100^th B.G. Accounts of the
May 24, 1944 Mission to Berlin

Editor’s Note: 
On May 24, 1944 at 0655 hours eighteen aircraft of the 100^th “A" Group and seventeen of the “B” Group set out for Big “B” – Berlin. Nine crews would not return.  The following is the story of that mission from Group Narrative [Official 100^th BG Post-Mission Report], formation charts, and through the eyes of Frank Malooly, Maurice Fitzgerald, Anthony Lombardi, Fred Cebalo, Edwin Stearn, Jim Brown, and CENTURY BOMBERS.  Most of us have heard the phrase “the fog of war”, but few, save those who have served in combat, can truly understand the full scope of the statement.  So much happens so quickly, and what seems perfectly logical and, perhaps, maddening from one perspective, is totally different from another.  This mission is a good illustration of that.  Many of these men have since passed away, but their written memories bring this mission alive for us. Following this account are two more individual narratives by Neil Jespersen and Robert Black.

There have been many debates over the years by scholars and historians about the USAAF policy of assigning stateside Training Command officers into combat theater positions of leadership without proper "hands on" experience. In some cases it made no difference while in others, it could be dangerous.  On May 24, 1944 the "fog of war" would prove disastrous for the Bloody Hundredth.   

It began normally.  The “B” Group, leading the Combat Wing, would take off first with Col. Ollen Turner in command flying with Captain Jack Swartout. The General Narrative report tells us that seventeen aircraft including one P.F.F. departed the base at 0640-0654 hours.  By 0750 hours the group had assembled over Splasher #6 at 12,000 feet.

The eighteen aircraft of the “A” Group departed the base at 0655-0724 hours.  By 0800 hours the group had formed over Splasher #6 at 10,000 feet.  The 100^th “A” Group flew as low group in the 13^th “B” Combat Wing.  Thus the 13^th “B” Wing had 100^th Groups as its bookends.  

“It was a complete disaster from beginning to end,” recalled Pilot Frank Malooly.  “After take-off the Group leader had difficulty forming up with the Wing for some unknown reason.  We started across the North Sea badly strung out and way behind the rest of the Wing, which he was trying to catch up to.  Very stupidly we entered enemy territory in this same condition and our low squadron, led by my close friend Mark Wilson, was badly strung out and behind us several hundred feet.”

The 100th "A" Group lead B-17 was 42-97845, with Command Pilot Major Maurice Fitzgerald, aboard on his fifth mission, and piloted by Captain James Geary.  Geary, who had already completed one combat tour with the 390^th Bomb Group (in the famous B-17 "Pistol Packin Mama"), volunteered for another and was assigned to the 100^th.  “That is what impressed me so much about Jim Geary,” wrote Maurice Fitzgerald in 1987,…he volunteered for a second tour!”

Enroute to Berlin, FW-190’s zeroed in on the “coffin corner” group, the low squadron of the “A” group, which was straggling along but attempting to catch up.  Pilot Neil Jespersen estimated that the low squadron was 1000 feet below the rest of the Wing and 500 yards behind the rest of the “A”  group. The fighters attacked, flying the length of the low squadron and then back up the opposite side. As Frank Malooly put it, “We were ‘meat on the

table’ for the Luftwaffe and were soon attacked by a large group of enemy fighters. They decimated the low squadron

The aircraft flown by Martin Hoskinson and Robert Roeder were two of the first hit.  According to a letter from a German researcher, their crash sites

were only 200 meters from each other.  He further writes that the German fighter pilots noted how difficult it was to see. “They said it was a milky haze from the cirrus and from the smoke of the engines.”

Anthony Lombardi, TG on Roeder’s ship, saw something whiz by his position and asked what it was.  “Soon McElroy [BTG] called on the intercom to say the door fell off the ball turret, and he had narrowly escaped falling out sans parachute.

“McElroy was ordered to the radio room to complete the mission.  I called out fighters at six o’clock as the navigator [Claude Robison] called an attack at twelve o’clock.  We were also attacked at nine o’clock.”

After the loss of its wing, the aircraft broke apart somewhere between the radio room and the tail.  Radio Operator Frank Goldstein fell from the aircraft without his chute.  Nathan McElroy, whose chute was lost when the ball turret door fell off, was able to grab the chute from the radio area, put it on, and bail out safely.

RWG on the Roeder crew, Fred Cebalo remembered the wing being shot off their aircraft.  “I was thrown back and trapped in the waist, fracturing my right leg.  As I was trying to get out, the ship broke at the ball turret and tail section.  I crawled to the door and jumped.”

Fortress 42-102635, piloted by Martin Hoskinson and co-piloted by Marvin Apking, who with their crew were on ‘their first or second mission’, was from the 349^th Squadron.  All ten men were killed.
This crash was also documented by the German researcher.  “The plane came down out of the clouds and crashed into the earth exploding and burning with a big cloud of smoke.  Nine airmen in the B-17 were dead inside the plane and burned, and the tenth lay outside the plane on a field.”

The Clarke Johnson crew flying A/C 42-102624, were on their first mission.  Seven of the ten men aboard were killed.

Jespersen’s crew, flying 42-102528, bailed out with their ship on fire.  Pilot Neil Jespersen and Co-Pilot Robert Atkins were taken prisoner, together with engineer George Kostoulakos, waist gunner John Legg and bombardier Joseph Savino.  The rest of the crew was KIA. 

Mark Wilson’s aircraft was seen leaving formation on fire but under control.  Mark became a POW three missions later and, when bumping into his old friend, Frank Malooly at Stalag Luft 3, told him, “they got back to England by hitting the deck, but lost the rest of the squadron.”

Now the “A” Group is down to nine aircraft. [See formation sheet over target.]

“What was left of our Group,” said Malooly, “finally caught up with the other B-17s, and I have no idea if with our proper Wing.  We proceeded to Berlin and dropped our bombs.  While still in heavy flak over Berlin I noticed the lead plane lose altitude and starting a right turn which was the wrong way. I called on the radio but getting no response I told Group that he was going down and to re-form on me.  This action by the leader (instead of properly aborting his lead position and letting me take the lead) again got us off by ourselves.  We were attempting to get the Group back into position when we were jumped from behind by a group of FW 190’s. They were firing 20 mm shells into us with predictable results.  The [Lindley] Williamson ship on my left wing stayed ‘til the bitter end when we both caught fire and bailed out.” [Eight of Williamson’s crew managed to bail out as the ship burst into flames and were taken prisoners of war.]

CENTURY BOMBERS explains that the B Group lead plane with Fitzgerald and Geary was hit “by a shower of lead”, which knocked out part of the interphone system and damaged the oxygen lines.