December and Battle of the Bulge

Next air claims for the 353rd came on December 5th when, on an escort to Berlin, the Group ran into 100 enemy fighters and claimed 10-1-1 FW 190s and one 109 damaged. These victories raised the total of Group air victories over the 250 mark. During the engagement, in which two P-51s were lost to enemy fighters, Capt. Tanner destroyed a 190, for his fifth aerial victory, and damaged another.

By mid-December 1944 the Allies were preparing to launch a winter offensive into Germany. Then, as a surprise to nearly all, the Germans opened a major counter- attack through the Ardennes area, on December 16th 1944, in what was to become famous as The Battle of the Bulge. Their offensive eventually reached some 60 miles into Allied lines and was threatening to go further as Allied air units were unable to give much help to. The ground forces due to severely bad weather at their bases and in the battle area. At the critical moment, December 23rd, the weather opened up.

The AAF and RAF air units went all out with a vengeance. The 353rd flew a bomber escort and then an escort to two P-38s on a PRU mission on December 23. During the latter, three P-51s led by Capt. Stump engaged two Me 262s which attacked the photo recon planes near Magdeburg. One P-38 was shot down, and the two jets were engaged down to 15,000 feet, with Capt. Stump and Lt. Stevenson each damaging one of them. On a PRU mission the following day a single Me 109 was destroyed. On Christmas Eve day, the 353rd dispatched an A and B Group to escort B-17s against Biblis Airfield, one of the the German fields from which the Luftwaffe was giving strong support to the German advance.

The 350th Squadron bounced 12 Me 109s and destroyed five, and the 352nd later bounced two and destroyed both. Among the victors, Lt. Abernathy destroyed two 109s for his third and fourth aerial victories, and Lt. Cundy destroyed one of the two 109s hit by the 352nd for his second kill. A single Me 109 was shot down on Christmas day, and the last victory of the year was a 190, destroyed by 1st Lt. George N. Porterfield on New Year's Eve day.

With the beginning of the new year, 1945, Allied ground forces pushed back the Germans forming the bulge into Allied lines in Belgium and Luxembourg. By the end of January the Bulge was eliminated, and in February Allied ground units began moving into Germany. The first half of March saw  U. S. and British forces reach, and even cross at Remagen, the last natural German defense line in the west, the Rhine River. On 24 March, Operation VARSITY-PLUNDER saw the Allies spring across the Rhine with airborne forces in the Wesel area. Thereafter, armored columns swept across central Germany and into Austria and Czechoslovakia during April. Throughout the new year of 1945, the Luftwaffe was most noticeable by its absence in the air, but on occasion it showed signs of its old ferocity.

Weather continued to limit operations by the Group in the first two months of 1945 although it flew 13 missions during the first 18 days of January. There were only 7 missions flown during the next 25 days, however, and from February 14th to the end of that month there were 13 missions. Thirty of these 33 missions were escorts, two were patrols and one was a fighter sweep. Eight aircraft were lost (2 in January) and 29 sustained damage (12 in January).

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