Pilot: Keith Duncan
B-17: Dragon's Rage
Mission: Coastal Guns at Walcheren Island
Date: 31OCT1944
After Action Report:
Our new Mid Upper gunner SGT Moore joined us at the flight line, just in time for take off today, wow Today, I don't think I can't remember the last time I was up the same time as the sun. It's supposed to be a simple mission, with Good Fighter cover, but our formation was very lack luster, and attracted unwanted eyes. Over Walcheren, we encountered two waves of hostile fighters, our loose formation seeming to draw them in. We were hit by 5 ME-109's, SGT Cromwell got one, and those beautiful Spitfires took out a second, that left three to deal with, one of them an obvious ace charging in head on while Nigel was busy aiming the bombs. He tore into us pretty good, taking out our tail guns, and destroying the heat in our waist. A second fighter coming in scored walking hits along our wings, one superficial to each wing, but we lost engine 4, and took a root hit to our Port Wing. The other two fighters both missed us and broke off. Then came the second wave, a single M E-109 at 12 o'clock, but once again a diving Spitfire took care of the Jerry. Then the flak came in, and we had two more holes put into our lovely Lancaster, one scared us as it went into our Bomb bay, but everyone sighed in relief when it went back out the other side with out damaging any vital, the second one hit our Starboard Wing Root. The flak must have thrown Nigel's aim off as he missed the target with our bomb run. Then headed back we encountered 1 more wave of fighters, as the Luftwaffe tried one last time to remove us from their skies. This time we encountered 3 ME-109's, and one of those FW-190's that we've been hearing the Yank bomber crews talk about. These pilots were flying like they were pretty new at this, and neither side did any damage as we flew out of their range and back into our safety area.