It was common knowledge that we were preparing to invade the Continent. Where? When? This was a closely guarded secret. Great pains were made to deceive the Nazi Generals and Hitler in particular. Hitler was convinced the landings were to be made in the Pas de Calais area and so concentrated his greatest reserves there. As a 21 year old junior flying officer, it was not my concern. There was great excitement when the curtains concealing the route map were drawn back at briefing and we were informed that, "This was It", D-day, and that the landing was to be made in Normandy. Surprise, no but fear of the unexpected, yes. I fully expected the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe to resist with every ounce of strength available to them. My concern was fighter opposition to our bomber force. I was really fearful that this may be my last mission. Little did I know how overwhelming our air strength was and that the German defenders had no chance what so ever of inflicting any serious losses, much less of turning this aerial armada back.

I knew when I was awakened by the orderly that morning that something unusual was afoot as it was not our day to lead. At briefing I found the answer to my question. We were not going to fly the usual large squadron and group formation but rather small groups of six planes each. Every lead navigator that could be rounded up was required for this maximum effort. The rest of my crew were held in reserve for a later raid but for this early effort, I was assigned to another crew. I'm sure they were not pleased to have a strange navigator forced on them and I can assure you I did not relish flying without my crew. A strong bond of trust developed among crew members as it was a life or death situation on every mission.

One thing that did please me was the fact that I was not going to miss out of the invasion. I really wanted to be a part of the show and would have been greatly disappointed had I not been selected to lead the flight. At briefing we were told that our planes had been painted with special recognition markings during the night and any plane in the air that day without these markings would be shot down by our fighter escort without exception. The reason for this is that the Germans had pieced a number of our wrecked planes together that had been shot down. They then would fly into our formation in order to send information back to the ground of our course and especially our altitude to better set their flak timing fuses. The markings were black and white stripes that completely encircled our fuselage and wings. No one could miss them even if half blind and not fully alert. Later they were removed.

Take off was at 0300 hours. We were told in no uncertain terms that we were to fly a fixed and preset course to and from the target area. Once we broke the coast of England and passed over the channel, there could be no alteration in course for any reason what so ever that would be tolerated. We were told that British fighters had instructions that any plane flying out side of the narrow prescribed corridor or any plane aborting and flying the wrong direction would be shot down without exception. The point was made so clear that I believed it 100% and so did everyone else.

The weather was bad. General Eisenhower had delayed the invasion for 24 hours due to one of the worst storms to hit the English Channel in years. The weather man had predicted a brief break in the weather for June 6^th so the word was given to go. Our flight was to take us on a course west of our air base. We were to climb through the clouds until we got above them where we could assemble with the rest of our flight. All was going well, we were climbing on course through very dense clouds. There was no reason to suspect danger as every plane had its prescribed course to fly until we broke into the clear. As one might expect, I was busy at my desk doing dead reckoning. Visibility was at best only 50 to 100 feet through the haze of clouds. Suddenly a loud and confusing shout of voices filled my ear phones and about the same time I felt the tail of our aircraft go down sharply, perhaps as much as 30 degrees, then almost as rapidly level out again. The babble of voices continued until the pilot calmed them down enough to find out what had happened. The men in the rear were almost in shock. They could hardly speak but finally the story came out. A British bomber had hit the right twin rudder of our plane. The waist gunners had seen it coming before the collision and assumed it was going to hit us broadside. I can only imagine what the RAF pilot thought when he saw a B-24 in his line of flight (if he saw us at all). We collided at right angles, the British bomber came from the north while we were going west. As I have thought back on it over the years from time to time, my mind tries to visualize what could have happened if the RAF bomber had been a foot or two lower, or if it had been a micro second sooner thereby colliding with our nose or wing rather than the tail.

One might ask why was a British bomber flying in the American Assembly Area? I mark it up to the SNAFU that goes with the best of planning.

Finally the crew settled down. We were still flying on course and gaining altitude. Our pilot (and I don't even remember his name) tried all the controls. They functioned perfectly. Being I was the only one that could see the rudders, being the upper gun turret gunner was not in place, the pilot asked me to look out of my astro-dome towards the rear. There was a foot position on each side of my navigation compartment that allowed me to stand up so my head was centered in the astro-dome. When I raised myself up and looked at the twin rudders, I saw a very unfamiliar sight. The right rudder had been knocked flat for at least 24 inches. For the reader to visualize what I saw, hold your two hands up in front of you to represent the twin rudders and fold your left fingers down into your palm, leaving the fingers of your right hand pointing straight up. I reported what I was seeing. The pilot asked me to watch the rudders while he tried the controls. As strange as it may seem, the damaged rudder did not effect the flying capability of the plane. Even today when flying on a commercial jet through the clouds, I get an uneasy feeling as a result of this experience. The feeling was worse the remaining flights in combat.

We had every right to abort the mission then and return to base. The pilot debated the idea with the crew and finally put it to a vote. "Should we return to base?" The answer was a unanimous, "No". Not a crew member wanted to miss out of the excitement of the invasion. The plane continued to fly on course. I returned to my navigation duties. At long last we broke through the clouds into a brilliant blue sky.

No one who has never experienced it can see in his mind the absolute beauty that the airman views when flying about a solid layer of white clouds with perfect visibility as far as the eye can see. We soon assembled with the other five planes of our flight. The 44^th sent out 36 planes in flights of six planes each. We fell in line with dozens of similar flights on our way to the south of England. It was not until the mission was over and we had landed that it dawned on me that we were a strange sight flying in the formation. Radio silence forbid the other pilots from asking us what had happened to our right rudder. They later reported that their curiosity had almost gone wild trying to figure out what had happened to us. The other crews had six hours to look at our damaged plane before the morning mission was completed.

As we flew south and west to the departure point to get in line with the rest of the Eighth Air Force bomber force headed for France, we had time to think about what would happen once we broke the English coast. What if the damage forced us to turn back? Should we reconsider committing ourselves to a "no turn back" position? The pilot again made the decision to press on and again he had the full support of the crew.

After several hours of assembly and flying on course, we did commit ourselves to the target. The clouds had cleared and we had a full view of the water. Our target was the shore line of the western landing site near the town of Isigny. At this time, I do not know which beach we bombed. As we got closer to the French coast, the invasion fleet came into full view. I could see hundreds and hundreds of ships. The smoke of the guns from the battleships, cruisers and destroyers was very clearly visible to me. I could see hundreds of landing craft making large circles as they assembled to prepare for a run to the beaches. We passed directly over the fleet. I suppose I could say that I have personally seen with my own eyes the largest number of ships ever assembled in the history of mankind.

Our 250 pound fragmentation bombs hit the beach 28 minutes before the first landing craft went ashore. Not a German interceptor came near us. Even the flak was so light I can't remember being concerned about it. The sky was full of Allied planes, single motor, two motor and four motor where ever I looked. The flight home was uneventful and we landed at 0900 hours.

I went through debriefing and had lunch when I was notified that I was to fly a second mission that afternoon with my own crew in our own "Lili Marlene". I remember little about the later mission but that we followed the same course except this time we bombed the French town of Vire about 35 miles inland. D-day set me one mission ahead of the rest of my crew. This put my life in great jeopardy when I later volunteered for my 31st mission. I could have stopped at 30 but my crew being a lead crew could not fly without a lead navigator. However, this is another story which I shall record in a later episode. I was in the air a total of 12 hours on D-day 1622 heavies bombed their objective flying two, three and even four sorties each. We were protected by 1719 P-38, P-47 and P-51 American escort fighters plus many British planes. Our losses were 4 heavy bombers. All together 7106 sorties were flown by the 8th and 9th Air Forces on D-day with 6408 tons of bombs dropped