As we mark the 80th anniversary of one of the many tragic events of World War II, we honor the extraordinary sacrifice of the 20th Squadron of the 2nd Bombardment Group, who took to the skies on August 29, 1944. What was anticipated as a routine mission to strike an oil refinery in Czechoslovakia became the bloodiest day in the squadron’s history, with none of the bombers returning home. In honor of these brave airmen, we are sharing an excerpt from Mighty by Sacrifice: The Destruction of an American Bomber Squadron August 29, 1944, by James L. Noles and James L. Noles Jr., a gripping account that delves into the personal stories behind this tragic event.
By now, the carefully constructed formation of bombers, with their mutually supporting and interlacing fields of fire, was a shattered wreck. Like a breached dam, it broke wide open, scattering aircraft across the Czechoslovakian skies.
At the head of the formation, Tune clung grimly to Tail End Charlie’s controls, still trying desperately to provide a cornerstone around which the remnants of the squadron could build a defense. He pulled as close as he could to Wolf Pack, ahead of him, ignoring the danger of flying so close to the other bomber.
“I said [to myself] I have really screwed up royally because I have got our formation in too tight a position and I started to pull the throttles back,” Tune remembered. “[But] I said, ‘no, don’t touch them and try to ride it out’ because I would have caused all these poor fellows on the side to scatter.”16
Regardless of Tune’s own missgivings, William Bullock and Clarence Jackson, at the controls of aircraft 359, did not question their lead pilot’s decision. They stayed loyally on his right wing. On the other side, Bill Garland and Leo Zupan did the same, keeping Snaf uperman tucked in on the left.
Sitting beside Tune in Tail End Charlie’s cockpit, Frank Flynn remembered surviving the first wave of attackers and marveling at a Luftwaffe pilot streaking past the bomber’s right wing a scant 30 yards away. “The sky was filled with white ex- plosions, and our plane sustained more hits,” the copilot remembered. “The right wing showed seven or eight holes, some with flames.”17
In the bomber’s radio room, Joe Owsianik had switched positions with Robert Kirsch, the radio operator, and started preparing his camera for the upcoming bomb run at the time of the attack. Then he heard the shouted warning: “There they are at six o’clock.”18 Tail End Charlie carried a .50-caliber mounted in the roof of the radio compartment, and Owsianik craned his head to look out through that gun position. To his dismay, he saw lines of German fighters racing from behind in a series of V-shaped waves. “They were stacked up like a flight of stairs, ten high,” he remembered.19
Above him, Thomas Coogan’s twin .50s in the upper turret began barking at the first wave of attackers as the flight engineer fought to protect his bomber. By the time Owsianik brought his machinegun into action, the second wave washed over them. He trained his gun on an incoming Fw 190 and poured a stream of tracers into it, the heavy machinegun recoiling like a jackhammer as it spat brass shell casings across the fuselage’s floor. A burst of flames around the German fighter’s fuselage signaled a hit.
There was no time to gloat, however, as the third wave of fighters swept in. A cannon shell punched through the radio bank and exited through the bomb bay doors, leaving a tunnel of bright sunlight to mark its passage. Another burst of gunfire wounded Owsianik, leaving his right arm torn and bleeding. Elsewhere in the aircraft, other machineguns still chattered angrily in response. As Tail End Charlie’s gunners fired, they called out excitedly to one another, warning of in- coming aircraft and claiming hits on others that swooped too close.20
Faced with such odds, however, Tail End Charlie was hopelessly outmatched. It shuddered and rattled constantly as it shouldered its way through the latticework of German tracers. “The incendiary shells were so thick it looked like you could walk on them,” Tune recalled.21 Then a burst of 20 mm cannon fire caught Russell Meyrick, the aircraft’s bombardier, killing him instantly.22
With Meyrick dead, the bomb bay doors remained closed, leaving the bomber’s deadly payload to hang menacingly in the racks. Rockets and cannon fire blasted holes “as large as washtubs” in the bomber’s wings.23 Within seconds, the No. 2 engine caught fire. Another cannon shell hit and blew up the oxygen tank on the plane’s right flight deck wall, wounding both Flynn and Tune. With his aircraft ablaze and falling out of what remained of the squadron’s formation, Tune signaled his crew: “Get ready to bail out. We’re going down!”24
NOTES
- William S. Tune and Loy A. Dickinson, interview by James L. Noles, October 14, 2003.
- Dickinson, Pindak, and Tune, Mission No. 263, 33.
- Ibid., 35.
- Joseph Owsianik, email correspondence with James L. Noles Jr., April 15, 2005.
- William S. Tune and Loy A. Dickinson, interview by James L. Noles, October 14, 2003.
- Dickinson, Pindak, and Tune, Mission No. 263, 29.
- Frank Flynn, Casualty Questionnaire, Missing Air Crew Report 8763.
- Ibid.
- Dickinson, Pindak, and Tune, Mission No. 263, 35.
Interested in reading more? Get your copy of Mighty by Sacrifice today!
“Brilliantly captures the sights, sounds, and fury of the bomber war in World War II. From the fast-paced action of pilots outmaneuvering strafing Fw 190s to the adrenaline-charged stress of a tail gunner’s position, this ground-breaking book puts the reader into the lethal skies of Central Europe in the summer of 1944.”
—Patrick O’Donnell, author of We Were One, The Brenner Assignment, and They Dared Return