4. Acknowledgements
I have been fortunate to have worked with a number of people during this project who have
supplied information by phone, email or regular mail. Some were relatives of the crew, others veterans
of the 92nd Bomb Group and had flown to Merseburg on September 13, 1944. Some were other writers
or people just plain interested in planes. Their connections to the story appear throughout and I would
like to recognize them as a group here:
Dr. Ed Hogan (for John Hogan)
Paul Butterworth (for Harry Eck)
Karrie Clark (for George Clark)
Tom Dietman (son of Thomas Dietman)
Wally Wade (for Emil Wasilewski)
Mary and Virg Urban (for John Bono)
Bonnie McClure (for Clifford Keeney)
Hank Hendrickson, pilot, 92nd Bomb Group
Hank Darlington, pilot, 92nd Bomb Group, and his son Robert
Clayton Nattier, pilot, 306th Bomb Group
Beth Hertz (for Ray Hertz, pilot, 92nd Bomb Group)
Gene Rosengarden (for Jerry Greenberg, , pilot, 92nd Bomb Group, who I just missed)
Greg Alexander, Historian, 92nd Bomb Group
Eberhard Hälbig
Michael Lobardi, Historian, Boeing, via Christian Schaefer
Ray Bowden
Donald Caldwell
My friends on the 92nd Bomb Group Facebook site (Rob Hutchins, Rob Francis, Mike Etzell, Candy
Kyler Brown, Daniele Bosquet, Bobby Lee and Ray Topolosky and others) and the 12 O’Clock High
Forum (G.M. Morrison, Charles Bavarois, and Horst Weber)
Capt. Jamie Dobson, JPAC
Lynn Gamma, Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, AL
Craig Mackey, Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, AL
Karin Carlson, Northeast Historic Film
Bob Barton, for the reading of the draft
Mary Bakerjian, wife, for the proofreading and support
and Bob Carlson, thanks for the email that told of Hogan’s burial at Arlington
5. Hogan Comes Home
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - It Began as a Quick Search for a Crew Photo.......................................................................... 6
Chapter 2 - The Merseburg Mission, September 13, 1944......................................................................... 9
Chapter 3 - Aircraft serial #42-31250....................................................................................................... 23
Chapter 4 - About the Crew of ‘Mag the Hag II’ ..................................................................................... 31
Chapter 5 - Researching Luftwaffe Involvement...................................................................................... 35
Chapter 6 - Those Other B-17s Claimed on September 13 ...................................................................... 65
Chapter 7 - More on the Crew and MACR 8882...................................................................................... 68
Chapter 8 - Sole Survivor: Sergeant George Clark, Gunner..................................................................... 74
Chapter 9 - Other Notes from First Lieutenant Hank Darlington, Pilot ................................................... 80
Chapter 10 - The 357th Fighter Group on September 13, 1944 ............................................................... 81
Chapter 11 - First Lieutenant Harry Eck, Pilot......................................................................................... 82
Chapter 12 - JPAC Visits Neustädt........................................................................................................... 91
Chapter 13 - Remembering ‘Young Hogan’............................................................................................. 96
6. Chapter 1 - It Began as a Quick Search for a Crew Photo
My brother-in-law Bob Carlson occasionally sends me news items that he gets from his daily
email update from Air Force Magazine. More often than not his mails are about the retrieval,
identification and interring of the remains of airmen missing from America’s wars overseas. I always
respond to the effect of, “Welcome home, and may God comfort the hearts of your family.”
In August 2012, he sent me a news item about how Staff Sergeant (S/Sgt.) John E. Hogan of
West Plains, Missouri was to be buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery
on August 24. The news item noted only that he had been a crewmember on a B-17G that had crashed
at Neustädt-on-Werra in Germany on September 13, 1944, and that one unnamed crewman had
parachuted out safely. Apparently, though, Hogan and the rest of the crew had died in the crash, been
buried, lost, and forgotten in Neustädt and by chance discovered in 1991 when someone digging a grave
found three of the crewmen’s dog tags. The DOD was finally able in 2008 to recover the remains of the
crewmen, bring them home and start identifying them. Other crewmen, 2nd Lt. Emil T. Wasilewski and
S/Sgt. John Bono, were laid to rest shortly before Hogan.
Looking at this accidental circumstance that led to Hogan and his fellow crewmembers being
found, I decided to Google his name just to see what I could find out about him and this mission even
though I had no connection to his family. I did not expect to write any type of narrative like this, nor did
I expect to spend a lot of time researching and including massive amounts of detail about this. I had just
hoped to find at least his unit, maybe even a crew picture. I figured I was facing some long odds
working with a press release of an airman lost almost 70 years ago. It was a huge, active air campaign
over Germany with millions of sorties, tens of thousands of aircraft involved and downed and of men
killed, wounded and lost, and thousands of targets stretching over several years. I just didn’t think that
there would be enough info out there on one particular man. My search broke down into three parts:
mission-crew-Luftwaffe.
As the hours, days, weeks, and even months went by I realized I had hit upon a unique collection
of mission reports, photos, and articles that I didn’t think I was going to find, or talk live to people
involved in this event.
7. I may have even found the Luftwaffe pilot who shot him down.
Other actions popped up unrelated to this search, like a local connection and that a famous
American fighter pilot increased his victory tally by 50% (he would go on to title his autobiography with
just his last name). One of the NFL’s most celebrated coaches would see action at a later date as a B-17
copilot over the target of September 13, too. Typing Hogan’s name into Google led me first to a news
report about him produced by National Public Radio that I found right after reading the first press
release from Air Force Magazine.1
They had managed to secure a portrait photo showing him as a
handsome 20-year-old in uniform, with a smile and expression suggesting an easygoing
confidence. The story noted that his B-17 left the
formation after encountering flak.
They also uploaded a letter his parents had received
from the Army dated June 16, 1953 expressing their regrets
that his remains were unrecoverable.2
The Army had
investigated some information that Hogan and the other
crewmen had been disinterred from the cemetery in
Neustädt and moved to the United States Military
Cemetery at Margraten, Holland. Looking into that they
had found that in reality only one unnamed member of the
crew was actually in Margraten. A search of other U.S.
cemeteries in Europe turned up nothing. The remaining
seven members of the crew, including Hogan, could not be found, even among the unknowns.
8. If you enter, “Neustädt, Germany” into a Google map search you will find a very small
town. The closest larger town/city to Neustädt is Gerstungen, just a few miles south. Neustädt lies west
of Leipzig, Eisenach and Merseburg and southeast of Kassel. Werra refers to a river in the area which
flows about one-quarter mile east of Neustädt.
I then entered the date of the mission to see if I could find any details of it, particularly their
target. One of the first sites was a Wiki site gives a long spreadsheet about just the Oil Campaign
against Germany with several missions for September 13, 1944.3
Since Merseburg is near Neustädt, I
decided to search on it as the destination for that day.
Chapter 1 links:
1. https://www.npr.org/2012/07/14/156764044/honor-delayed-wwii-vet-laid-to-rest-decades-late
2. https://www.npr.org/documents/2012/july/army-letter-on-john-hogan.pdf
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_campaign_chronology_of_World_War_II
9. Chapter 2 - The Merseburg Mission, September 13, 1944
Merseburg was the site of the Leuna synthetic fuel refinery located deep inside Germany, about
15 miles due west of Leipzig and 90 miles southwest of Berlin. It was considered one of the top
producers of oil for the Third Reich. One German site describes the this region's, the Geisel, supplying
the Leuna plant complex with lignite, how coal was turned into gasoline, the use of forced labor and the
damage to the area from the air war.
Not surprisingly, live ordnance was still being found as late as June 2011 when an unexploded
bomb estimated to be 300 kilograms (probably a 500 pounder) was discovered and detonated in a secure
environment.1
Merseburg had been targeted a half dozen times since May 1944. I had found references to it as
being the most heavily defended target in the Third Reich. In his book, “Flak,” Edward Westermann
notes that in May 1944 the Leuna refinery had 104 heavy flak guns of the 374 assigned to the 14th Flak
Division tasked with the defense of the Leipzig area. This number would steadily grow causing much
anxiety amongst American crews when they got their first glimpse of the day's target as the curtains
were pulled away from the huge maps of Germany with colored yarn showing the flight path to
Merseburg. Westermann also found that over 60,000 flak personnel were serving in the 14th by October
1944.
Donald Miller, in his book, “Masters of the Air,” notes that there were 600 flak guns in this area
and that Albert Speer, the Reich’s Armaments Director, created the Grossbatterie for Leuna and other
strategic targets: up to 36 flak guns arranged in a group to fire at a prearranged spot in the
sky. Merseburg would become known as “Mercilessburg” by US aircrews.
Tom Landry, as a young lieutenant and B-17 co-pilot, recalled with dread flying over Merseburg
later in the war. He recalled the massive wall of flak as an “angry black cloud.”
One site, the USAAF Nose Art Research Project in the UK, offered a pdf file of several pages
from “Merseburg: Blood, Flak and Oil” written by Ray Bowden showing the losses from all of the
10. missions to this important target. He notes that from May 12, 1944 to December 12, 1944 155 B-17s
and two B-24s were lost.2
Bowden shows the September 13, 1944 losses, all B-17s, were from the 1st
Bomb Division (BD) of the 8th:
40th Combat Bomb Wing (CBW), 92nd Bomb Group (BG)
42- 31250 Eck Mag the Hag
42-31995 Stallings Heaven’s Above
42-97848 Peck Silver Wings
43-38389 Donlon U’ve ‘Ad It
40th CBW, 306th BG
42-31726 Nattier Duration Plus
41st CBW, 303rd BG
42-32027 Heleen Betty Jane
44-6076 Walker Liberty Run
41st CBW, 384th BG
43-38213 Dodson
Entering Merseburg and the complete date took me to the website for the 92nd Bomb Group
Association, Fame’s Favored Few, and a list of mission reports.3
The beginning of each of the files
carried the date in the format yymmdd, or 44913 for September 13, 1944, and then the target
location. At first glance I was struck that the number of reports that were listed for Merseburg, nine, far
outnumbered the few other mission reports on this site that this experienced group flew during the
war. And this is the only one of the 10 missions to Merseburg showing any reports.4
The 92nd, based in
Podington, England, had even been to Schweinfurt on October 14, 1943, Black Thursday, but only one
field order was listed for it. September 13, Wednesday, was 1st Bomb Division's Field Order 495 and
the 92nd’s Mission 194 and the fifth time it would go to Merseburg.
11. One of the first reports I opened was the Merseburg MIA report.5
It started with fill-in-the-blank
type structure filled in by 1st Lt. Donald Cooke, a pilot in the 325th Bomb Squadron, 92nd Bomb
Group, flying aircraft C 281, that is, destination, missing aircraft date, eyewitnesses. Brief answers were
entered while still fresh in the mind after the mission. The first aircraft listed was for “Eck 250” of the
327th Bomb Squadron, also of the 92nd. Cooke described Eck as leaving the formation at 1230 hours,
SE of Eisenach. Four ME-109s had hit the formation and Eck had feathered his number four
engine. Witnesses on his aircraft included Lieutenant Arthur M. Smith, Staff Sergeant James B. Bruce,
and tail gunner Sergeant John M. Boggs. I would guess Boggs was among the last to see Eck fall from
the formation.
The other MIAs in the report did not have this level of detail, just crew lists. Just below Cooke’s
entries was a crew list for Eck’s aircraft…
327th Squadron, a/c 231250 B
P 1 Lt. Harry W. Eck
C 2 Lt. Clyde L. Wren
N 2 Lt. John L. Sauer
B 2 Lt. Emil T. Wasilewsky
R S/Sgt. John E. Hogan
TT S/Sgt. Clifford E. Keeney
BT S/Sgt. John J. Bono
WG Sgt. Geo. F. Clark
TG Sgt. Thos. G. Deitman
I cannot lie, I unconsciously drew a deep breath. Hogan was the radio operator/gunner. I had
managed to quickly burrow down to a level of detail that I am not sure I would have been able to do for
many other people, aircraft, or missions. Hogan was a member of the 92nd Bomb Group, 327th Bomb
Squadron and flying in the Lead Group of the 40th CBW, Able section.
How would surviving crewmen who flew Mission #194 to Merseburg react to Hogan’s
return? If Boggs is alive today, and was told they had just buried him in Arlington, what might his
12. reaction be? “I’ve thought of John a lot over the years, he was a good friend over there. I’m glad he’s
home,” or would it be a complete surprise and shock at having forgotten someone he didn’t know well
but had worked beside from time to time, like after a mission when gunners had to clean their weapons
from the day’s ops?
I then clicked on was Merseburg C.6
This report laid out how the crews were to fly a large,
complex formation of aircraft into Germany. This report specified that the 92nd Bomb Group was part
of the 40A Combat Bomb Wing (Able section of the 40th CBW) which was part of the 8th Air Force's
1st Air Division (AD). Two other bomb groups, the 305th and 306th, were part of the 1st Air Division
and made up the rest of 40A CBW and the 40B (Baker) CBW. These two CBWs were to put some 72
B-17s into the air (several of which were PFF radar bombers). The 40th CBW (Able and Baker) was
one of four CBWs in the 1st AD and the third in line in the bomber stream, the others being the 1st
CBW, the 94th CBW, 41st CBW (all having Able and Baker sections).
This report gave the positions of squadron aircraft and listed MIAs, as well as minute details
such as the ‘MPI’ (Mean Point of Impact) being the boiler house in the northern part of the Merseburg
oil refinery.
The details needed to assemble this mission were given here. After take-off the squadrons would
turn to the west and then were to assemble around "bunchers" at 7,000 feet: Able at the Honeybourne
buncher near Daventry and Baker at the Podington buncher. Common sense would suggest that this was
a collection point of some sort, and keying in this term and "splashers" brought up a number of figures
and descriptions of how aircraft used them. One graphic actually came from a German site, "B-17
Flying Fortress - The Queen of the Skies"(below left). It showed one altitude used for squadron
assembly noted in Merseburg C at 7,000 feet.7
An overlay of many of the bunchers used on a simple
map of East Anglia (below right) appeared as Fig. 4-19 in an online article, “The socio-technical
construction of precision bombing..” by Raymond O’Mara.8
13. The 92nd, 305th and 306th groups all appear north of Bedford. Definitions of buncher and
splasher are also given by in an online piece by Kelsey McMillan9
, noting that:
“A "Buncher", a low frequency radio beacon with a 25 mile broadcast range, transmits a unique
Morse call-sign and long-keyed pulse once per minute for the ships to home in on. Once each
Group assembles they join together in a single formation at a higher altitude, still circling on the
Buncher signal.
“When this process is completed, the Wing rendezvous and assembles with other Combat Wings
in its Division at the "Splasher," a medium frequency radio beacon which broadcasts more
vertically than the Buncher. Splashers have four transmitters broadcasting simultaneously at
different frequencies but pulsing the same call-sign. Homing on the Splasher, the Wings create a
mega-formation composed of as many as 400 ships before departing England to bomb targets.”
According to this source the buncher signal was picked up by the loop antenna housed in the
football under the fuselage of a B-17. Retired Lt. Col. Leslie A. Lennox, a B-17 pilot from the 95th
Bomb Group, described the process and how harrowing it could be, along with the miracle of forming
14. up hundreds and hundreds of aircraft around this very primitive system, on Michael Yon's Online
Magazine New Flash: The Mighty Eighth. Lennox mentions RAF bombers flying through the 8th's
formations on their way home after their nighttime missions.10
“A Mission Day” narrative by Lt. (Martin) Ray Hertz of the 92nd
Bomb Group, 327th Bomb
Squadron noted that “the Group leader would circle and fire flares to form the formation. At the
prescribed minute he would head on a dog-legged course for Control Point A which he hit at the exact
minute to fall into line with the rest of the 8th AF line of groups. The dog legs gave delayed planes a
chance to catch up. Flying at 1½-minute spacing, at the turn onto the IP (initial point of the bomb run)
the high and low squadrons adjusted their turns so that they fell in line behind their leader and the entire
8th AF could put a 12-ship squadron across the target at 30 second intervals. The 8th was split into
three divisions, each with its own target. Of the three divisions the First and Third were B-17's while the
Second was B-24s, totaling 36 groups. Thus, for a normal effort, the 8th would put up 36 x 36, or 1296,
planes. For a maximum effort, the fourth squadron of each group, normally "stood down" could be
added.”
Hertz’s narrative also includes an exchange between pilots and the briefing G-3 officer that just
might have made it into “12 O’Clock High” with Gregory Peck: “At one time we had a G-3 briefer who
opened with, “Today we are going to (a target).” It was a sore point. Some of the fellows took him
aside and told him to cut out the “we” stuff. "Today we are going to (a target) but you are going back to
bed.””
One block of data in the Merseburg C report gave the longitudes, latitudes, times, and altitudes
of the 1st AD from start to finish and I was able to modify the longitudes and latitudes to work in
Google Maps to get the flight path of the mission. I cannot recall ever finding anything about the rate of
climb of heavy bomber missions over the Reich, and if this mission is typical, it looks agonizingly
slow. Zero hour for the lead group in the mission the 1st CBW was 0830 DBST (Double British
Summer Time, a World War Two time zone) and some 32 minutes after that they would be crossing the
Belgian coast at De Panne, at a mere 10,000 feet! Three quarters of hour later they would be at 20,000
over Marche en Famenne, Belgium (about 30 miles NW of Bastogne) and it would be Zero Hour + 153
15. minutes they would finally be at their final altitude of 28,000 feet about 60 miles south of Merseburg
(making a sharp left turn to the north), just four minutes from their Initial Point (IP) and 11 minutes from
bombs away. After bombs away they would make a turn to the left to west and begin to trace their way
back over nearly the same path, beginning a slow descent about 30 miles NW of Erfurt. The mission
would fly a more west by southwest line from Erfurt to Giessen passing over Eisenach, the location of a
BMW aircraft engine factory (with the MPI being the power plant located in the center of factory area),
the secondary target for the 92nd. Map below is of the route is posted to the 306th
Bomb Group’s
website. 11
In addition to the planning info required to launch this mission, there was also supply and
logistical shorthand descriptions. Some of the shorthand can be figured out, such as a typical B-17
bomb load for this mission, 10x500 GP, or the fuel load, 2500 gallons. There was more targeting
shorthand and details for the PFF aircraft.
The 40th’s abort phrase was, “Carter's liver pills.”
Merseburg C states other friendly (8th Air Force) activities for the day: the 3rd Air Division
would be sending 10 CBWs out that day to attack Ludwigshaven, Sindelfingen and Stuttgart, while the
2nd would attack targets at Ulm and Schwabische Hall with 10 CBWs too. Their flight paths were south
of the Merseburg strike force.
16. Another report on the 92nd’s site had a debrief report by a 327th bombardier, 1st Lt. Walter T.
Prebis. 12
He was flying in the deputy lead aircraft, B-17 UX-U, serialed 44-6158, nicknamed ‘Sky
Monster,’ and piloted 1st Lt. (later Major) Elvin E. 'Hank' Hendrickson (noted in Merseburg C as
Henderson). He notes in the upper, fill-in-the-blank portion of the report that bombs away occurred at
12:18, and gives a generic description of flak. He continues that Donlon, flying the aircraft leading the
low group, was hit by flak and managed to drop his bombs immediately prior to blowing up. Cooke
states in an eyewitness report that Donlon’s aircraft “..broke in half; fire in radio room; full tail of ship
was ablaze; ship blew up 1,500 feet below this a/c” and that, “tail twisted off; pieces floated
down.”13
No chutes were reported seen in this MACR.
A page on the 8th Air Force Historical Society's website notes that two crewmen did survive and
became POWs.14
This site has search functions that helped me early on. Merseburg was one of the
targets of the 297 B-17s on this mission, others included Lutzkendorf, Giessen, Eisenach, Altenburg,
and Gera. This site lists more missions flown over Germany on the 13th that must have been flown by
the 2nd and 3rd ADs. It gives the name of their aircraft, ‘Mag the Hag the 2nd’ as well as the aircraft’s
fuselage codes, UX-B (also ‘Mag the Hag II’ in some references and I use them throughout this story
depending on the source). The complete serial number is given, 42-31250. The codes and serial number
check with earlier 92nd BG reports that Eck was flying B 250. This is the only aircraft lost by the 92nd
that day that is detailed on this site.
17. The graphic below of the group formation from the 92nd’s records shows what it looked like on
Sep 13. The 92nd used a large capital T to display pilot name on top of the T, individual aircraft code to
the left of the vertical line and the last four digits of the serial number to the right of the vertical.
The graphic has the lead squadron formation for the group with Donlon at the head of a Vee
formation with Hendrickson and Peck on his wings, and then another Vee formation just behind them
with Kralik in the lead, Hertz and Eck on the left and right wings, respectively. Someone had
handwritten in “94 Wing A/C X” in the slot of Kralik’s Vee, probably a spare from the 94th CBW which
was ahead of the 92nd in the 40A CBW. The low squadron on the left has Dickerson, Stallings and
Darlington, while the high squadron on the right has Cook, Kolman and Smith.
At the beginning of his report, Prebis also says that enemy aircraft attacks included, “5-6 Me
109s painted black in 5040N-1040E attacking from 6:00 level.” The fighters are again mentioned the
longer, essay-structured narrative below as attacking after the bombs away when they were near
Eisenach. I am not one to doubt an eyewitness, yet as an avid reader and modeler, I was struck by the
fact that the ME-109s were painted black, this seeming Hollywood-like or from one of the 1960’s-era
comic books I read growing up as a kid. My imagination was playing games with me, making me in my
18. minds-eye see black swastikas in red circles centered on the vertical stabilizer. Prebis’s narrative
included the matter-of-fact reporting of aircraft blowing up and graphic descriptions of crewmen on Sky
Monster being killed.
Prebis gave a good account of the encounters with ME-109s on his formation, first during their
bomb run over Eisenach's BMW aircraft engine plant where six of them passed through. Two ME-109s
than approached from the rear, flew with them at the 11 o’clock position then did a 180 degree turn and
flew out of sight. Some number of them did return though and latched on to a straggling B-17, and
“devoted their entire attention to the annihilation of the straggler.” No B-17 pilot’s name is given for
this aircraft. Eck?
He noted flak over Eisenach as light at 12:17. He also states that a formation of P-51s stayed
with the formation for 10 minutes in this area.
***************************************************************************
Sidebar: Hendrickson and ‘Sky Monster’
There seemed to be some discrepancy in the name of the command pilot of B-17 U 6158 the
plane Prebis flew with. Reports in the 92nd site note both, but Prebis correctly identifies him as 1st Lt.
Elvin E. Hendrickson. Hendrickson moved into the lead position after Donlon was lost. Moments later
he was hit by flak as well, with a large-caliber round exploding in the radio compartment just behind a
bomb bay still full of bombs. A split second earlier and Peck would have been the next to assume the
lead. The explosion created a large hole on the right side of the aircraft at the trailing edge of the
wing. According to Hendrickson this set the B-17 up on its tail and filled the cockpit with a
compression cloud so thick he couldn’t see the instrument panel. The explosion also jammed the right
wing flap and helped send him into a spin. He thought he “had met his Waterloo.” The aircraft spun out
of the formation and lost 1,000 feet. The cloud then dispersed, he could see he still had all four engines
operating and that his aircraft hadn’t been blown apart. He knew they were OK. When asked today
what ran thru his mind during that awful spin he had probably seen too many times in his 23 other
missions, he said his training simply kicked in.
19. Hendrickson wrestled the beast that ‘Sky Monster’ had become, rejoined the formation as the
lead. Remarkably, he was also able to still drop his bombs on their secondary target, the BMW aircraft
engine plant in Eisenach as noted earlier by Prebis at 12:18. On the way home Hendrickson went aft to
see what had happened and saw there was no floor from the radio room back. The Radio
Operator/Gunner Technical Sergeant William Post must have fallen through the gaping six foot diameter
hole in the bottom of the radio room. Ball turret gunner Staff Sergeant Robert Shackelford and Waist
Gunner Staff Sergeant Frank Wisilosky were killed. The top of the ball turret inside the fuselage had
been blown off and all of the glass had been blown out of it. Shackelford was still in the turret.
He would make a harrowing trip back to England, and now low on gas, ‘Sky Monster’ would
become one of 4,200 aircraft during the war to divert to the RAF Woodbridge, an emergency airfield
near the southeast coast of England, shortly after crossing the Channel. This is the Woodbridge noted
next to his name on the group formation graphic and in the Merseburg C and 1456 was the time he
landed. The aircraft was written off as salvage.
Hendrickson made a point to contact the three gunners’ relatives after coming home. He was
able to call Shackelford’s family, but never was able to communicate with Wisilosky’s (he described it
as a language problem; Wisilosky may have been a first-generation American). When he got in touch
20. with Post’s family he was surprised and relieved to hear that he actually had survived. Post had been
blown out of the aircraft but was badly wounded and unconscious. He came to and pulled the
ripcord. During his descent he was wounded twice more by German soldiers shooting at him. He
recounts this and shows picture of damaged ‘Sky Monster’ in a September 1985 92nd BG newsletter
article about the mission. 15
Post’s article also has a picture of the crew of ‘Sky Monster’ which has a different copilot,
navigator and bombardier than listed as
those who flew the September 13th
mission. According to a letter posted in
the Group’s newsletter of December 1993,
Hendrickson gives his side of the mission
and describes his regular copilot, navigator
and bombardier were grounded because of
colds. 16
He also included a post-mission
photo of himself nonchalantly standing
next to the damaged ‘Sky Monster’ with his fill-in navigator, Lt. Carl Murray.
In this letter he notes that origin of all of the reports for this mission to Merseburg came from
then Lt. Jerome Greenberg, the copilot on Lt. Hertz’s plane which was flying right next to Eck. The
World War II Flight Training website 17
posted a roster from Greenberg’s Class 43-G, Douglas, Georgia,
pilot training site with his class picture. Greenberg was able to research all of his missions at the Federal
Research Branch at Suitland, Maryland. Hendrickson subsequently forwarded these reports to the
92nd’s Association, which went onto their website on the Missions webpage. Rob Hutchings posted this
Greenberg crew picture below from July 19, 1944 on the 92nd
BG Facebook page. He is standing at left.
21. Further searches turned up stories about Hendrickson himself: the Auburn Reporter in Kent,
WA. 18
The Auburn Reporter story notes that he flew 15 missions in ‘Heavens Above.’ Gregory
Alexander, the Historian / Archivist of the 92nd BG gave me a mailing address to which I sent a letter
about my research. I had the opportunity to speak live with Hank by phone on January 2, 2013. He was
at the time 92-years old and living in Washington state. He apologized initially for a poor memory, but
as our conversation continued he began to recall many details of September 13, particularly his
replacement crew and getting hit.
Hendrickson received a Silver Star for his superior airmanship and saving his aircraft and crew
that day.
End sidebar
***************************************************************************
Chapter 2 links:
1. https://www.mz.de/lokal/merseburg/merseburg-fliegerbombe-in-kiesgrube-gesprengt-2236441
2. http://www.usaaf-noseart.co.uk/mbfo(150-153).pdf
22. 3. http://92ndma.org/missions
4. http://92ndma.org/missions.html#1944
5. http://92ndma.org/missions/44913merseburgmia.htm
6. http://92ndma.org/missions/44913merseburgc.htm
7. Appendix E - Evolution of combat formations from this link:
https://b17flyingfortress.de/en/details/formationsflug/
8. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-socio-technical-construction-of-precision-
%3A-a-O'Mara/c91a151270929a3dc4b4d9f4421fbc6048daf881
9. http://www.jcs-group.com/military/war1941decisive/box.html. Kelsey McMillan.
Formations. Bomber Legends. Volume 3 Number 1, 2006, cited in “Iron Ass and the Combat Box.”
10. https://www.michaelyon-online.com/news-flash-the-mighty-eighth.htm
11. https://www.306bg.us/MISSION_REPORTS/13sep44.pdf
12. Appendix B 327th
Mission Debrief Report
13. Appendix C _ Eyewitness Report
14. http://www.8thafhs.org/. A general search on Merseburg gives the entire history of this target.
15. http://92ndma.org/miscellaneous/Newsletters/skymonsterspost.985.pdf
16. http:// 92ndma.org/miscellaneous/Newsletters/newsletter.d93.pdf, page 14
17. https://wwiiflighttraining.org/?page_id=570
18. Appendix D – Appendix D – Hank Hendriksen article in Auburn Reporterstory from Auburn
Reporter
23. Chapter 3 - Aircraft serial #42-31250
‘Mag the Hag II’ was a Boeing-built B-17G-10-BO with construction number 6364 (from
Boeing Historian Michael Lobardi via Christian Schaefer) while she was built in Plant 2 in Seattle.
Serial number 42-31250 was accepted into the USAAF
inventory and went to the Cheyenne Modifications Depot run
by United Airlines in Wyoming on October 8, 1943 where she
was outfitted for combat duty. She stopped at Grand Island
Army Airfield, Nebraska, where crews would usually receive
their final gear and instructions on October 19, 1943. She left
the US from New Castle Army Air Base, Wilmington,
Delaware, and arrived in theater, probably Nutt’s Corner,
Ireland on November 1st. “Mag the Hag II” was put on the
92nd’s books on December 2, 1943 (some info from Horst
Weber).
***************************************************************************
Sidebar: What about construction numbers 6363 and 6365?
Once I had found where ‘Mag the Hag II’ had been built by Boeing in Seattle, my curiosity got
the better of me and made me ask Lombardi about the aircraft that would have been produced on either
side of her, that is, what about construction numbers 6363 and 6365?
Turns out that the C/N’s were assigned sequential AAF serial numbers as well. C/N 6363
became 42-31249. She was delivered to the Cheyenne facility on October 8, 1943 like ‘Mag the Hag
II,’ and the Grand Island on October 22. She was in Memphis on October 28 and then got to England
and assigned to the 349th BS, 100th BG, the ‘Bloody 100th’ at Thorpe Abbotts on November 2. She
was coded XR-L and was named, ‘Miss Carriage.’ She flew missions until May 10, 1944 during which
she returned base after aborted mission with Keys’ crew aboard. A tire blew out on landing and she
24. made a sharp turn causing her to hit a cement block at runway intersection. This took off her left
undercarriage and resulted in damage to the props and wing flaps. She was salvaged on May 20.
C/N became 42-31251, an unnamed aircraft of the 334th BS, 95th BG with codes BG-P. She
too was on the March 6th mission to Berlin with 1st Lt. Tom Keasbey’s crew, but she was shot down by
fighters near Diepholz and crashed about eight miles south of Bremen at about 1220 hours. All of the
crew were made POW.
End sidebar
***************************************************************************
The ground crew typically names an aircraft and I wondered how they settled on this one. Two
possible sources of inspiration came up on the web. One was a very obscene and raunchy drinking toast
by the same name.
The other possible source is that it was named after the 1925 silent movie, “Mag the Hag”
directed by Hiram Percy Maxim. Maxim was a noted inventor and later amateur radio buff, but he will
be remembered mainly in firearms history for being the inventor of the silencer. His father gained
greater notoriety in his lifetime: Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim was the inventor of the machine gun.
The amateur movie “Mag the Hag” involves a rich dandy
romancing a country girl and a grateful old woman (a witch
really) who uses a magical talisman to start the dandy’s stalled
car.1
At least one print of the film exists at the Northeast Historic
Film in its Hiram Percy Maxim Collection. Movie notes sent by
their Karin Carlson say Mag was really a man in drag.
Perhaps the crew chief who named her imagined her guarding a talisman aboard his charge.
Maybe he even placed something lucky of his own aboard her. Whatever it might have been, she took
off from Podington 50 times. The mission of September 13 was her 51st and her fourth for Merseburg.
25. Date Target
12/16/1943 Bremen port area; 1 lost Cat A - flak
1/5/1944 Kiel Smith / port complex; led division
1/7/1944 Ludwigshafen I.G. Farben Industrie chemical plant, works Cat A - flak + mg
1/30/1944 Brunswick aviation plants; 2 lost (collided); two formations sent Cat A - flak + shell cases
2/3/1944 Wilhelmshaven sub bases Cat A - mg
2/25/1944 Augsburg ball bearing plant, aviation plant; 2 lost; end of "Big Week" Cat A - flak
3/3/1944 Berlin (Recalled) Erkner; recalled/clouds; 1 lost R/E (NS)?
3/6/1944 Berlin J B Robinson / Erkner ball bearing plant; 4 lost; led 40th CBW, 327th BS; group's first use of new incendiary bombs, M-17s Cat A
3/8/1944 Berlin Erkner ball bearing R/E (NS)
3/9/1944 Berlin Oranienburg helium plant; 2 lost R/E (spare)
4/11/1944 Stettin J B Robinson / industrial center (T/O); (Sorau, Pol, primary); one a/c bombed Cottbus; 8 lost; several casualties; entire mission flown at 15,000 ft.
(LW) dest Fw190. (Sam Gosnell, TT) dest Fw190. (B) prob Me109
5/12/1944 Merseburg W F Dame / D L Bissell I.G. Farben synthetic oil plant; 1 lost
5/13/1944 Stettin J B Robinson / H W Roellig marshalling yards (T/O); (Poznan, Pol, oil target primary) Cat A Flak
5/19/1944 Berlin J B Robinson / C W Buhler industrial center
5/23/1944 Saarbrucken R H Shea / H C Donlon marshalling yards
5/24/1944 Berlin S J Lucas / H C Donlon industrial center; 1 loss Cat A - flak
5/25/1944 Thionville V J Trost / R E Funk marshalling yards; 92BG, 389BG, 390BG testing radar for D-Day invasion
5/29/1944 Cottbus, Ger oil refineries; 2 lost R/E (NS) - mech
6/2/1944 Noball Pas de Calais R H Shea / H W Lyons Crossbow sites (NOBALL)
6/3/1944 Le Touquet H M Burke / R L Holzhausen Crossbow sites (NOBALL) (tactical targets)
6/6/1944 Longues, Fr R L Ruckman / J A Peck coastal batteries; D-Day
6/11/1944 Conches, Fr air base R/E (NS) - spare
6/12/1944 Lille - Vendeville/Nord R L Ruckman / J L Peck regional air bases Lost #1 eng, feathered at enemy coast, lagged and jettisoned bom
6/14/1944 Bretigny / Etampes J W Wooldridge / G W Krause Etantes/Moniques air base; 1 lost
6/15/1944 Nantes bridge H M Burke / J L Peck RR bridge; 1 casualty; led division
6/21/1944 Berlin J W Wooldridge / G W Krause industrial center
6/22/1944 Ghent (pm) J W Shanks / J E Glasco V weapon sites
6/25/1944 Auxerre / Romilly, Fr J W Wooldridge / G W Krause RR/highway bridges (150 km SE of Paris)
6/28/1944 Laon/Athies J Greenberg / K M Knowles air bases
7/2/1944 Blangermont J Greenberg / K H Knowles heavy V weapon site under construction (NOBALL)
7/8/1944 Frevent & Poix ADs E E Hendrickson / R J Haffeman RR bridge/air base; 1lost
7/11/1944 Munich J Greenberg / K M Knowles central marshalling yards; 2 lost R/E (S)? -- #4 prop feathered
7/13/1944 Munich Agfa Chemicals/industrial center R/E (NS) - mechanical
7/16/1944 Munich J Greenberg / K M Knowles BMW; 3 lost; at least 3 casualties
7/17/1944 Ainzy La Chateau & Jussy RR bridges A L Dickerson / T D Jacobs RR bridge
7/19/1944 Augsburg industrial center R/E (NS) -spare
7/21/1944 Ebelsbach, Ger J Greenburg / K M Knowles aircraft/ball bearings
7/24/1944 St. Lô, Fr A B Campbell / E W Loyd ground troop support Flew mission with another group due to late take off
7/28/1944 Merseburg J F Gorman / W A Sheffield synthetic oil refinery/storage R/E (NS) - could not catch formation
7/31/1944 Schleissheim J Greenburg / K M Knowles Schliesheim Air Base
8/5/1944 Langenhagen H W Eck / J M Cox Langenhagen Air Base R/E (NS) - #3 eng smoking when #1 piston failed
8/7/1944 Montbartier, Fr J Greenburgh / K M Knowles bridge
8/8/1944 Caen area J Greenberg / K M Knowles attack on German lines
8/9/1944 Karlsruhe & Spreicher C Kerr / J Bacun marshalling yards; 1 lost
8/12/1944 Chaumont, Fr J Greenberg / K M Knowles aircraft park
8/24/1944 Merseburg M R Hertz / J R Kreshaw oil refinery complex; 1 lost; Me-163s (jets)
8/30/1944 Kiel J Greenburg / K M Knowles port facilities
9/5/1944 Ludwigshaven W D Stallings / J M McGovern I.G. Farben Chemicals; several casualties
9/9/1944 Mannheim H R Darlington / A W Schwall marshalling yards
9/10/1944 Sindelfingen P O Bekker / J A White Sindelfingen engineering; 1 lost, crew safe (awarded Bronze Stars by Patton)
9/13/1944 Merseburg H W Eck / C L Wren Altenburg Oil Refineries; 4 lost; T/Sgt. Theodore C. Franklin - 327 Sq - RO - awarded Soldiers' Medal for rescuing T/Sgt. Wm. A. Sanderson - F/E - from burning plane although severely wounde
MISSING -- (B0179-1588+1785+1831)
Mag the Hag II, 42-31250-B
She flew to some familiar cities, Berlin, Munich, Augsburg, Bremen, Kiel, Wilhelmshaven and
Ludwigshaven, as well as places in France and Belgium. She hit the full spectrum of targets: industrial
complexes, aircraft plants and airfields, rail lines, sub pens, V-weapons sites, troop concentrations, and
bridges, and flew missions supporting the D-Day invasion. She had a few aborts with no mission credit
to her crews. She flew as a spare. She was hit many times by flak and fighter attacks, most times
repaired by her ground crew on the hard stand. Lt. Ray Hertz would be flying her when their formation
was attacked by an Me-163 on August 24 going to Merseburg. This summary was generated from a
spreadsheet of missions collected by historian Ray Bowden.
Sgt. Sam Gosnell, the top turret gunner, is credited with one kill by when his continuous fire
caused an inbound FW-190 to explode right in front of her (it almost rammed her with a possibly dead
or wounded pilot at its controls) on her 12th mission, the April 11th mission to Stettin. There was
possibly another FW-190 kill and an Me-109 probable that day as well, but Lt. Jim Robinson makes no
mention of them in his narrative published in the 92nd’s newsletter in 1993.
26. A search on ‘Mag the Hag the 2nd’ led to several photos on the Fold3 site. The first picture I
came across had its crew posed in flying gear in front of a broken-in, olive drab B-17G with 22 missions
with the name showing as, ‘MAG THE HAG II’ flown by the crew of Lt. Jim Robinson and dated April
4, 1944. Robinson recounts his 30-mission tour in ‘Mag the Hag’ beginning in the June 1993 issue of
the 92nd BG’s newsletter that would spread over three issues (showing this aircraft with several
members of its ground crew). 2
A roster of aircraft on the 92nd Group website showed there was a ‘Mag
the Hag.’ 3
A B-17G serial numbered 42-107071 and coded NV-P had been acquired on April 23, 1944
by the 92nd, and was listed as MIA on September 8, 1944 with Lt. Thomas J. Havard, Jr. at its controls
(MACR #8596, just one of the 30% of the 440 aircraft on the list that had an MACR). A web search for
this aircraft showed it lost an engine on a mission to Ludwigshafen and Havard ordered the crew to bail
out over France about 60 miles from the German border. He and the co-pilot managed to land the plane
in a U.S. fighter base in France. Four of the crew showed up on “WWII escape and evasion information
exchange” listed as being sheltered in Lorraine until they were liberated.4
Even though it landed on a
US base in France its history seems to end there…written off?
***************************************************************************
Sidebar: Mag the Hag II and the Big B, March 6, 1944
After reading the serial articles by Robinson of “Mag the Hag” and his trip to Berlin on March 6,
1944 (“when the curtain was pulled back from the briefing maps there was a big, long groan from the
assembled crews.”), I pulled out my copy of Target Berlin (1989) by Jeffrey Ethell and Alfred Price. I
had hoped to find where the 92nd had been in the bomber stream (the 40th CBW was second in line
from the very front), but on page 130 a name popped out at me: “Mag the Hag II.”
She came home, landed without hydraulics at Podington and ran off the runway into the mud.
As the crew walked around the plane the top turret gunner noticed and then pulled a decent sized piece
of flak measuring 3 inches by ¾ inch by ½ inch from the flying boot of copilot Lt. Harold Roelling.
They figured that the fragment had come through the plexiglas nose, severed a hydraulic line under the
cockpit, came upwards through the floor between the rudder pedals, bounced off Roellig’s control
column and stopped apparently unnoticed in his boot.
27. End sidebar
***************************************************************************
One of the biggest coincidences I found in my search had to be of the 92nd’s white triangle
being painted onto the tail of aircraft number 42-31250 by ground crews. I would guess that it wasn’t
common practice for the base or unit photographers to photograph every marking assignment like this,
and I can’t imagine they tried to find the schedule of when maintenance cranes would be by aircraft.
***************************************************************************
Sidebar: YouTube
I also thought to see if perhaps there were any video records of Hogan and his mates. Not much
luck with individual pictures of him, the crew or ‘Mag the Hag the 2nd,’ but I did happen to find a
unique piece of the 92nd’s history on YouTube. There is a 96-minute film there done by Captain
William E. Furniss, MD, the flight surgeon for the 327th Bomb Squadron, with a 16mm camera. It’s
was posted by John Walker on his TOPCAMERAN channel in the UK.5
This film history was also
28. broken up into shorter segments: there are several of 92nd B-17s in flight, taking off, field activities, and
a film done shortly after the war about the refinery at Merseburg.
Doc Furniss filmed a number of crash or hard landings. ‘Snake Hips,’ UX-T, 42-31713, was
damaged on the Aug 24, 1944 mission to Merseburg and salvaged following this mission.6
She had
taken a flak round in her still-loaded bomb bay and made for a very tense trip back to RAF Woodbridge
for 2nd Lt. John Bosko and the surviving members of the crew. He recalled what his transition pilot had
told him about emergencies in “Give Yourself Ten Seconds.”7
Doc also filmed ‘Baby Button’ coming in on one wheel, another hard landing, and a belly
landing by a B-17 with no name, NV-N, 42-31613, probably after the April 19, 1944 mission to Kassel
to bomb a Luftwaffe aerodrome, per the 92nd roster.8
If you think that a B-17 belly landing would make a great shot in a Hollywood movie, you’re
right, it has: it’s in the belly-landing sequence in the beginning of the 1949 movie, “12 O’Clock
High”. After the crew gets out of the plane, one of them describes how the co-pilot had struggled for
two hours to keep control of the plane from the fatally head-wounded pilot, and that the top turret
gunner had to be bailed out of the aircraft over Germany to save his life because his arm had been
severed by a German 20mm round. This is the true story of Flight Officer John “Red” Morgan, winner
of the Congressional Medal of Honor for this July 26, 1943 mission while flying as the copilot of B-17
‘Ruthie II’ to Hannover, Germany.9
Morgan was in the 326th Bomb Squadron, 92nd Bomb Group.
YouTube has “8th Air Force First Air Division Bombing Highlights 1944-1945.” It is a 22-
minute film posted by Zeno’s Warbirds.10
Shot by ball turret gunners in the last six months of the war, it
is as dramatic film of the bombing campaign as any other with targets disappearing under complete
coverage of high explosives or flames and plumes of smoke seeming to rise almost to bombing altitude.
Flak in some cases appears as it explodes and other scenes show Fortresses falling from the sky either in
their entirety or after they explode into dozens of impossible-to-determine fragments. The film actually
begins with two minutes of a November 2nd raid to Merseburg and in one scene the cameraman
captures an event unfolding behind and below him of four Luftwaffe fighters passing through a
formation of Fortresses from the rear. It is in relatively slow motion and after he pans a pair of fighters
29. passing nearly directly beneath him he brings the camera back to the formation that has just been
attacked. Two Fortresses are on fire. It would be a difficult task to try and identify these two: Bowden
notes that 37 B-17s were lost over Merseburg that day, the greatest loss for any mission to this target.
This is another Merseburg mission the 92nd flew, but the Group lost no aircraft. It led its division and
Col. James W. Wilson, Group CO and mission commander, received an oak leaf cluster to his Silver
Star.
The November 2nd mission would account for the only Congressional Medal of Honor awarded
for a mission to Merseburg. Second Lieutenant Robert Femoyer was flying as the navigator in ‘Milk
Wagon,’ a B-17G-70-BO, serial numbered 43-37756 (which completed 50 missions up to this point and
would finish the war with 129 missions), when it was struck by three anti-aircraft shells. The plane
suffered serious damage and Lt. Femoyer was severely wounded in the side and back by shell fragments.
His Medal of Honor citation, in part, read that, “In spite of extreme pain and great loss of blood he
refused an offered injection of morphine. He was determined to keep his mental faculties clear in order
that he might direct his plane out of danger and so save his comrades. Not being able to arise from the
floor, he asked to be propped up in order to enable him to see his charts and instruments. He
successfully directed the navigation of his lone bomber for two and a half hours so well it avoided
enemy flak and returned to the field without further damage. Only when the plane had arrived in the safe
area over the English Channel did he feel that he had accomplished his objective; then, and only then, he
permitted an injection of a sedative. He died shortly after being removed from the plane.”
The 357th Fighter Group would provide escort for this mission to Merseburg and it would lose
one aircraft: Major Lawrence Giarrizzo in P-51D, serial number 44-13735 and coded G4-H, due to wing
failure. The Mustang was nicknamed ‘U've Had It.’
End sidebar
***************************************************************************
One site that would be an invaluable to any aviation researcher is this database of the disposition
of every aircraft the Air Force has ever had in its inventory, at least it seems, comes from Joe Baugher.11
30. It is called simply, “Index of /usaf_serials.” This site also listed a notation, MACR 8882, which I did
not understand. There are many MACR notations on this page, seems like half the entries have it.
I would find out this stood for Missing Air Crew Report, a standard report to be filled out when
crewmen went MIA. MACR’s can be ordered free of charge through Maxwell Air Force Base (contact
listed is Lynn Gamma, Lynn.Gamma@MAXWELL.AF. MIL).
Chapter 3 links:
1. https://oldfilm.org/content/home-movies-freuds-couch
2. http://92ndma.org/miscellaneous/Newsletters/newsletter.693.pdf,
http://www.92ndma.org/miscellaneous/Newsletters/newsletter.993.pdf,
http://www.92ndma.org/miscellaneous/Newsletters/newsletter.d93.pdf
3. http://92ndma.org/92nd/92ndB-17AircraftRoster.pdf
4. http://www.conscript-heroes.com/Art38-MIS-X-03.html
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMLC1_qqgU8 for the main Doc Furniss video, all others are
http://bit.ly/VB8jRi, http://bit.ly/X7FY3Q, http://bit.ly/1357uDl,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qVAHmO0AnA,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fs7wx7G5eE,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs4swX6Icjc,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkjGAHWUS0c
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF_MhCbjezA
7. http://www.apacheclips.com/boards/archive/index.php/t-22009.html
8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH0cFosl7Wc&NR=1&feature=endscreen,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbIhXteHmCg&list=PL32622B191BB5F5A0,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfoxq4q4J84&list=PL32622B191BB5F5A0&index=1
9. http://92ndma.org/missions/morgan43726.htm
10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF8N7oiKmAQ
11. http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_serials/
31. Chapter 4 - About the Crew of ‘Mag the Hag II’
Having found mission, unit and aircraft details, I decided to see what I could find out about the
crewmen themselves. I was able to connect with several families, some I could not find, or if found,
were not in the mood to help unfortunately.
One of the first sites to pop up in a Google search on Lt. Eck turned up, “Together We Served”
offering fill-in-the-blank bio notes.1
There seemed to be more leads for written information about the
crew, I didn’t have much luck looking for separate images of the crewmen.
I found the website for the U.S. Millitary Cemetery at Margraten, Holland when I first wrote this
story, but in 2020 when checking links that had been done in Bit.ly, I found much of the info was
missing. Using other websites I was able to locate some remembrances at Margraten. Eck, Sauer,
Wasilewski, Hogan, Bono, Keeney, and Deitman all have their names in the memorial wall
there.2
Wren is the only member of the crew with a grave with cross there. He is front row center
below.
32. Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Harry W. Eck's remains were interred at Fort Snelling National
Cemetery at St. Paul, Minn., on Monday, August 27, 2012, according to the Minot Daily News.
Robin Thurston posted on a Colorado Patriot Guard Riders website about a memorial service for
Sgt. John Bono that 92nd Bomb Group lost a total of 291 B-17’s; 71 of these belonged to the 327th.
Robin was one of many Riders who posted they would stand for Bono at the service that was held on
December 2, 2011 in his hometown of Denver. A news release about Bono’s DNA had been matched to
a cousin and niece gave me my first indication of crewmen being discovered and identified by the US
government.3
The 327th Guestbook website showed a September 27, 2010 post by Thomas Deitman’s son,
also Thomas, is looking for information regarding his father in hopes of writing a book about him and
his crewmates.
The web search though turned up a story about Lt. Emil Wasilewski, the recovery of his remains,
and the work of the Army and the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) to work with
surviving relatives to identify him through DNA samples. The Chicago Tribune article describes the
initial reaction of one of the nephews upon getting a totally unexpected phone call from the Army
claiming they had found his uncle.4
The nephew, Wally Wade, thought it was a scam until his brother
Don convinced him it was legitimate. JPAC had recovered 117 bone and tooth fragments, as well as
clothing and equipment. The Wade brothers and other Wasilewski relatives went to Arlington when he
was scheduled to be buried with full military honors on June 26, 2012.
Wasilewski also appeared on a Recently Accounted-For website set up by the Defense Prisoner
of War-Missing Personnel Office. 5
Eck and Hogan had a similar press releases describing their
recoveries.6
The Recently Accounted-For lists U.S. service members from all conflicts. In email
exchanges with the JPAC office I was not able to learn of Deitman, Keeney, or Sauer cases due to
privacy regulations. They could not give out any next-of-kin information.
33. The 2009 Accounted-For list shows another airman, Sergeant John Bonnasiolle of the 392nd
Bomb Group, 578th Bomb Squadron, whose B-24 was shot down and missing following an April 29,
1944 mission to Berlin, Germany. His name appears above Bono's on the wall at Margraten.7
While scanning this particular Recently Accounted-For list I was stunned to see the return
of 1st Lt. Warren G. Moxley, U.S. Army Air Forces, 107th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron,
67thTactical Reconnaissance Group, 9th Air Force. He was accounted for on May 22, 2012. He was
flying an F-6 aircraft, the photo-recon version of the P-51 Mustang. This is the same 107th Tactical
Fighter Squadron near my home in Detroit and was a photo-recon squadron in World War Two that
belonged to the 67th. Moxley was lost on March 15, 1945. He was lost near another town named
Neustadt, this one further west and near the Rhine River. I would guess their mission had been in
support of the U.S. 1st Army while it was expanding its bridgehead across the Rhine. It was believed at
the time that he was hit by flak. I would find later that there were no Luftwaffe claims on this date.
There was no other information to be found on the web for Sauer, Wren or Keeney. Having
found all that I thought was available on the Hogan, Eck and the others, I wondered if I could find
anything about the Luftwaffe aircraft and pilots that attacked the formation. I did not expect to find the
range of documents that existed for, and by, the 92nd, but what I did find in this leaner search surprised
me.
Chapter 4 links:
1. http://bit.ly/SQe2Cz
2. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56305457/clyde-l-wren,
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56303516/john-r-sauer#view-photo=63953409,
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56305001/emil-thomas-wasilewski,
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56299846/john-evans-hogan,
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56300420/clifford-e-keeney,
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56296932/john-j-bono,
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56298122/thomas-g-deitman
3. http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.ajTextPost&id=5a4c0e07-bec0-4929-bc8a-
3c3101979983
4. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2012-05-27-ct-met-kass-0527-20120527-story.html
35. Chapter 5 - Researching Luftwaffe Involvement
A German article (and a separate Google translation page) about the crash of ‘Mag the Hag the
2nd’ was found during the search. It came from Thüringer Luftfahrtnetz and but didn’t carry a
publication date. This site has disappeared, but the text is shown at the bottom of this web forum for the
VI Corps Combat Engineers.1
It gives some great details about the mission that day particularly about
the seemingly controlled descent of the B-17, the crash itself, and the aftermath. It includes a running
narrative of the battle by an excited German youngster, Hans Schellenberg of Herleshausen. This small
town was some eight miles west of Eisenach, and only about four miles east of Neustädt. He would
have had a great view of the 92nd as it passed overhead. He describes what could be ‘Mag the Hag the
2nd’ leaving the formation under attack, and would eventually crash at Neustädt. He said he saw one
parachute.
The Google translation is a “gist” of the article and every word in it, and some of the names
unrecognizable and military-related term translations needing more clarification. Eck in German means
“corner” so instances of “Pilot corner” would leave those without some knowledge of German
scratching their heads.
This article told that Jagdgeschwader (Fighter Wing, or JG) 3, 53, 76 and 300 threw 100 fighters
into the air battle. Colonel Walther Dahl, commander of JG 300 recounted in his book “Rammjäger”
that the loss of 36 Luftwaffe aircraft made this their “Black September the 13th.” The Wiki bio of him
includes a claim that he downed a B-17 on September 13 by ramming, but the historians of JG 300 (Jean
Yves Lorant and Richard Goyat) found no evidence of a corresponding loss in US archives and none of
the records I have run across substantiate this.
The second article to appear was from the village of Mihla Chronicles newsletter and goes into a
better description of the JPAC recovery efforts. This article like the other German article mentioned
Gerstungen. Eck had left the formation near Eisenach with an England-bound heading that took him
near Gerstungen. Eck (Lt. corner) turned north trying to bring the aircraft down in a large field by the
Werra River near Neustädt. It departed controlled flight and crashed, and this article pinpoints the
location as being on the railroad tracks of the Eisenach-Gerstungen railway at kilometer marker
36. 184.8. The time was recorded as 12:45. The name of the person digging the grave is given in the
translation as ‘Lord Lion,’ from the German, Herrn Löwe. He is responsible for finding Deitman’s dog
tag which, 17 years later, brought the JPAC to the site. A gist translation here changed ‘Mag the Hag
the 2nd’ to ‘Like the Hag the 2nd.’ Mag in this case is a German word for “to like” as in “Ich mag es”
or “I like it.”
One site found late in the search was Lost Aircraft. Great map of Europe, but it also shows an
He-111 H lost as far away as southern Iran in February 1943! Their directory lists Eck’s B-17, but it
doesn’t show up on their mapping function. This site is down in 2020.
I then Googled, “Luftwaffe victories,” and got “asisbiz,” a site with more than a passing interest
in the Luftwaffe.2
Listed on this site were links to histories for possibly every Luftwaffe unit that flew
in the war citing by date units, commanding officers, airfields, and aircraft. Sliding down to the bottom
was the reason I had been given this site in my search results: “List of aircraft shot down by Luftwaffe
Units and Pilots” broken into groups of months from May 1939 to May 1945. A more appropriate title
for this section would probably be, “List of aircraft claimed shot down by Luftwaffe Units and Pilots.”
Sep-Dec 1944 had its own site.3
This seemed too easy by comparison with all of my searching up till
now.
Clicking on the link I found a spreadsheet by date, pilot name, unit, enemy aircraft type, altitude,
time, and location. In seconds I had located a list of the victories a number of German pilots had
claimed on September 13, 1944. Five Fortresses, four Mustangs and a Thunderbolt were claimed
destroyed from this mission. Three of the B-17’s were downed before noon (one could be a duplicate,
so two) and two were shot down after noon. Both of the latter two were downed in the Eisenach area,
which was east of Neustädt. One was claimed by Hans Dahmen of 2./JG 300 and another by Manfred
Dieterle, also of 2./JG 300. (A Jagdgeschwader theoretically is to be at a strength of 100-276 aircraft.
The “2./” stands for the 2nd Staffel or Squadron, which was designated by an Arabic number. This
squadron belonged to the I. Gruppe or First Group, listed with Roman numerals and had a theoretical
strength of 50-70 aircraft. I. Gruppe had 1, 2, 3, and 4 Staffel. JG 300 had three Gruppe, I, II, and III,
each with four Staffel. I have not listed Gruppe in general in this account.) Those aircraft claimed shot
37. down before noon may have been registered using a different time zone, putting them after noon as well,
but another issue arose with which unit the pilots belonged to, JG 52.
Both Dahmen and Dieterle are listed in the Kraker Luftwaffe Pilot Archive and give a bit more
detail about them, their ranks, aircraft and experiences.4
For instance both received the Wound
Badge. Dahmen was an Unteroffizier (Corporal) and Dieterle an Oberleutnant (1st Lt.)
and Staffelkapitan (Squadron Commander, not a rank).
Both are shown one after the other in a listing of ME-109 G14 pilots on a website for this
aircraft.5
***************************************************************************
Sidebar: Hans Dieterle?
More unexpected results occurred when I inadvertently typed in Hans Dieterle. Up popped
numerous photos and links to this individual who was a Luftwaffe test pilot from 1930 to 1945. Hans
Dieterle, a Luftwaffe test pilot from 1939 from the Bundes Archives in Germany.6
One Wiki reference
describes him in a rather dubious website about military air crashes when he was copilot for a airspeed
record attempt in an He-119 reconnaissance bomber (imagine a single engine He-111 with the crew
sitting immediately behind a huge propeller), in December 1937. A malfunction resulted in an
emergency crash landing in which he was injured. He also set a speed record on March 30, 1939 in an
He-100 V8. Zona Militar offers a detailed description of Dieterle's history with the He-110.7
There is
even a model of this aircraft from the Czech company Special Hobby.8
Hans was also cited in a pair of references as the Do-335 V1 (coded CP+UA) test pilot for its
maiden flight on October 26, 1943 9
of which a video exists on YouTube.10
Could Hans and Manfred be brothers or cousins?
End sidebar
***************************************************************************
38. Manfred Dieterle’s claim in the asisbiz site had an abbreviation following it, “HSS.” I had no
idea what that meant. An online reprint of a 1943 War Department Military Intelligence Service manual
did not have anything for HSS.
Dahmen’s claim stated 12:20, south of Eisenach, and Dieterle, between 12:13 and 12:23,
southwest of Eisenach. Cooke mentioned 12:30 in his report, Prebis said the fighters had hit them at just
after he toggled his bombs at 12:18. The tightness in the times looked positive. There is the possibility
that both pilots actually took shots at ‘Mag the Hag the 2nd.’
Another spreadsheet of German aces compiled by Allan Magnus in 2006 listed a bit more
information: A massive spreadsheet lists 2,884 pilots who had five or more victories and accounting for
almost 66,000 victories on all fronts, with 918 being KIA, 113 killed in flying accidents, 143 POW, 341
MIA, 35 died of wounds (http://bit.ly/QTxABe). No Luftwaffe aces were lost or casualties on
September 13. According to this site both Dahmen and Dieterle were low-scoring aces, seven and ten
victories, respectively.
Dieterle survived the war. Dahmen did not. He was KIA on February 3, 1945 near Görlitz,
Germany (more below).
A search on their names yielded a few items, most importantly photos of them by aircraft.
Dahmen’s ME-109, Red 8 (references to colors and numbers in this account describe the code
painted forward of the cross on the fuselage, they are in effect the German codes for individual aircraft)
and named, ‘Gisela’.
On the FalkeEins website a post dated Friday, 18 February 2022, the following photos can be
seen with the text: “I./JG 300 Bf 109 G-6 can be seen at Bad Wörishofen, photo dated August 10, 1944.
The inscription on the reverse of the photo - 'in friendship, from Hans, Bad Wörishofen, August 1944' -
suggests that the pilot seated on the cockpit was one of Kommandeur Hptm. Stamp's 2. Staffel
teenagers, 19-year old Gfr. Hans “Hänschen” Dahmen.. Dahmen's 'regular' machine was 'red 2'. Current
bid is over 330 euros with two days to go, no doubt some 'mad Frenchie' keeping the bidding high.
39. “Edit- final selling price was a frankly quite mind-boggling 1,561 euros..... (red marks are no
doubt in place to prevent counterfeiting off of Ebay. - RB)
“Dahmen downed a bomber on 18 July 1944 and two more 15th AF Viermots (Luftwaffe slang
for “vier Motors” or four engine) fell to his fire on 25 July over Linz. He registered hits on a third B-24
during this action for an endgültige Vernichtung. Dahmen's Kaczmarek (a Luftwaffe slang for
wingman) was Unteroffizer Wolfgang Hundsdörfer. Both Dahmen and Hundsdörfer brought down B-
17s on August 22 raiding refineries in Austria but I./JG 300 ran into 31st and 52nd FG Mustangs.
Gefreiter Hans Dahmen was brought down near Raab. Some Hungarian villagers found him staggering
along a track, blinded by blood pouring from numerous facial wounds. The windscreen of Dahmen’s
Bf-109 G6 had been shattered by several impacts, the shards ripping into the young pilot’s face and
eyes.
“Dahmen was KIA flying against Soviet spearheads on the Eastern Front on February 3, 1945, his
G-10 Red 14 brought down by anti-aircraft fire as recalled by Lt. “Timo” Schenk;
" ..The Rotte Hundsdörfer- Dahmen was hunting over the Warthe, to the east of Göritz. Hans
Dahmen, usually very cagey and wily, was flying as number 2 just behind Hundsdörfer, when they
roared over a column of refugees. They hauled around at low altitude and straightened out flying parallel
to the road. Suddenly the canvas awnings of two trucks fell away. Soviet anti-aircraft cannon mounted
on the trucks opened up with a wall of fire. Although the fusillade missed Hundsdörfer’s Messerschmitt,
40. shells slammed into the second. Hans Dahmen’s 109 went down out of control and crashed in flames..."
“Photo portrait of Dahmen sold for 89 euros.”
There is no mention of Dahmen attacking or claiming Mag the Hag II on this site.
Red 8 is on the site FalkeEins as a 1/32 scale model:
Uffz. Hans Dahmen's Bf 109 G-10 " Red 8" 'Gisela' 2./ JG 300 from the Revell 1/32 scale kit by
Franck Oudin, finished with Barracuda Studios and MDC resin bits, markings painted with Miracle
Paint Masks.
41. Another kit review for this Messerschmitt type appears on the “Scale Modeling Now” site on
October 16, 2015. It states that Red 8 was an “Erla” production Bf109G-10 built in Leipzig in Austria.
42. Another picture of Dahmen exists this site. He is standing next to what may be Red 8 but has
been renumbered as Red 12. Note that there appears to be a lighter color between the 1 and the 2 which
could be the paint over of the number 8.
43. This aircraft has a downloadable set of markings, or skin, for the PC-based flight simulation
game ”IL-2 Sturmovik” as listed in the War Thunder website by PaganiZonda:
44. Dieterle had more aircraft detail to his background and I found two, possibly more, of his
109’s. The first, an ME-109 G6, Yellow 1, had a very unusual camouflage snake pattern below from
ASISBIZ:
The site also has a couple of pics of the actual aircraft:
45. ***************************************************************************
Sidebar: Visiting the widow of Lt. Manfred Dieterle
Bernd Willmer, on his website, The Artisan Modeler, describes visiting Dieterle’s widow in his
Wednesday, October 7, 2020 post:
Luftwaffe History: Visiting the widow of Lt. Manfred Dieterle
I visited the widow of Manfred Dieterle, a former pilot of 3./ JG300 piloting Bf-109G-6/R6
yellow "1", in a Seniorenheim near Stuttgart in 2004 for a short visit.
She showed me some items originating of Manfred´s Luftwaffe carrier. The two most interesting
items were his Flugbuch (flight log) and a contemporary wooden scale model of „his“ Gustav of approx.
1/50 scale. This model was obviously finished in the wartime Luftwaffe lacquers as they were used on
his real Gustav.
Description of the wooden Bf-109 model
Spinner: semi gloss black (probably RLM 7160.22) with pale yellow (probably is RLM 27)
spiral.
46. Upper surfaces: close to RAL 7031 Blue grey (RAL-K5 color swatch). Finish shows a slight
sheen typical to nitro-cellulose lacquers. The blue grey color does not fit a standard RLM color and was
probably a mix of available colors at the unit level, probably based on lacquers RLM 7121 or 7122.
Lower surfaces: semi-gloss black, probably RLM 7160.22 with a less dull finish than the blue
grey color.
Rumpfband (fuselage band): close to RAL 3005 Wine red (RAL-K5 color swatch) but different
to RLM 28(!).
Tactical markings: pale yellow “1” with white outline. The pale yellow shade is probably
RLM 27.
National insignias: white outline only Balkenkreuze on fuselage and upper wings. No swastika,
probably it was too delicate to be applied by brush (?).
Wooden wartime model of Gelbe "1" flown by Staffelkapitän Lt. Manfred Dieterle with a blue
grey camouflage scheme suitable for nightfighters. The lower surfaces and the the wing root area are
semi-gloss black with no national insignia – Balkenkreuze. The upper surfaces are a non-RLM blue grey
color. The spinner is semi-gloss black with a pale yellow spiral and the Rumpfband is wine red.
The Messerschmitt Bf-109G/AS
Frau Dieterle also showed Manfred´s Flugbuch and one entry was of particular interest for me:
this entry was of a sortie flown in a Bf-109G/AS with a remark reading as follows:“Geht ab wie eine
47. Rakete!” which translates to “goes like a rocket!”. High altidude performans of the AS version must
have been noticeably better than of the stand Gustav powered by the DB605A.
End sidebar
***************************************************************************
A rendered profile is also on the War Thunder site as a skin for the game Sturmovik:
and in another site:
48. It is quite popular as a plastic model as seen in the Eduard offering:
The artist Daniel Uhr has done a dramatic illustration of Yellow 1 in action:
49. Yellow 1 is in a bundle paper model offering:
It is also offered as separate decal sheets issued by Owl of the Czech Republic
(http://yhoo.it/PhDjV1) and EagleCals in the U.S. (http://bit.ly/QgtDaO).
50. Another site showed several pictures of another aircraft, Green 5, claimed to be his made that me
sit straight up.
It was black.
Prebis’s report immediately came to mind. Cooke’s too. Prebis had reported that two black Me-
109s had attacked their formation as he dropped his bombs on Eisenach at 1218. Right after that their
top turret gunner reported a straggler dropping out of formation and other German fighters coming after
her.
More pictures of Green 5 showed up ASISBIZ:
A pair of profiles showed it being Blue 5, but the one from a German site questioned whether it
should be Green 5.
53. The site was “BF 109 Messerschmitt World” (http://bit.ly/12HKlpB) and gives a bit more
history of Dieterle activities in the unit. It also notes the time period as Herbst (or the fall season, in
German), 1944.
The unit history of JG 300 notes that it was involved in night fighter operations mostly in
1943. I have not found where it stopped these operations. So, what to think, since Dahmen and Dieterle
both belonged to JG 300 they both could have been flying black aircraft.
FalkeEins published an article 11 August 2014, “Bf 109 G-6/AS or G-14/AS W.Nr unknown
"Grüne 5", Oblt. Manfred Dieterle, 2./Erg. JG 2” that gives background about Green 5.
Below; a nice print from my collection via Jean-Yves Lorant of Bf 109 G-6/AS or G-14/AS
'Green 5' of I./EJG 2, the Ergänzungsnachtjagdstaffel (night fighter replacement training unit),
in overall gloss back finish. Established in March 1944 at Ludwigslust under
Staffelkapitän Hptm. Heinrich Spitzer, this unit was augmented to two Staffeln in July 1944 and
trained pilots for single-seat night fighters. "Grüne 5", along with two sister ships "Grüne 6" and
"Grüne 7", were briefly deployed as night fighters as described by Joachim Geier in the German-
language "Jet & Prop" magazine issue 3/03. Joachim Geier's article " Die schwarze "Grüne 5"
der 2./Erg.JG2 " (front page below) was the first to publish views of these machines. Geier's
54. photos were taken from the album of Staffel erster Wart Gerhard Hübner. Note that Geier in his
feature states that "Grüne 5" was more likely to have been a G-14/AS than the far less numerous
G-6/AS sub-type and points primarily to the absence of lower cowl bulges as a basis for this
conclusion. Pilots for this special Moskito hunting Staffel were drawn from the ranks of
the Ergänzungsnachtjagdstaffel instructors and tasked specifically with 'Moskito-Jagd'. Among
their number was former I./ JG 300 wilde Sau ace Manfred Dieterle. Note the owl unit emblem
on the engine cowl and, unusually for a Luftwaffe fighter, the yellow propeller tips. Note that the
gear legs - as recalled by erster Wart Hübner - were also painted black! The wheel hubs are also
black as well, rather than red as often illustrated..Click on the image for a quality screen-size
view.
Crandall on Hyperscale in 2012
"After a successful tour of duty with JG 300, Dieterle was transferred to take over as
Staffelkapitän 2./EJG 2 on 21 November 1944. His unit was flying mostly Bf 109 G-6/AS
aircraft. The aircraft he flew had Red numbers since they were in the 2./Staffel. He never flew
"Green 5". They were not chasing Mosquitos, but doing night ground attack work. In his own
words, "My last battles of the war were night ground attack missions, bombing convoys, bridges
and anti-aircraft positions in the north. We had about 80 pilots and 56 Me 109 G-6s. My last
flight was on 3 May 1945."
55. Crandall's statement conflicts with information presented in the original Jet & Prop article. But
then he clearly doesn't read German. Colour images published subsequently (i.e., in LiF
magazine) quite clearly show 'Green 5' of course. And while by war's end of course nobody was
chasing Mosquitos, they certainly still were at the turn of the year 1944/45!
According to the original Jet & Prop photo caption the view above apparently depicts Dieterle in
the cockpit with erster Wart Gerhard Hübner leaning against the wing leading edge and was
taken at Hagenow, south of Schwerin, during the winter of 1944/45. The lower surfaces of all
three Bf 109s of the 2./Erg. JG 2 were black. However "Grüne 6" and "Grüne 7" featured
'standard' upper surface colours with some areas of their airframes, such as the yellow lower
cowl, in a cross-hatched black over-spray, while "Grüne 5" was sprayed black overall.
"Grüne 6" with erster Wart Gerhard Hübner on the cockpit sill (via Joachim Geier)
According to Hübner, Dieterle had initially requested that his machine "Grüne 5" be stripped of
all camouflage paint for an extra turn of speed for Mosquito chasing duties, and a Probeflug - check
flight- was flown in the bare metal finish. However the airframe was finally painted a glossy black finish
that was highly polished. Two of the three Bf 109s were eventually lost; "Grüne 7" with Ofw.
Steinhagen at the controls had to make an emergency landing in the vicinity of Magdeburg.
56. The front page of Geier's article below, shows the over-sprayed lower cowl of 'Green 6' framing 'Green
5' in the background..
More rare images of "Grüne 5" depict the aircraft 'captured' at Gardelegen having been left there
in the spring of 1945 with mechanical problems. Note the 'extended' flame damping exhaust shield in the
view below, evidently a field mod made subsequent to the photo above.
57. Modellers looking for decals for this machine should check out John McIllmurray's new
AIMs decal sheet "Monotone Me's". Likewise modellers should consider purchasing a digital copy of
Roger S. Gaemperle's superlative "Captured Eagles" which features two pages of previously
unpublished coverage of this Ergänzungsnachtjagdstaffel Gustav including new photos and detailed text.
Dieterle had another black 109, Red 1, this one from ASISBIZ:
and one with this photo with Dieterle (center) and a couple of other personnel with what may be
the same aircraft (http://bit.ly/QEqOCv). According to the Kraker site Dieterle was flying Red 1 when
attached to 2./JG300. One photo of him not by an aircraft was also found on a Chinese site
(http://bit.ly/PQwMhx) where he appears on the left.
58. Red 1 is assigned to him in a 2016 book, Luftwaffe Night Fighters by Cleas Sundin.
Dieterle would probably shake his head at this one, but there is even a greeting card with a blank
inside available of Black 5!
Still there was that abbreviation, “HSS” next to Dieterle’s claim.. What did it stand
for? Searching on Luftwaffe victories and HSS, I came across a Czech website, Kacha’s Luftwaffe
Page, by Petr Kacha. On the right side of the site was a link to his “Four-engine killers” page . This
turned out to be a spreadsheet of 149 pilots, aces all, who claimed 1,262 bombers shot down; of these
128 B-17’s and 44 B-24’s were HSS. Dieterle is not on this list. At the bottom of the page was a key to
terms and abbreviations.
Kacha has HSS as the German abbreviation for “Herausschuss (translation: “shoot out”) - the
separation of a bomber from its combat formation.”
Cooke.. I thought of Boggs watching Eck leaving.
Since I could not find any other aircraft for Dahmen and his claim did not have HSS next to it,
perhaps Dieterle was the most responsible for ‘Mag the Hag the 2nd’’s loss. What kind of after-action
debrief did they have? Did they both firmly claim ‘Mag the Hag the 2nd’?
59. There were two other claims in the asisbiz site that were looked at, that of Feldwebel (Staff
Sergeant) Erich Büttner and Oberleutnant Rudolf Trenkel, both of JG 52. Büttner claimed a B-17 down
around Eisenach (E. Eisenach) at 1135 (1235?). Trenkel’s claim comes in at 1154 (1254?) but at a
location given only by an apparent Luftwaffe grid system, 90 452. The list notes the altitudes as 4000
meters compared to Dieterle’s earlier claim of 7200 meters. This is reasonable since ‘Mag the Hag the
2nd’ was losing altitude and would crash minutes later to the west. The possibility exists that Büttner
did make a pass at Peck in ‘Silver Wings’ or Stallings in ‘Heaven's Above’ if either of them were
stragglers at this point. Either Büttner assumed Peck, or Stallings, was going to crash, departed the
scene, and filed a claim based on a wrecked B-17, or he did attack ‘Mag the Hag the 2nd’ and witness
her crash somehow?
Tony Wood's site, Combat Claims and Casualties List has a number of files listing data similar to
the asisbiz site, but also includes another column with German abbreviations describing the dispositions
of the claims. Looking at the "Reich, West and Südfront, Aug to Dec 1944. Vol. I" list there are more
details to both Dieterle's and Dahmen's claims. Dieterle's claim had additionally the German
abbreviations: VNE: ASM. This is explained in the beginning of the document to
mean: VNE=Vernichtung nicht erwiesen = Destruction not yet proven, and ASM=Anerkennung spatter
moglich = Confirmation to be later decided. This listing though caused some doubt about Dahmen’s
claim for ‘Mag the Hag the 2nd’ (if this is the B-17 he engaged) because the additional notation next to
his claim is Anerk: n.i.O. which most probably stands for Claim: not in order (from the original
German, nicht in Ordnung). But what does ‘not in order’ mean? Denied? Did Dieterle eventually get
the claim? Büttner’s claim abbreviations are similar to Dieterle’s, Trenkel though does have Anerk: Nr.
- after his for his claim. This stands for Acknowledgement (confirmation) certificate and number. But
there is no number.
Yet another site using the German system like Wood is Ciel de Glorie. It does show JG 300 and
JG 52. The same abbreviations are shown for both Dieterle and Dahmen, but JG 52 shows only
victories for the Eastern Front. Trenkel’s claims in September are for Russian aircraft.
60. Donald Caldwell, the noted author of JG 26 - Top Guns of the Luftwaffe and other tomes dealing
with the Luftwaffe, offered up more information of the mission with a passage from the book about JG
300 by Jean-Yves Lorant and Richard Goyat. Lorant interviewed Dieterle (now deceased) and includes
some information on his claim: his squadron closed on several boxes of B-17s between Eisenach &
Coburg. He saw several strikes from his guns hit a B-17 which veered out of formation trailing a thick
plume of black smoke, but he did not follow it down.
In a number of email exchanges Caldwell said that claims by Büttner and Trenkel should not be
given much credence as he knew of no evidence from any credible source that their Staffel was even in
the area on September 13.
He also supplied the after-action report that day by another pilot from JG 300 named Robert
Jung:
“26 BF 109s takeoff Esperstedt 1040h, Kurs Nord - @ 8000m when meet B-17s @ same
altitude, escort above them – my Schwarm attacked by 11 P-51s – 1 Bf 109 down, Jung chased, downs 1
P-51, eventually forced to f/l (force land) – a/c o’turns, 9 I/JG 300 a/c return to base, 8 crash” [Jung
came to in the hospital, returned to his unit in February 1945].”
Caldwell added that there was another claim that had not been submitted to Berlin that day:
Fähnrich (Officer Candidate) Otto Leisner, 1./JG 300, B-17, Gerstungen bei Eisenach 12.30.
Gerstungen is less than three miles south of Neustädt.
Could this be the last aircraft that attacked ‘Mag the Hag the 2nd’ as Eck tried to put her down in
the fields just east of Neustädt? What altitude did attack from? Did he actually see a B-17 crash in this
area? Why didn’t he put in for this claim?
His JG 300 Me-109 White 15 shares a decal sheet by Lifelike Decals with Erich Hartmann. He
has a skin for “IL-2 Sturmovik”. He also had the rare privilege on an earlier mission on August 6 of
61. being engaged in his Red 18 by olive colored, shark-mouthed Mustangs, crash-landing, and then running
for his life as they strafed him on the ground.
Leisner went on to become an Me-262 pilot.
I was eventually able to get a copy of Jean-Yves Lorant and Richard Goyat's book,
Jagdgeschwader 300, through in an interlibrary loan (I live in the Detroit area and the book came from
the library at Embry-Riddle University in Florida). They document many of the engagements Dieterle,
Dahmen and Leisner throughout their Volume 1. As superb an example of research and art (Goyat’s
renderings are beautiful and shows three of Dieterle’s aircraft, more than any other unit pilot: Gold 2,
Yellow 1 and Red 1) as you will find of any book of the Luftwaffe, it proved to a valuable resource in
writing this piece.
This first volume covers the wing’s history up to the end of September 1944. Jean-Yves was
able to interview many pilots from the unit, including Dieterle and Leisner. He offers a very detailed
description of the air battle from JG 300’s side telling of their losses and the claims by them. Dieterle
was flying Red 7 that day. (According to G.M. Morrison, a senior member of “12 O’Clock High” web
forum Red 7 may have been a Bf 109G-14/AS, Werk Nummer, Work or Serial Number, 780935. This
aircraft would be lost on September 27 when Feldwebel or Sergeant, Hans-Joachim “Hajo” Riedel in a
dogfight with P-51s over Tüttleben, Thüringen. He parachuted, and was shot in his parachute.)
There is a list of victories claimed at the end of the book which shows Dieterle, Dahmen, and
Leisner’s claims for B-17’s on September 13. Leisner’s claim notes that there were witnesses on the
ground: “GFM Hueckle, Sauer and Hesse (Gruppe Feldwerft-Geraet Eschwege).” GFM is the standard
German abbreviation for Generalfeldmarschall. I have not found a GFM Hückel, but there was a
Luftwaffe Generalleutnant (Maj. General) Hückel. Charles Bavarois, a senior member of the “12
O’Clock High” web forum felt that GFM does not stand for "Generalfeldmarschal" in this context, but
rather that it could be "Gefolgschaftsmitglied" what is a typical Third-Reich destination for members of
non-military or non-NSDAP organizations. A worker at Junkers or Krupp would be a
Gefolgschaftsmitglied (technical representative?) of this manufacturer. Gruppe Feldwerft Gerät’s exact
meaning or translation is not that clear, but that an educated guess would be that a Feldwerft is a military
62. maintenance installation. In the Wehrmacht larger units sometimes were split into subunits for technical
or administrative reasons, which were called a "Gruppe" (group). So Gruppe Feldwerft Gerät could be
a subdivision of a Luftpark, a Schleuse or anything like this, responsible for Feldwerft-Gerät (equipment
for Feldwerften). Horst Weber suggested it meant perhaps Gruppen Feldwerft-Mechaniker or Gruppen
Flugzeug-Mechaniker.
It is a striking coincidence someone named Sauer is listed as a witness.
A recollection in this book by Oberfähnrich (Officer Candidate) Friedrich-Wilhelm Schenk of
2./JG 300 tells of “Hänschen” (little Hans) Dahmen being killed by Russian anti-aircraft fire in February
1945.
This book also has a couple of hundred photos of the pilots, ground crew and aircraft of JG 300,
and there are enough photos of Dieterle and/or his aircraft and Leisner and his aircraft to be personal
photo albums for them. There are no studio portrait-style photos of Dieterle though. They are all taken
next to him or at some short distance away from him.
What is most striking about this book is that for all of the photos in this book and for all of the
pilots Lorant and Goyat could have picked from, they chose Dieterle sitting on Red 1 to be on the cover.
Another website, “Luftwaffe Officer Career Summaries” by Henry L. de Zeng IV and Douglas
G. Stankey offer an astounding list (updated April 2013) of almost 41,000 of the 120,000 Luftwaffe
officers (they list a Generalleutnant Hückel) serving in World War Two. It includes promotion and
posting details about Dieterle, but not Dahmen or Leisner as they were enlisted pilots. From a
combination of the two we can see Dieterle not only rising through the ranks and positions of
responsibility, but also the many close calls he had:
December 16, 1943: He was shot down by a waist gunner of a B-17 while flying with 3./JG 300.
He parachuted out of his flaming aircraft north of Astrup, Germany during what was probably
the 8th AF mission to Bremen (a mission also flown by the 92nd). He was slightly burned and
had his scalp split by a .50 caliber round in this action. Lorant’s book has an interview with
63. Dieterle where he recounts this mission, noting his bailing out and coming across his wrecked
aircraft. He kept the control column from it and turned it into a lamp.
March 18, 1944: Flying possibly as the Stafü (Staffelführer, squadron leader in training) leading
the second Schwarm of four figthters with 3./JG 300 his Me-109 was shot down by P-51s in the
vicinity of Darmstadt. The three other aircraft of the Schwarm were also shot down. He bailed
out safely.
June 20: As Staka (Staffelkapitän, squadron commander, appointed in April) he force-landed at
Bernberg following combat with P-51s.
July 7: Slightly hurt when his Me-109, Red 1, crashed on take-off at Halberstadt because of a
punctured tire. He had transferred to 2./JG300 in late June.
September 28: He was wounded when his Me-109 G-14/AS was damaged by return fire and
crashed in the vicinity of Halberstadt. He bailed out safely yet again.
Dieterle would transfer out of JG 300 to Erg. JG 2 (Ergänzungsjagdgeschwader, or replacement
fighter training wing) in November and finish the war flying with 2./NJG 200 (Nachtjagdgeschwader,
night fighter wing) as a Stafü from February 1945.
Three German fighter pilots, Dieterle, Dahmen, Leisner, and perhaps two more, Büttner and
Trenkel. Two damaged B-17s, Peck in ‘Silver Wings’ and Stallings in ‘Heaven’s Above,’ that cleared
the area and came down in other countries. One plane, ‘Mag the Hag the 2nd,’ that came to grief next to
the small town of Neustädt, witnessed perhaps from the time it was shot out of formation by a schoolboy
on the ground and who saw a crewman parachute from it before it crashed. While some of the details
point to Dieterle as the pilot who shot down ‘Mag the Hag the 2nd,’ it is meaningless to try to give credit
almost 70 years after the fact when Berlin couldn’t sort it out in 1944. It will remain a mystery.
Chapter 5 links:
http://www.6thcorpscombatengineers.com/engforum/index.php?/topic/7652-world-war-ii-heros-long-
overdue-funeral-touches-lives-on-2-continents/
http://www.asisbiz.com/Luftwaffe.html
http://www.asisbiz.com/Luftwaffe/Luftwaffe-aerial-victories-1944-C.html
65. Chapter 6 - Those Other B-17s Claimed on September 13
Bowden noted in his book, “Merseburg: Blood, Flak and Oil,” that the other groups attacking
Merseburg targets that day lost several B-17s. None of the others seemed to have been shot down by
fighters.
As mentioned earlier in Chapter 2, Donlon was hit at the target by flak and blew up.
Lt. Warren Stallings of the 92nd was in ‘Heaven's Above’ when it lost an engine over the target
and was thought to have blown up. Stallings did in fact make it to Switzerland and landed at
Duebendorf air base. Fold3 has a picture of ‘Heaven's Above,’ but this one on May 22, 1943 and
already with 16 missions and a different crew, William Dame's, and the ground crew. The 1943 date
is questionable as the 92nd BG aircraft roster mentioned earlier states ‘Heaven's Above’ was received in
March 1944. Flickr has yet another picture of Dame's crew, note ball turret gunner, Sergeant Warren
Cutler has 25 bombs painted onto the front of his flight jacket.
First Lieutenant Jack Peck flying another 92nd B-17 lost that day, ‘Silver Wings,’ crashed in
Schaffen, Belgium trying to land at its airport, which was about 15 miles inside the Allied
lines. According to a statement in MACR 10286 by Technical Sergeant Theodore Franklin, the radio
operator, ‘Silver Wings’ had lost an engine over the target due to flak and also began to lag behind the
formation. He states that she was attacked four times by an Me-109 and an FW-190. Dropping to
10,000 feet she was hit again by flak but continued on and struggled at low altitude to make the Schaffen
airport where they might get medical attention for their wounded tail gunner, S/Sgt. James Greene. He
says the aircraft only had one engine functioning properly, it crashed in a woods, caught fire and then
exploded. Only he and Technical Sergeant William Sanderson, the engineer, survived. The others were
unidentifiable. The local population created a memorial for the crew and relate another instance of a
dog tag being found years later (from the Belgian site, Hangar Flying). Fold3 has a picture of ‘Silver
Wings’ in flight (hover over the tail of each aircraft).
‘Duration Plus,’ a B-17 of the 306th BG numbered 42-31726 and flown by 2nd Lt. Clayton
Nattier (on his 16th mission, his first mission was also to Merseburg), was hit by flak just after bombs
66. away per the MACR #8911 and crashed near Ammendorf, Germany. Nattier states that he and the crew
did not even know they had been hit until a fire broke out next to the copilot; they figure the flak had cut
oxygen and oil lines in that area and the oxygen fed the flames of the oil. Nattier and five other
members of the crew would survive. The Together We Served website tells this aircraft started out as a
mission-ready spare that wound up being needed on September 13. The Nattier crew had been in
another B-17, got into a ground accident due to brake hydraulics failure (they continued to roll and only
stopped when one of their props hit the wing of the plane in front of them), and transferred to ‘Duration
Plus.’ The 457th Bomb Group website has this aircraft (same serial number) listed as having served
with it, but does not know of fate of this aircraft. Did ‘Duration Plus’ start in the 457th and get
transferred? Another page on the site shows the same photo as the Together We Served site and states
the group doesn't know the fate of this aircraft, but says it had at least 42 missions. Nattier’s
bombardier, 2nd Lt. William A. Gregory, was remembered by his alma mater, Clemson University.
Nattier’s crew picture is on the 306th Bomb Group, 369th Bomb Squadron’s website and he would
contribute to the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project about his experiences, one of the few to
describe flying over Merseburg.
One of the 325th Bomb Squadron (of the 92nd
Bomb Group) debrief reports by 2nd Lt. Harold B.
Saftler’s crew notes, “B 17 from 40th B...aflame going down at target.” This would have been
‘Duration Plus’ as noted in a 306th Bomb Group debrief report’s Page 1 noting anti-aircraft fire and the
loss of only one plane from the 40th B (cited earlier for the map of the route to Merseburg).
Nattier and his top turret gunner, Sgt. G. Bump, both landed near the Luftwaffe base at Halle and
he credits their survival from hostile civilians to this. Both had been injured in their jumps: Nattier had
serious burns and Bump a broken ankle. A German medic provided excellent first aid that would aid in
both men’s full recovery.
After the war, Nattier got a degree in chemical engineering and spent his career, ironically, in the
oil business.
67. A 303rd BG mission report states that B-17 ‘Betty Jane,’ numbered 42-32027 and piloted by
2nd Lt. Carl Heleen, crashed near Oberhof, Germany and was lost due to flak. The 303rd site also has
the crew photo again as well as a 2003 photo of some of the remains of ‘Betty Jane’ at its crash site.
Also from the 303rd, ‘Liberty Run,’ serialed 44-6076 and flown by 1st Lt. Lewis Walker (on his
30th mission), was hit by flak and immediately went into a vertical dive, crashed in a forest near Besse,
Germany, not far from the village of Grossenritte, Germany. Walker and his crew are shown in one
303rd photo in from of the B-17 ‘Scorchy II’, but the 303rd does show ‘Liberty Run’ in another photo
with another crew, Arthur Lorentz's, in August 1944 when ‘Liberty Run’ had an impressive string of
missions on her nose, at least 41. A good reporting of ‘Liberty Run’s’ loss is documented on the
Troubleshooter.com’s website and notes that Walker and his crew were included in the Keith Ferris
mural at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, “Fortresses under Fire.” They are in ‘Special
Delivery’, the lead ship in the three B-17s below Thunderbird, and being attacked by aircraft of JG 300.
Troubleshooter.com also includes a narrative by a German national born post-war of his then-youngster
father’s recollection of the crash. ‘Liberty Run’ is shown in a number of other photos either in flight on
August 27, with Lt. Chance’s crew on August 29, and in an undated portrait photo of 1st Lt. Lawrence
Lifshus, a Lead Crew PFF Navigator who would become a POW during Mission #247 to Cologne,
Germany on 27 Sep 1944.
Finally, a 384th BG B-17 with no nickname, numbered 43-38213 and flown by 1st Lt. Lee
Dodson was hit by flak and went down in flames at 11:23; breaking up into three sections and crashed
approximately 5 miles northwest of Merseburg. The MACR for this aircraft, 8902, states there were no
fighter attacks. Dodson is buried at Margraten. Copilot 1st Lt. William Canion would report later that
Dodson had been hit by fatally wounded by flak and could not move. He stayed with the aircraft and
was reported to have been found burned beyond recognition under the #2 engine. According to Casualty
Reports in the MACR it is believed he had already flown 34 missions.
