March 28 – At Gaudo that morning, it looked like we were going Martin B-26 to spend the day on the ground because of the usual reason – weather. I got up about seven A. M. and after a quick bite of C rations, I climbed into the Squad six-by-six, and went over to Group to find out what kind of mission we were scheduled for. In spite of the threatening weather overhead, we were thoroughly briefed by intelligence, weather officer, navigator, group bombardier, chaplain, and then the usual last minute talk by the group CO Colonel Smith. Because of the adverse weather, take off time was set for early afternoon, in hopes that it would break by that time. (Sentence struck by War Dept.) It had become a nice flying day by 2 P. M. – only a few white clouds in the area and not much wind but very cold at 11,000 ft. and l was thankful that I had such a good supply of warm clothes to wear.
Photo copies of the first two pages of the original manuscript after review by the War Dept.
Assembling over the field gave me a beautiful view of Mt. Vesuvius, still in quite violent eruption and throwing dust and smoke into the Mediterranean, almost obscuring Capri. Starting northward, we circled the mouth of the Volturno River to wait for our fighter escort to get airborne and assemble.
PAGE 48 ... TARPA TOPICS