Raided Northern Italy. The flak was light and inaccurate. No fighters were reported. Oil storage dumps were hit. It was considered an excellent job. Hope the mission tomorrow will be just as easy. This mission counted as one. Had two escorts. Mission took six hours.

Raided Nice France marshalling yards. Flak was light and inaccurate. No fighters were reported. Escorted over the target by P-38's and withdrawal escorted by P-47's. This mission counted as one. Took Eight hours to complete. Total combat hours fourteen.

Raided spare parts factory thirty miles above Wiener Nuestadt. Flak was all over the sky and it was very accurate. Our squadron lost three ships. Three of the boys that came over with me went down. Think they all parachuted to safety escorted to the target by P-38's, over the target by P-51's. JU-88's were pretty thick but fired no rockets. This mission counted two. Took Seven hours to complete. Combat time 21 hours.

Raided Ploesti, Rumania oil fields. This was the roughest mission I have made yet. Lt. Martin was killed by a piece of flak while we were over the target. It went clean thru his steel helmet. The bombardier was wounded very bad. Flak was heavy and very accurate. Interphone in my turret was shot out. Ship had more flak and bullet holes in it than any ship that came back. Was a close shave. Right rudder had five 20mm holes in it. We were ready to bail out over the target. If it hadn't of been for the wounded man I would be a prisoner of war now. Mission counted two. Took 7 hours to complete – 28 combat hours.

Raided oil refineries in northern Italy. We hit the target squarely and flames shot a good thousand feet into the air. Flak was not so heavy but it was accurate. They were shooting pink flak when about 20 ME109's hit us. Up to to this time we had seen no escort, boy I thought this is it. They made only one pass at us when the P-51 (Mustangs) hit them. Boy you should have seen them scatter. This mission took six hours to complete & counted as one. Total combat time – 34 hours.

Got within twenty minutes of target and had to turn back. It was an easy raid too.

We made another run today. We were almost at Munich when No. Two and No. Three engines quit. So we salvoed bombs and came back. Ora D. Woodson & his crew were shot down over the target. Hope thy got to bail out. Five on the crew would have finished fifty missions if they hadn't been hit. One of them had in 84 missions. Was his second time over. Woodson was a swell guy will try to get in touch with him when this mess is over.

Raided oil dumps in German occupied Yugoslavia. The target was hit. We used 250 lb. Bombs. No flak was seen, there were a few F-W 190's circling the formation but they never attacked. Had a Consolidated tail turret in the nose & boy I almost froze to death. This mission took five hours-Total combat time-39 hours, counted as one. Total eight missions.

Raided oil dumps in Checoslavacia near Vienna. The target was demolished by the first attack, we came along and exterminated it. We were at 20,000 ft. and smoke from the target was above us. It was the best bombing job done in this theater. Flak was heavy and very accurate. Fighters (15 hit us about twelve miles from the target. FW 190's, ME 109's, ME 262's were all over the sky. Boy I was really scared. We knocked four of them down but they got one of our planes but the crew bailed out. We had no escort. Six P-38's engaged the fighters after we drove them off. This mission took seven hours. Total combat hours 46 hours. Counted two- total ten missions. 250 lb. Bombs were used.

Raided marshalling yards at Tarara France. Used 250 lb. Bombs at 23,000 ft. We didn't do so good on the target. Some hit but a good percentage went off. No fighters were encountered. Had a swell escort of P-38's. Boy they sure did look swell. Flak was light but very accurate. This mission took seven hours Total combat time 53 hours. The mission counted a single which makes me a total of eleven missions.

Today we took off for a raid on Ploesti. We were about half way there when we ran into a cloudbank. You couldn't see 10 ft. away from the ship. There were another 200 planes in there with us & we never knew where they were at. Tearing along at 200 miles an hour & you can't see where your are going. We almost rammed another ship. We missed each other about 12 ft. Boy I never want to sweat out another like that. We turned back and never completed the mission.