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Documentary Of An Airman's Tour With The Eighth 1944-1945

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Fri. Dec. 1, 1944
I went on a pass today and of course to London. I met an A.T.S. girl at the Rainbow Room dance. She was a nice girl!
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A.T.S. stands for Auxiliary Transport Signals - English women who relayed messages for the military in a variety of ways, sometimes by motor bike.

Sat. Dec. 2, 1944
I got up at noon and met a buddie in the Stran Palace bar and we got drunk!

Sun. Dec. 3, 1944
I went to Mass at St. James Spanish Palace in London and took the 10:00 A.M. train back to the base. I stood up all the way! At night I went to the club dance and met Phylis and we got feeling good together!

Mon. Dec. 4, 1944
I was called out for a mission this morning! We were to bomb marshelling yards at Giessen, Germany after going to Merseburg that wasn't too bad, but I was as scared as hell, per usual. After we landed I went to the club. Mission No. completed!


TUESDAY Dec. 5, 1944
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Approximately 1,200 Fortresses and Liberators of the Eighth Air Force, escorted by about 1,000 Mustangs and Thunderbolts of the Eighth and Lightnings of the Ninth, yesterday hammered rail yards and industrial objectives in the Reich.
The heavies struck at Kassel, Mainz, Giessen, Soest, and Bebra and elsewhere in western Germany.
Also in daylight yesterday RAF Lancasters continued the offensive against the railways of the Ruhr district with a concentrated assault on Oberhausen.
"German targets are due for the greatest weight of bombardment they have ever received, and winter weather will not protect them," Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker, Mediterranean, Allied Air Force chief, said, predicting the success of new cloud-bombing techniques.
He described Ploesti as "the bloodiest air battlefield of the war," where U.S. losses were 350 bombers and more than 1,400 fliers. But, he said, "It was worth the cost." Eaker said a Rumanian official had told him that when the Ploesti attacks started the Germans were getting 26,000 tons of petroleum products daily from there, and when the attacks ended production had been cut to 3,505 tons daily.
Ninth Air Force fighter-bombers, in action on the U.S. First and Ninth Army fronts Sunday, attacked fortified villages and artillery concentrations near Duren, troops and fortifications north of Julich, and rail yards at Grenenbroich.
On the U.S. Third Army front, Thunderbolts bombed the town of Zweibrucken.

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From page 173

 


From Photographs of London The text and the photographs in the book are much larger and clear. Whenever possible there are the photos Dick took and then the same photo taken in more recent years in color.

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