TARGET: MARSHALLING YARD
METZ, FRANCE
25 MAY, 1944

Duration of mission 7 hours and 5 minutes

The railroad marshalling yards at Metz was the primary target for the 45 7th. Metz was on the main line from Saarbrucken to Paris. The Group provided two twelve-ship boxes for the mission.
The lead box hit the assigned MPI, a locomotive workshop, within approximately 1,000 feet. The low box was more successful, scoring direct hits on the workshop, the yards and the adjoining buildings. No enemy aircraft were encountered. Flak was meager and inaccurate.

Formed over Splasher 10 and assembly flying over London area. Two ships were taken down over Abbeyville just inside the French coast. At the I.P the group did a 360 turn because of the large number of ships, over the target the lead ship did another 360 as did the rest of the group. No FLAK at Ostende at Belgium coast when going out.

From the diary of 2nd Lt. John O. Millham, navigator 749th BS:

Metz 05.25 – 12.30     7 hr and 5 minutes

Marshalling Yards        Ship B – 164

Formed over Splasher 10 and lot of assembly flying was over London. Used our new twelve ship formation. We were #3 high Squadron. Just inside the French Coast we saw some ships fly over Abbeyville gunners are still too sharp for us. Nothing else happened until we got to I.P. There we did a 360 turn because there were so many ships around. Something happened to the lead shipover the target. So we did a 360 there too! No FLAK so it didn’t bother us. When we got to the Belgium Coast on the way home we all expected FLAK from Ostend or Nieuwport but nothing happened. We saw hundreds of our medium bombers going in as we were coming out. Happy news when we got back, was that Lt. Stafford who was supposed to have been shot down over Berlin the day before had fought his way to some place in the north sea and ditched. The whole crew was saved 12 hours in water. They were a good bunch of boys. Over the channel the group got into clouds and broke up. It was a hectic ride for a while.