Following the briefing James Griffin and Archie Grant looked at each other. Givors again. The last time to Givors, they, along with Ray Alberston and Blair Tompkins had barely escaped capture when their plane went down. Now they were going back.
It seemed like an eternity. Tompkins was now dead, having been killed over Bremen last time out. Griffin hoped this mission would go better than the last time they made this journey.
AmyLynnII joined the bomber steam heading for Givors. It was a quiet flight until Zone 7. We were surprised by a 110 equipped with Schräge Musik. The bugger actually hit us badly. One shot hit the Bomb Bay but didn't set the bombs off. The other destroyed the bomb controls so that the bombs would have to be dropped manually.
As they came around for another pass Randal Upton blasted the stabilizer. The plane made another attack, which then knocked out the mid-upper guns, and broke off.
Another fighter attacked as we continued onward. Fortunately it missed and broke off.
In Zone 9 we were surprised by a 110 and it knocked out the heat to the pilot compartment and destroyed our rubber raft. Not good at all. As we took evasive measures Gerald Morgan got a shot with the nose gun and must have hit the fuel tank, because it just blew up.
We approached the target by staying high. We knew we were risking frostbite but figured we would risk it. We were fortunate that nobody was affected by the cold.
Over the target a searchlight picked us up. Flak got us and we took a hit to the tail wheel and Gerald picked up a light wound. A wild boar came in but did no initial damage. On the second pass it came it at 6 Level and our tail gunner shredded the wings. She went down quick after that.
Between the damage to the bomb controls and the flak hit our bomb run was off target.
We made the turn for home and then dropped to 10,000 feet. We didn't see any fighters on the return but some flak did get our wing root. Overall, even with the flak possible we took no other damage on the return and were able to land safely.