398th Bomb Group
Memorial
Association


Lt. Robert J. Beckley's Diary
Navigator, 600th/601st Squadron

Beckley's Mission No. 22

3 October 1944
Target: Nurnberg, Germany

No. 22. Nurnberg, October 3, 1944:

9 hours flying time.

Bomb load 5 one-thousand pound GP bombs.

This was a long haul before we dropped our thousand pounders. Before assembly I flew the ship about a half hour getting a little practice. We headed in over the primary target just about on time, but due to a malfunction of the lead ships bombing equipment we waded through the flak without dropping our bombs.

We sweated out further orders to see if we would 360 degrees and come in again, but the orders came through from the lead ship that we’d hit the last resort target, an airfield. It was unusual to be dropping our bombs then with no flak around. Our bombs hit the intersection of the three runways. On the way home the Jerries began popping flak around us as we passed over the battle line between Metz and Nancy and, although they had our altitude dead and our ground speed to the knot, they were a bit off to the right of our group so that we could look out our right window and see the successive burst explode in the same relative spot. We had to get back from this one because our seven day leave for Scotland starts tomorrow.

Notes:
  • Lt. Robert J. Beckley was the Navigator for the Linn R. Rogers crew.
  • The above transcription was provided by Ann Collins, daughter of Phillip Collins, Ball Turret Gunner on the 601st Saul Marias Crew.
  • This transcription is a reproduction of the original. Spelling and punctuation changes have been made to improve readability. In some circumstances, material may not have been transcribed or was rewritten.
  • Clarification of acronyms or special words or guesses of certain words are shown in brackets [ ].

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