Merseberg! Pg 7

Now for the punch line! The word was that the straggler we took in our formation in the box position was ohallenged some time before he joined us; i.e., by radio; by Information, Friend or Foe, (IFF) equipment; identification color-of-the-day flare; etc, but the plane flunked them all. Of course this all takes time. Before long he had joined our formation and, with all the flak/bombs away confusion. He had obviously accomplished his mission. Reportedly, this was a German-manned captured B-17 sent up for the purpose of relaying the planes altitude/heading to his German anti-aircraft fLak batteries. Apparently he did a good jab as many of the bombers weren't as fortunate as we were because they didn't make it back at all. I heard figures like 60 bombers were lost overall that day. So, as mentioned earlier, I never saw an enemy fighter during my tour but I apparently was watching a German pilot flying a bomber off our right wing and didn't realize it. We were also told that some of our P-51 "Little Friends" later went after the straggler and shot him down.

Our patched up B-17 went down, the next time out, over the same Merserberg target (2 November). Our crew was in London on pass when it went down. The Stars and Stripes showed a picture or it going down in flame. Our 486th BG contact at Sudbury, England, Roland andrews, sent me a copy of the missing aircraft report, A/C No. 883, November 2, l944. Our crew did go on a later mission to Merseberg (25 November) in another plane but, other than making my toenails curl up at briefing, we came through that one o.k. Our crew lost members gradually, until we broke up in November to become replacements for other crews. Our pilot, Moon Mulletn, (only officer left) was given another crew who had lost their pilot on his first mission. Moon was then sent with a skeleton crew (after 31 missions) to the 3rd Division Scouting Force for an extended combat tour.

Just within the last few years an Eighth Air Force friend of mine told me about a book that was written on the subject of captured allied planes, such as the above mentioned one, entitled "KG 200." [Kampfgruppe] It was about a special highly secret Luftwaffe group whose missions were to infiltrate with captured planes, so, apparently there were other cases like ours.

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