When the Targets Ran Out

The next morning came quickly.

For the Hummel crew, there was little time to reflect on their return to combat. The war was moving fast now—faster than anyone had imagined just months before. German defenses were collapsing across the front, and Allied armies were pushing deeper into the heart of Europe. On April 17, 1945, the crews of the 392nd Bomb Group gathered once again for the morning briefing.

The target this time lay farther east. Beroun, Czechoslovakia. Like so many of the missions in these final weeks of the war, the objective was a railroad network—another attempt to choke the last functioning transportation lines that were still moving German troops and supplies toward the crumbling front.

At 0730 hours, thirty-one aircrews received their briefing. By 1020, the bombers began rolling down the runway at RAF Wendling, climbing into formation under clear skies once more. The long columns of B-24s turned east toward the continent, their engines droning steadily as they crossed into enemy territory.

By this stage of the war, something had changed in the air. The once-deadly skies over Germany had grown strangely quiet. No swarms of German fighters rose to meet them. The Luftwaffe, once the terror of bomber crews, had nearly vanished. Even the flak batteries that once filled the sky with black bursts now fired only sporadically.

When the formation approached Beroun, the target lay clearly visible below. The bombardiers settled into their sights. Bomb bay doors opened.

Across the formation, 276 five-hundred-pound bombs dropped toward the rail yards below. The results were exceptional—ninety five percent of the bombs landed within a two-thousand-foot circle of the aiming point, a level of accuracy rarely seen earlier in the war.

The marshalling yards were shattered. Once again, no fighters appeared. Flak was negligible. By 1850 hours, the bombers were safely back on the ground at Wendling.

Another mission completed. But this one carried a weight none of the crews expected.

As the aircraft shut down and the crews began their post-mission routines, word came down from Eighth Air Force Headquarters—an announcement that marked the beginning of the end.

After years of bombing campaigns across Europe…Strategic targets in Germany no longer existed.

The factories, rail hubs, and industrial centers that had once fueled the German war machine had been destroyed or captured. From this moment forward, bomber operations would shift away from strategic bombing.

Instead, the bombers would now support the advancing Allied armies on the ground.

For the men of the Hummel crew, the message was clear.

The war that had once seemed endless was now collapsing around them.

And the sky they had fought through for so long was beginning to fall silent.