398th Bomb Group
Memorial
Association


T/Sgt. George W. Forsyth's Diary
Engineer/TT Gunner 602nd Squadron

Foryth's Mission No. 2

4 November 1944
Target: Oil Plants, Harburg, Germany

November 4, 1944

Today was our second combat mission. We bombed the oil plants at Harburg. We got a lot of flak over the target and boy those innocent looking black-puffs of smoke really make you scared. Jim Froelich passed out from lack of oxygen and Don Shaw had to go back from the waist to the tail over the target to revive him. We had one piece of flak hit our ship and the damn thing hit the glass on my turret and left a nice little hole where my head would have been. We flew at twenty-eight thousand and were on oxygen for five hours.

10/500 G. P.
7:45 Hrs


Editor's note:
The official 398th Mission for 4 Nov 1944 was to Harburg, Germany. Forsyth's diary indicated that he went to Hamburg on 4 Nov 1944.

Harburg is about 5 miles south of Hamburg and south of the Elbe River. It is presumed that Forsyth wrote the name of the larger city, Hamburg, though the actual target was Harburg that day. Thus the name of the target in the diary was changed to Harburg to be consistent with the 398th Official Mission records.

Notes:
  • T/Sgt. George W. Forsyth was the Engineer and Top Turrent Gunner for Al Petska's 602nd Squadron crew.
  • The above transcription was provided by James Froelich, son of Sgt. James S. Froelich of the same Petska crew.
  • This transcription is a reproduction of the original. Spelling and punctuation changes have been made to improve readability. In some circumstances, material may not have been transcribed or was rewritten.
  • Clarification of acronyms or special words or guesses of certain words are shown in brackets [ ].

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