We encountered three Jerry fighters inbound to the target. The first one surprised us and shot the stuffing out of us. Forcing us to drop to 10,000 ft. We elected to continue on to the target despite our damage. Flack was accurate and we suffered a hit just prior to bomb release. Gardner was still able to place 20% of our bomb load in the target area. The homeward trip was uneventful with the exception of a fire in the #3 oil tank we managed to extinguish.