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The 492nd was assigned an oil refinery at Hamburg. Pathfinders were taken in case of poor visibilty. The Group dispatched 28 planes for the job. During assembly 3 of them had to abort for mechanical reasons. This mission was led by Captain Austin P "Red" Byrne, the 857th Squadron Operations Officer. He flew on a Pathfinder ship provided by the 44th BG. He would not survive the mission.
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Bombers outnumbered their escorts by over two-to-one. The Luftwaffe did put some planes in the air, perhaps only to report information to the anti-aircraft batteries. Reports within the Group say that the Luftwaffe was seen, but not encountered. Their escorts were able to keep the Luftwaffe at bay.
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Flak was just as heavy, thick and accurate as any seen before, perhaps even more so. The Group didn't lose any planes, but the Pathfinder from the 44th that was flying as deputy lead was shot down. On the plane with them was Captain Austin P "Red" Byrne, the 857th Operations Officer. He was killed.
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We don't know if they bombed visually or not. One plane had mechanical problems that pervented it from dropping on target. The other 24 crews were able to hit their objectives.
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The Group was beaten up by the flak, but were able to return to England. Airplanes with an emergency would radio ahead to to be cleared for emergency landing. Based on the seriousness reported, the control tower would give them their instructions. The Fleming Crew R-47, on their second mission in as many days, were told to land third in line.
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The Pitsenbarger Crew R-26 was second in line and was coming in to land. Their crippled plane had over 500 flak holes in it. For reasons unknown, Fleming decided to leapfrog the Pitsenbarger Crew and land ahead of them. Their wings clipped each other. Pitsenbarger was forced to crashland in the middle of the runway. Meanwhile, Fleming didn't have enough runway to land and crashed off its end.
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This accident cost the Fleming Crew the lives of 9 men. Only one man, S/Sgt Schmaltz, survived.
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The Pitsenbarger Crew lost one man, S/Sgt Barber, while the other 9 men were wounded.
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Scott Crew 712 completed their 30 mission tour. They barely made it back as their plane was severley crippled by flak. So bad were their damages that they elected not to do the traditional "30 mission buzz" over the base.
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The Army Air Force had policies and procedures for handling emergency landings. Had Lt Fleming followed his instuctions, there was a good chance nobody would have gotten hurt or killed. On this same day there were other crews with even worse damage, for example, like it was for with the Flanagan Crew 705.
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The plane of Flanagan Crew was severely damaged by flak. They had lost 2 engines and a third one's prop was running wild. It also had a damaged tail skid and a blown tire. Lt Flanagan followed his instructions and crashlanded his crippled ship at Metfield Air Field. After they landed, only one man had any injury to speak of. He had some minor cuts on one hand from pieces of broken plexiglass that had been busted out by flak.
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