Captain Harry R. Ankeny's Combat Diary
Page 29
minute I expected to have it quit entirely so I was
sweating out a forced landing. During all the excite-
ment I forgot to pull up my wheels and was quite embarrassed
to have my wing man come up beside and motion to me my wheels
were still down but that is nothing uncommon. We joined up
with the bombers near Odessa, on the Black Sea, and headed
straight for Bucharest. Nearing that town we turned north
and on the way towards the target a force of about 30
silver ME109's came straight thru our flight, We turned
into them and every one of them hit for the deck. I follow-
ed one down but left him because I didn't figure it was
wise to drop our long range tanks due to the distance we
had left to travel. Also the bombers needed our protec-
tion. Capt. Moore, 364th boy went on down and, got one.
Many times after that I wished I had gone on down because
I was in a perfect position for a couple of kills at least
but like I said before it would have left the bombers un-
protected and we didn't know just what might happen next.
Stuck with the bombers until we made the bomb run, picking
up some flak and remained covering them until we crossed
the Danube River. Then I decided to leave the formation
and head for Italy because my engine was acting up a bit.
Took my flight and headed across the mountains of Yugo-
slavia, the Adriatic Sea, and landed at San Gevero, Italy.
9 Aug. 1944.
Had a day of rest so we hopped in a staff car that even-
ing and went into Foggia. Saw the rail yards which were
hit a year before by the Americans operating from North
Africa. Keith, my brother-in-law, was on several missions
there and they sure wrought destruction. Italy looked
pretty bad--terrible filth.
10 Aug. 1944
We pulled quite a unique mission today escorting several
C-47's into the mountains of Yugoslavia where they landed
and picked up escaping airmen. The C-47's landed right
smack on a hill-top,a place you would swear no plane could
land. As we circled the area, protecting them, nearly a
thousand people came out from behind the trees and gathered
around the planes. This area no doubt was occupied by
Marshall Tito's forces. The queer thing about it was we
were getting German flak just 20 miles from there. The
mission went off fine--quite an easy mission.
11 August '44.
Today we piled into a truck and we were off over a
rough road for the blue Adriatic Sea. Had a swell time
Copyright © 1996, Harry R. Ankeny