(The pagination of the handwritten original does not always match the pagination of the typed version.)
MISSION #1 12th Febr. '44
My first combat mission was a bomber escort job over the Northern France Area. Lt. Col. Blakesley led the group taking off around 9:00 A.M. we headed directly south from Leiston, England, our home base. Was flying on Lt. Williams, my flight leaders wing - R. D. Brown and Adams were also in our flight. Complete overcast over our field and nearly all over the target area. Did a nice job climbing thru the overcast 6000 ft. thick, entirely on instrument. Passed over North Foreland on course and picked up the first box of B-24's near Dieppe. They were bombing secret installations inland from Amiens. Saw no enemy fighters, but a little flak over the target. Took two boxes of bombers over the target and did a good job. Coming back in squadron formation, we let down thru holes over the channel. Nearly ran into barrage balloons over Ipswich but all got back OK. Time about three hours. (Blakeslay - Group C.O. 55th F.G. flew more combat than anyone in European Theater)
MISSION # 2 22nd Febr. '44
My second mission and it was really tough. We were to escort two boxes over the target at Bernburg, Germany; five boxes in all went in. Took off at 11:45 a.m. after the group had started across the channel. Was flying a new ship that had just come in the night before so this was its test hop. Caught the squadron right off the enemy coast and we flew right over The Hague, a large city. When I hit the coast and joined the squadron, I set my drop tanks in the selector position and dropped one of my droppable tanks (75 gals.) by accident. I was on the extreme right of the group and Adams, my element leader, and I went directly over the Ruhr valley (Happy valley). All at once the flak was thick and Adams and really sweated it out--popping all around us. Got thru O.K. Our target was aircraft factories 400 miles away and we flew forever it seemed until we picked up the bombers. Al- most immediately ME109's started dropping straight down thru the bomber boxes and violent rat races began. I saw a ME109 flying by itself below and to the right so I called Adams and told him to get it while I covered him. He peeled off and got in a spiral and spin. Followed him a little ways but lost him. He destroyed it and the pilot bailed out. After I lost him, I started turning to the right to see if anything had jumped my tail. Sure enough an MEl09 was firing at me. I tightened up and got on his tail--got a two second burst at him as he went into a cloud below, at 10,000 ft. (Adams led our group in kills(10)before he got shot down.) Pulling out below the clouds at about 6,000 ft. at high speed, I looked down and saw 8 or 10 109's flying in pairs at about 2,000 ft. and decided I wasn't going down after them - didn't care for those 10 to 1 odds. I climbed back up into the clouds, got back above the clouds about 15,000 ft. and found Adams, thank the Lord.