Eddie's Story:

My memories on looking back to that time are vivid in my mind.

I was in a sub-depot attached to a B-17 group stationed at Beccles, England with the rank of Tech Sgt. and was section head over 25 mechanics. We worked 12 hour shifts from midnight till noon but were on call at any time depending on how many planes came back damaged, we rotated shifts every two weeks. Our job was to repair all except very major battle damage to planes that suffered damage in combat. We replaced engines, wings, fuel tanks landing gear, (salvaging many parts from planes that could not be made airworthy) patched holes in the fuselage caused by anti aircraft or fighter planes. We repaired any damage we could handle with the equipment we had on base.

For a couple weeks before D-Day we were told to get as many aircraft air worthy as possible but we all assumed that the air raids over Europe would be increased. We made every plane possible ready to fly into combat, even the drone plane used to line the group into battle formation was made capable for combat. This plane would take of first and circle the base and the other planes would take of in their proper order and get into formation following the drone. Then they would fly of to the target for that nights mission.

About midnight June 5th planes from all the surrounding air bases were taking off and getting into formation, it was then we realized that something very special was going to happen, we did not know what but knew it was going to be something big.

Unfortunately the weather turned bad with poor visibility so many planes had to return to base unable to complete their mission. The noise level was extremely high with the sound of so many planes in the air at the same time, it was unbelievable. Later we found out that this was the beginning of the big offensive D-Day.

This is how I remembered it.

My worst experience came after D-Day when a group of B24 planes returning to a neighboring base were making their landing approach with landing lights on and two German fighter planes shot several of them down. The problem was the gunners on these planes got lax and dismantled their guns (strictly against orders) before landing and consequently had no way to defend themselves.  It was dusk when these planes followed ours over the coast of England by hiding in the overcast skies and were not detected by the coastal radar, by flying just above our planes.

The German planes were shot down by our fighter planes but too late to save our planes.

At this time our base was gearing down getting ready to come back to the states so there was not much for our depot group to do, therefore some of us were assigned the gruesome task of recovering the remains of those who perished that day. These planes went down in the swampy marshes near the coast with only the top of the fuselages visible. We took axes and cut through to gain access. Our orders were to remove the classified equipment and the bodies.

This memory will live with me forever.

Eddie 
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