My word! The flak gunners at Brunswick were ready and waiting. Three near bursts bounced Alcyone around the sky. We lost heat throughout the plane, except for the nose and tail. We lost one flap and one aileron … and that was it. We counted ten jagged holes from flak fragments after we landed, and that was it. The three Me-110's we encountered on the trip in hardly seem worth mentioning in comparison, although Danforth is excited about his second confirmed kill. A single-engined fighter made a couple of head-on passes over the target, too, but of course Dahlgren wasn't in his turret, and I was trying to hold us steady, so we just had to take it. Fortunately, he didn't do too much damage.
Dahlgren is to be commended for placing 10% of our load on the TI's, despite the flak.
I took us back low for warmth, but it must have thrown the night-fighters off, too, because we didn't see any all the way home.
Pilot Officer Kenneth Cahill
Pilot, Alcyone
October 31, 1943
80 Peckham Damage Points