James Kemp McLaughlin was born in Charleston, West Virginia in December 1918. He grew up on a small farm and attended public schools there. He graduated Charleston High School in 1936 and then attended West Virginia University and graduated in 1941. The day after graduating he enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He had taken the Air Corps exams while still in college and had been accepted and ordered to report in March 1941 but he wanted to graduate before going and the Air Corps agreed. McLaughlin had taken the exam in 1938 and passed but his parents would not let him go in. He took it again in 1940 and passed it again. McLaughlin remembers vaguely talking about going to war at some point but it was not at the forefront of his mind. There was a sense that it was coming but it did not bother him. McLaughlin had a cousin who had fought in World War I and made quite a name for himself and he wanted to do the same. It turned out to be much more difficult than he had assumed. He went to flying school just outside Jackson, Mississippi at a civilian run facility that the military partially operated. Before Pearl Harbor flight school was pretty easygoing. Their officers would leave around noon on Friday and they had the weekends off. Once Pearl Harbor happened this casual atmosphere evaporated. While in primary school they stayed out on the airfield. The airfield was just a field, there was no tarmac. There was a hangar, some planes, and fuel next to the field. When Pearl Harbor took place the TAC officers returned that night and assigned everyone guard duty. McLaughlin's roommate was assigned to guard the fuel with a loaded rifle. The roommate had never fired a rifle before. He was given instructions to challenge anyone he saw and fire on them if they refused to halt. The roommate was on edge while at his post when a dog came trotting onto the field. He did not realize what it was and opened fire on it when it refused to stop. He narrowly avoided shooting the loaded fuel tanks and after this debacle the experiment with guards with loaded rifles ended. McLaughlin discovered the attack when he came into the base on Sunday afternoon. His bunkmate told him that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Neither of them had ever heard of Pearl Harbor before so neither of them paid it much mind until the TAC officers showed up that evening. They were called into formation and the following week the entire military was jammed up with soldiers being sent back and forth across the country at a moment’s notice. Californians were terrified of an invasion. Everyone immediately got behind the war effort. McLaughlin finished his primary training course around January. Then they were sent to Greenville, Mississippi to open an air base. There they went through basic training and learned to fly the Vultee BT-13 Valiant. They stayed there until 1 March and then went to Columbus, Mississippi for advanced training on a twin engine aircraft, the Cessna AT-17 Bobcat. Right before they graduated they were given brand new Lockheed Hudson bombers. McLaughlin found them to be good airplanes but awkward to fly. They flew those until they graduated in April 1942.

James Kemp McLaughlin was ordered to report for duty at MacDill Field in Tampa. When he arrived on 29 April [Annotator's Note: 29 April 1942] it was still being built. The next day he reported for duty at Hangar 2 and the headquarters of the 92nd Bombardment Group. The commander was Jim Sutton, a West Pointer. The squadron was led by a captain named William Reid. Reid later became the group commander. McLaughlin was immediately made operations officer for the day but he did not do much because there wasn't much traffic at the base yet. From there, McLaughlin served as a copilot on a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. The squadron had four B-17s. The squadron spent about a month just learning how to take off and land the B-17. After that they were sent for field training to Sarasota, Florida. They didn't do much training while there, however, McLaughlin remembers being trained in poison gas defense while there. It was horrible. There were German submarines in the Gulf near New Orleans and near Tampa. They would broadcast over open channels propaganda and McLaughlin's unit was assigned to fight the submarines. They did not have any antisubmarine equipment but they would take airplanes on missions around in the Gulf looking for submarines. The planes were armed with depth charges but had no radar. One morning McLaughlin's crew was heading back from a mission and was near Key West when someone in the nose of the B-17 spotted a submarine. They made a 360 turn to get another pass at it from about 1,000 feet above the water. As they were preparing to drop the charges the navigator realized how close they were to Key West and thought that it might be an American submarine. It turned out that it was. It was largely a waste of time, except for the time spent flying the aircraft. They never dropped any depth charges on targets. McLaughlin only dropped a bomb on a target once while in Tampa and that was a paint slick from a couple thousand feet. He only flew high altitude once while there. After doing sub patrols they were ordered to go to Springfield, Illinois in July. They took their planes to the Middletown Air Depot in Pennsylvania to get newer planes with bigger guns that they would then take overseas. During the wait the 92nd Bomb Group transferred to Bangor, Maine. This took some time and beginning in August one squadron per week would fly to England. The 97th Bombardment Group and 301st Bombardment Group arrived before the 92nd but the previous two groups had flown through Canada, Greenland, and Iceland. The crews of the 92nd Bombardment Group were all neophytes. The 97th Bombardment Group lost many airplanes in Greenland. The 92nd Bombardment Group CO Jim Sutton decided to fly direct and got permission from Hap Arnold [Annotator's Note: General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold] to do that. They added an extra tank to one side of the bomb bay and that allowed them to fly direct. One aircraft lost an engine during the trip but the other 35 made it to England without incident. Their first base was just near the village of Bobbington, not far from London. Their first flight lasted about 11 hours. McLaughlin served as copilot for the squadron commander during the trip overseas. They arrived on Saturday at Prestwick, Scotland and flew to Bobbington the following morning. When they arrived at the village green they saw a bunch of old British guys with foliage in their hats crawling on the ground training in case of a German invasion. All of the road signs were taken down to hinder the possible invaders.

Their [Annotator's Note: the 92nd Bombardment Group] first mission was in September [Annotator's Note: September 1942] but James Kemp McLaughlin's squadron [Annotator's Note: the 326th Bombardment Squadron] didn't take part in it. They flew a separate mission up the channel as feint to send German defenses toward Holland. They turned around after a while but they lost one aircraft. One of McLaughlin's friends was captured and stayed a prisoner until the surrender. Hardly anyone knew how to use a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. Once they took off they circled the airfield until they were in a formation. No one had any experience flying in formation or flying at altitude so it was a new experience and some planes were damaged during the climb as their engines malfunctioned. When they were heading towards the target the CO [Annotator's Note: commanding officer] reduced his power without telling anyone. This led to the planes on his wings overtaking him. The other pilots began to zig zag in order to slow themselves. Two of the planes doing this collided and the propellors of one went through the tail of the other. Both of them had to limp back to base. As soon as the squadron dropped their bombs and turned back to base they were hit in the tail by antiaircraft fire. The plane caught fire and McLaughlin took control of the aircraft. He dropped the nose to gain speed and hoped that the other planes would provide fire support. The engineer was busy fighting fires. One of the waist gunners bailed out when the plane was hit. The radio operator had been hit by shrapnel and he was lying on the floor of the radio room screaming on the intercom. McLaughlin looked out his window and saw a German Focke-Wulf Fw-190 sitting right on his wing. He looked at them for a minute because he had seen parachutes falling from the plane. The tail gunner had gone into the cockpit because the tail was on fire. The only remaining gunners were the navigator, bombardier and the ball turret gunner. The German fighter lined up for an attack but led them too much on his first attempt. McLaughlin could see tracer rounds going past the nose. The Fw-190 dove under the B-17 and the ball turret gunner shot him up. The fighter came back headed straight up with black smoke billowing from the airplane. They had stayed at altitude throughout this and returned across the English Channel. The squadron commander had climbed down and buckled his parachute on and sat down by the navigator. On the way back the navigator asked McLaughlin to decrease altitude because the plane had no oxygen. McLaughlin felt fine but he didn't realize at the time that he was running on adrenaline. He was all out of oxygen so he dropped the altitude and the commander came back and took over the aircraft and landed it. This was McLaughlin's baptism of fire. This was one of the roughest days of McLaughlin's first tour. Another time, in Norway, he flew for four hours out over the North Sea with an engine on the verge of bursting into flames. There were also German fighters following their radar trajectory looking for them but unable to gauge altitude, as well as the prospect that any attempt to ditch would like result in death by hypothermia of the entire crew. The B-17 could fly above the fighters range.

[Annotator's Note: James Kemp McLaughlin flew 39 missions during two combat tours in Europe in Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers with the 326th Bombardment Squadron, 92nd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force.] A heavy snowfall made bombing in Norway impossible. Everything was covered with snow. While they were searching for the target, which was a powerhouse where they were attempting to create an atomic bomb, the number three engine lost oil pressure. This would lead to dangerous friction and an eventual fire if the plane was forced to keep flying. McLaughlin called the group leader and told him that he needed to drop out but the mission leader radioed back telling him to wait as they had just found the target. They added power and stayed in formation with three engines. The lead navigator was excellent. The plant was coal fired and the steam was invisible except for its shadow on the snow. The navigator saw that and once everyone had dropped their bombs they made their way back to base. McLaughlin knew they wouldn't be able to keep up with the formation and told the other planes to go on ahead. McLaughlin set a course for Scotland instead. On the way back, the pilot ordered the guns and ammo thrown overboard to lighten the plane. McLaughlin noticed some bullets flying past the plane and when he questioned why they weren't firing back was told that all the guns had been tossed out. There was an airport below them and the pilot wanted to land there and be captured but McLaughlin refused and ordered him to fly back to England. There was some good cloud cover and they kept the plane above the clouds. The fighter turned back when they approached the English coast. They slowed the plane down to freeze the propeller. It was a stopgap solution and McLaughlin prayed all the way back to Britain. He knew that if the engine caught fire they would have to either bail out or crash land the plane in the water. When they arrived in Scotland the sky was black and they flew along where they thought the coast was looking for land. Eventually they found the coast and had everyone look for an airport. They found one and as they landed the engine caught fire. They managed to land safely. This mission took place in November 1943, about a month after Schweinfurt. McLaughlin had recently been placed in group operations and ordered to fly as a command pilot.

After his rough mission during which his engine caught fire James Kemp McLaughlin was ordered to take an airplane to Liverpool for some improvements, including better seats, and windows in the bomb bay. When it was ready they returned to base then were ordered to deliver the plane to Portreath, England. McLaughlin packed an overnight bag before they departed. When they had delivered the plane, McLaughlin asked if they could get transportation back to base and they were told that they were staying in Portreath as the plane was theirs to fly. They were ordered to fly to Gibraltar the next day. McLaughlin didn't even know where Gibraltar was until he got his maps out. The next morning he ferried several high ranking officers to Gibraltar for the beginning of Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa. Jimmy Doolittle [Annotator's Note: General James Doolittle] had reported to Gibraltar to be named commander of the 12th Air Force which was to support the Army. Doolittle climbed in a P-38 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightening fighter aircraft] and started doing various maneuvers when Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General Dwight D. Eisenhower] pulled up with his staff. Eisenhower ordered Doolittle to land and jumped all over him when he landed. He castigated Doolittle in front of everyone and this soured McLaughlin's opinion of Eisenhower. Later McLaughlin was working for Tooey Spaatz [Annotator's Note: USAAF and USAF General Carl A. Spaatz, also known as Tooey] and he was ordered to bring some papers to General Doolittle. At this time McLaughlin got to meet Doolittle. It was the only time he got to meet him but he later flew with him on a mission to Holland. The politics of the Air Force made the regulars in it turn against Doolittle when he resigned from the Air Corps in the 1930s. McLaughlin believes that Marshall [Annotator's Note: US Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall] or someone else got Doolittle promoted to general following the Doolittle Raid. When Doolittle took over the 12th Air Force he was promoted to Major General and did not become a Lieutenant General until after the war. While in Casablanca Spaatz gave McLaughlin a note to give to the supply officer authorizing anything that he needed. When he gave it to the supply officer the guy just opened the door and told him to help himself. They would fly to Casablanca once a week for supplies on a Thursday and return to Gibraltar on Friday. When they first arrived they had to spend the night and McLaughlin tried to go to the officer's mess but Patton [Annotator's Note: General George S. Patton] was in charge and wouldn't let anyone into the officer's mess unless they were in a Class A uniform. They did not have any so they were not allowed in. When he returned to Gibraltar, McLaughlin told Spaatz what had happened and Spaatz blew up. Two years later McLaughlin was running support missions for Patton's army. Patton was so pleased with their performance that when a crew was shot down and brought to his HQ he took a picture with the crew and gave them all the Army Soldier's Medal. He then sent them back to base in his private C-47 and sent a case of wine and a case of cognac to McLaughlin and his CO [Annotator's Note: commanding officer] and another to the XO [Annotator's Note: executive officer]. They ended up bombing for Patton all winter.

In January 1943, James Kemp McLaughlin was ordered to fly the commanding general, Lieutenant General Jacob Devers, and his staff to England. Devers was commander of European Operations at the time. Devers had several other officers with him. They left Algiers for Gibraltar then waited there until midnight so they would arrive in England after dawn. They had to fly west then north to avoid Spain and Portugal. All night long they were in the clouds. The navigator could never get an accurate look through the clouds because of the weather. As they were nearing Brest, France near daylight the major told them that flying over the peninsula was too risky and asked McLaughlin to divert half an hour to the west to avoid enemy fire. The navigator objected to this by guaranteeing that they would not fly over the Brest peninsula. The senior pilot overruled the navigator and decided to follow the major's advice. He didn't have enough fuel though to reach their base. While passing over Ireland the red lights came on indicating that they were out of fuel and only had 15 minutes to land. They had to land the plane away from an airstrip shortly thereafter. McLaughlin sees this as a terrible blunder but stresses that they still weren't sufficiently trained at this point. The first pilot only had slightly more time than McLaughlin as he was in the class before him. McLaughlin sees it as the pilot's responsibility to determine where he is going to fly, not the opinion of the cargo that he is hauling in the back. Later, when McLaughlin was flying from Alaska to Washington, another similar situation took place but this time McLaughlin managed to stop a similar mistake from happening again. During the flight carrying Devers, the pilot suggested that McLaughlin tell the general about the situation. McLaughlin offered Devers the opportunity to bail out from 5,000 feet. Devers decided to stay aboard and McLaughlin went to help the pilot pick out a landing zone. They found a long and narrow field that was fenced in with stone walls on either side. As they landed the airplane they missed the walls but the wet field caused the plane to skid right through the fence at the other end. The B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] had sliding windows on each side of the cockpit. There was only about 15 inches to climb through. After the crash, McLaughlin saw some smoke coming off the wing and so he climbed out of the window and went to help everyone else get out of the plane. McLaughlin could never figure out how he managed to get out of the airplane being as big as he is. After everyone got out, a national guardsman came over with a rifle but he could only speak Gaelic. Next, a lady showed up to the crash site with a farmhand and a priest. The lady was carrying a jug of Irish whiskey and coffee cups. McLaughlin was starving and the whiskey got him buzzed quickly. They were taken to the local consulate where they were given food and more whiskey. Then they called the consulate in Northern Ireland who sent transport down to Ireland to pick them up. They were not punished for the mishap as it was chalked up to lack of experience. From there, McLaughlin returned to Bobbington and was put in charge of base operations. Some high ranking officers started arriving there. They started receiving a lot of pilots from the Royal Canadian Air Force. Once, three colonels got onto McLaughlin's airplane. One of them, who had flown the B-17 at Wright Field when it was still an empty shell with no turrets on it, wanted to fly the plane. He had never flown one that was fully loaded with guns and armor before and wanted to do some maneuvers that just were not possible with the plane being as heavy as it was. McLaughlin told him that it would not work but he was overruled. After two failed attempts to pull off landing maneuvers the colonel caught on and increased the speed and managed to land the plane safely. That is typical of why McLaughlin thinks so very highly of the B-17. He sees the learning curve for the plane being very gentle in comparison with some of the other planes of the time, like the B-26 [Annotator's Note: Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber]. McLaughlin saw B-26s kill pilots who did not know how to handle them.

[Annotator's Note: James Kemp McLaughlin flew 39 missions during two combat tours in Europe in Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers with the 326th Bombardment Squadron, 92nd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force.] Before they went to Africa, the 92nd Bombardment Group traded its B-17s with the 97th Bombardment Group because the 97th Bomb Group was heading to North Africa. The plan was to start a strategic air force in Africa, the 15th Air Force. The 15th Air Force ended up in Italy and the 8th Air Force would stay in England. There were also two tactical air forces. The 9th Air Force was in England and the 12th Air Force was in North Africa. The strategic air forces had B-17 and B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] heavy bombers and the tactical air forces had fighters and medium bombers like B-25s [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] and B-26s [Annotator's Note: Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber]. In February 1943, the film director William Wyler came to visit and brought an air force camera squad with him. They mounted a camera in a B-17's nose and removed the gun from the radio room and mounted a camera there. They also scattered several other cameras around the aircraft. Then, the B-17s were sent up and P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bomber] made passes at them. They did this for several days. It was supposed to be training film but later when McLaughlin was in a movie theater in England he saw this film again and the P-47s were being portrayed as German fighters and the film was being advertised as real combat caught on tape. Wyler put cameras in every B-17's nose and bomb bay as well as cameras in all of the fighters. He took all this film and made copies of the best footage. All post war movies about the air war include credits to William Wyler. McLaughlin remembers a mission led by Colonel William Buck. McLaughlin was leading the high squadron, above and to the left of Buck's lead plane. McLaughlin's copilot was on his 25th mission and he chose this mission because he thought it would be an easy one. When they were a little over half way to the target, Buck radioed them telling them that the mission was canceled and to turn around and head back to base. This put McLaughlin's plane near the rear of the formation and, as they were flying over Holland, German fighters caught up to them and shot up the plane. While they were being shot at, McLaughlin started taking pictures. The camera had a crank on the side and McLaughlin was so stressed out he managed to twist the camera apart. Early in 1943 McLaughlin and several other soldiers met Bob Hope after a USO [Annotator's Note: United Service Organizations] show. Bob Hope was a fine guy.

James Kemp McLaughlin does not recall the modified B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] YB-40 fondly. The YB-40 was an attempt to make a gunship out of the B-17. McLaughlin thinks that they needed to put 20mm cannons on the planes instead of more machine guns. The German fighters had 20mm cannons and these had a longer range that the .50 caliber bullets that the B-17 fired. Instead, they added guns all over the plane. The weight dragged the plane down and made it difficult to stay in formation. It also caused the planes to burn more fuel. They only kept the planes for about a month before trading them in. In the spring of 1943 the United States brought to England at least a dozen new bomb groups. These new bomb groups arrived in May and June and shared a space with a more experienced bomb group. The 95th Bombardment Group was sent to train with the 92nd Bombardment Group. This system worked pretty good but it also crowded the runways. The next day they were loading up the planes for a mission. There was a crowd of airplanes across the taxi way from base operations. No one ever knew what happened, but a bomb went off and set a bunch of other bombs off. It destroyed about a dozen airplanes and killed 19 men. McLaughlin's group commander was talking on the phone in an office facing the runway and the concussive blast blew him through a door and into the next office. McLaughlin remembers seeing pieces of flesh the size of a thumb stuck in fence posts, trees, and weeds for two miles around the airport. An engine that had been blasted into the air fell onto a B-17 and broke its back. The 3rd Division had B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] and the 2nd Division had B-17s. Each division had about 12 bomb groups, plus some support squadrons. Shortly thereafter, they started launching unescorted raids against Germany and they suffered heavy casualties.

The missions James Kemp McLaughlin flew without fighter cover were much tougher missions. When they took off, P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bomber] and Spitfires [Annotator's Note: Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft] would escort them until they got across the channel but then they had to turn around and go home due to lack of fuel. The Germans waited until the fighters left then they would jump on the bombers with AA [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft] guns and fighters. Any wounded straggler would be pounced on and shot down. Their best defense was to climb to above 30,000 feet. On the first raid on Schweinfurt in August [Annotator's Note: August 1943] McLaughlin had an easy flight. He was in the high squadron and he flew all the way there and back with hardly any trouble. The Germans would attack one wing at a time. They tried to obliterate a wing as quickly as possible and that saved McLaughlin from seeing much trouble in Schweinfurt the first time. On the second Schweinfurt raid in October, one of the three groups in McLaughlin's wing never showed up. Because their group was weakened, the Germans focused on them. Of the 40 planes that McLaughlin flew with in this raid, only eight returned. Not all of them were shot down. Several more landed elsewhere in England because of damage and wounded personnel aboard. McLaughlin feels that the first raid on Schweinfurt was something of a screw up. The 1st and 3rd [Annotator's Note: 1st and 3rd Bombardment Divisions] were due to take part in the raid. The 3rd Division would lead the attack on Regensburg while the 1st would launch a diversionary attack on Schweinfurt. The 3rd Division would fly to North Africa after completing their mission and the 1st would fly back to England. Heavy fog ruined the attack plan. The 3rd Division took off hours before the 1st Division and the Germans managed to hammer both divisions in succession. McLaughlin lucked out because he was in the high squadron, out of reach for the fighters. All of the planes in his squadron [Annotator's Note: the 326th Bombardment Squadron, 92nd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] made it back from the first raid. In October when he was briefed that they were returning to Schweinfurt, McLaughlin knew that they were in for some trouble. Colonel Bud Peaslee was the command pilot for the raid and McLaughlin flew in the command aircraft. When they did not meet up with the 306th Bombardment Group, Peaslee decided against turning around. Less than five minutes after their escorts turned back, McLaughlin called the pilot that was in the tail gun position for a report on what the Germans were doing. He told MLaughlin that a group of airplanes were at their seven o'clock. The spotter could not initially make out what kind of planes they were. A few minutes later it became clear that it was a large flight of German fighter aircraft. The fighters started firing before they even reached Germany and did not let up until they were well on their way back to England. Official losses put the number of B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] shot down at around 60 but McLaughlin believes that it was more like 100. McLaughlin knew Peaslee fairly well as Peaslee had been his commanding officer back in the 1930s. McLaughlin respected Peaslee a great deal. McLaughlin had been at war long enough at this point that he did not care about the opinions of other people. He figured that everyone would be shot down at some point anyway. There was a pub in the town where McLaughlin was headquartered and the owner of the pub was suffering under the booze rations. The GIs went to the pub and drank the house dry. She complained, and to repay her, they got an airplane and flew it up to Scotland and filled it with alcohol. When they returned they put all of the alcohol in her bar. The military changes a great deal for troops in combat. This spoiled McLaughlin. He had gone over to Europe in the summer of 1942 and stayed over there until March 1945.

While flying with Peaslee [Annotator's Note: Colonel Budd Peaslee], James Kemp McLaughlin did not mind that Peaslee had the authority over him. That was his job. Peaslee had command over every aircraft on that mission. Peaslee had finished flight school in 1922. McLaughlin thinks the Air Force never treated Peaslee right. For the second Schweinfurt raid they were forced to take off using instruments but none of them had taken any instrument training. This was another reason for McLaughlin's respect for the B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. He was able to take off and land the plane in horrible conditions despite not being properly trained for it. He thinks that if they had had different planes they would have had significantly higher casualties. Several times a squadron flew directly into another one while trying to find the end of the runway. The bases were so close together that the runways were often little more than a mile or two apart. McLaughlin remembers a friend of his talking to the 92nd Bombardment Group's tower but landing at the 305th Bombardment Group's runway. There was strict radio silence during the attack on Schweinfurt. Curtis LeMay worked out a system where they set up radio stations for the groups to meet up over. One formation would fly and then form up at a radio station. They would then fly to another radio station where they would meet up with their wing members. Then the wing would fly to a beacon on the coast to meet up with the division. During the flight to the coast they slowly raised altitude. They would be at 15,000 or 20,000 feet by the time they went out over the Channel. They had to stay in close formation with each other in order to allow the fighters to provide cover. Everyone was scared to return to Schweinfurt. On the first mission there McLaughlin had a new radio operator who was scared to death and was certain that they were going to get shot down. McLaughlin had to reassure him. Fear was everywhere but they could not let it wreck the crew.

James Kemp McLaughlin could see the German fighters approaching. The Germans liked to attack from the front and when they entered the range of the .50 calibers they would do a split S maneuver and dive straight down and out of the gun's range. This maneuver proved highly effective at avoiding the turrets. The whole time they were being attacked they were also being hit with flak from the ground. They could hear falling flak rattle down the side of the plane. Everyone was busy when the plane was being attacked. Flying the aircraft kept McLaughlin's mind of the attackers. Crew members called out fighters as soon as they were spotted. On this mission, the Germans sent a lot of twin-engine fighters up with rockets mounted under their wings. The rockets had proximity fuses and the twin-engine fighters would sit above the formation shoot their rockets and then flee before they could be targeted. These rockets knocked out McLaughlin's right wingman and the tail plane. The single engined fighters picked off the stragglers. The fighters followed the bombers into the flak. The flak gunners knew that the bombers couldn't deviate course and they could plot thier course. Normally, the fighters would pull aside to attack any bomber that changed their flight pattern. This day, however they chased the bombers through the flak. Once they began the bomb run they release the controls to the bombardier. Once they got the plane level, McLaughlin relinquished control until the bombs were released. The release of the bombs gave the plane an immediate lift. Entire squadrons dropped their bombs in sync. On the way out, the fighter attacks were diminished significantly. After they regained formation, the fighters launched a few passes at them but didn't knock any more planes out. After that, they had an easy flight back. There was some bad weather with low visibility. McLaughlin credits his navigator, Harry Hughes, with getting them back safely. Hughes had practiced with a G Box. Waves of transmission cross each other at different points. He set up a point at the end of the runway and it helped McLaughlin find the runway. When he saw it, McLaughlin told a plane with wounded on board to land first. McLaughlin circled around the runway and the other plane landed first. They had a tradition on board that the bombardier would open one of the hatches and the plane would taxi down the runway with him holding an American flag out the hole. The squadron operating officer also did the same thing. After they taxied down the runway, a car containing Colonel Reid and General Turner pulled up. Peaslee got out and started talking to them. McLaughlin spent several minutes filling out a form for what the plane would need for its next flight before he too climbed out of the plane. McLaughlin was somewhat upset and didn't say much. He was mad at the target planners for sending them back to Schweinfurt. The planners knew that the Germans would be waiting for them and they also knew that Sweden was providing Germany with ball bearings as well so the factory at Schweinfurt was of limited use. The second mission wasn't as large of a mission as the first one and McLaughlin thinks that they should have had all the planes in the air that day. Reid and Turner had been receiving reports about the hammering that their men had received during the mission. They knew that many of the bombers would not be coming back.

James Kemp McLaughlin remembers that after the bombers got fighter cover everything got easier. A damaged aircraft would be protected instead of being jumped by a bunch of German fighters. McLaughlin got a 30 day leave in the winter of 1944 and 1945 in exchange for signing up for another tour. He had not been home in over two years and figured that the war was almost over and that his next tour would be easy. The first thing Doolittle [Annotator's Note: General James Doolittle] did after he took command of the 8th Air Force on 1 January [Annotator's Note: 1 January 1944] was for Fighter Command to destroy the Luftwaffe. By the time spring came, the Luftwaffe was essentially destroyed. McLaughlin was not in England when D-Day was launched. By the time of the Battle of the Bulge, McLaughlin was the group operations officer [Annotator's Note: of the 92nd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force]. He was responsible for the briefings every morning. He was also the command pilot every few days. Every day they received new orders, even though the weather canceled every planned attack. Eventually, just before Christmas 1944, they were given a mission to bomb an intersection in Belgium. Just one group took off. He briefed the group and then they got into the airplane. They had heated suits but McLaughlin never used his because if the plane took damage it would frequently stop working. He usually just wore extra layers of clothing but on this mission he tried the heated suit. They flew the mission at about 15,000 feet. Once they got formed up, McLaughlin took a nap. He awoke to the sound of flak bursting outside the plane. McLaughlin discovered that three Tiger tanks were shooting at them with their 88 millimeter guns. They flew past them and bombed their target then went back to base. After returning home, McLaughlin stood up to get out of the airplane and he heard a noise. He turned around and found a piece of flak about the size of a telephone sitting on the seat. It had gone through the fuselage and through the seat and hit McLaughlin right in the rear end but it had no force left and he did not even feel it. That was the only time he was hit during the entire war. McLaughlin was credited with 39 total missions during the war.

James Kemp McLaughlin returned home after the war and received a 30 day leave after which he reported to the redistribution center in Miami with his wife. He spent about a month there without hearing from anyone. The bases in the United States already had their own crews and they did not want the overseas veterans. McLaughlin remembers a colonel named Hilton telling him not to worry about getting a job because nobody wanted any of the overseas deployed veterans. Eventually, McLaughlin received a call to go to the base and a captain interviewed him about how long he had been in the Air Force and when he went overseas. He asked him about his promotions and, when he got all the information, told McLaughlin that he owed the IRS 3,800 dollars in back taxes. McLaughlin was shocked but he had to pay it and he did not even get an assignment. A day or two later, Darky Reid called him and told McLaughlin that he could send him to any number of bases but that, given his rank, Avon Park would be the best fit. McLaughlin said he did not care where he went. McLaughlin reported in and the regulars did not care for McLaughlin's presence but they found him a job running the bombing range. He stayed there until September and he was sent to Gulfport. There was B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] training there and McLaughlin learned to fly that plane. Eventually, they started closing this base as well and McLaughlin helped the base commander close the base. McLaughlin had spent the entire war overseas and was unused to the strictures of a peacetime military. Eventually, he got tired of doing what he thought was nothing. Even though he had secured an appointment to the regular air force, he left and went back home. McLaughlin was recalled for Korea but the Air Force was not ready for them. McLaughlin stayed in the Air Force until 1977 when he retired as a Brigadier General. At the time, McLaughlin did not realize just how good the B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] was. He survived two major fires as well as two crashes on the B-17. The B-17 was a wonderful machine that was easy to fly and was incredibly tough and saved a lot of lives in McLaughlin's mind. Boeing really stepped up with that one.