Herb "Stub" Hatch, describes the mission from his vantage point of Cragmore
Green 3, the element leader of the 4th Flight. 71st FS, 1st FG June 10, 1944
"We were briefed that morning very early. We got up around 0400, had some
breakfast and went down to Group Headquarters for briefing. When we walked
in and sat down it was apparent that something unusual was in the air
because of all the Group brass in attendance. When they went to the map
and drew the line to Ploesti all of us kind of went 'Uh, oh.' And then
when they told us what the mission was, there was absolute silence and
utter disbelief on the part of all of us who were going to fly over 600
miles to surprise the Germans in order to dive bomb the Ramano-Americano
refinary.
In the course of the breifing it came out that the 82nd (FG) were the ones
to do the bombing. We were selected for fighter escort. I can't
adequately describe the sense of relief that went through the gathering
when we found out that we weren't going to be the ones carrying a 1000
pound bomb on one side of the airplane and a belly tank on the other - or
that we'd be the ones to dry and dive into that unbelievable flak.
Take off at 0505 went as scheduled. We rendezvoused with the 82nd and
headed for the coast of Yugoslavia. Anyone who has flown formation at low
level knows the difficulty in keeping a squadron of 16 aircraft together,
let alone three squadrons. Nonetheless we hit our IP right on schedule
south of Bucharest. At that point we began our turn north, dropped our
belly tanks and were supposed to begin our climb to altitude to cover the
82nd. As we completed our turn however, we flew right over an enemy
airfield and in the airfield pattern were four or five Dornier 217 bombers.
Our Squadron Leader, First Lieutenant John Shepard turned in and went
after them and the three flights followed him (Blue flight was by this time
cut off) The Dorniers didn't last long. I only wasted some ammo by firing
at one of them at the tail end of the little fight.
At this point we were only 250-300 feet off the ground. As we pulled up
slightly to turn back north again somebody hollered, 'Cragmore Break left
for Chrissake!' I looked to my left and there was a whole flock of FW 190s
headed in from 10 O'clock high.
Our entire squadron broke to the left. As I continued around in my sharp
turn a lone 190 came out of nowhere and pulled right across in front of me.
He was so close -fifty to seventy five yards away- that all I could see in
my ring sight was the belly of his fuselage and the wing roots. I opened
fire with all four 50-caliber machine guns and the 20mm cannon and I just
damn near blew him in half. That saved my neck because when I rolled out
to shoot at the 190 I looked to my right and here comes another bunch of
190s from my 2 0'clock.
There were four 190s in the lead. I did the only thing I could do. I
turned sharply to my right, pulled up and fired again. The leader was
150-250 yards away, nearly head on and slightly to my left. I set the lead
190 on fire with a burst that went through the engine, left side of the
cockpit and the wing root. The 190 rolled to its right and passed me on my
left. I didn't see him crash but my gun camera film showed the fire and my
wingman Lt. Joe Morrison, confirmed that he crashed. Unfortunately the
other three 190s in that flight went right over my head and down on the
tails of Green flight leader and his wingman. Both were shot down.
As I continued my turn around to my right, my wingman stayed with me and I
saw another 190 right up behind one of my tentmates, Joe Jackson flying as
Cragmore white 4. I closed in on that one from about his five o'clock and
tried to shoot his canopy off from about 100 yards, but I was too late to
save Joe. By then the 190 had set Jackson's plane on fire. Joe's plane
rolled over and went in and he was killed. I finally did get a burst into
the cockpit area and the 190 followed Joe right into the ground.
I was still turning to the right, going quite slowly by then, because I had
my combat flaps down. I turned maybe another 90 degrees to my right when I
saw on of our 38s coming head on with a 190 on his tail. We were still
only around 300 feet and the P38 passed over me by fifty-seventy five feet.
I pulled up my nose and opened fire on the trailing 190 from a distance of
about 150-200 yards. He kept coming head on and I shot off the bottom half
of his engine. He nosed down still shooting at me and I had to dump the
yoke hard to miss him. He was burning when he went over me, by not more
then three feet and part of his right wing knocked about three inches off
the top of my left rudder.
As the 190 went over my head I saw three more making a pass at me from my
left. I turned so fast I lost Joe Morrison. I missed my shot that time
but when these three went over me they went after Morrison. I saw three
190s diving on another 38. I snap shot at the leader from about 90 degree
deflection. I hit his left wing and shredded the aileron. He fell off on
his wing and went in. He was so low there was no chance for him to
recover. I kept on going around to my left and shot at the second one with
was going away from me on my left. I hit him, but I am not sure if he went
in. I know I knocked a bunch of pieces off his cowling and fuselage but I
didn't have time to see what was happening to him.
I looked to my 2 o'clock and here comes another 190 right at me. It was
too late for me to turn. I just shut my eyes and hunched down in the
cockpit. I thought I had bought the farm right there. But he missed me,
he never even hit my ship. I think he missed me because I was going so
slowly. He overestimated my speed and was overleading me. I started to
turn his way and when he went behind me I continued on around. There was
another one out there so I closed in on him. I took aim, fired but my guns
only fired about ten rounds and quit. I was out of ammo. I damaged him a
bit but he flew away.
I cannot over emphasize what a melee that was. There were at least twelve
P38s in that little area, all of them at very low altitude. Somewhere
between 25 and 30 190s were also there. None of us were at more then 200
or 300 feet and some were quite a bit lower. The topography was kind of a
little hollow with hills on each side. It was by far the wildest melee I
saw in sixty odd combat missions I flew. I heard one guy who had been
wounded pretty badly, scream until he went in. It was a wild, wild few
minutes. And a few minutes is all it was. According to the mission report
from our debriefing the whole fight took something like three to six
minutes. I had no inkling of elapsed time while it was going on. I was too
damned busy trying to stay alive.
When I woke up to the fact that I was out of ammunition, 600 miles into
enemy territory and all alone, I broke out of the area and went looking for
some company. In only a few minutes I found one of the other planes in my
squadron headed in my general direction. I called the pilot, Carl
Heonshell, on the radio and we joined up. About that time I heard my
wingman Joe Morrison hollering for some help. He was on single engine,
pretty badly shot up and would someone please come help him. So Hoenshell
and I turned back to look for Joe. We finally found him down around 200
feet. After we got him headed in our direction we started to climb out of
there to the west.
Joe's airplane looked like a lace doily. The two 190s that I had not had
time to turn into had gone over the top of me and down onto Joe's tail
because he had broken right when I had broken left. Joe's ship was flying
but just barely. Hoenshell and I were both out of ammo. The three of us
tried to make ourselves as small as possible and headed west. Four or five
minutes later another P38 joined with us. It as Lt. John Allen, a 94th
Squadron pilot. We hoped he had some ammunition. When we called to ask we
found his radio was out and we couldn't talk to him.
Another 25-30 miles west just as we were gaining some altitude we ran into
a bunch of flak. Unfortunately Morrison became separated from us again
because he couldn't maneuver, as quickly to get out of the flak, so we had
to turn around and go back and get him again. We nursed Joe along for a
long, long time. Finally we got out of Rumania and into Yugoslavia and had
climbed to about 12,000 feet. We were S-ing back and forth over Joe
because he couldn't fly as fast as we could on his single engine. As I was
turning from one of our S's I spotted 6 Me109s about 8 0'clock. I hollered
to Hoenshell "Bogies high at 8' o'clock!" He saw them too and cautioned.
"Hold it, hold it, Joe hit the deck." Joe didn't lose any time. He stuck
his nose down and headed for the ground.
Car, Allen and I held the turn ad best we could and when the 109s broke
formation and came at us from 6 o'clock we turned into them hoping to scare
them off by looking like we were ready for a fight, but they didn't scare
worth a damn. (This with no ammo) When Hoenshell, who was leading hollered
on the radio, "Hit the deck Hatch!" I didn't waste any time doing just
that. I rolled my airplane over on its back and split-essed out of there.
One 109 was chasing me with a couple of others going after Hoenshell, but I
don't know where the others went. There was an undercast beneath us and I
didn't have the faintest idea where the mountains were-Yugoslavia is full
of them-but there was no choice at this point. The Me109 was chasing me
and I had nothing left to fight with so I went through that undercast so
fast I didn't even see it. I was hitting close to 600 mph when I came
through into the bottom into a valley between two high ridges. The Lord
sure was with me that day.
I kept going. When I was sure I'd lost the 190 I pulled back up over the
overcast and started looking around for Hoenshell, Allen or Morrison,
anybody. I heard Joe hollering for help but my fuel level was getting down
to the point where I couldn't afford any longer to turn around and go back.
I continued on toward Foggia.
When I landed back at home base I was the first member of our squadron to
return from the mission. It was noon and my elapsed time was 6 hours 55
minutes. I don't think I had enough gas to go around again if I hadn't
been able to land on my first approach. There was quite a welcoming
committee at the revetment when I parked the aircraft. Shortly after I
landed Cragmore Blue flight came in, all four of them. They hadn't been in
the fight at all. Much later that evening, long after debriefing and after
we seven survivors had imbibed a bit of the medicinal alcohol that the
flight surgeon had been kind enough to put out, who should come wandering
in but Joe Morrison, my wingman. He had gotten that lace doily across the
Adriatic but had to dump it on the field at Bari."
Sadly Carl Hoenshell was shot down and died of wounds the next day. The
1st FG lost 14 P38s that day and the 82nd lost 9 in that one of a kind
experimental attack on Ploesti with P38 dive bombers
