Richard G. Miller

June 14. No action; Mission was called off. Was to have been a convoy, but it slipped away; i.e. so rumor states. In writing up the action of our first raid, I failed to put in an incident that was very effective in calming us down so that we came thru with our minds clicking instead of blowing up. It was in the heat of the battle when our tail turret went out, Cpl. Fillipi, a young lad of 18 fresh from the Bronx, called most frantically in a voice that denoted complete despair, "Lt. Miller, Lt. Miller, my tail turret won't work” Guess it was the tone of his Voice and his accent that struck the humorous chord, but whatever it was, it relieved a lot of tension and let us settle down to the grim business of bringing men to dropping our bombs. After talking to most of the men who went on the mission; I am of firm conviction that we did more damage than any other snip and even more so considering our tribulations. Was a bit disappointed to learn that not one of our Senior Officers (over Captain) took the risk of going down under the overcast to try and find the target, instead they bombed on an E.T.A. (Estimated Time of Arrival) at 30,000 feet. Seems to me that in the business Of war a certain amount of guts and daring is essential or else we’ll soon hold the short straw. One of the ships got one M.E.109 and this same ship was saved at the crucial moment by German Ak-Ak ~ an M-E 109 dived in and was firing a burst at what appeared to be an impossible miss when he went up in one of the black puffs. Ak-Ak fire is an odd Sight. The first I saw was at the coast of Roumania at dawn; at first I thought it was a Signal light, then it began to burst in orange flames off to one side. Reminds one of a Roman Candle or sky rocket _ a pretty sight at a distance. During the day it looks like a dark puff - like a clay pigeon that is "powdered" by a good shoot in skeet; sometimes it is a similar puff only white. The rumor today says we will go out tomorrow night. Just got the report that 4 of our ships are down in Turkey, a neutral country. This means interment for plane and crew except that Turkey is, a Lend-Lease Nation- and there fore strings can be pulled by a third party, the British. This internment law is a hoax; it has its price as does any other racket. A nation promises and vows one thing and then does what looks like it should be the most profitable to it. The general opinion is that the boys will be out with the planes in a couple of weeks.