Oral History Interview with Eugene R. Cronin, February 1, 1972 Page: 8
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Cronin
8Cronin:
Marcello:
Cronin:
Marcello:
Cronin:
Marcello:
Cronin:No, the flak. We had very few fighter attacks. Flak
was truly fearsome. We were briefed that . . . well,
at the briefing is when you're told of all the various
things that you are to do and the things that are going
to happen, and they have a briefing before a mission.
This is usually a pre-dawn meeting of the pilots who
are going on the mission that day.
Right. But in all the briefings those who allegedly
knew would say that when you're in flak, if you see
red--the German 88 was the gun being used--if you saw
red you were getting hit. You were very close. They
always seemed to me to come up where you could see them.
There would be four explosions at once--they're separate
explosions. We later saw them being fired from the
ground by German ack-ack gunners, and it was a unit of
four guns, and they fired in stair steps.
When you say they fired in stair steps, do you mean at
different altitudes?
Right.
The four guns fired at different altitudes.
I remember one of the first trips over Vienna. Being
up front there, I saw the four red flashes as they went
by and heard a lot of noise and racket, and you're scared
and screaming over the intercom, but I remember seeing
this on probably two different bursts. First of all,
we were the last squadron that day, the last group in.
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Marcello, Ronald E. & Cronin, Eugene R. Oral History Interview with Eugene R. Cronin, February 1, 1972, book, February 1, 1972; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1529237/m1/10/?q=%22~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Oral History Program.