S/Sgt. John Veenschoten's Diary

398th Bomb Group
Memorial
Association

S/Sgt. John Veenschoten's Diary
Radio Operator/Gunner, 603rd Squadron

Veenschoten Mission No. 2

**25 July 1944**
**Target** **St. Lo, France**
Target – St Lo, France Date – July 25, 1944 Bomb Load – 100 lb. fragmentation Still waiting for our crew to arrive, I was assigned to Lt. Sleaman’s crew as waist gunner. John Travers, a member of the regular crew, flew as tail gunner. Once again a fantastic view of all the landing craft off the coast of France. We bombed German positions in front of the advancing American fifth army. The bombing altitude was 16,000 feet. I could see heavy ground artillery fire and our own bombs exploding in the German positions. What hell it must have been on the ground. After dropping our bombs we descended to 8000 ft. At this altitude we got a little to close to the isle of Guernsey. They sent up some flak and we sent down some fifty-caliber bullets. The mission lasted about 5 hours.

Notes:

S/Sgt. John Veenschoten was a Radio Operator/Gunner on Howard W. Rehme's 603rd Squadron crew.
The above transcription was provided by Wally Blackwell.
This transcription is a careful reproduction of the original except for occasional spelling and punctuation changes. In some circumstances, based on relevancy, some material may not have been transcribed.
Clarification of acronyms or special words or guesses of certain words are shown in brackets [ ].

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