| James W. Taylor's WWII Experiences |
| Donor | Original Source | PIMA ID | Donor ID | Category |
| Richard P. Ellinger | James W. Taylor | NA | RPE-44053 | OCR-DA-P |
| Our flight didn't hit the bridge. The fourth flight made a direct hit. We turned off and sa~ a FW 190 being cha~ed by P51's . He tried to make a pass at our formation but wa~ kinda surprised. We saw quite a bit of railroad cars and trucks in enemy territory. We had fseld glasses and they came in handy. We had a complete milk run. One ship had a rough landing and buried his no~e in ~e ground. Ile hit ~ome ~r at ~e end of ~e run way and his strut collapsed. All
were O.K. (remember ~e missions as numbered are for Dick, I had one more, Bamey several more)
April 11, 1945 Mission #17 A1t 9,500 Today we got up at six and hit ~he briefsug tent at 8 sharp. We were briefed for a flak free run on ~e marshalsng yards at Aspersleden. It wa~ supposed to have been mentioned by ~e ground troops. We had a secondary [arget of Eisleben. We took off at 9:33 A.M. and headed for ~e ~rget We weren't lo go into ~e [arget if our fsghter escort didn't come at the appointed {ime (11:00) . They showed up and we were off for ~e target We had 8 P51's as escort ~e crossed ~e bomb line at 11:32. We went in and had no opposilion at all. We made our f~rst run on ~e [arget and it was too hazy to bomb. We made a 360 degree turn and made our aecond pa~ at the [arget but still didn't bomb. Fligh~ were all over ~e sky. Spiffire~ and B-26'~ from a different ouffit were in the area. We made one run on our secondary [arget, a marshaling yard at gislebin. We dropped our bomb~ on ~e ffrst run and mi~ed the [arget by quite a bit One other fligl~t l~ad a direct hit on iLWe ~en made a 360 degree [urn and got our formation together again. After hiRing ~e bomb line I felt pretty ~afe. No flak, no f~ghters a good milk run ~ank God. We arrived at ~e base at 13:46 P.M.
April 12, 1945 Mi~ion # 18 A1t 4,000 Today we were to bomb a ordinance plant at Kempten. We were to go in at ~e alLfude of 10,000 feet ~tacked down by fligh~. Our flight was ~e only one in ~e ~ird box and ~at put us the towest one in the Group. We look off at 08:40. We headed out on course and met our f~ghter escort of 16- PS1's at 10:00. They were really swell cover. We then headed for the bomb line. The clouds were geding worse all ~e [ime. We crossed ~e bomb line at 10:15 and it was really bad. We traveled about f~ve minutes in and ~en [urned back. We [our flighi1 was split up from ~e rest of ~e formation.`cont to P 54, W51 -53 P.53 |
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