For a second straight day, we were assigned to fly deep into Germany. Our target was a FW 190 Fighter plane assembly plant one mile north of Tutow. Tutow is near the Baltic Coast about 60 miles north west of Stetlin and approximately 100 miles due north of Berlin. Close by on the coast is Peenenunde where the Germans were developing and testing the V-2 rocket. Take off was just after 1030 hours with a total of 17 44^th Bomb Group planes. We took a southern route across Holland and Germany, fainting towards Berlin which always aroused the Luftwaffe. This day was a Saturday, and on Friday, the day before when our group went to Zeitz, the enemy fighter command had lost 150 planes defending their synthetic oil plants. Therefore they were licking their wounds and hesitated to throw their full remaining strength against us especially since we had over 700 of our own P-51, P-47 and P-38 fighter escorts protecting us. All told the 8^th Air Force had dispatched over 700 heavies of which 228 were B-24's reaching Tutow loaded with 572 tons of high explosives.

Our fighters were very effective in keeping the Nazi interceptors away from us. I saw many dog fights going on at a distance however, several of the enemy planes did sweep through our formation inflicting no serious harm to any of our planes. The 44^th suffered no loss on this mission in spite of rather intense flak over the target and again on the way home.

I saw something on this mission I had never seen before and never saw again. It was the practice of our defending fighter at times to fly escort along side of us. Because of the great similarity of our P-47 and the enemy FW 109 and our P-51 and the German ME 109 fighter planes, our escort pilots had to be very cautious on how they approached our bomber formations. Our gunners were a little trigger happy so if a fighter pilot came in towards us without identifying his plane, it was assumed he was an enemy and fair game for our gunners. The method our friendly pilots used to identify themselves was to get out of reach of our .50 caliber (1/2 inch) machine guns and rock their wings so we could get a silhouette. Every airman, even myself who never manned a gun, was highly trained to recognize the subtle differences in shape between our planes and the enemy's but woe to one of our pilots who failed to make this maneuver. Once the pilot was sure we knew who he was, he would move towards us rocking his wings over and over just to be sure. Only then was it safe to get near us.

A group of about 20 Liberators were just ahead of the 44^th, maybe less than a mile away, as we approached the IP and were ready to start the bomb run. I could see these planes very clearly and was watching them when a fighter plane swooped in towards their tail. Like the gunners of that group, I too thought it to be one of the enemy's as no recognition was attempted by the pilot. Of course every tail gunner in the formation opened up. The fighter began to smoke and go into a spin. Not until then did I recognize it to be a P-47 Thunderbolt, one of our escort planes. The pilot bailed out with his chute in full bloom. His plane continued to plummet towards earth until I lost sight of it. We were soon over the spot where all this had happened, I looked down where the pilot landed deep in Northern Germany and thought how mad this guy was about now. I don't know who he blamed but I firmly believe it was his own carelessness. This whole action was like watching a movie as I was so detached.

Every so often we were warned at briefing to be careful about who we shot at. It seemed HQ's had gotten messages from the Fighter Command that their planes were coming back to base with .50 caliber holes in them (no German air craft used this size gun). Anyway, it made them a little angry and there were some valid threats that they would not protect certain groups if something were not done to stop it.

Our bombs dropped squarely on target, AA fire was moderate. It was time to head home. It might be helpful if the reader were to look at a map of where the German, Danish, Baltic Sea and Swedish areas came together in order to get a better idea of our flight path back to England. We proceeded out over the Baltic Sea and turned westerly so we passed within view of the southern tip of Sweden then over the entire width of Denmark and finally to the North Sea where we took a south westerly course back to East Anglia, site of our home base.

Neutral Sweden had Bulltofta Air Field near this southern most coast. Many times during the war, U.S. planes were forced to land there due to battle damage, with no hope of being able to reach England. Of course the crews were interned for the duration of the war. We were briefed on how to reach this haven if the occasion arose but were told that the U.S. had inspectors there to look over every plane as it came in. Any plane they judged to still be air worthy enough to have made it back or if there were not sufficient evidence in their minds eye for the pilot to have landed, he would be court-martialed when he was repatriated. Any one could understand what a temptation it could be to cop out of the constant danger we faced day after day. With this back ground, you can only guess what was in everyone's mind when I pointed out this emergency landing field as we passed by.

The flight over Denmark was beautiful and uneventful. Such a peaceful looking land to be occupied by the hated Nazi's. We broke the coast and when I felt it was safe, I told everyone that they could remove their flak vests and helmets. We were out over the water and I had no reason to believe that anymore danger existed from anti-aircraft fire. I was wrong, about the time we pulled the straps that let these heavy protecting vests fall to the floor, wham bang, four very accurate flak burst went off close to us. It frightened the holy heck out of us. I looked down to the water to see where the AA was coming from and low and behold, the scoundrels had stationed a barge off the coast fitted with an AA battery. By the time we got our vests back on, it was too late. This taught me a lesson I never forgot, from then on I looked to be sure all was safe before announcing time to drop our vests.