After all of their intensive training
the 398th was champing at the bit to fly their first combat mission
on May 6, 1944. (To see part 1 click here) That first mission, however, was not without its
jitters and fubars. Their neighboring veteran groups in the 1st
Combat Wing, the 91st at Bassingborn and the 381st at Ridgewell, had
been through many missions and now moved with practiced precision on
mission days, but the 398th still had a few kinks to work out.
Somehow on that first mission the duty officer forgot to alert the
kitchen so that crews were not fed prior to morning briefing, and
then there was a traffic jam at the equipment room leaving little
time to coordinate signals and other information among squadrons and
crews. Not all bombs got loaded and truck transportation to dispersal
points broke down. Still, somehow they finally got off, partly
loaded and without proper assembly, but they went to war and came
back without any losses. Luckily it was a short mission into France
with a P-38 escort all the way, rather than a long run into Germany
when a little thing like not waking cooks might have cost planes and
lives. Pilot Keith Anderson remembers it this way: “This
inaugural mission was snafu early on when the duty officer failed to
awaken the mess crew on time so breakfast was delayed and each
subsequent step in the process became progressively bogged down. Our
takeoff was about an hour late and many of our planes never did get
in proper formation – just tagged along ad hoc. Fortunately it was
a milk run to one of the ‘noball’ sites on the French coast and
the target was obscured by clouds so we couldn’t drop bombs anyway.
Thus no harm was done and it was chalked off as a learning
experience.”
After the morning’s confusion,
Colonel Frank Hunter demonstrated his cool leadership by assembling
his air and ground staffs, tracking down the problems and setting
them right. The following day was the 398th’s baptism by fire; a
long mission to Berlin led by Colonel Hunter himself. This time the
morning went well. Breakfast was on time and well prepared. Morning
briefing was punctual and there were no snarls at the equipment room
or on the field. Bombs were loaded, ships were all serviced, and
take off and assemblies were smooth. They suffered no losses that
day but six planes landed with flak damage, two of them requiring
major repairs.. In only one day the 398th had found itself. It was
not until the May 19 mission to Berlin that they lost their first
aircraft in action.
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| 398th's Control Tower |
The addition of the 398th was a major
boost for the 1st Combat Wing that spring. 1st Wing history for May
records: “With the 398th Group fully operational, we were able to
fly two full combat wing formations on a number of the more important
targets. To be exact, ten of the nineteen were double missions, so
that our Wing actually flew twenty-nine missions in a 31-day month.
This was coming-of-age of the air war in a big way!” By the end of
May, the 398th had flown 450 sorties on 18 missions, including four
to Berlin, six others deep into Germany, and one all the way to
Poland. In all of this they lost four aircraft; less than 1%. “It
was an amazing record.” the 1st Wing report read, “There wasn’t
another group in the theater that could begin to touch it.” Unfortunately, their luck would seldom be as good again.
In the next eight months preceding the
arrival of Don Christensen and his crew, the 398th distinguished
itself as a strong work horse
with its share of both nobility and tragedy. They flew an average of
over sixteen missions per month with a high of twenty-three in June
1944. That number would be topped by their twenty-four missions the
following March. In one year of combat operations the 398th flew 195
missions which included 6419 sorties, and dropped 15,781 tons of
bombs. The group lost 70 aircraft in combat, with 50 more abandoned
on the continent (AOC). In addition, 33 aircraft that made it back
to England were so severely damaged they were reduced to salvage. As
for the human cost, the 398 lost 296 airmen killed in action or
missing and presumed dead, and 298 were captured and became POWs.
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| Main Runway Today |
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One Of The Ammo Dumps today
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