On this date, Wednesday June 14, 1944, the greatest Bomber Force ever assembled by mankind was dispatched to interdict the transportation facilities of Nazi General Von Rundstedt's army. Our ground forces were still contained in the Normandy beachhead. The German soldiers were putting up a very stiff resistance in an effort to keep us from breaking out. The air Force's job was to reduce his mobility and supply lines as well as his aerial defense capability. The 8^th Air Force dispatched over 1500 Liberators and Fortresses. The 44^th Bomb Group's 36 planes were part of 103 B-24's sent to bomb Chateaudun Air Field.

The city of Chateaudun lies 73 miles southwest of Paris and 53 miles east of Le Mans. Our bomb load was the maximum number of bombs our bomb bay racks could hold, i.e., 52 100 pound bombs (but not our maximum weight of 8000 pounds however). There was a way to allow a greater number of small bombs to be carried but there was much technical difficulty. This was a "cluster attachment" but it often jammed the bomb bay shackles or broke loose completely, falling prematurely through the unopened bomb bay doors. We never used these devices that I'm aware of. This gave us a much better margin of safety on takeoff as we regularly flew with overload weights of fuel and bombs. Nothing made me more apprehensive than liftoff when we were at maximum load.

This was again another of these six hour missions we had been flying regularly in support of our invasion forces. Take off was very early in the morning at 0415 hours. This turned out to be a good day for the 44^th as we saw almost no enemy opposition from the Luftwaffe and flak was very light over the target. Our bomb results were excellent with all tolled, 215 tons of high explosives being deposited by all groups on this important air field. The flight back to base was uneventful and we landed just after 1000 hours.

The air crews had to put up with one irritating factor that comes to mind. When we landed and took off our flying helmets with their built in ear phones, there was an excruciating painful feeling in our ears. I don't know what caused this awful discomfort except perhaps the pressure of the head phones. Hour after hour, with the weight against our ears, it must have cut off the blood circulation which numbed them. When this pressure was relieved upon landing, OH! it hurt like all heck for a few minutes. We would rub our ears with our hands to get the circulation back in them. I can laugh about it now but it did not seem pleasant at the time.