340th Bomb Group History

340th Bombardment Group History

340th BG Patch

340th BG Squadron Insignia
	486th B.S.	487th B.S.	488th B.S.	489th B.S.
	Click on the squadron insignia above for links to digitized squadron histories

May 24, 1944 Mission to Poggibonsi Viaduct

Squadron War Diary

340th HQ Diary No mission went out yesterday, but three took off today to attack Poggibonsi rail bridge, Poggibonsi viaduct, and the Orvieto town road bridge. Nothing good was done with the first two assignments, chiefly because of cloud cover, but the 489th squadron gave a part of the Montepescali ammunition dump an effective high explosive treatment. Clouds hung over the Orvieto road bridge, so the 487th picked the rail bridge north of it and claim to have pranged it good, as the English say.
486th Usual Squadron duties and missions.

487th First mission of the day took off at 09:30 to destroy Poggibonsi Viaduct, Italy. Twleve of our ships were over the target at 10:30 and dropped their 88x500 bomb load from 8500' without success. First box overshot on 82º heading and the second box failed to find target on initial run, made an attack on 262º and overshot the viaduct. No ack-ack or other opposition was encountered on this "milk run."

488th Mission to Poggibonsi and Orvieto road bridge.

489th Record is missing.

Target in 1944

Target Today

View Larger Map

Squadron	War Diary
340th HQ Diary	No mission went out yesterday, but three took off today to attack Poggibonsi rail bridge, Poggibonsi viaduct, and the Orvieto town road bridge. Nothing good was done with the first two assignments, chiefly because of cloud cover, but the 489th squadron gave a part of the Montepescali ammunition dump an effective high explosive treatment. Clouds hung over the Orvieto road bridge, so the 487th picked the rail bridge north of it and claim to have pranged it good, as the English say.
486th	Usual Squadron duties and missions.
487th	First mission of the day took off at 09:30 to destroy Poggibonsi Viaduct, Italy. Twleve of our ships were over the target at 10:30 and dropped their 88x500 bomb load from 8500' without success. First box overshot on 82º heading and the second box failed to find target on initial run, made an attack on 262º and overshot the viaduct. No ack-ack or other opposition was encountered on this "milk run."
488th	Mission to Poggibonsi and Orvieto road bridge.
489th	Record is missing.

Crew Lists and Mission Reports

On the crew list for the 488th Bomb Squadron below, the bombardier
in plane 8A is listed as 2nd Lt. J. Heller. This is Joseph Heller, the
author of the novel Catch-22.

Crew List 488th

340th BG Squadron Insignia
	486th B.S.	487th B.S.	488th B.S.	489th B.S.
	Click on the squadron insignia above for links to digitized squadron histories