大象传媒

A log book entry from P.O. Ronald Sharp RAF, 70 Squadron

Guidonia Aerodrome, Italy
October 23rd 1943

This op was to Guidonia Aerodrome. This particular place was an experimental drome where all kinds of funny things took place. We arrived over there and found it well lit up. We decided to go straight away, our target being the hangers. We let go nine 250 lb anti-personel's, getting five direct hit's. One of the hangers collapsed.
It was just after this bombing run that things began to happen. There were several dull thuds underneath our aircraft which made it lurch. We immeadiately suspected flak so Jack put the kite through some evasive action. The funny part about it was there was'nt any flak burst in the sky. We reckoned Jerry was using flashless stuff but, try as we could, we did'nt see any smoke either. Then to make matters worse, one of our aircraft in front exploded and went down in flames.

We were turning in on our second run when another kite of our starboard beam burst into flames and went down and burst into pieces with a huge flash. It really put the wind up us without a doubt as we knew not the cause of these happenings. Jack put the nose down and we got the speed up to 220 mph. One of our sticks went down on seven aircraft dispersed in the south west corner of the airfield. They landed in amongst them and though we could'nt see what damage we had done because of the dust and smoke, we felt we had done some.

Just after Frank had said "bomb doors shut", I saw the biggest explosion that I reckon I'll ever see in my life. Someone had dropped a 4000 lb bomb on the ammo dump and the whole lot went up. First of all there was a collosal flash and then through the middle of it came what looked like an eruption of a volcano, with debris thrown 5000 ft into the air. The most fasinating thing about it was the way it spread. It was like a pebble had been dropped into a perfectly still pond and the ripples gradually widened until the whole surface was distorted. That was what it looked like, only the ripples were heat waves, reddish in colour and spreading all over the drome. It looked like there was a heat haze, shimmering and distorting the features on the ground.

When the explosion reached us at 8000 ft we felt like a cork in a rough sea. Jack said afterwards that the controls jumped from his hand and we were thrown up to 10000 ft. We left the target, it gave us the willies, so we were glad to see it in the distance, as a bright glow in the sky.

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