Documents / Document
This is Volume One of The Army Air Forces in World War II, titled Plans and Early Operations, January 1939 to August 1942, edited by Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate. The University of Chicago Press first published it in 1948, and the Office of Air Force History reprinted it in 1983. The front matter explains how the AAF historical program was set up during the war. The index covers Pacific, Atlantic and European operations, and nothing in the text concerns unidentified aerial phenomena.
“Churchill”21 pages
R O U E N - S O T T E V I L L E N O . I failed to recognize their objectives in time to attack or else ran into such stiff opposition that they could not bomb. T w o planes were shot down by flak and one was badly damaged. The British lost one plane, evidently as a result of flak damage plus the attentions of the only enemy fighter to make effective interception that day. But the Ameri- can losses did not stem entirely from the inexperience of freshmen crews, although one of the pilots shot down was reported to have taken insufficient evasive action in the flak area. T h e fact was that for some reason the mission ran into very heavy opposition from antiair- craft batteries, especially at the two northern airdromes of De Kooy and Haamstede. It even seemed to the surviving crews that the enemy gunners must have been warned in advance by ships in the Channel which had sighted the Bostons on their trip toward the Dutch coast. The RAF leader of the element attacking De Kooy reported the worst flak in his experience, and over-all losses in this one mission were declared to have been equal to the total losses of No. 2 2 6 Squadron in similar operations for the preceding five and one-half months.ll During the mission, however, one incident occurred which proved heartening to the American force and which did much to offset the otherwise discouraging results. Capt. Charles C. Kegelman, flying with the element detailed to bomb De Kooy airdrome, had his right propeller shot away by flak while in the vicinity of the target. The ground fire also damaged his right wing and started a fire in his right engine. Kegelman's plane lost altitude and actually struck the ground, but he was able to keep it in the air after it bounced back up. Then, as he was preparing to leave the scene as fast as his one good engine would take him, he saw the gunners of a flak tower swinging their guns on him. Turning slightly, he flew directly a t the tower and opened fire with the nose guns at close range. Fire from the tower ceased. H e then proceeded to fly home at water level. For this ex- ploit, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.' The mission of 4 July had not been an ideal operation with which to inaugurate the American air offensive from the United Kingdom. Not only was it a small raid and one flown in borrowed planes, but it was tactically of little significance since the future of the bomber campaign depended on the development of high-altitude heavy bom- bardment techniques rather than those of low-level attack by fast, light planes. Nevertheless, the mission marked a beginning of a sort and did much to stimulate morale among the American flyers. At 659
Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 863 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.