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Warren L. Soden
1324 Andover Rd.
Richmond, VA 23229
Jaromir Kohout
SLET
Tesinska 3
31200 Plzen
Czech Republic
At briefing prior to the Ruhland mission on 9/11/44
the 100th Bomb Group was informed that we would encounter
strong enemy fighter opposition, however,
we would have heavy fighter cover. The 349th Squadron was
flying top position and our plane , a spare, was flying right wing.
Therefore, we were the top plane in the group.
At the I.P. (initial point) southwest of Ruhland we
were jumped by F. W. 190’s. I did not see any of our promised fighter
cover and I head no confirmation from our gunners that they saw any P-51’s
or P-37”s. I could not see what was going on above and to the rear due to
my position in the nose. From my window I did see one B-17 start down and
one crippled Fw 190 go through our lead squadron on the way down.
After several passes by the 190’s 20mm fire knocked
out our tail controls, both rudder and elevator. We started down and I
could see the pilot’s feet (Everett’s) on the rudder pedals trying to get
control. (I could see the cockpit from the nose due to the fabric panel
being absent in this plane.) I bailed out and on the way down I saw our
plane almost directly below me on a flight path that was consistently
left-right with decent significantly slowed. This flight pattern indicated to
me that Everitt was still flying the plane. I can only conclude that he
had not bailed out and was trying to get below cloud cover before bailing
out (approximately 5000 feet cover according to the information at
briefing). However the plane
exploded shortly before reaching cloud cover and I saw only pieces of
aluminum floating down. I landed in a forest and was picked up by Germans
soldiers and put in a panel truck with Manniello (co-pilot). We were taken
to a building were cuts on my head (and Manniello’s) were closed. My major
injury was in my lover back, the chest straps on chute opening had taken
most of my weight with the result that I almost had a spinal separation.
Ed Minton, the nose gunner, was paralyzed from the waist down due to his
chute opening while falling at high velocity. I saw Ed, September 13th
on a stretcher in Chomutov and knew his condition was very serious. He did have a
spinal separation.
I was transported by train through Prague and Munich
to Frankfurt for interrogation. I was with a B-24 crew whose Navigator was
missing and the interrogator assumed I was a member of that crew. After
leaving Frankfurt I went by train through Berlin and onto Stalag Luft I at
Barth on the Baltic Sea where I remained until liberated by Russians on
April 30, 1945.
I have seen three of the original crew members, the
co-pilot John Manniello, the tail gunner, William Kenney, and just
recently William H. Titley, the Bombardier.
Five members of the original crew did not survive the
fighter attack on September 11, 1944. These are the pilot Lt. Orville C.
Everett, Cpl. Robert Williams, Cpl. Robert Howard, Cpl, Homer K. Hirsch
and Cpl. Edward Minton. Cpl. Jamesx V. Armstrong was not flying that day;
he had been seriously wounded on a earlier mission and Cpl Lawrence A.
Radka was radio operator in his place. Cpl. Radka did not survive.
I trust this brief statement of the Ruhland mission
on September 11, 1944 will be of use in your project.
Sincerely,
Warren L. Soden -end-
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