You
asked about the mission to Stendal Germany. It was our most hectic and scariest
mission of all. The way I remember it was as your dad told you:
You
asked about the mission to Stendal Germany. It was our most hectic and scariest
mission of all. The way I remember it was as your dad told you:
"I remember that after we couldn't drop our bombs on the primary target, we went to the secondary target. Someone asked Gus (the navigator) about the target. Gus said that there were just a few batteries of 88 guns. Just as we approached the target, Guinn, the tail gunner, called out,'flak at six o'clock, level!' All this time I was looking out the right waist window and the sky was getting dark with flak bursts. Again Guinn called out, 'flak at six o'clock, getting closer!' About this time the B-17 flying on our right got hit and started to go down. I decided to move to the left waist position, as I twisted to disconnect my oxygen and move, Guinn called out,'I've been hit!' At the same time, a shell came up just where I had been standing and something sharp stung me on the neck. I also called out, 'I've been hit!' All the time as I looked out the window I could see the B-17 going down. It would go down a few thousand feet, level out and crew would jump out. Then it would go down again. Every time it would level itself, more of the crew would bail out. The radio operator called out that Hardesty, the ball gunner, had been hit. Hardesty called back that he was okay. The pilot (Don McCutchan) told me to bring Guinn to the radio room and make him comfortable. I crawled back to the tail and he was lying on his side by his gun. I thought he would be wounded badly, but what had happened was the flak hit the ammo belt and then hit him on the chest and just knocked the wind out of him. I helped him to the radio room and went back to my waist position. When we got back to base and got out of the plane, your dad came out and said, 'Pancho, you're as white now as the rest of us!' That was our roughest mission that I remember."
Julian Ramirez, from an email dated 23 Feb, 2000
The 34th Bomb Group Narrative Report from this mission states the bombing results as follows:
1. 34A-Possibly GOOD on
1st priority target.
2. 34B- 9 A/C bombed third priority target with VERY GOOD results. 4
A/C of this squadron bombed 1st priorty target with POOR results
3. 34C- Bombed 1st priority target with VERY GOOD results.
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