About one month after arriving at Thurleigh, the 306th Bomb Group went on their first mission to bomb Compagnie de Fives Lille, the great steel and locomotive works at Lille, France. Twenty-three B-17s took off from Thurleigh led by Commanding Officer Col Charles “Chip” Overacker. For the first time the boys learned what it really meant to ‘sweat it out’.
At 0732, the lead plane started to roll down the runway with the last plane clearing the runway at 0814. Two planes aborted the mission before reaching the enemy coast because of mechanical problems. Nineteen planes dropped their general purpose bombs on the primary target while two aircraft bombed the secondary, the airfield at Courtrai.
As the 306th came off the target, at least fifty Focke-Wulf 190s hit the Group with both head on and tail attacks. One of the German fighters broke through and hit 367th John Olson’s B-17 and both he and the co-pilot Joseph Gates were killed. Their top turret gunner Erwin Wissenback was credited with destroying one enemy plane and was one of three survivors who were able to bail out.
Critically wounded Arthur Chapman, a gunner on Robert Seelos’ 368th crew, was taken to the hospital upon landing back at Thurleigh, but unfortunately succumbed to his wounds on October 14. Sergeant Edmund Becker, a gunner on Otto Buddenbaum’s 368th crew had both hands frozen while trying to retrieve his oxygen mask and was also in critical condition. No amputations were necessary, but he never returned to the 306th.
The Group landed back at Thurleigh at about 1100 with many planes badly damaged. It was a long hard initiation to combat for the men of the 306th. Group Flight Surgeon Dr. Thurman Shuller wrote in his diary, “Man must be nothing but a fool to face a hell of fire like that. But that’s what we came here for and we’ll have to see it through.”