Maj Gale "Buck" Cleven’s personal account of October 8, 1943 Target: BREMEN

The following was written by Maj Gale Cleven, 350th Bomb Squadron C. O. 100th Bomb Group shortly after arriving at Stalag Luft III in late October 1943. New parts were added by Maj Cleven in Feb 2004 and appear in parenthesis ().

Take off and assembly of the group was routine on the morning of October 8, 1943 for a bombing raid on Bremen, Germany. The component parts of the Eighth Air force gradually combined to string out in a line towards the enemy coast. As the groups closed in battle formation, a steady climb was begun to enable the units to be at altitude before reaching enemy territory. Before reaching the IP (Initial Point), the door panel on the Ball Turret sprung causing a malfunction, hence necessitating stowing of the guns. Flak over the target was intense, which caused the High Squadron of which we were leading to break up leaving our wingmen. The leader of the group at this time made a violent turn to the left releasing his bombs in that attitude, then turning sharply to the right aborted down and out of the group with number three engine smoking. We flew straight ahead firing flares to reassemble the Group but during the confusion, the remaining ships had flown down to the low group thus leaving us alone. Turning to the right as briefed, three fighters at 10:00 high, out of the sun, attacked immediately causing considerable damage. 20mm shells hit number two engine forcing it to freeze and throw oil over the left side of the plane. A gas line was ruptured permitting a large flow to whip under the left wing. The controls to number three were shot away leaving a loss in power and no way to vary that power. The cowling and lower cylinders were shot away on number four putting it on the inoperative list. Information from the radio gunner disclosed that the dorsal fin and rudder was split open vertically by exploding shells and that the air flow was widening the opening rapidly. The horizontal stabilizers were punched thoroughly by the same cause. Many control cables including all the trim tab controls were severed, in the waist position, the lines were hanging limp, thus hampering the movements of the gunners. By this same attack approximately 8 to 10 feet of the left wing was blown off and small caliber shells ripped through the left side of the nose continuing on to underneath the co-pilots seat causing a fire in the blankets stowed there.

The plane was cleared of all loose articles and ammunition to lighten the load in a futile attempt to fly (Buck was trying to get to the boarder and into Holland before they bailed out) but as decent was gradually forced, hovering fighters set number one engine afire thus forcing bail out immediately. The Navigator (Lt Downs) set the hour to be at this time approximately 5:15pm. I left the ship at about two thousand feet landing approximately five to ten miles northeast of Osnabruck surrounded by irate farmers.

(Maj Cleven left the ship via the nose hatch and pulled his ripcord after he saw the tail go by his head. Buck remembered swinging tow or three times in his chute then going fright threw the front door of a German farm house ending up in the kitchen and ruining the stove. The Mama was crying and calling Buck a Luftgangster and a Terrorflieger. The Papa had Buck lying on his back with a pitchfork up against his chest. Buck was trying to explain in his collage German thqat he was really a helluva nice fella but wasn’t getting very far.)

Since Benny (Capt. DeMarco, pilot) and I fell close together we were promptly taken to a Luftwaffe station just west of the city where our crew gradually filtered in. We stayed overnight under guard and at noon boarded a train going south traveling through Munster, Essen, and Dusseldorf to Koln, changing trains at that point, we continued onto Frankfurt arriving at 1:00 AM. On October 10, slept in the station until 7:00 AM at which time we traveled via train to Quackenbruck in the outskirts of Frankfurt. Transferred to street care and at 10:00AM came to Dulag Luft Uberossel. Remained in solitary overnight and was interrogated by the Germans the morning of Oct 11. Left there at 4:00PM and walked a short distance to another section where personal articles were returned; then we moved to the center of Frankfurt that evening. Oct 11-Oct 20 at Dulag and at 6:00 PM on the latter was transported via street cars to the railroad station where we boarded freight cars. Forty-three men to a car plus three guards. Spent three nights and two days going by the way of Erfurt and Leipzig to Sagan. Arrived at Stalag Luft III on Sunday Morning the 23rd of October at 9:00 AM.  

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