James Collison mission July 14, 1943

JULY

Wednesday 14

Messina

Today we bombed the hook-Messina and what a time we did have. Going out we saw the fighting which is taking place on the island of Sicily and all the boats which are taking part in the landing operations. Over the target was so bad as anticipated. We had no flak on the run but after it picked up a lot from the target area itself and also from Reggio and San Giovanni. We had five holes in the ship-one piece of flak entered the nose-bounced off Bob's helmet and sprayed Les with glass. I am glad everyone is alright. The target really took a pasting today-nine groups hit it-we figured we dropped more than a million pounds of bombs between all of us. The 389th was pretty well shot up. No mail today-received three letters yesterday. .......