Robert N. McLean, Jr. Mission on June 6, 1944

June 6, 1944 – Tuesday

“Horivan Arrives”

Mission #6,7 – target – oil refinery at Ploesti in Romania.  Takeoff 0600 Landing 1345 (0745)  Total combat hours (30:05)  Purpose of raid – to blast the remaining 10% of Germany’s available oil supply.  Remarks:

1)     Four separate instances of flak attacks, most of it not very intense or accurate.

2)     Ploesti was effectively covered by a protective smoke screen.  Although other groups dropped bombs on the primary objective, we chose an alternate target – the marshalling yards at Craiova in Romania

3)     For 3 full hours before we arrived at Ploesti, fighter attacked continuously.  They were engaged by P-38’s for one half that time and then attacked us when the escort left.  There were about 20 fighters (15 Me-109 and 5 Fw-190)

4)     They got two of our ships and severely damaged a third

5)     Out of the 2 ships that went down, 17 chutes were seen to open and there is good chance that the other men got out unless injured.  We escorted the damaged plane home.  He had one dead and two injured aboard

6)     During the hot part of the fighter attack, our tail gunner damaged an attacking Me-109

7)     Load 4500 lb

8)     Casualties none

9)     Jerry has plenty of nerve

10)  1 Me 109 shot down