When the War Began to End

The morning of April 20, 1945, began like so many others at RAF Wendling. Briefings before dawn. Maps spread across tables. Coffee growing cold while crews studied routes and targets. Yet this day carried an irony few could ignore. It was Adolf Hitler's birthday.

Years earlier, celebrations would have echoed across Germany. Now, as the Third Reich crumbled around him, Allied bombers prepared to mark the occasion in a very different way. For the men of the Hummel crew, it would become a day they would never forget—not because of what happened during the mission, but because of what they did not yet know.

This would be their last combat mission. At 0430 hours, twenty-seven crews of the 392nd Bomb Group gathered for briefing. Their target was the marshalling yards at Schwandorf, a rail center north of Regensburg that still served Germany's shrinking transportation network.

The mission itself felt almost routine. The weather was perfect. The skies were clear. No fighters challenged the bomber stream. No desperate attacks materialized from what remained of the Luftwaffe. As the formation approached Schwandorf, the target stood plainly visible below. One by one, bomb bay doors opened.

Across the Group, 236 five-hundred-pound bombs fell toward the rail facilities. The results were devastating. Nearly ninety-seven percent of the bombs struck within two thousand feet of the aiming point, one of the most accurate attacks the Group had delivered during the war's final weeks.

Then it was over. The bombers turned for home. Hours later, the aircraft touched down safely at Wendling. Another mission completed. Another target destroyed. Another entry in the operations log. For many crews, missions like this had begun to feel different than they had months earlier.

The fear was still there. The risk was still real. But the overwhelming sense was that something had changed. The skies had grown quieter. German resistance had weakened. The war that once seemed endless now appeared to be running out of time.

Some crews had begun calling these final missions "milk runs." Others refused to use the term, knowing that flak and mechanical failure could still end a life in an instant. Every man understood that a bomber could be lost on any mission.

Yet even the most cautious airmen could feel it. Victory was close.

The Hummel crew had every reason to understand how quickly fortunes could change. Less than a month earlier, they had watched their aircraft burn, crash-landed near the Rhine, been captured by German soldiers, and witnessed the deaths of three friends.

They knew better than most that survival was never guaranteed. Perhaps that is why this mission feels so significant looking back. There was no dramatic announcement. No farewell ceremony. No special recognition waiting for them on the flight line. They simply climbed aboard their bomber, completed another mission, and returned home. Only later would they learn the truth.

The flight to Schwandorf on April 20, 1945, would be the last combat mission of the Hummel crew. After everything they had endured—the training, the long flights over Europe, the fear, the losses, the crash, the capture, and the rescue—they had unknowingly crossed the finish line.

The war was not yet over. But for them, the end had finally come into view.

And on the very next mission, history would make that reality impossible to ignore.