Target: Pforzheim - 4 March 1945 - Mission #251

About 0100 hours, as the Liberty Run trucks were returning to base along the Kings Lynn-Litchem Road, a twin-engine German intruder aircraft strafed the convoy in a single pass. Cpl Edward D. Ferrel, driver of one of the trucks, was killed. A 20mm shell also went through the pants leg of 2/Lt Stanley P. Gessell, the Group's Technical Radar Officer.

The briefed target for this raid was a tank depot in the city of Aschaffenburg, southeast of Frankfurt. Briefings for (21) crews were conducted at 0245 and 0400 hours with all beginning take-offs starting at 0550 hours. Because of poor assembly weather, for the first time the 2nd Air Division executed join-up just east of Paris but formations were badly scattered and the mission plan was balled up. Before it was over, photos would show that several Group ships which had to join other formations enroute bombed in Switzerland once again by mistake. A main force of the Group’s bombers, led by Major Keilman of the 579th, managed to strike the key industrial center between Stuttgart and Karlsruhe - the city of Pforzheim lying astride the main autobahn in a deep valley. Some aircraft with other Groups did bomb Stuttgart and the town of Frieburg at the southern end of the Black Forest. Unfortunately, later photo interpretations of strikes confirmed that (3) Group Liberators, bombing with another Group, had released weapons approximately two miles southeast of Zurich while a few others had bombed the Swiss border city of Basel. Once again fighter opposition was not encountered and flak was very meager except over the Stuttgart target area. No returning bombers received battle damage as the force returned safely to base around 1320 hours.

CASUALTIES NOT LISTED IN MACR

CPL Ferrell, Edward D. (Driver) Trans. Unit KILD

The death of this individual resulted from a most unfortunate and unusual set of circumstances. He was a driver of a ‘Liberty Run’ passenger vehicle coming back to Wendling from King’s Lynn with 392nd personnel aboard. On the LitchamKing’s Lynn road around 0100 hours, a German intruder aircraft strafed this vehicle, and tragically, Cpl. Ferrell was killed. (Note: Around this period in the war, enemy aircraft did fly over English bases of the Eighth late in the day on the evenings of 3/4 March attempting to strafe airfield flight line facilities and aircraft. It was conjecture that some of these German aircraft actually followed some of the late-returning missions home to England, a rather bold operation at best. During this late time in the conflict of March 1945, however, the flight line at Wendling also fell victim to one low-level enemy aircraft strafing attack one early evening which disabled a number of the Group Liberators, but unfortunately no enemy intruders were shot down in this particular raid. These Luftwaffe raids of 3/4 March were nicknamed "GISELA" by the Germans. Sgt. Ferrell was assigned to Lt. James Goar’s 392nd Transportation division. His home of record was Zanesville, Ohio. Cpl Ferrell's body was returned to Zanesville in July 1948 and buried in Greenwood Cemetery.

CREW LOADING LIST - MISSION #251