Evening star., 1944-01-14
Grim Battle Over Reich Packed
With Thousands Of Brave Deeds
Desperate Nozis HurI
Up Everything in Vain
Effort to Halt Raiders
BY GLADWIN HILL.

BY GLADWIN HILL,
Associated Press War Correspondent.
LONDON, Jan. 14.--It was a grim
aerial game of musical chairs with
one bomber moving up, step by step,
taking the place of others shot
down.
1t was shell fragment slicing an
astonished gunner's ammunition belt
and boy jabbing himself with a
morphine needle to numb an aching
shoulder.
1t was the shell Of a plane plung-
ing wildly with no certainty it was
ever going to come out of it. -.
The whole story of one OF the
wars great battles in the American
air bombardment of Central Ger
many Tuesday probably never will
be told because it is a thousand
things to thousands of men.
More than seven hundred bombers
spread over many miles of sky, and
each ones experience was different.
Some got through unscathed and
they couldn't believe that go of their
number went down. Others were
amazed that they ever got home.
Nazis Throw Up Everything.
1t started like other missions.
Turning out in the blackness of an
early winter morning. The briefing
room. Red lines on a map. Main
objectives, three of the Nazi's prime
nghter plants-a major stroke in the
campaign to knock out the German
air force and clinch air supremacy
for invasion-plants hardly hun
dred miles from Berlin.
Il kind Of expected all hell to
break loose" said Fortress Pilot
Bernard Davey Of Atlanta, Ga. LAS
We headed into enemy territory I
kept thinking Of the crew. With
good crew you always have a better
chance of coming back"
The American bombers flew over
one large, dead, black city. There
was little traffic on German high
ways, but lots OF trains were chuffing
along.
The Nazis quickly aScertained that
raiders with 500-plane fighter es-
cort were coming either for the capi-
tai or those prize industrial targets
hidden deep in Germany. They
threw up everything they had-an
array OF Single-engined and twin
engined fighters and even the Stukas
originally made to frighten French
men into their trenches-not to do
aerial battle. There were their des-
perate eleventh-hour gadgets-two
bombs. rocket planes.
Foe Attacks in Groups.
"The enemy fighters started their
attack over Holland at the Zuider
Zee-in spite of our escort $500
fighters) they came at use in
bunches," said Brig. Gen. Robert
Travis of Savannah, Ga, leader OF
one formation.
Our first attack was from four
Focke Wulfs, the next from 80. then
from II. Then they just kept on
coming. They attacked straight
through our formation and from all
angles without even rolling over.
The attack gathered intensity as
the bombers famed out toward
Brunswick, Halberstadt and Oschers-
leben. AS the factories came into
bombardiers' sights, mechanisms
clicked and, with a clank in the
bomb bays, thousands of squat pro-
jectiles nosed down through miles
Of thin air.
ut was a perfect day for bombing
and we could see plenty Of damage"
said 1t. John Raedeke of Water
vile, MINI.
The German fighters hadn't saved
their spawning places.
But to the rivet-gun hammering
OF thousands Of American machine
guns the Nazi rocket planes welled
around like football lines or a naval
fiotilla and let fly with broadsides.
Swifter enemy fighters zoomed in to
follow up.
Steel Zings Into Planes.
The sky was smudged thicker and
thicker with black explosions. Jagged
| fragments of German steel hinged
through layers of American duralu-
min, clanked against American
armorplate-ands slashed into Ameri-
can flesh.
L saw our right wing man go
down in the smoke said Waist
Gunner Sergt. Everett E. Hudson
Of West Point, Miss, land when I
looked out the other waist window
our left wingman was gone, too. 1t
seemed as If planes were dropping
like fiies-ours as well as theirs"
I'VE were at the back of the
formation when he started" 1t
Raedeke said. But every time a
Fort would 60 down we would move
up. BY the time we got hit we were
in the lead squadron"
Those fighters were coming In
frantically mad-and personally I
was frantically scared" Bombardier
1t. Walter Gibson of Lyndon, ILL.,,
confessed.
The ninth German nailed by 1t.
Raedeke's Hit Parade" crew
plunged out Of control and hit
nearhv Fortress which hurst into,