TARGET: ARMAMENT FACTORY PLANT
WEIMAR, GERMANY
24 AUGUST, 1944

Thirteen hundred heavy bombers were dispatched on Policing attacks on German oil refineries from Hannover to Brux and aircraft factories in the Brunswick Leipzig area.

The 457th Group was assigned a land armament factory located five miles northwest of Weimar, worked by political Prisoners from an adjoining concentration camp. Gestapo barracks and a headquarters were also in the target area. Recent reports indicated the factory was also engaged in producing the V-2 rocket bomb.

The 36 planes with the team of Major Smith and Captain Clarence E. Schuchmann leading the 94th A Combat Wing, formed and experienced some difficulty in achieving Wing and Division formation. When the German coast was penetrated near the mouth of the Elbe River, all clouds had disappeared. Hamburg and Bremen were passed on the left and right as the formation headed southeast for the BerlinLMagdeburg gap. Shortly before reaching this point, near Stendahl, Lt. Teddy G. Shaw in the low box was hit by a jet, left the formation with No.2 and No. 3 engines on fire, went into a spin, pulled out and went into another spin before exploding at 10,000 feet. None of the crew survived.

When the formation swung around to the east and south of Leipzig to approach the IP, Lt. Windred L. Pugh’s plane was hit by antiaircraft fire, peeled off at 25,000 feet, spiralled down, whipped upward into a stall, and the right wing and tail came off. It then spun down, exploding at about 10,000 feet, with four to five chutes observed before the explosion. Five of the crew failed to survive.

At the IP, the boxes took intervals for the bomb run in a cloud free sky. The targets were identified and bombs dropped. The lead and high box covered half of the compact mass of buildings in the factory area with some bombs falling over into the Gestapo area. The low box put most of its bombs off to the left in the woods, but some reached into a corner of the stores area of the plant.

The target area was left a smoking, burning ruin as the boxes rallied into wing formation and headed northwest for their exit from Germany near Emden. No fighters and flak were seen on the way.

Besides the two aircraft lost, four were damaged by flak at the target.

Duration of mission 8 hours and 20 minutes

From the diary of 751st BS gunner Sgt. Albert G. Williams, flying A/C 42-31383 “American Eagle”:
“Well, what do you know, today was my first mission. We went to Weimar, a suburb of Leipzig, and practically all the rest of Germany. The FLAK was moderate to intense, but luckily we weren’t hit enroute, we passed near by Breslin and Hannover.”

Lt. Edwin B. Benson, 457th/749th bombardier: Mission 2. Weimar. V-2 factory. Time 8.20. High. FLAK and fighters.