1943: TURNING the TIDE.

Bocce Ball Bulletin.
Our Team 12 lost to Team 16 this morning by the same score that we won by last week - 12 to 9. I didn’t play very well. I was rolling long. I didn’t adjust the ball speed to allow for the tailwind. Oh well, there’s next weeks game.
After my return from the court, I ran into my “mentor”. I told her that we lost. She smiled - patted me on both cheeks - and said, “Poor Baby”.
1943: TURNING THE TIDE (cont.)
I flew eight missions as a B-17 bombardier, prior to, and during the invasion of Sicily on July 9, 1943.
Gerbini Airdrome (3 Missions.)
Biscari Airdrome.
Catania Railroad Marshalling Yard.
Messina Railway Bridges and Marshalling yards.(2 Missions.)
Milo Airdrome.
Our B-17 Group was part of Jimmy Doolittle’s 12 Air Force. We were based in North Africa. Our average time for each round- trip mission from Africa to Sicily was about seven hours. We flew our bombing runs at an average of 22,000 feet.
From my plexi-glass perch in the nose of the plane, I had a tremendous view of the invasion of Sicily. The Mediterranean, off-shore from Catania, was one huge parking lot for our Naval ships. I didn’t think that there were that many naval vessels in the world. They looked very peaceful floating there, from four miles high.

In browsing through the above subject-book, recently, I came across the following memo, that I had written the first time that I read it.
My strongest memory of the Invasion of Sicily is a very sad one.
They were big snafus on someone’s part and a fiasco. It’s a wonder that we ever won WWII! We lost some gliders and men aboard, when the C-47’s that were towing them made a big mistake. They cut the gliders loose at the wrong time - the wrong release point.
Other C-47’s turned East- rather than West - off the East coast of Sicily. That mistake put them over the Mediterranean Sea, rather than over Sicilian dry land! British destroyers thought that they were enemy aircraft and shot some of them down, over the water.
Such basic mistakes by trained people are hard to believe. But, I put myself in their shoes, and I can relate to the errors, as devastating as they were. In the heat of battle, you can become confused and make critical mistakes through very faulty decisions.
Two of our roughest missions - both from flak and fighters - was Messina and Palermo - the Capital of Sicily. The only positive thing was a great view of Mt. Etna, as we approached from the South.
RCL 6/9/09.

.