The first couple of op flights that Art and I flew were uneventful, but on the third morning we caught two merchant ships off the coast of Denmark. We immediately called back to base on VHF and awaited the squadrons arrival, while keeping the ships in view. Five other Beaus showed up in about ten minutes and the Wing commander directed all of the aircraft in a successful rocket attack. The steel armor piercing rockets are positioned so that when the gun-site is focused on the ships waterline, the eight rockets are programmed to straddle this line. The steel penetrates the ships hull, the machinery in the hold and the ship's bottom, causing it to sink slowly over a few days, or more likely to be beached on a rocky shore.

When the aircraft go into their initial attack, in this case in two flights of three close together, the flight leader directed the operation, as to the flight path and arming of the rockets. After the rockets were released the ship would usually be strafed with cannon fire in order to drive the crew below deck, however, if as in this case, the ships were not armed the leader signalled that we were not to use cannon fire. Most of the aircraft made several direct hits on the ships, however it would be a few days before the complete results of our attack would be known.

A couple of days later Art and I had quite a scare from a couple of friendly aircraft. Early in the morning we were cruising at about 500' just below the low hanging cloud when Art shouted over the intercom, "Watch out behind”. At a quick glance I saw two U.S. air force Mustangs making a pass at us from about five o'clock as they say in the movies. I instinctively pulled the Beau up into the thick cloud to escape being blown apart, and at the same time identifying ourselves over fighter command VHF and adding a few choice words of my own regarding their eyesight.

On another occasion in our excitement over the operational strike, Art and I became separated from the rest of the squadron, so I asked him to give me a course for home. He said that as we had flown out to the rendezvous on the wing of the flight leader he figured we would be going back the same way, so didn't worry about the navigation. Slightly embarrassed I called base on the RT and asked for a vector home. Within seconds they came back with a course to steer which they adjusted a couple of times in the next few minutes. Their bearings were extremely accurate though as they brought us in directly over the end of the runway. Needless to say our faces were slightly red when we showed up at the debriefing.