Читать книгу Remembering D-day: Personal Histories of Everyday Heroes - Martin Bowman - Страница 53

radio operator-gunner, Chicks Crew, 303rd Bomb Group, 1st Bomb Division, 8th Air Force, Molesworth.

‘Stars and Stripes gave American losses over Europe in the five months preceding D-Day as 1,407 heavy bombers, 673 fighters and 100 medium bombers. These figures do not include those killed or wounded when the planes returned to their home base or crashed in the United Kingdom. Over 14,000 men were lost in the heavies alone. The British had parallel losses.

In June, after six months of intense training, we were assigned, as a crew, to a B-17G at Kearney, Nebraska. We flew it overseas to England where we started flying combat missions immediately, just in time to join the D-Day invasion support flights. The first few short-haul sorties were milk runs, giving us the false impression that this combat flying was a piece of cake. But that was to change quickly . . . It was apparent to all of us that the long-awaited invasion of Festung Europa was imminent. We knew that we would be involved, but expected all-out opposition from the Germans. The night of 5 June we saw the RAF aircraft and gliders coming over, wave after wave. We knew we would be going in the morning and thought there would be hell to pay. We didn’t sleep much that night. At briefing we heard Eisenhower’s inspirational message to the departing troops. At least it was supposed to inspire. Churchill could have done it with a lot more class.’