Posted:
By: Carol Campbell Schaffer
On: 11/09/2006
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November 6, 2006
Related by Paul E. Campbell, Captain and Operations Officer.
I remember the mission very well. On the 15th of February, 1945, Capt. Lozinski came to Operations and said he would like to finish his 2nd tour. He had a little son whom he had never seen at home.
I told him he could fly the next day but he would have a Major as co-pilot. The Operation Officers who had been in the States in the training command were sent to combat after 3 years. What were we to do with a Major with no combat experience? It would be Major Pfund’s 2nd mission. Lozinski, Harold Hughes as bombardier and Louis Rush as navigator had just about 40 missions. Joe Concino, 18 missions, who had flown with Mike Kochel as Radio Man; C I Martin, 13 missions, who flew with Lt Gerber was the engineer; JT Bolan who flew with Lt Wolfe, 13th mission was the tail gunner; the waist gunner was CE Smith who must have come from another squadron flew waist gunner.
The target was Gelsenkirchen. I was the Group Leader that day and Lozinski was High Squadron Leader. Major Clyde Lewis was Air Commander in the right seat with me. Clyde and I were looking up to the High Squadron as they were over running us. As the explosion took place; Lozinki’s plane exploded from ant-aircraft. Telegrams were sent to all families. At Christmas 1945 I received a card saying “Ha Ha, Paul, here I am.” The Bombardier Hughes woke up on the way down, and pulled his ripcord. He was so far down we never saw it. We visited him in Lamar, MO, later at Hamilton and later Boliver, MO, now deceased. One POW in that plane.
Ernie Hanson was flying just to the left of Lozinski. 7 chutes were seen going down.
Jeff Donaldson to the right of Lozinski was from another squadron. Nothing has been heard from any of them, not good.
McKay’s crew flew back to England but couldn’t land their plane, all bailed out.
One pilot who flew just behind this High Squadron wrote a very good report of what he saw. He is:
Wally Wicks
P.O. Box 175
Maysville, NC 28555
He was at the last reunion at Nashville in Sept, 2006. If you would write him, he could send you his story.
One more interesting piece of information: Harold Hughes’ daughter was one of the first women to attend the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs.
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