416th Bomb Group mission # 206

Unna Ordnance Depot, Germany, 16 February 1945

"Air Medal Day" from the diary of Lt. Bob Bower

Today Capt Borman, Lt Chitty and myself really earned our Air Medal.  We had a deep penetration today so we had a P47 escort.  We entered Germany north of the Ruhr Valley and turned south to our target.Boy what a ride that was.I really believe that they had the master sergeants on the guns today.The flak was very,  very intense and accurate.  Everywhere I looked I saw flak.   The sky just seemed to be filled with the lethal stuff. One curtain of it was so heavy it seemed like someone took a black crayon and colored out the blue sky.  We encountered flak for about 15 minutes before we hit the target, over the target and  about 5 minutes after we left the target.Capt. Bormans gunner counted 250 bursts.  My gunner  called  me and said "Wow, you should see the  flak back here".   For my part I had all the flak in front of me that  I ever want to see or  even hear  about.  On our left turn off the target around Kamen, a heavily  defended city, we caught so much flak, I thought  the  navigator  had taken  us over the town.
I'm sorry to say that the flak took it's toll.  Some of the boys saw two B-26's go down  and one A26 exploded.There is no such thing as a glorious part of combat. One of our A-26's  had the canopy  and bullet proof glass shot away.Many of the planes were shot up quite badly.  Luckily only one plane  in our flight was hit.
Our flight leader, Lt. Bob Singletary, Really led us in some violent evasive action.  It was the most violent formation I have ever had to fly.  We followed him into very  steep turns, dives and climbs.  His evasive action was jerky and sudden.  Had it not been for such violent evasive flying I am sure we would all have had it.