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The bomb raid on Posen took 25 minutes, 430
explosive bombs and 550 firebombs were dropped. To warn the Polish
inhabitants, there were thrown leaflets in Polish language:
" We request you to save yourselfes during the bomb raids! Save your
lifes! Save your families! Keep attention to the cautionary measures
when air alert appears! You are needed for the reconstruction of free
Poland!"
After dropping the bomb load, the formations didn't fly straight ahead
to the West, they took direction to the North. They wanted to fly across
the Baltic Sea and then back to England, because this seemed to be the
safer way. The bombers were escorted by
P-51 "Mustang"
fighters, but some
planes were lost over Germany due to Flak or enemy fighters.
The 1st Bomb Division suffered the heaviest damages namely 8 bombers, 3
of them belonged to the 305th Bomb Group, which bombed the Focke-Wulf
plants in Cottbus. While the return flight the group was attacked by
German Focke-Wulf 190 fighter planes, there was a large air fight. Two "flying
fortresses" were shot down, one crashed near Janau (Janowo), one
crew-member was killed, the others were captured. The 2nd bomber downed
near Prittisch (Przytoczna), the crew was captured. The Germans had to
pay a high price for this two victories - eight German planes were shot
down, only three pilots survived. One of this planes had to crash-land
Sout of Meseritz,
the others crashed in Meseritz area.
Stanislaw
Socha, a Polish forced laborer in Poppe (Popowo), remembers the
happenings:
"... This was on Pentecost 1944,
May 29th midday. I saw a large group of American bombers flying high, so high, that I could
only see small points on the blue sky. This heavy bombers were escorted
by small fighter planes. Then they were attacked by
German planes, there were heavy fights
between them. Suddenly I noticed a low-flying German plane, comming from
South, followed by an American fighter. The hunted plane then started to
burn and black smoke appeared and then it catched the top of
three pine trees and crashed on the
ground. It was frezzled in pieces, the engine was about 100 feet away
from the wreckage. ... All the people wanted to go there and to see what
had happened. But when the
German authorities realized, that it was one of
 their
planes, they had sent the civilians back. Me and my father in law, we
were sent there by the mayor. We went there with a small wagon, we had
to recover the pilot's body. We saw the dead man lying on the field. It
was a young guy. We took him on the wagon and then to the mortuary in
Poppe. Later his family arrived and they took the coffin.
After this disaster, they
ordered the forced labourers to the crashplace to pick up the
ammunition. I had to do this work,
too. This were pieces of the ammunition belt with 3 - 5 rounds, which
were lying in the field...."
(Hopefully)
You will be able to read more in our projected book about the air-fight
over Meseritz. For this reason we are still looking for documents,
information and eye witnesses. If anybody has information about the
happenings on Whitsun 1944, please send them to:
pilot05@op.pl. |
click
on image to enlarge ]
