An armed weather recce on the morning of the 24th encountered intense flak between Duren and Euskirchen, but found very little road or rail movement;
only four claims were made. When the pilots reported weather in the area suitable for operations another formation of eight left Eindhoven to hunt over the plains south west of Cologne. Working independently, the two sections found a few scattered vehicles but no results of the strafing could be observed. Red section in particular encountered terrific flak which punctured a tire on F/O
Hugh Fraser's aircraft. 

On the way home a pair of Thunderbolts attacked the four Typhoons and put some bullets into F/L Ken Sage's
machine; then they turned on FS W.A. Wright and shot him down in flames. Wright bailed out as his aircraft went over on its back, but his parachute did not open. He had been with the squadron only three weeks. 

Intentionally left blank

Intentionally left blank

When this formation returned another departed to continue the search for enemy vehicles; but it also had little  luck, finding lots of flak but very few MET. Two vehicles were damaged. The last mission of the day, carried out in the early afternoon, found more targets and more flak. The formation led  by F/O Bob Laurence flew to the battle area south of Aachen where it broke up into three sections. Laurence took his section down to 3,000 feet over the battle lines where great artillery and armoured activity could be seen. Many scattered vehicles were also visible, defended by "very formidable" concentrations of 20 and 40mm. guns.

After attacking various targets, the four pilots went down on another group of vehicles at Schonberg, a few miles east of St.Vith. The terrific flak barrage here struck two of the Tiffies. A 40 mm. shell made a direct hit on the fuselage just behind Laurence's cockpit, cutting the elevator and rudder trim wires and the hydraulic lines. The cockpit was filled with smoke and the pilot had a desperate struggle to regain control. On return to base Laurence had to use his emergency pedals to get the undercarriage down. 

F/L K.F. Sage did not come back. Despite his rather shaking experience of the morning, he had gone out again as Red 3 in Laurence's section. Struck (1) by flak his aircraft flicked over on its back and crashed into the deck. (2) Like FS Wright, Ken Sage had been with the squadron barely a month. 

(1) Although the report suggests that this happened during the strafe at Schonberg, it mentions an area "between Mayen and Monreal, west of Koblenz", forty miles away to the east. The site of the crash is given as L.0579, a pinpoint near Prum, about seven miles from Schonberg. The Mayen Monreal reference
would appear therefore to be an error. Sage was later buried in the American Military Cemetery at Foy in Belgium, not far from Bastogne. 

(2) Both Sage and Wright were married and had families. Only a short time before his death Wright had received news of the birth of a daughter. 

While Red section was running one gauntlet of flak, Green and Yellow had been weathering another storm around Euskirchen and Duren, " finding the odd vehicle here and there". The total claim for all three sections was two flamers and ten damaged. The hunting was somewhat better on Christmas Day, three strafing reccos accumulating six flamers and 17 damaged in attacks on vehicles, plus two tanks destroyed. The flak did not appear to be quite so severe as on the previous day, but there were two more unfortunate encounters with trigger happy American Mustangs; this time luckily no damage was sustained.

Copyright ©1998-2016 Michael T. Melnick. All rights reserved

the unofficial homepage of Tiger Squadron 

. .