Captain Harry R. Ankeny's Combat Diary
Page 21
24 June, 1944.
Today made my sixth straight mission in a row and
that was quite enough. It wasn't a bad mission, a little
bomber escort down near Paris, and when we were through
escorting we went down and strafed some box cars. They
must have been empty ones because nothing blew up or
even caught fire as far as I could see. Picked up 4
hrs. and 40 minutes today.
25 June, 1944.
Went on two bomber escort missions today, the first
was to Toulouse and it took 5 hrs. and 50 minutes. In
the afternoon we went on one near Paris and logged 3:25
hr. Not a bad day's work.
28 June, 1944.
Got up at 4 bells this morning and flew a bomber
escort mission down near Paris and picked up 4 hrs.
29 June, 1944.
Capt. Williams came in our barracks at 9:00 P.M.
and wanted three of us to fly an Air-Sea Rescue mission.
Lt. Mace, Wallen and myself volunteered and went out for
about an hour and a half landing just after dark, We
took off all together 3 a breast and looked good. A large
Air Sea Rescue plane was being towed back to the coast
after being forced down in the North sea. We just flew
around it and covered it and the tow boat. Were also
3 P47's covering it for a while. Not much of a mission
and got 1:25 hr. combat time.
30 June, 1944.
The weather was pretty lousy today but we loaded up
with 500# bombs and went on an Escort and Dive Bombing
Mission around noon. The location of our target was
a rail junction near Conches and Evreax. Believe our dive
bombing target was near the latter of the two towns.
Logged 3:25 and it was fun dive bombing. The clouds
were pretty thick and we had to lower to 5000 ft. to see
Copyright © 1996, Harry R. Ankeny