On one mission, the Belle was flying in clouds so a German Junkers-88 fighter-bomber had entered the formation and was hovering about 50 yards from above the top turret gun position manned by Harold Loch. But it wound up with eight "kills" of German fighters. On other missions, the Belle returned to its base at Bassingbourn with no ammunition. On the Memphis Belle's fifth mission, some 300 German fighters its formation in Romilly-sur-Seine, France, in one of the war's more intense aerial battles. "We counted 62 holes in the plane when we got back," said Morgan, who had to land at Exeter, a base closer to the coast rather than Bassingbourn, because one engine was out and the plane was out of gas. Our squadron got shot up badly-just ripped to pieces on that one. In fact, most of our early bombing missions were on submarine yards because we had to stop German U-boat packs from sinking Allied shipping between North America and England.
"The target was the submarine pens at St. "You know, we would skim the surface until we got to the target, stay below the attention of German fighters and radar, pop up to a couple of thousand feet, drop our bombs and get out. "Our first two missions were high-altitude bombing missions, then on the third, it was decided that we would `surprise' the Germans with a low-level attack," recalled Morgan, the pilot.
The Memphis Belle was the lead plane on 300- to 400-craft bombing formations. Surviving 25 missions over occupied Europe in 1942-'43 was hardly a given.