 Ploesti, outstanding achievement among great air battles, startled the world. The Romanian target, rich in oil and source of 20% of the life's blood of Hitler's Wehrmacht, was assigned to the second division before the unit was a year old. For weeks, under the fierce African sun and a wind that scored engines with fine grains of sand, the Liberator crews had worked to perfect the details of this mammoth task. On August 1st, 1943, five groups of V-24s were over Ploesti. They go through an inferno. Scutting above the trees, Liberators attack at a height little more than the oil refinery smoke stacks. At point-blank range, they meet a deadly fire from small arms to large-caliber anti-aircraft guns. Right through the dense smoke and flames roar the bombers, their delayed-action bombs scoring one after another. The cost is high, but the mission, vitally important to Allied strategy, is accomplished in a paralyzing blow dealt the enemy. Ploesti provided the Germans with more than one-fifth of the oil needed to keep their war machine going full speed. This raid was one of the heaviest individual blows delivered against the contracting ring of steel around Hitler's empire. Every man who took part in that mission qualified as a hero. Awards recognized that as Ploesti bred four men for the nation's highest decoration, the Congressional Medal of Honor. They were Colonel Leon W. Johnson of Moline, Kansas, Lieutenant Colonel Edison E. Baker of Akron, Ohio, Major John L. Gerstad of Racine, Wisconsin, and Second Lieutenant Lloyd H. Hughes of Corpus Christi Tech. Hughes' courage was typical of all the men who flew that day. Flying in the last formation into the target, Hughes' plane was hit by a flak. Gasoline screamed back over the wing and fuselage. Disregarding the long grassy plane beneath him, Hughes chose to continue on over the target rather than make a forced landing. Flying through the leaping columns of flames, a gasoline-soaked bomber dropped its explosives and emerged blazing. The pilot then attempted to land. Too late, the aircraft and inferno plunged to the ground. Three of the awards, the Congressional Medal were posthumous. North was presented to Colonel Johnson, later commanding General of the 14th Combat Wing, when the liberators returned to England. Standing in front of his men and aircraft, the Colonel was decorated by Lieutenant General Dever's, then commanding the European Theater of Operations. While Ploesti was in the making, more and more liberators were taking the long hop from the United States to bases in England, where they arrived at stations in the flat Green Country side of East Anglia. Boomerang, pioneer with these first liberators over Europe, a veteran of Africa, the Middle East and Great Britain, was the first B-24 liberator to complete 53 missions in the European Theater of Operations. After his 53rd flight, the battered bomber, which was almost scrapped after its first mission because of flak damage, went back to the states to tell how the Libs were helping to win the victory of the air. Everyone came to Boomerang's going away party. There is the 2nd Division's former commanding general, General James P. Hodges, with group and wing commanders. Shaking hands with the pilot, the general and his staff and the maintenance and combat crews pay homage to this bomber. Boomerang was never a plane to pick easy missions. Flying solo over Ploesti, she came back with corn stalks, clinging to the Bombay Doors. Almost ready to go, Boomerang has covered nose to tail with names and messages of goodwill from its old friends and greetings to ground crews at air bases in the states. Now the engines turn over. The familiar takeoff roar is heard for the last time in England as the plane taxis down the runway. Boomerang is headed home. Her wheels lift from the ground as she quickly gains altitude. Does a 360 for one last goodbye, giving the base an airmen's farewell before sweeping off into the west, homeward bound. An announcement in October of 1942 tells the Liberator men they are now the 2nd Bombardment Wing, early predecessor of the 2nd Air Division. The announcement had hardly been made when the major part of the 93rd was ordered to Africa on what was to be a detached service for 10 days. Before they returned again to England, however, what came to be known as the first African expedition had lengthened to 10 days to 3 months. From desert bases they bombed Desert Fox Rommels, retreating Army, and attacked Naples and air drooms in Sicily to help in defeating the enemy in Africa, the first major victory for the Allies in the European Theater. The Liberators that had been left behind in England had not been inactive during that period. With the submarine menace threatening to cut the vital Atlantic lifelines, bombing of sub-buildings and repairing facilities was a top priority on the 8th Air Force's list. Time after time the Libs went to Brest, Lorient, Toulouse Police, and San Nazaire to hit the undersea boats in their lairs. January 1943, the first American bombing of Germany itself with the Libs and Forts leaving the great U-boat yards of Willemshaven ablaze despite 50 Jerry fighters and plenty of flight. Over the continent waits the Luftwaffe, deadly opponents in the sky still strange to friendly fighters. The crack units in the German Air Force including the Abbeyville kids, JG-26, that expert group of Jerry fighter pilots who are always up and ready to intercept the bombers daring to fly un-escorted over Nazi-held Europe. With replacements of aircraft and crews coming in a thin trickle, losses to the then few Liberators were a devastating blow. Only the courage and determination of the combat crews and the hard work and long hours of the ground personnel kept the tiny force going until the acceptance of daylight precision bombing at the Casablanca Conference started replacements coming in an ever-increasing stream. Vagasoc, Antwerp, Brest, and other continental ports feel the weight of Allied bombs as the Liberators and Fortresses bore through the enemy defense. Spring of 1943 and Kiel shipbuilding yards of the target. In the six-hour flight, the 44th group took part with the flying Forts in one of the biggest and most vicious battles in the history of the 8th Air Force. Carrying the first incendiaries to be hauled in a bombing attack by this Air Force, the Libs were forced to continue their bombing run past the dropping point for the Forts because of the nature of their load. During this extended bomb run, 120 enemy fighters, both single and torn engine, stabbed at the Libs from every quarter. Liberator crews were aware of the great importance of these sub-producing yards, and despite one after another their numbers exploding or slipping away fought their way through and showered their 100 and 500-pound clusters of incendiaries over the area. When the final count had been made, six of the small force of Liberators were gone, but in return the enemy had lost 23 fighters confirmed and 13 more probable, while five miles below smoke and flame testified to the havoc wreaked on the ground. For their part in that great battle, the 44th was awarded the blue badge to the War Department Distinguished Unit Citation. They later received a cluster when they, with a 93rd and 389th, were honored for ployesty. While the main force of Liberators were in Africa, the 2nd Bombardment Wing was joined by another group, the 392nd. Shortly thereafter the Wing became the 2nd Bombardment Division, and group after group came overseas. On the full roster of 2nd Division's units were the 445th, 446th, 448th, 489th, 453rd, 457th, 446th, 467th, 491st, and the 492nd. Deeper and deeper fly the Liberators as the number of aircraft on each mission grows steadily larger. Munster, Solingen, Ludwigshaven, Fremen, Kiel, all these are familiar targets. And then suddenly, Danzig, Norway, and southern France all come under the bomb sites of the B-24s. Emden, Germany, the 27th of September 1943, brought a change in heavy bomber procedure. Cloud layers that completely covered German targets wasted innumerable days in the winter bombing season, scrubbing or causing missions to be abandoned even after the planes were in the air. The mission to Emden altered that. As a result of experiments carried out by Liberator squadrons, targets were bombed successfully by instruments through 10-10th's cloud cover. The day before Christmas of 1943 a new element entered the target material for the heavy bombers. Oddly shaped construction jobs just across the channel are revealed as they threaten pilotless bomb sites. An air bomb bombardment is called on to destroy as many as possible. The Liberators made more than 50 missions to the Pas de Calais, and the heavy bombers were credited with effectively delaying the launching of the first buzz bomb and drastically reducing the number finally hurled against England. The Battle of Gotha was won by the 2nd Division during the week of the 8th Air Force's blitz on Germany's aircraft factories in February of 1944. For more than two and a half hours, the Liberators of the 2nd Division fought their way through a hell of bullets, shells and bombs. Desperately the German fighters, nearly 150 of them, tried to halt the task force. They called on every trick, raking the Liberators with machine gun and cannon fire, diving to within 50 yards of the formation and suicidal attacks, even air-to-air bombs in their attempts to break up the formation. The bombs went down right on the target, flattened nearly every building of the powerful Gotha air wagon fabric plant, producer of a third of Germany's twin-engine aircraft. The Nazis lost 76 planes that day. One B-24 group lost 13, another 7. Losses were high, but Gotha, monument to the courage, persistence and tenacity of the purpose of the 2nd Division's men, never recovered. On D-Day, the skies were almost clear of opposition, a tribute to the masterful job of precision bombing during that week of blitz in February 1944. For their achievements on this mission, the 392nd and the 445th Bomb Groups were awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation. High spots of the Spring Campaign, which saw the Libs hit airfields, aircraft works, oil refineries and other strategic targets in Germany and occupied Germany, were several of the missions to Big B, Berlin, the first of which took place on March 4th. In May there came a decided change in the targets. With the German production severely curtailed as a result of Allied bombing, the Libs along with the 8th Air Force Fortresses switched to strikes on tactical targets. Gun positions on the French coast, railway yards and junctions, bridges and airfields were hit to hamper the German defenses in the coming invasion of Europe. D-Day, Day of Achievement, that day for which the freedom-loving people of the world had waited for so long. Four times on June 6th, the 2nd Division Liberators take to the air to fly over the bridge of boats but across the channel for the invading forces. The first time they pound beach defenses, a few hundred yards ahead of the invaders hitting the beaches and assault boats. The rest of the day they devote to blasting communications behind the beach heads, railroads, bridges and road junctions. The Luftwaffe put up practically no opposition that day, a tribute to the bombing by the 8th Air Force Libs and Forts of Germany's aircraft industry and Air Force installations. After D-Day, losses began to decrease. The Luftwaffe showed up less and less often for combat. Gunners of the Division downed an occasional jet-propelled enemy fighter but the enemy reserved his force for sporadic attacks on straggling squadrons or flights separated from the main formation. B-24 still failed to return but the rapidly clearing area of liberated France provided airfields for emergency landings and safety for crews forced to bail out. Flack gradually disappeared until an airman returning from Brunswick was able to report only six bursts out of range from that once bristling city. Vivid memories of Ploesti loom up again with the low-level supply mission to our Airborne Army in Holland in September 1944. Loaded with ammunition, equipment and medical supplies for the 1st Allied Airborne Army, the liberators fly across the Netherlands at mid-day. Dodging church steeples, they have the unique experience of welcome from the long-oppressed people as they are waved on to their objective. Small arms fire from German forces caused many wounds but failed to halt the delivery of cargo to the waiting infantrymen at Arnhem and Nijmegen. Now as the ground forces rolled back the enemy, the Libs were back again as strategic bombing with the emphasis on shutting off Germany's oil supply without which the Wehrmacht cannot move. And when the Allies reached the Siegfried Line, the Libs were there too. Cologne, where many railroad lines converge, was bombed again and again. So were the other rail centers of western Germany, Koblenz, Karlsruhe and Kassel. The Fortress at Metz was hit in a successful move to ease the path for the tanks and infantry advancing on the city. Even with the enemy being crowded from both sides farther and farther back into his own country, there was still work for the liberators to do. After the record-breaking blow behind Rundstedt's lines on December 24th, the liberators continued for days to hit German communications along the western front and wherever German industry reared its head, there was another target for the B-24s. On March 24th, the liberators were assigned the task of dropping supplies to our troops crossing the Rhine. Another low altitude mission, this one the jumping off point for the final campaign. Trucks arrived at the 392nd bomb group with supplies to be loaded in the Libs. They were backed up to the bombers where armament crews let go of the tailgates and started unloading with vigor. Until Lester Morris, a tech sergeant from Englewood, California, informed the men that some cases contained grenades and similar high sensitive explosives. The unloading continued as rapidly, but a little more gently. The liberators were to supply both American and British troops one half the force to carry long white metal canisters and wicker hampers containing British supplies. The other half loaded oblong, brown, padded crates, reels, gasoline, jerry cans, and bundles of goods for U.S. forces. Parachutes of different colors were used to identify ammunition, gasoline, rations, and signal supplies. Thousands of men are parachuting from aircraft or landing by gliders in pre-designated areas on the east bank of the Rhine as the Libs start out on their mission. 480 liberators loaded to capacity fly the same routes into the target where they can release their unusual load. Just before reaching the Rhine, the first of the supply bombers passed the last of the British gliders and then swooped down to even lower levels to see Allied armies crossing the Rhine in force. This operation was coordinated directly with the advance across the Rhine by Field Marshal Montgomery's 21st Army Group and the Allied 1st Airborne Army. The fields east of the Rhine are studded with gliders as the bombers of the 2nd Division roared over the dropping area to release nearly 500 tons of all-important supplies and equipment, dropping and parachuting more than 4,400 canisters and bundles. Intense enemy flak meets the bombers at several points. Flying in as low as 100 feet, they go through a hail of fire from 20-millimeter anti-aircraft cannon, machine gun and small arms, but the drop is made to the men waiting below. Then swinging back with supplies still being dropped, a Lib Waste gunner later said, The battlefield was an inferno of burning objects, while fierce gunfire and battles raged between our airborne troops and the Germans. What we experienced was much worse than any heavy flak, but we dropped all our supplies to our ground troops and as we pulled away, we could see our boys picking up the cartons. It made us feel pretty good to help give such close support to the boys fighting down there. Recrossing the Rhine again at the bombed out city of Weasel, more planes and gliders were still winging their way east in a seemingly never-ending flow. Now the heavy bombers are soon to be stood down. On the first mission in 1942, 20 Liberators reached their target and dropped 50 tons of bombs. Early in 1945, more than 75,000 Liberators had been dispatched by the Second Division, dropped 160,000 tons of bombs on enemy hill territory. Nearly 1,000 Liberators were missing in action from the close to 400 missions they had flown and with them about 10,000 men. 1,050 enemy fighters had been knocked from the sky by the 50 caliber guns of the big bombers and another 256 were probably destroyed. The damage to the enemy that had been done on the ground cannot be reckoned but would probably be counted in billions of dollars in man hours. For the heroism and gallantry they have displayed, the Liberator Airmen have been awarded many medals and decorations, five Congressional Medals of Honor, 41 Distinguished Service Crosses, 156 Silver Stars, as well as countless Distinguished Flying Crosses and Air Medals for aerial achievement. Three groups have been awarded the War Department's Distinguished Unit Citation, one of them the 44th having received it twice. The Liberators' battle against the enemy has taken them from Africa to Norway from the coast of France to the farthest border of Germany. The enemy capital of Berlin was bombed. The industries of Paris were also bombed when the enemy was there. Then when the Germans were gone, the Liberators flew food to starving cities, Liberators and Spirit, as well as in name. On the 22nd of May 1945, as many men of the 2nd Air Division were already leaving the ETO to join in the Battle of the Far East, General Kepner, then commanding General of the 8th Air Force in Europe, presented the Lord Mayor of Norch, a memorial fund donated by the members of the 2nd Division in honor of their comrades lost in the Air Battle of Europe. My Lord Mayor, on behalf of the officers and men of the 2nd Air Division, it gives me great pleasure to present to you this document establishing a trust fund of 20,000 pounds for the construction of our memorial in the city of Norwich. This memorial in the form of the entrance hall to your new public library and its adjacent reading rooms will be our tribute to our comrades who made the supreme sacrifice for their country in carrying out the great air offensive against Germany from English bases. This memorial we feel will not only be a shrine which the families and loved ones of those gallant men may visit in years to come, but will also express our deep gratitude to the people of the Norfolk Norwich community for their marvelous friendliness and hospitality during our stay in your country.