s engines mingled with the noise of the other 305th B-17s, flying in a tight combat box formation.
Visibility was excellent and miles away from Berlin, Tony spotted clouds of dark smoke rising from the Earth. He knew the source of the smoke was the fires burning out of control in the German capital. The first wave of American bombers had marked the target area with high explosives and incendiaries. The city’s firemen would be helpless to extinguish the fires until the last bomber was gone. The attack would last for one hour and forty-five minutes. Hitler’s vow that “we will raze their (English) cities to the ground” had come home to haunt Berliners.
As the 305th Bomb Group approached the Initial Point, Tony could see that despite the devastation she had already suffered, Berlin was still ready to put up a fight. Black flak bursts pocked the sky above the city. Twenty-five thousand feet below, veteran Luftwaffe gunners manned the flak towers that had been constructed to make the capital the most strongly defended of all German cities. The towers were augmented by numerous other antiaircraft installations operated by teenage boys and members of the German Home Guard.
Moments after Tony reported to Jerry Chart, “Skipper, we’re at the IP,” the B-17 began to get bounced around by flak concussions. Waist gunner Tom Christenson was the first of the crew
to have a brush with death. A piece of shrapnel flew by him, just missing his head—but not missing him completely as it grazed him over the eye.
In the airplane’s nose, Tony began his personal survival routine, which he had been using on the last several missions. Maybe it did not
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