We departed base and joined the bomber stream without any issues, our flight was without incident until we crossed into Germany. Then the buggers started at us non stop, Jerry seems to have a new means to slip up on us from below. We suffered no less that four attackes from enemy fighters attacking in a vertical climb. We did not know they were there until they opened up. We were in a running battle across Germany. Our port wing and #2 engine were shot up and the engine caught on fire, but we managed to extinguish it. Another Me110 shot us up again, but Sgt Dunn did a wonderful job keeping the Krauts at bay. He accounted for two Me110's destroyed and another two probable (FBOA). Flight Officer Gardner found a hole in the cloud cover and dropped 30% of our bombs on the target indicators. On the way home we came under attack again and lost the heat on the flight deck. We did not realize it at the time but our landing gear was knocked out as well as most of the tail controls. We dropped down to 10,000 feet and this was most likely responsible for our being able to avoid Jerry for the remainder of the flight home. On our approach to airfield we could not deploy the landing gear so we chose to stay with the ship and make a wheels up landing. Despite the damage the ship took the ground echelon believes they can repair her.
Flight Officer Art DeFilippo
314 Squadron
Pilot, Family Business
Damage Points: 334