Robert J. Weichhand Mission January 31, 1945

January 31, 1945

#3 D

After a month of cancelled missions - we finally got off on one. It was to Moose Bierbaum (Vienna) We took off at 0908 and at 1010 we were on course. We had an escort of 63 P-51s meet us an hour before the target. We flew pos. 8 in #93. No enemy sighted on the way to or from. We were over the target - an oil refinery - at 1420. Altitude 23,000. Temp -500 C. We carried 8-500 lbs and dropped them over the target by P.F.F. as the sky had a solid undercast at 12000 ft. Our angle of attack was 282o and I saw only about 5 bursts of flak. They were far away. That was the sweetest bomb run yet. And for the first time we got rid of the bombs on time - though Williams salvoed them - as Shute had been in trouble, he had all of his fingers frostbitten and though it is not too serious he is in the hospital at Bari now. Lt. Osburn was the co-pilot. Graham did not fly this one as he was grounded. We had a different engineer. #92 and 99 turned back or force landed. No. 26 from the 514 bailed out in Austria. We got I sortie or a double mission for that one, bringing our total up to 3 sorties or 5 missions. We landed at 16:45 giving us 7:35 hrs of flying time. Hope the next one is as sweet. About 1240 tons of bombs were dropped. No Hits!!