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I was stationed in Italy for much of the war, flying light bombers on night raids with the 55 Squadron ‘Night Intruders’, and at Christmas in 1943 the squadron converted to A20 Bostons, another American light bomber that was much better that the Baltimores we had been flying. We were then stationed at Ancona, later moving with the front line to Forli in the north of Italy, slightly south east of Bologna.

From Forli we engaged in another low level night time raid. We were supposed to be attacking another marshalling yard, Vigodesera. We’d been shown reconnaissance photographs of the area, and there was a railway line running north to south, and south of the yard was a wide canal. We decided to follow the canal, circle around a tower and then follow the railway line to the yard. We were flying at just 200 feet in the dark, loaded with seven second delay bombs. We were flying so low that we had to have delayed bombs, otherwise we’d be caught in the explosion when they hit the ground! We got the bomb doors open when the Germans began to open fire on us, and we were hit on the starboard wing. I’d stuck the nose of the aircraft down and we were so low that if there had been a level crossing they’d have had to open the gates for us! The gunner, ‘Scho’, was moaning to us because his guns were facing the wrong way and he couldn’t shoot back. After we were hit we dropped our bombs and everyone was relying on me, the pilot, to get us back in one piece. I took it easy just in case the damage to the wing got any worse. I certainly felt very alert during the whole mission! What we didn’t know was that one of the other allied planes had been through the area before us so the Germans had been on their guard already when we got there. We got back to base and checked the wing, finding a great big hole in it, but it was another successful mission for the ‘Night Intruders’, just another job done.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by James Barton from Westree Learning Centre and has been added to the website on behalf of Captain Ron Healey with his/her permission and they fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

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