The mission was to be a "Pathfinder" mission. That meant that there was 100% cloud cover over the target. A special plane with some very sophisticated radar equipment would lead the group to the target.Then on a signal from a ground station, the "Pathfinder" plane would open bomb bay doors and release a bomb. That was the signal for the other planes to drop their bombs. Not every plane required a full time radio operator to be on duty and in the radio room. Of course, there was one in the lead plane and perhaps 2 or 3 others designated as group or squadron operators in the event that the lead operator became incapacitated for some reason.

The waist gunner before take off was issued a box of "window". This was a very thin layer of aluminum on paper. It had been cut in thin strips, perhaps 1/8th inch wide and 8 or 10 inches long. About 40 to 50 of those strips were loosely wrapped in a piece of tissue paper. After we crossed the "Bomb Line" (the line past which was only enemy territory and hostile) I was supposed to take a bundle of this window, hold it securely, reach over and slip it out the bottom rear edge of the waist window and release it into the slip stream. If you released it in some other manner the "window" would fly back into the plane, decorating the interior like a Christmas tree and posing a threat of electrical shorts. I was supposed to feed the bundles out of the plane about every 30 to 45 seconds. The purpose of all those strips of metallic strips floating down was to render the German radar ineffective. Each one of those multiple strips dropped out of 6 or 36 planes would show up on the Germans radar as a snow storm, thus the altitude of the planes had to be estimated or determined by other means. I fed the "window" out the waist window at precise intervals. I was following directions to the letter. We were not supposed to fly above 10,000 feet but I believe we exceeded that limitation on that day.

W33-35 P.33