Loading List 1, Box I




Loading List 2, Box II




Loading List, Spares




A-20 Formation






Bombs from 9th AF Douglas A-20s (Havoc) fall on pilotless flying bomb launching site in the Pas De Calais area.
Many of these sites are being knocked out by the 9th Air Force light and medium bombers.
(Fold3.com NARA ID: 342-FH-3A19069-52868AC)

Missing Air Crew Reports, Aircraft Accident Reports, and other incidents

Date	Report		A/C Serial # Type	Mis- sion #	Bomb Sq	Location	Personnel (Status when available)
Apr 11, 1944 Tuesday	No_Report		43-9387 A-20G	13	670	emergency field	McGlohn, Charles L. (Seriously Injured) Moran, John W. (Not Injured) Driskill, Paul B. (Not Injured)
Apr 11, 1944 Tuesday	No_Report		43-9360 A-20G	13	668	Wethersfield/Sta 170	Conant, Hiram Francis (Not Injured) Orr, John R. (WIA) McCreery, Joseph E. (Not Injured)

To view more information regarding an Incident/Report, click on the Report hyperlink.
( = Entries having actual Reports available for review.   = Entries having additional Images or Photos.)
To view an individual's Memorial page, click on the "Name" hyperlink.

Included are Box, Flight and Position; Bomb Squadron; Aircraft Serial Number, Fuselage Code and Model; and Crew Members
transcribed from individual mission Loading List documents by Chris and Mary Adams and Carl Sgamboti.
Some information, such as Squadron, Serial Number, etc. has been expanded from other documents.

Group and Unit Histories

Mission # 13 -- April 11, 1944, Tuesday AM
Bonnieres and Beauvoir, France -- NOBALL (XI/A/85 and XI/A/79)

"416th Bombardment Group (L) - Group History 1944"
Transcribed from USAF Archives

In the afternoon 38 planes made an attack on a NOBALL target at Bonnieres and Beauvoir. Three planes dropped window between the two targets to protect the 37 planes that made the attack. The boxes led by Major Meng with, Lt. Powell, B/N, and Major Willetts with Lt. Peter C. Royalty, B/N, hit the targets squarely with 130 x 500 G.P. bombs. Bomber Command rated the results "good".

"Attack Bombers, We Need You! A History of the 416th Bomb Group"
Ralph Conte
Pages 49 - 50

Mission #13 and 14 - 11 April - Bonniers and BeauvoirNoBall targets. Each of the two boxes were assigned different targets although both taking off in normal fashion and split up at the target area. Major Meng and Lt. Powell, BN went for one Noball and Major Willetts and Lt. Basnett went after the other. Both bombardiers hit their assigned aiming points, after which the two boxes re-assembled and flew back to base. Moderate flak met both boxes but with little damage. The major problem meeting the group was a heavy cloud bank prevented normal landing patterns. Descending through the clouds caused planes to scatter, fortunately, not into each other. They made it back to base inpairs, or trios and various times, but with no casualties.

McGlohn Mission

Captain Dave Hulse with Lt. Ralph Conte, BN, were leading a flight on a mission to Bonnieres and Beauvoir NoBall site, on ll April. Hulse was the officer detailed to write up awards recommendations for fliers. Hulse related this story:

Charles McGlohn was flying on our wing. We were going into the Pas de Calais area, and he caught a piece of flak that wounded his leg or arm. The shot knocked out his complete instrument panel, destroying it. He made the bomb run with us, ignoring the pain. When the bombardier dropped his bombs, McGlohn dropped his load. When we started back to base, the cloud cover was from 2,000 to 10,000 feet thick. We had to go down through 10,000 feet of overcast. As our flight dropped down, McGlohn tried to stay in formation with us, but the clouds were so thick and dense, he lost sight of me and he became very concerned that he may get lost in midstream and would not be able to tell which was up or down without instruments to go by. He was also concerned about hitting another plane.

He left the formation. He had not gone too deeply into the fog, so he went back up, well above the clouds, cut back on the throttle, trimmed up the ship to where it was flying in a slight dive, and started to descend. But first, he asked his gunners to bail out, but they stayed with him. As he started down, he thought he was going down about 1000 feet a minute, which meant it would take him about ten minutes through the cloud bank. He had to sit there without moving, holding the controls steady. He came out of the bottom of the clouds. He was moving at a high velocity, which he could not tell for sure without any instruments, and pulled back on the steering column and got the ship under control. He saw a field nearby, underneath, and went in to land. The crew all scrambled out of the plane. He was taken to a hospital.

When I talked to him after he was released from the hospital, he told me what he had done. I thought he deserved some kind of an award, since he probably saved flying into another ship in the clouds on the way down and he took steps to prevent such a mishap. At that time there was some kind of a rule on awards, that if you were injured and bleeding before you went into the target, and dropped your bombs and came back, that was considered an heroic thing. If you got hit on the way back coming to base. that was not considered heroic. In the first case, maybe a Silver Star, in the second place, maybe a DFC.

The Awards and Decorations Offcer, John T. S. Morris, wrote up the mission and his prose was excellent, but his description lacked substance. Since he was not a flier, he could not know what danger must be, in the air. I felt he deserved at least a DFC, so I re-wrote the citation request on a borrowed old typewriter which hardly worked. I mounted the machine on a discarded K-rations box. I had to overcome a problem of the keys on the machine striking twice, so I tied an old coke bottle on a string, and held the carriage in place. I had to make three copies, all originals, no erasures, which General Vanderberg read. He erased DFC and put infor a Silver Star to Charlie. He got what hedeserved.

"670th Bombardment Squadron (L) History"
Transcription from USAF Archives

Major Meng lead the mission of April 11th, which was an attack on two Noball targets - Bonnieres and Beauvoir. Nine of our crews participated in the attack and the results were rated as "Good". On this mission a shell burst 15-20 feet below the front of Lt McGlohn's airplane while near the target. The left tachometer, the left manifold pressure gauge and the airspeed indicator were shot out. Lt McGlohn was injured in the left knee by pieces of flak, and pieces of his instrument panel. There were about 30 holes in his aircraft. Lt McGlohn stayed in formation until a descent through the overcast was started over England. Due to the lack of instruments and the fact that he could not keep a good formation because of his injury, he left the formation and circled until he found a hole in the clouds. He descended safely. Due to the fact that his radio was out he could not contact his gunners to tell them of his plight. However he had their confidence and they remained with him. Lt McGlohn safely landed at Nuthemstead, England. He learned on landing that his right tire was blown. This necessitated using the left brake with his wounded left knee. However, he was able to keep the aircraft straight on the runway until the last moment when he swerved off the runway to the right. By skillful landing under extreme difficulty Lt McGlohn prevented a crash of his aircraft and also possible injury to his gunners. He was hospitalized for his injuries (See Exhibit # 13 attached), and the wounds sustained earned him the Purple Heart.

"671st Bomb Squadron (L) Unit History"
Gordon Russell and Jim Kerns

The 416th went on their third mission in 25 hours on the morning of April 11, 1944. One box was led by Major Willetts with Lt. Basnett navigator and Lt. Royalty bombardier. There were two boxes each with a separate "No-Ball" target. They were both bombed successfully, and the two boxes reformed and started their return trip. Moderate flak was encountered, but little damage was done.

Upon arrival over England the formation found it necessary to let down through the clouds. The result was hardly as desired, as the ships scattered all over this section of England, coming in by twos and threes. All ships returned.

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