That day I was taking a new crew on  their first mission to bomb Peenemunde. On the way back to base we shot down an  ME 110 that was approaching from the rear. We started firing at him from two  miles and at about one mile he went into a vertical dive and crashed. My crew  saw no parachutes and I was surprised last month to learn that one man got  out. Of course being in the driver's seat I didn't see the action, but heard  plenty. For a split second I felt a little sad that we had killed two men, but  soon realized that it was a kill or be killed situation.

Bf 110G-4 serial number 140317 crashed near Maribo 4/8  1944.

The aircraft belonged to 7./ NJG 1 and was coded G9+SR T/o  Grove. Op: Interception of American bombers.

The BF 110 was on a day mission against American bombers when it was hit by return fire from a bomber and started burning and crashed to the ground.

Air  gunner Unteroffizier Heinz Aleit managed to get out of the aircraft and saved  his life by parachute and landed near a German post.

Pilot Oberleutnant  Walter Prues and Wop Feldwebel Josef Peters was still in the aircraft when it crashed in boggy grounds near Bursø lake about 2 kilometres  southeast of Maribo at approx.15:00 hrs.

The aircraft disappeared in the  boggy ground and only the remains of Feldwebel Josef Peters was retrieved.  Peters was laid to rest in København Vestre cemetery on 10/8 1944 at 15:00 hrs.  The ceremony took place by the graveside.

The grounds were drained over  the years and a golf course was eventually located on the site.

On 26/27  august 2002 the site was excavated by a team headed by Jes Touvdal and Jørn  Junker and the remains of the aircraft and Pilot Oberleutnant Walter Prues was  found.

The remains of Prues was handed over to the German authorities. He  was finally laid to rest in København Vestre cemetery on 17/11 2002.

(3) Of 446 B-24s, 148 hit Rostock aviation factories, 89 hit Kiel, 88 hit Schwerin aviation factories, 71 hit Wismar aviation factories, 12 hit Schlutup, 11 hit Warien and 1 hits a target of opportunity; 4 B-24s are lost. Escort is provided by 209 P-38s and P-51s; 1 P-51 is lost. 

(4) Of 78 B-24s, 39 hit Husum Airfield and 29 hit Hemmingstedt/Heide oil refinery without loss.

- Mission 515: The first APHRODITE mission is flown using 4 radio-controlled war weary B-17s as flying bombs; targets are Mimoyecques, Siracourt, Watten, and Wizernes V-weapon sites but none are hit; 1 drone B-17 crashes killing 1 crew. Escort is provided by 16 P-47s and 16 P-51s.

- Mission 516: In France, 154 B-17s and B-24s, in 2 forces, with 36 fighters are dispatched to hit V-weapon sites in the Pas de Calais and coastal defences at Middelkerke and Gravelines. 

(1) Of 95 B-24s, 24 hit the Pas de Calais, 12 hit Achiet Airfield, 11 hit Gravelines, 11 hit Middelkerke, 6 hit Lens marshalling yard and 6 hit Montigne marshalling yard at Villy. 

(2) Of 59 B-17s, 13 hit targets of opportunity, 12 hit Vendeville Airfield at Lille and 11 hit a bridge at Gravelines.

- 67 P-47s fly a fighter-bomber mission against Plantlunne Airfield; 1 P-47 is lost.

Destroyer HMS Lagos launched.

FRANCE: The German XXV Corps, in Brittany, withdraws to the major ports of St. Malo, Brest, Lorient and St. Nazaire. Commanded by General Farmbacher, Lorient and St. Nazaire will hold until May of 1945.
British troops liberate Evrecy and Villers Bocage, France.

In France, the USAAF's Ninth Air Force dispatches 62 A-20 Havocs and B-26s to bomb rail bridges at Oissel, Epernon, and Saint-Remy-sur-Avre and an ammunition dump and bivouac area in Foret de Sille; fighters furnish cover over the battle area and for an armoured column, fly sweeps, dive-bomb enemy positions and also fuel dumps at Angers, attack an ammunition dump at Tours, and fly armed reconnaissance in the Quimper-Nantes, Amines, and Saint-Quentin areas.

Sqn-Ldr Ian Willoughby Bazalgette (b.1918), RAFVR, hit his target despite losing two engines to fighter fire. He and two crewmen died when the plane blew up on landing. (Victoria Cross)

Minesweeping trawler HMS Gairsay sunk by a German explosive boat off Normandy.

NETHERLANDS: Amsterdam: The Gestapo, acting on tip from a Dutch informer, captures 15-year-old Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family in a sealed-off area of an Amsterdam warehouse at Prinsengracht 263; two of the Christians who had helped shelter them are also arrested. The Franks had taken shelter there in 1942 out of fear of deportation to a concentration camp. They occupied the small space with another Jewish family and a single Jewish man, and were aided by former Christian employees of Otto Frank and other Dutch friends who brought them food and supplies. Anne spent much of her time in the "secret annex" working on her diary which survived the war, overlooked by the Gestapo that discovered the hiding place. They are sent to a concentration camp in Holland, and in September Anne and most of the others are shipped to Auschwitz in Poland. In the fall of 1944, Anne and her sister Margot are moved to Bergen-Belsen in Germany; both sisters catch typhus and die in early March 1945, two months before the camp was liberated by British forces. Anne's father Otto Frank is the only one of the 10 to survive. After the war, he returns to Amsterdam via the Soviet Union, and is reunited with Miep Gies, one of his former employees who had helped shelter him. She handed him Anne's diary and in 1947, the diary is published by Otto in its original Dutch as "Diary of a Young Girl."