ROWE MISSION #8 - 3 October, 1944, Tuesday

50
448th Bomb Group Replacement Crew #46’s Eighth Air Force Mission Records - World War II
ROWE MISSION # 4 - 12 September, 1944, Tuesday
GROUP MISSION # 147
Take-off, 07:30 hours Group planes airborne-35
Forming altitude, 10000 feet Group planes attacking-35. No aborts. No losses
Bombing altitude, 21000 feet Tonnage dropped, 70.2
Length, 5 hours - 30 minutes Fuel load, ????
Oxygen, 4 hours - 30 minutes Average fuel consumption ????
Bomb load, 12 500 lb. Rowe fuel consumption ????
General purpose bombs
Temperature, -34 o
Bombed Hemmingstadt in northern Germany. Target was a natural oil refinery. It was a long haul
over the North Sea. We were over enemy territory approximately 1/2 hour. Good hits recorded by one
Group. Our Group did a lot of spring plowing by PFF. No flak or fighters. P-38 pilot bailed out over the
target. Our secondary target was to have been Helgoland, but we did not hit it. We saw Helgoland as we
were heading for home. JHZ.
[Seething airfield was closed down
from 27 August to 8 September to
repair breakup of taxi-ways, but
September so far was very wet
anyway. Seething is near the coast
and its weather is like North Sea
weather. Because of the weather,
crews with limited experience were
offered a chance to stand down
today and avoid the long instrument
climb-out, but we elected to go. After
takeoff, using the radio compass, the
pilot heads for the Group's assigned
buncher beacon #7 (which was
CROSSING THE ENGLISH COAST NEAR THE THAMES ESTUARY
& HEADING FOR THE TARGET
shared with Hardwick about 3 miles
away) at a 300 foot per minute climb
at 150 MPH. Upon reaching the
buncher beacon, he makes a 180 o turn and flies a 5 minute leg still climbing. These legs are repeated
back and forth until he flies through the cloud cover. Pilots and planes are all different and you can
imagine this scrambling mass of 700 to 1200 bombers (with an airfield every 5 to 10 miles)
simultaneously flying through overcast to formation assembly. Pilots would look for and form on a
brightly painted aircraft of unique design peculiar only to the 448th Group. The Group leader circles the
buncher beacon firing flares of a specified color and the Squadron leader also firing flares of another
color so pilots could identify their Group and Squadron leaders and their own position in the formation.
It takes skill enough in good weather, but difficulties increase when a mass of aircraft are assembling
between dense merging cloud layers and visibility is poor with rain pelting the cockpit windshield, often
turning to sleet and freezing. It is hazardous, and the more so when carrying a maximum load of gas and
bombs. (See diagram for forming in bad weather shown on page 261, Epilogue section in this report.)
Statistics on fuel consumption and names of the Pilots on this mission were not found in the micro-film
records. JCR.]