Sixth Mission, 9 March 1945   Target Rail Yards, Frankfurt

Tony's Mission Log:

What a difference a day makes! The 486th BG returned to bomb Frankfurt again. Except this time the skies were clear, which totally exposed the formation to visual observation from the ground. On a clear day, it would be a real challenge to hide a large formation in the air, especially when the contrails would make the formation visible for many miles. So it is not surprising that they were received with an intense welcome by the anti-aircraft crews. The upside was that the accuracy of the bombing run was also greatly improved. In this particular raid the results were "Fair".

This is a famous photo of a B17 formation from 1943. Tony keep one of these. I was able to track down the tail number of the plane in the foreground to the 95th BG. 8th AF records show that  B17 tail number 30173 - 2544  was last seen "near Lingen, aircraft left the formation on fire" the entire crew MIA.  

LT Moran's crew got back on the same ship as the day before, The Old Yard Dog. 

As Tony comments above, "I saw another plane go down from another group". And that was probably the first time he had ever seen a Fortress go down; no doubt a very somber experience.

That day the 8th Air Force dispatched 423 B17s to bomb Marshalling Yards, near Frankfurt. They lost 3 planes, 1 damaged beyond repair, 182 planes damaged, 7 airmen were wounded and 28 MIA.

This video will give you an idea of what it was like to survive flak in a B17. It took a toll on your mental health, you felt vulnerable and there was NOTHING you could do about it. Going up against fighters gave you a sense of being able to control the situation to some extent. You could kill him or he could kill you. But there was no controlling flak. Tony's Squadron in 1945 didn't suffer any losses from enemy fighters, but they lost aircraft and men to flak and collisions.