Mission June 24, 1944 (France) A-20 Havoc bombers

[Eagle0025]

Bonjour Frederic,

I received your email awhile ago via Scott Frederick. I tried to send you an email but it got returned for some reason.

Anyhow, I have some information for you on the mission you are researching. The A-20 escort mission to Bruz was accomplished by the 429th Fighter Squadron. I do not know the group the A-20s were from, but I am still researching to find out.

This would be the second mission of the day for the 429th. The group of 16 P-38s took off at 1733 hours from their base in Warmwell, England. The pilots participating on this mission were Majors Glass (Squadron CO) and Bowman, Captain Hallford, and Lts. Patterson, Olsen, Heuermann, Roddick, Carson, Chickering, Ingerson, Johnson, Edmonds, McPherson, Schwarzrock, Greve, and Castel. Major Bowman had to abort soon after takeoff and returned to base due to a mechanical failure with his aircraft. Each plane was loaded with a 1,000 pound bomb and one 165 gallon belly tank. They rendezvoused with the A-20s over Southforland, England, escorted them to Bruz, then flew cover for them while they bombed the petroleum depot and fuel trucks there.

By the time the 429th was to bomb, the element of surprise was lost as the flak became very heavy. Despite the loss of surprise, it is believed the 429th achieved better bombing results than the A-20s. All of Captain Hallford's flight made direct hits on the petroleum depot. Observation of bombing results was made difficult due to ground fire and the smoke and dust from the A-20's bombs. But the 429th's bombs had been planted directly on their designated targets. By the time the 429th had dropped all of their bombs, the A-20s had left the area and flew back to home base without an escort. The 429th landed back at Warmwell at 2005 hours. The consensus of the pilots was that they did not like the new arrangement of combining escort duty with bombing.

The 428th Fighter Squadron flew a similar A-20 escort/bombing mission that day, but their target was a depot at Domfront.
I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

A Bientot, Gary Koch