Veterans memories - bombing Stettin

[KrisJG3]

Harry Sandgren in the cockpit of a Halifax bomber:

http://www.thememoryproject.com/stor...arry-sandgren/

"...When we were coming back [from a bombing trip to Stettin, Germany, now Szczecin, Poland], my bomb aimer had a little, what they call a Vickers machine gun and he wanted to fire that thing off. And his name was Frankie or Frank actually. And I said, “Well, you get the first shot in on that ship down there and I’ll dive down on it as best I can.” And so down we went and I thought it was a minesweeper. And so we dove down on it and just as we got down about, I don’t know, not too far, maybe 2,000 feet or 1,500 feet, he says, “I can’t see it.” And all of a sudden, no sooner got the words out and the whole sky erupted like the Fourth of July, well, the Bofors guns from the ship and it turned out to be a flak ship [anti-aircraft ship]. And they didn’t turn away. I thought, “He’s going to get it,” so I whipped over, just flipped over and yelled for the mid upper gunner, “Let him have it!” But there was no response. ..."

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Everett Hepton, RAF Squadron, Alton, Norfolk, England. R182001, Hepton, J. E., Warrant Officer, 1st Class.

http://www.thememoryproject.com/stor...verett-hepton/

"...My longest trip was eleven hours, to the city of Stettin, some forty miles from Berlin. The most frightening was the city of Kiel. I can recall hooking into my parachute. I thought, "This is it." But our cool pilot zig-zagged the flack, and we got out of that jam. ..."