Captain Harry R. Ankeny's Combat Diary
Page 13
1st May, 1944.
Flew in R. D. Brown's White flight with Lt. Starkey
on my wing. Took off early in the morning and flew to
Cambrai France where were to start a sweep, controlled
by Type 16 control unit. Cruised around Paris and vicinity
most of the morning looking over the airfield but didn't see
a thing.
2nd mission today, we took off at 1622, rather
started engines and were to sweep around Frankfurt. Pretty
poor weather all the way. Brown, flight leader, aborted and
left me with Coon and Starkey to catch the group. We were
about 20 miles behind but finally caught them. Ran into
a little flak south of Ruhr Valley but nothing to worry
about
4th May, 1944
Another early morning mission--started engines at
0850 and our mission was a fighter bomber escort to a tar-
get on the other side of Berlin. We were to R/V with them
northwest of Berlin proper. We took off and stayed on the
brief course until a few minutes before R/V time when Norris,
radio relay man, called and recalled the group. The weather
was very bad so we were all happy to turn around and head
for home. I flew as an element leader in Capt. Hagan's Blue
flight and when he aborted I took over the flight with Lt's.
Coon and Badger on my wings.
(R/V - Rendezvous)
7th May, 1944.
A bomber escort mission to Berlin. We started en-
gines at 0806 and on the way in we picked up the wrong
bombers. Ours didn't even go to Berlin. The weather was
very poor down low, solid overcast, so I doubt if many
enemy fighters got off the ground--lucky thing for the
bombers. I flew as element leader in Lt. Adam's Green flight.
We didn’t see anything as usual.
8th May, 1944.
My birthday and for a present I got to go over Berlin
again, unlike yesterday, today's was a successful mission.
Again I flew as Lt. Adam's element leader in White flight
with Lt. Hill on my wing. We R/V fine and picked up the
lead bombers at about 28,000 ft. We went over Berlin at
30,000 ft. and got flak, accurate too. Didn't see any
enemy aircraft probably because there was a complete over-
cast over Berlin and most of the continent. Everything
went fine and all returned safely.
Copyright © 1996, Harry R. Ankeny