Tag: 1944 January 27

1/25/44 Mission:

TACTICAL OPERATIONS (Twelfth Air Force):
   In Italy, B-25's bomb Valmontone; B-26's hit the Sezze marshalling yard, the Sezze-Bassiano road, Amelia, and Rieti marshalling yard; A-20's attack Terelle; A-36's hit Civita Castellana, Itri, Velletri, and railroad rolling stock in the area; P-40's hit Velletri and Belmonte in Sabina and strafe trucks E of Fondi; P-40's and P-47's hit shipping in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, and nearby road and rail traffic. British fighters of the RAF DAF hit bridge approaches at Popoli,near the British Eighth Army front.

1/26/44 Mission:

TACTICAL OPERATIONS (Twelfth Air Force):
   In Italy, A-20's attack Cisterna di Latina, toward which the US Fifth Army's VI Corps is moving; A-36's and P-40's fly harassing attacks against roads and railroads, bombing at Belmonte in Sabina, Cisterna, Itri, Ceccano, Frosinone, Poggio Mirteto and at points around these towns; A-36's destroy a fuel dump and several trucks and artillery caissons in the Ceprano-Priverno area.

1/27/44 Mission:

TACTICAL OPERATIONS (Twelfth Air Force):
   In Italy, B-25's attack roads at Velletri, the railway at Colleferro and marshalling yard at Orte; B-26's bomb bridges at Ceprano and marshalling yard at Terni; A-20's give close support to the US Fifth Army attack near Terelle; A-36's bomb railways and buildings at Poggio Mirteto, Ceccano, and Ciampino, hit rail and road traffic S of Rome, and, with P-40's, hit the town of Piedimonte; 70+ P-40's provide close support to Fifth Army forces in Cisterna di Latina and Atina, bombing gun positions; Allied fighters over the Anzio beachhead successfully meet increased enemy air effort, claiming 28 aircraft downed in aerial combat.

1/27/44:  Hitler finally calls off the siege of Leningrad which began in September of 1941.  150,000 German soldiers were killed; 300,000 Soviet soldiers were killed; over 1 million Soviet civilians were killed.

 

1/27/44 V-Mail, Italy

Hi Honey:

I received two of your letters today #19 & #20, and didn’t get time to read them until I got my engines started.  I got another confirming glance at them on the way.

My #1, #2 and #3 problem children are now taken care of.  The one you know is mentally quite sick and will probably be honorably discharged; the second is about to be relieved of combat duty; and the third, who was suffering from an inferiority complex so strong it made him miss every target, as well as a terrific fear of flying, is now ok.  I flew with him this morning with no practice flights, and we got along ok.  Of course, it wasn’t perfect.  The beauty is that I made my third greased lightning landing, which helped.  My first was in Savannah, the second in Africa, and this one was the smoothest I’ve yet experienced.  If we can get three or four missions like that, I’ll be able to carry him through.  I had another bombardier who broke at 20 missions and by putting him in my crew was able to carry him on through his full tour of duty.

You may have heard, Bill Lewis’ story of how his operations tent was hit by a bomb a year ago in Africa.  Well like all of the stories that outfit told, it wasn’t true.  It was his tent, but he moved out four days previous, and another squadron was using it.

The English language is a complex thing.  When questioned what was wrong with his motorcycle, an English sgt. replied “The fucking fucker is fucked!”  How could I explain that to a foreigner?

I love you Monkey, Cy.