After a lapse of 24 days, again we were scheduled to penetrate deep into Nazi Germany. In the meantime our crew had flown five tactical missions in support of the ground forces. But for today, it was back to "Big B" partly in retaliation for the V-1 attacks on London. Our target was the Daimler-Benz motor works at Genshagen, a suburb just south of the center of Berlin and east of the city of Potsdam. Our bomb load was 10 500 pound bombs with take-off set for 0500 hours. A total of 1234 heavies of the 8^th Air Force were scheduled to bomb various targets in Berlin and its environs, a raid of epic proportions. Of these only 69 were to bomb Genshagen, of which 36 were to be 44^th Bomb Group aircraft.

The commander of Berlin's defenses had broadcast over Radio Berlin that it was impossible to prevent American daylight raids. He explained that the reason our bombs sometimes dropped before the achtung warning system sent an alert was due to the speed of our raiders. He said, "There can be no doubt about the fact that it is impossible for us to prevent an air attack. We can not do it."

Our Aerial Task Force took the North Sea route in order to skirt much of the hostile land area and to confuse the enemy as to our true destination. We could have easily turned south and back into western Germany but instead we broke the German coast near the great northern port of Hamburg. Our bombers stream was strung out in the sky for over 100 miles. It was spearheaded by B-24's of the 3^rd Division followed by B-17's of the 1^st Division then our B-24 Liberators of the 2^nd Division with the "back door" being made up of a large number of 3^rd Division B-17's bringing up the rear. Use your imagination and try to visualize how this huge armada of four motor bombers must have looked and sounded like to an observer on the ground and to us actually flying in the formation.

On the way in to Berlin I saw something I'll never forget. We passed a few miles away from Hamburg, the great port city on the North Sea. The RAF had been there the night before with their incendiaries and "block busters" and as God is my witness, it appeared to me that every section of this huge city was on fire. An ugly pall of smoke was blowing to the southwest. It looked the way that one might imagine Hell to be.

One force of 163 B-17's bombed a synthetic oil refinery 50 miles south of Berlin then proceeded to fly on to land in Russia. Not only were they bombed after they landed by Luftwaffe bombers that night with the loss of 44 burned out planes on the field but they had to put up with the suspicions of the Russians. (For example, if one of our crews ferrying planes to give to the Russians were to leave any personnel article on board the plane, he was prevented by the Russians from going back on board to retrieve it.) I was told by one of my B-17 friends that during the night, Jerry also dropped a vicious anti-personnel bomb called a "Bouncing Betty" that would hop up about waist high if it were stepped on and then explode. In order to rid the grass field of these devices so our B-17's could take off, they rounded up the local Russian peasants and lined them shoulder to shoulder and walked them across the field to explode the "Bettys". The planes were more valued than the lives of the people.

We never expected to attack Berlin anytime without Luftwaffe opposition and today was no exception. Even though we had excellent fighter escort, enemy interceptors slipped past our defenders with a number of MK 109 type fighters to strike at us. Our 506^th Squadron took the most severe attack resulting in the loss of one of our planes. I don't remember seeing it go down.

As one might expect, the anti-aircraft flak was severe being that the Berlin area had 520 AA guns in a perimeter around the city. Our plane, "Lili Marlene", was hit a number of times with more extensive damage than we realized until we lowered our landing gear back at Shipdham. Of our 36 aircraft making this mission, 25 received flak damage, especially our 68^th Squadron.

The "strike photo" taken from the bottom of our plane clearly shows the city. Our bombardier had difficulty locating the exact target and bombs were dropped on the Pathfinder lead but I had no doubt that we were over our target and in the proper drop zone. I had many reference points on the ground in order to judge our location. Sure our bombardiers had trouble with the partial overcast but I'll assure you, I knew where we were. What I'm driving at is that the intelligence officer at post mission interrogation insisted that our strike photos showed that we had bombed Potsdam instead of Genshagen. No amount of reasoning would change his mind, it was made up and nothing I said would alter his decision. I was really aggravated over this as we had been on a long dangerous mission followed by a crash landing. I was in no mood for this nonsense but as far as I know the decision stood that we had bombed Potsdam. Even after 40 years, I'm still a little peaved about this as I was there and he was not. (However we got even with at least one intelligence officer as I will relate in my episode on mission number 29 to Nancy, France on August 18^th). Needless to say, we got a poor rating for the day.

We finally got back to England and home base after being in the air for 9 hours. The time was approximately 1800 hours (6:00 P.M.) when pilot Peritti let our landing gear down only to find out that flak had damaged the hydraulic system to the nose wheel. Our flight engineer, Corlew, could not coax it down so we had no choice but to land with only the main gear and no nose wheel. All crew members prepared for a crash landing. My position was directly behind the pilot. There was a steel bulk head that protected him from the rear. I had been trained to sit on the floor with my knees pulled up tight. I put my hands with fingers locked behind my head, elbows tucked in, with both my back and head tight against the steel plate so that when we hit, my head would not be slammed against the bulkhead.

Peritti held the nose up as long as he could but finally it had to come down. As the nose began to grind along the runway, the flight cabin filled first then the aft fuselage with dust and smoke. The metal became red hot and melted the asphalt on the runway so that there was a terrible burned asphalt smell clogging our nostrils. We could not see beyond the one finger reach. There was also a loud grinding, scrapping and screeching noise. At long last, it seemed to me a long time, we came to a halt. All of us departed the plane as quickly as we could choking for breath and trying to get our eyes clear.

Luckily there was no fire and no crew member had been injured either in combat or the crash landing. After we got our wits about us again, we began to survey the damage to "Lili Marlene". She had been hurt but not mortally. The lower half of the nose had been ground off. The bomb sight had been destroyed and my navigation desk and compartment was filled with melted asphalt, it was a mess.

Among other things damaged or destroyed in the nose section was my B-1 parachute bag which I kept on the floor by my feet under my desk. In it I had my wool clothing I could put on in case we lost power to our electric flying suits as well as a set of flying goggles which would protect our eyes and face in case a large hole were shot through the skin of the plane allowing cold air to hit us directly. I thought no more about it and continued to fly combat missions. Finally our tour of combat duty was over and we were sent to Stone near Stoke on Trent to be processed for the return trip back to the ZOI (Zone of the Interior USA). Among other things, we had to turn in our flying gear. They took my B-10 cloth flying jacket away (I had to remove my Flying Eightball logo first) and of course I could not turn in all the gear lost on this mission. I don't know how our pilot (Captain Peritti) arranged it but he asked me for my .45 automatic pistol before inspection. Sure enough, I was not requested to turn my gun in. He took both his and my guns back home with him. They also censored all my combat photos and cut information off the bottom of my "strike photos" taken from our plane but allowed me to keep the pictures, thank goodness.

After I came back to the USA, I went through pilot training as a student officer. Every so often, I would get a letter from the War Department demanding that I either turn in my flying goggles or pay $12.95.  I ignored the letters but they kept coming. Finally one day when I was flying B-25 Mitchel Bombers at Turner Field, Albany, Georgia, I was notified to report to the C.O. He was a full Colonel and he had a file of paper an inch thick in front of him. I saluted and he put me at ease and said, "Lt. McClane, why have you not paid for these goggles?" I told the Colonel my story, that they had been lost on a combat mission and even if they threatened me with Leavenworth, I'd refuse to pay, it was a matter of principle. I told him that if I had really stolen the goggles, I'd gladly pay $12.95 just to get them off my back but this was not the case and I refused to pay. The Colonel looked at me and said, "is that the truth?" I said, "Yes, Sir". He dismissed me and to this day I've never heard from the Department of the Army again. But, I'm only 62 years old as I write this memoir, I fully expect to get at least one more threat before God calls me to the airman's "Great Aeroplane in the Sky."