I served as a gunner and radar counter-measure  ("Carpet") operator with 857th BS and 858thBS during the winter and spring of 1944-1945 on the crews of Capt. Melinat and Lt. Akerhielm--three bombing missions with the Melinat crew beginning 24 Dec 1944 and six with the Akerhielm crew, and with one crew whose name I can't remember.  That's the problem with being a fill-in crew member.
 
     Melinat's crew were veteram carpetbaggers who needed three missions to complete their tour.  Accordingly, we participated successfully in the first three bombardment missions the group undertook.  These were really milkruns to bomb positions of a German division near La Rochelle in France which had been by-passed during the invasion.  I suppose they were really tune-up missions to train us for more serious work later.  When we retruned to base followiing that first mission, the weather had turned nasty and we almost hiit our headquarters building our second  (or was it our third?") attempt to land.  We then flew all over England looking for a clear landing field before finally landing  at an RAF bomber training base.  We attended their Christmas Eve dance in our fllying clothes and enjoyed Christmas dinner with them on  Christmas Day.  I still have the souvenir menu.  In 1945 I was transferred to the 858th and flew missions with Akerhielm's crew.  Our targets were mostly to the Ruhr cities of Dusseldorf, Munster, Dortmund, etc.  We also bombed Freiburg and Wiesbaden--my last mission.  We had fighter attack one time, and Akerhielm put our plane in a series of "Corkscrew" evasive maneuvers.  On one mission where the assigned target was, I believe, the Kiel canal near Wilhelmshaven,  we  could 
 
     not hit the target at the time assigned --although I could see bomb flashes out on the horizon and we couldn't have been far from our target--so we had to turn back and the armorer-gunner and I replaced the safety wires on our 500 pound bombs before returning to base.  We therefore did not get credit for the mission.  The Wiesbaden mission was flown late in the war.   I was told later that Wiesbaden had been previously selected to become an American base and that the mission should not have been ordered.  I also heard that we had missed our target--the passenger rail depot--and had hit the town brewery instead.  Whether this is true or not, it makes for a good yarn.  When I flew as the "Carpet"  radar jamming operator,  I sat opposite our radio operator in a blacked=out compartment--we needed lighting for our work and we obviously couldn't betray our position to night-fighters--and because I had to monitor an audio signal, I was not on the intercom; accordingly, for much of the flight I  wasn't aware of what was happening  in the air.  When I flew as a gunner, my position was in the waist of the aircraft.  I was never really comfortable flying in a B-24 since all my training had been in B-17's.  In fact, the first time I was ever in a B-24 was on that first mission on Christmas Eve.
 
     Best wishes from Beaumont, Texas.  Keep up your good work in helping people to remember their history.
 
                                Lawrence Blum