Mission Possible - Fulda

Sometimes you just luck out.

It was my 29th mission -- next to my last. The official records show that our primary target was to be the marshaling yards in a town called Moblis, in Western Germany but my recollection is that the primary target was Plauen, Germany, a town south of Leipzig and near the Czechoslovakian border. Fulda was our secondary target. The date was Mar 19, 1945.
We had little trouble reaching the target area except for dense, persistent contrails that caused us to fly higher than our planned altitude. I recall that we flew in the low squadron as deputy lead. At the primary target, clouds totally obscured the target so that we were unable to bomb visually.
There was much confusion in the target area. Other groups were crossing over and under us and crowding the target area in such a way that a PFF radar instrument run was impossible.

The group did a 360 degree turn and was still not able to run on the target. By this time the target area was so overcast with contrails from all these bomb runs that no one could see anything below. We then turned East and began searching for the secondary target -- marshaling yards in the town of Fulda, Germany.
As we approached this target area the clouds began to clear and we were able to make a perfect visual run on what was a very small town at the juncture of several railroad lines. The marshaling yard appeared a great deal bigger than the town itself and was presently packed with railroad cars.
During my tour in Europe we had few missions where the target area was as clear as it was on this day. Each squadron leader sighted the target through his bombsight and the planes in the squadron dropped on the squadron lead. (rather than on the group lead)

We completed the bomb run from the IP to the BRL without any flak or fighters. At the moment of release, our electric bomb release mechanism did not function to release the bombs and our bombardier quickly salvoed them manually using the pneumatic bomb release backup system. This delay in the release caused our bomb load to trail the rest of the squadron by about a second or two.
After leaving the target area, cheers sounded from several of our crew members in the rear of the plane as they observed that the target had received a direct hit resulting in an unusually large explosion.
We returned to Glatton without incident, went through the debriefing and reported our late bomb release as we were required to do, and returned to the squadron enclave. Early the next morning I was awakened by an orderly telling me to report immediately to the squadron commander. Dressing hurriedly, I proceeded to the squadron CO's hut. Inside several squadron officers were present and were pouring over some target photographs taken by reconnaissance planes shortly after the bomb drop at Fulda.

"Lieutenant Reese, your bombardier dropped late" remarked Col. Peresich sternly and without otherwise greeting me. I knew we had dropped late, but that was not unusual under the circumstances, and, in addition, we had reported the failure of our bomb release mechanism to the debriefing officer. I was surprised, expecting that the CO was about to berate me for a mechanical failure.
"Take a look at these pictures" the Col. said pointing to the table containing the spread of aerial photographs. By examining the bomb pattern on the ground, photo experts could tell where the bombs from each plane had fallen. A careful look at the picture disclosed that all the bombs from our squadron fell short of the target, plowing up a large unoccupied farm field west of the targeted marshaling yard. It appeared that, because we had released a second or two behind the rest of our squadron's bombs, our bombs had fallen directly on the rail yard and, had not only hit squarely in the target, but had hit an ammunition train parked among the many boxcars in the yard. The ammunition car had exploded and wiped out a large section of the marshaling yard and just about everything else within a half mile radius.
"Congratulations Lieutenant Reese, you were the only crew to hit the target and you picked the right boxcar to hit", he said with a seldom seen smile on his face -- knowing full well that this was just an accident of timing.
(In the past month (Feb 2000) some photos from March of 1944 came into my possession. To my delight, in this group of photos was included the 'strike photos' of that very raid on Fulda on March 19, 1945. These strike pictures are here):
Bombs released.
Bombs just starting to strike.
Bombs at momemt of impact. (Note that all squadron bombs fell short of target - except one).
The amunition car exploding. (By now the other squadrons bombs are exploding)
Another view of the explosion.
Sometimes it's skill and perseverance and sometimes it's just luck.