AAR Mission: 116
Date: 14/15December 1944
Target: Industry, Bremen , Germany
Aircraft: Parramatta Patty (2nd mission)
Pilot: Alan Baxter
Take-off was satisfactory and we settled in for the long flight across the North Sea to Germany and our target at Bremen. This meant that everything depended on our navigator, Mick Hudson. All went well until a hundred miles off the German coast. Tracers streaming past the cockpit window shocked us as an unseen enemy Ju88 night fighter made its presence known; luckily all his fire missed us and I threw Parramatta Patty into evasive manoeuvres. Although this meant our gunners had a less than steady platform, our mid-upper gunner, Johnny Dover, poured a stream of 303 bullets into the Junkers' cockpit area; the Jerry took a last shot at us but he was way off and disappeared in the night.
Nothing else occurred on the flight to the target except the worsening of the weather. We made landfall north of Bremen and flew inland and before long saw the glow of fires on the cloud mass. No enemy fighters met us over the target and the searchlights failed to pick us up through the heavy cloud. The heavy cloud also kept the flak off us. But the cloud also resulted in a lack of sighting for the bomb-run and we cannot claim any hits on the industrial area. And that was it. Although we kept a sharp lookout on the journey home no further enemy was encountered. There was poor weather over base when we returned but our lack of damage saw us land safely.
Bomb run: Off; 0%
Claims: 0-1-0; Bomber: No damage