44 F L I G H T J O U R N A L

n 1944, I was a 21-year-old kid and a long way

from my hometown of Southport, Connecticut.

The U.S. government had invested a ton of

money, and one and a half years in training,

and now entrusted me with a 10-man crew and

a battle-ready B-24 Liberator that, in 1944 dol-

lars, had cost $210,943 to build and equip.

From the day I enlisted as an aviation cadet, until I found

myself flying combat missions out of Italy, my life passed

in a whirl, and I was dragged ever further from my youth.

It seemed as if one moment I was trying to make gas

money so that I could borrow my father’s car for a date,

and the next, I was pushing the throttles for-

ward on more than 5,000 horsepower and was

by Roger McCollester

enveloped in a daily “game” of kill or be killed.I was just one of the hundreds of thousands ofairmen who knew we were part of a hugeeffort. As is the case in warfare, however, indi-vidual vision seldom sees the big picture. Ourworld was one small cockpit, and we could seeonly as far as our own squadron. I imagine itwas the same for the ground pounders, buttheir cockpits were foxholes and their horizonwas their rifle company.

It was hard for us to completely under-stand the enormity of what we were involved

RaidRegensburgon

iMy crew—back row (left to right): John Stack, waist gunner;Walter Harris, top turret/engineer; Bernard DiBattista, navigator; Ev Johnson, copilot; John Hannon, waist gunner;front row (left to right): Francis Hynes, ball-turret gunner; Troy Sprott, tail-turret gunner; Olin Hotchkiss, bombardier;Roger McCollester, pilot; and Slim Hughes, radio operator(photo courtesy of author).

D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 1 45

in. Heavy strategic bomb groups were poised in thenorth and south of Europe, like pit bulls eager to get attheir prey. Hundreds of airfields in Britain and Italywere rapidly being supplied to equip the largest armedarmada the world had seen before or has seen since.

The goal was to smash Germany’s ability to supply itswar effort by obliterating oil refineries and major man-ufacturing and shipping centers.

One of the Allied Forces’ prime targets wasRegensburg, Germany. Regensburg and its environs

On February 25, 1944, the 451st BG was sent to Regensburg, Germany, to bombthe Prufening Aircraft Factory. One of several major plants that manufactured theBf 109, it was just outside the city. The Group was awarded its first DistinguishedUnit Citation for this raid (photo courtesy of the 451st BG via Bob Karstensen).

46 F L I G H T J O U R N A L

RAID ON REGENSBURG

were among the most strategically important areas in theentire Third Reich. It was a major manufacturing center ofall types of military equipment, including ball bearings,fighter and bomber aircraft, tanks, trucks and artillery. Inaddition, the area harbored one of the largest synthetic-petroleum plants in Europe, and it was also a major railroadhub, with marshaling yards that were among the largest inEurope.

In addition to its large cadre of skilled labor, Regensburgwas also a major center of higher learning and culture, espe-cially in the performing arts. From every perspective,Regensburg and its suburbs were important to the Reich’swar effort and, for this reason, the city was heavily defendedwith fighters and heavy antiaircraft batteries.

It was amazing how quickly we learned Germany’s geog-raphy. A few months earlier, although I knew whereGermany was, I had never heard of Regensburg. After a fewweeks, however, I knew the names and locations of most ofGermany’s major towns and many of its smaller ones. Thatknowledge was part and parcel of being a round-trip touristwho couldn’t stop to see the sights.

While we sleptThe maintenance and ordnance boys almost never knewwhere the squadron would be headed. All they knew wasthat they would have to spend the night before every mis-sion working their butts off. While they slaved, those whowould fly the mission were also blissfully unaware of thenext day’s target. The 724th Bomb Squadron engineeringofficer and his men fueled and serviced the 20 aircraft of oursquadron that were all parked in revetments on either sideof the perimeter taxiway. This was a huge job that had to bedone very carefully because they dealt with tens of thou-sands of gallons of high-octane aircraft fuel. Every aspect ofeach airplane had to be attended to, including the oil tanksfor each engine; there were four on each aircraft so, 80engines in the squadron had to be topped off.

Once the aircraft had been serviced, the squadron arma-ment officer and his detail took over. With heavy-duty

prime movers and bomb trailers, they began thedelicate process of loading the aircraft bombbays with 12, 500-pound general-purpose (GP)bombs that carried instantaneous fuses thatwould explode on impact. Of course, thesebombs weren’t armed when they were loadedinto the aircraft; once we were airborne and onthe climb out to bombing altitude, the bom-bardier would arm them.

While the bombs were being loaded, othercrews would thread the required thousands ofrounds of .50-caliber ammunition into the gunturrets. It was backbreaking work for the groundpersonnel teams. They worked feverishly allnight, right up until the aircrews boarded theiraircraft, which was usually around 0430 hours,one hour before start engine time.

Time to wake upOn February 25 at 2:30 a.m., the duty officerstuck his head into our tent and yelled to wakeus up.

“McCollester, we’re ordered out on a maxi-mum effort today; breakfast will be at 0300hours; briefing in the War Room at 0400hours.”

“OK; thanks, but no thanks, Charlie. Can’twe just sack out for another hour or so?”

“Come on, Mac; up and at ‘em!”We all grumbled quietly as we struggled out

of our cots in the dark. I looked over at my co-pilot, “Ev” Johnson. Lt. Evert M. Johnson wasfrom West Hartford, Connecticut; prior to joining the ArmyAir Force, he majored in engineering at the University ofNew Hampshire. Our bombardier was Olin E. “Hotch”Hotchkiss from Oneonta, New York, and he was a teachingmajor at an upstate New York college. Navigator Bernard“Dibi” DiBattista from Cranford, New Jersey, was a graduate

of Fordham College andFordham Law School and was apracticing attorney before hisNational Guard unit was calledto active duty in early 1941; helater transferred to the Army AirForce and graduated from navi-gation school. Our radio opera-tor, and the oldest man on ourcrew, was Harold F. “Slim”Hughes, age 33. The engineerand top-turret gunner wasWalter A. “Georgia” Harris,from Atlanta, Georgia, and hehad the most pronouncedSouthern accent that I had everheard. Our two waist gunners,John M. Hannon fromIndianapolis, Indiana, and John

Just before Christmas 1943, our crew arrived in Tunisia to begin a month-long rigorous formation and com-bat training. Our B-24, Mac’s Flophouse, saw us through many a mission but was lost in combat on May 10,1944, when flown by another crew while we were on a well-deserved break (photo courtesy of author).

Our guts constricted with fear when we saw the target. The red string ran from

our Italian bases to the Prufening Aircraft Factory, one of several major plants

manufacturing the Bf 109—and it was just outside Regensburg.

L. Stack, from Phoenix, Arizona, the ball-turret gunner,Francis D. Hynes, from Portland, Oregon, and our tail-turretgunner, Troy O. Sprott, from Corsicana, Texas, completedour 10-man crew.

Group commanderOur group, the 451st, was to be the second group over thetarget. Our group commander, Col. Robert E.L. Eaton, wouldsit in the command seat in the lead aircraft of our leadsquadron, which happened to be the 726th. Eaton had grad-uated from the Point and was an exemplary officer; in fact, Iowe my life to him. He alone, with his firm discipline, hisno-nonsense critiques and especially his insistence on close-formation training, allowed our group to incur relativelylight casualties.

Col. Eaton’s concept of tight formations coincided withthe ideas of Gen. Ira C. Eaker of the 8th Air Force and Gen.Curtis LeMay, also of the 8th, and both close friends of his.The concentrated firepower of an attack unit’s .50-calibermachine guns—10 to each aircraft; 200 for the 20 bombersof an attack unit—was a huge factor in keeping us alive. In anormal mission, we were certain that we were attacked lessoften than other groups because our very close formationmade it obvious to the Luftwaffe ground controllers that ourmachine-gun coverage would be extremely dense and hard

to penetrate safely. Therefore, they would instead vectortheir fighters toward the looser formations. On this occa-sion, we would be more vulnerable to attack because wewould be the second group in the 15th Air Force toapproach the enemy targets. In total, 76 bombers were goingto the target.

The target for today is ….As we milled around in the briefing room and found seats todrop into, we tried to ignore the curtain that hung over theblackboard at the front of the room. It covered the target forthe day, and I’m sure that we were each silently praying for amilk run. Some targets were so heavily defended that wesometimes had nightmares about them. Others, by compari-son, were walks in the park. The only clue we had that thiswould be a serious mission was that it had been described as a“maximum effort;” the high command only did that whenthey had someplace important they wanted removed fromthe map. If our commanders thought it was important, sowould the German commanders, so a milk run was definitelyout of the question.

The briefing officer pulled aside the curtain and 320 guysinvoluntarily sucked in a breath and quietly muttered “Oh,my God!” Our guts constricted with fear when we saw thetarget. The red string ran from our Italian bases to the

On August. 9, 1944, Fertile Myrtle, aB-24 from my 724th BS, flies awayfrom the Alma Fuzito oil refinery inHungary. Oil refineries were amongour most important targets (courtesyof the 451st BG via Bob Karstensen).

48 F L I G H T J O U R N A L

Prufening Aircraft Factory, one of several major plants man-ufacturing the Bf 109—and it was just outside Regensburg.Regensburg! Just hearing the name told us we were virtuallyguaranteed a very tough mission with a high likelihood ofheavy casualties.

Briefing officers must have been carefully selected fortheir ability to deliver bad news in exactly the same tone ofvoice as they used when delivering good news. On this occa-sion, the briefing officer calmly told us we could expect tobe met by at least 200 109s and 190s; they would be vec-tored in from bases all over southern Germany, and fromwhat had formerly been known as Austria, but which Hitlerhad claimed and then renamed Ostmark. He tried to makeus feel better by telling us that there would be 10 U.S. fightersquadrons and that 200 P-38s and P-47s would join ourbomber stream over the Adriatic on the climb-out to alti-tude. On the one hand, we were happy to hear about thehelp, but on the other, we knew those fighters would have

to leave us shortly after we crossed the German frontier atBrenner Pass. After that, we would be on our own, and theGermans knew that. So, the enemy fighters just waited untilwe were alone and then pounced on us by the hundreds.

Ball-turret gunner Hynes wrote in a recent letter to me hismemory of his combat experiences: “I remember beingattacked by a couple of 109s—one of the few times I actuallyfired the guns of our ball turret at the enemy. They came inabout four o’clock and did not seem to be using any deflec-tion as they came at us but were firing their 20mm cannondirectly at us. I could see the guns flashing. I had done prettywell at gunnery school and thought I was a pretty good shot,but the speed at which they came in at us completely con-fused me; my training had not prepared me for this. Frombeing a mere dot in the sky until they filled the window ofthe turret, their speed left me amazed. I could see the flashesof the 20mm cannon as they fired, but they were not usingdeflection when they should have been. Thus, two German

Enemy flak was always among our biggest fears. On a mission to Vienna, BurmaBound was hit by flak bursts that wounded pilot Capt. George Tudor and copilotSquadron Commander, David Gould. Despite his severe hand wound, Capt. Tudormade an emergency landing on the Isle of Vis with the help of the crew, who usedparachutes as air brakes during the rollout (courtesy of the 451st BG via Bob Karstensen).

fighter pilots and one American Liberatorplane and its crew lived to fight anotherday. Those 109s had the yellow noses ofGöring’s own élite squadron. When itseemed as if they would crash into ourplane, they flipped upside-down anddived straight down.”

Fighters weren’t the real problem

We all hated fighters; but at least you couldshoot back at them. Flak was the realenemy because while you were chargingalong, doing your best to fly close forma-tion, some guy on the ground was usingyou as target practice, and there wasn’t adamn thing you could do about it. Survivalwas simply a matter of being the luckiestduck in the shooting gallery, and theRegensburg area was one of the mostintense shooting galleries on earth. It wasdefended by three concentric rings of gunemplacements comprising 600 heavy AAguns that ranged from 88mm to the moredangerous and radar-guided 110mm and150mm. All of the guns had an accuraterange up to 40,000 feet. The 88mm wasused for barrage flak; they didn’t aim atspecific aircraft but tried instead to fill agiven area—maybe a cubic mile on eitherside of the flight path—with explosionsand shrapnel. The heavier 110mm and150mm would accurately target specificaircraft or flights by radar. Regardless ofthe type of gun we faced, most of our sur-vival depended on not being at the wrongplace at the right time.

On those missions, when our group wasin the middle of the entire bomber stream,we could easily spot our target 15 to 20minutes before we reached the initial point(IP). The pillars of smoke from the bombsdropped by the aircraft ahead of us madethe target stand out from miles away. If wewere the lead group, we had to set up the

run and pick the target for those who followed; the trick wasto make the bomb run as short as it could be. During the run,we were absolutely stable; we wanted to give the flak gunnersas little time as possible to aim their weapons accurately. Onlywhen the bombs were away could we begin to take evasiveaction.

To hit our target from 25,000 feet, we had to maintain avery steady airspeed and a level attitude because a bomber isreally nothing more than an artillery platform launching itsshell in a vertical, rather than a horizontal, arc. Whileinbound to the IP and while on the bomb run, we wouldattempt to distort the German flak crews’ estimate of our alti-tude by throwing aluminum-foil strips known as “window”out of our aircraft. The foil reflected the radar signals from theGerman 110mm and 150mm AA guns, thus giving a false alti-tude reading—we hoped! If these guns were allowed to lockon to our altitude, we would be absolutely hammered and

would lose a lot of men and aircraft. A few planes might evensuffer direct hits and then explode in a fireball that wouldthrow debris through the rest of the formation.

If our altitude distortion efforts were successful, our aircraftwould literally bounce up and down because of the regular AAbattery bursts below us. We would then be hit only by metalshards that made jagged holes in our fuselage. Fortunately,because their momentum was largely spent, they did not pen-etrate the aircraft’s heavy metal parts.

On one occasion while we bounced down “flak alley”, theturbulence was so bad that our tail gunner’s steel combat hel-met was knocked over his eyes. At that instant exactly, a flakshard penetrated his turret, missed the heavy, bulletproofglass that protected him from direct rear shots, and dented hishelmet right where his left eye was! How lucky! Had that hel-met not been shaken over his eyes, he would have been killedinstantly!

I, too, had a stroke of luck: I was the recipient of the entiretop of a spent 88mm shell that had exploded far below ourship, but Ev and I had taken precautions to protect our geni-tals. Pilots’ seats were protected on the rear and sides by a sar-cophagus of half-inch armor plate, but nothing except thethin aluminum keel of our aircraft protected our vital parts.Cutting torch in hand, we had visited the old fighter junkyardat the northwest end of our airbase at Gioia del Colle. TheLuftwaffe had dumped 109s there, and we had each cut apiece of armor plate out of the pilot’s seat and later dropped itright under our pilot seat cushions. On our very next mission,the aforementioned 88mm shell hit the bottom of my seat,but it bounced off the armor plate. After that, my officers usedthe shell fragment as an ashtray—a very lucky ashtray!

Setting up the initial pointOur course to the target took us right over the island of Splitand then straight across the central Adriatic, across theItalian coast just southeast of Venice, over Bolzano, theBrenner Pass and on to the initial point. From there, we helda specific compass heading for 1 minute, 45 seconds to ourPrufening Aircraft Factory target. As on all bomb runs, those105 seconds seemed like an eternity.

The bomb runEv and I had the job of maintaining tight formation; ourwingtips overlapped our lead element aircraft by about ten

D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 1 49

A 451st BG squadron only moments away from releasing its bombs. Thiswas the most dangerous time in a mission because pilots had to hold thebombers steady and could not maneuver to evade flak (courtesy of the451st BG via Bob Karstensen).

feet. Flak burst allaround us, but wehad to concentrateon flying formation.

It didn’t do a damn bit of good to look at theexplosions or even to worry about them, aswe were helpless to do anything about them;but believe me, we knew they were there. Thesound of our engines was deafening, but inspite of that, we could hear the 88mm shellsthrough our headsets. The shells left puffs ofgray smoke in the sky, and as the intensity ofthe barrage increased, our sphincters gottighter grips on our parachute cushions; any-one who says they weren’t scared to death inthese situations is a liar!

The movies may get the visuals right, butbeing there is something entirely different. In the first place,we were all kids who were facing our own mortality far earli-er than we should have. Just flying close formation is danger-ous enough. Right, left, up and down: other airplanes areonly yards away. In the best of conditions, close-formationflying requires almost mind-numbing concentration; toss inthe violent turbulence of flak and the difficult becomes nearlyimpossible. You’re also fighting the controls and throttles toavoid sliding out of position. This is all stirred together by athing called fear that, oddly enough, most of your mind for-gets because you’re doing your job so intently that there isn’t

time to think about it; your mind pushes the fear off to theside so you’re able to deal with what is going on. If you makea mistake, you’ll probably not only kill the ten men in yourown crew but also those in the airplane you hit.

But there is no turning back! Our group—every one of theaircraft that arrived at the target area—plowed through thisintense artillery barrage. It was the most dangerous part ofthe mission, and when we were most vulnerable. After a cou-ple of eternities, our bombardier, Hotch, called out on theintercom, “Bombs away!” Sweeter words were never heard.

Going homeImmediately after “bombs away,” our flightleader began strenuous evasive action andswung our flight to starboard and then sudden-ly to port, all the time varying our altitude. Onemoment we would be climbing, and in thenext, we would be diving. Once past the outerring of flak batteries, we settled down to ourplanned withdrawal, and we maintained 24,000feet until we had crossed the Alps at theGerman/Austrian /Italian border. Then we setup a gradual descent on a southerly headingthat would bring us down to 10,000 feet by thetime we reached the Adriatic.

Shortly after we reached the Adriatic, severalsquadrons of our “little friends” joined us toprovide top cover on the way home. Havingsurvived the insanity over the target, I ran aquick head count over the intercom and foundthat my crew and our airplane had comethrough unscathed. Inside, I felt a silent prayerof thanks float upward. And my butt finally letgo of the parachute.

A funny conclusionIn spite of very heavy fighter and flak opposi-tion, we had succeeded in pasting thePrufening Aircraft Factory and had returnedwith minimum losses—six aircraft downed,and only five aircrew wounded enough torequire hospitalization. Our critique by Eatonended with some levity.

Col. Eaton’s 1st pilot and crew commanderon this maximum-effort mission was Capt. SidWinski. Winski apparently had to relieve him-

RAID ON REGENSBURG

50 F L I G H T J O U R N A L

A B-24 piloted by Thomas “Doc” Moran on the October 13, 1944, Vienna raid was anotherflak victim. The number two engine and the main-gear’s retraction/extension system wereshot out. Moran made a perfect landing using the nose gear and the B-24’s belly, and hedidn’t even bend a propeller (courtesy of the 451st BG via Bob Karstensen).

self just prior to our arrival at the IP.Group commanders like Col. Eatonare not expected to fly the aircraftover the target; that just isn’t theirjob! The first we heard of this “pitstop” was when Eaton was on stageduring our post-mission critiqueaddressing all group officers who hadparticipated in the Regensburg mis-sion. He suddenly turned, pointed atWinski, and said in a very loud voice:

“Winski, the next time you have torelieve yourself on the bomb run, doit in your pants!”

This was one of the funniest momentsin our combat experience. You see, Eaton,though he had trained to fly Liberators,did not do so regularly, as did our crewcommanders, including me. For Winski toexpect Eaton to take over the controlswhile he emptied his bladder was asking a lot. But that isn’t the end of thestory.

Ignorant of the details, I thoughtthat Winski had actually left his seat,attached the walk-around oxygenbottle to his mask and proceeded tothe waist compartment and used therelief tube. Not until many years later,in September 1990, at the 451st BombGroup Reunion at Fairmont Airbase,Nebraska—where we, the originalcadre of our combat group, took ouroperational training—did I have anopportunity to learn more. It wasthere I talked with the then retiredGen. Eaton about it. I asked:

“Gen. Eaton; do you remember thetime that Winski excused himself justprior to the bomb run on a mission toRegensburg to relieve himself?” Gen.Eaton chuckled and smiled broadly ashe replied:

“Of course, I remember that inci-dent very well, and I remember call-ing him down for it!”

“General, did Winski actually leavehis seat to go to the waist-sectionrelief tube?” The general laughedagain—this time, very heartily.

“No, what he did was to removehis steel helmet, place it upside-downbetween his legs and then urinateinto the helmet! However, becausethe liquid froze on contact, hecouldn’t get the helmet on again!”The general guffawed; I had neverseen him laugh as much!

It’s funny what we rememberabout life-and-death experiences.Maybe it’s nature’s way of protectingus from the darker parts. �

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