But things were in a very peculiar situation. We had been temporarily stopped and it was necessary to find out whether the Germans intended to make a firm stand or whether their stand was only temporary, in order to give them time to withdraw their forces from the south. When we came to our decision we consulted the high command, telling them the number of planes it would take and what our minimum losses would be. We impressed upon them our already heavy casualties and how short we were of airplanes. The answer was that the importance of the mission would justify all losses should the desired information be gained.
At this answer I suddenly became a tactician and strategist. I hit Brereton with the suggestion that if we could find a pilot and an observer who were overloaded with “guts” and properly “hardboiled” and who did not care much for their lives, they might be able to get in fine by going very low and thus get the information. My idea was that if we went in with twenty-five planes this would be such a force that the Germans would be able to concentrate practically their entire Richtofen circus against us before we would have had time to make the large circuit assigned and get out, while if one plane went in, extremely low, several favorable suppositions might be possible; namely, the German Chasse Patrols, high in the heavens above, seeing a plane so far behind the line, would not think that it could possibly be other than a friendly plane; and being by itself, the anti-aircraft and the command reporting it would not call out so much pursuit as they otherwise would; and, furthermore, being alone the pursuit planes would not have so much chance of finding it. I agreed with Brereton that it was practically hopeless, but at the same time it was a long chance and as it was in the middle of the day, if this mission failed we could have another mission of the twenty-five planes required, in readiness to take off to perform the mission in compliance with the original plan. This large formation could leave as soon as definite news was obtained that the first plane had been shot down, or that it had failed to return after a reasonable time. Brereton laughed sarcastically and said, “That idea is just about as feasible as a single aviator trying to fly to Berlin, picking out the Kaiser from the rest of the squareheads and hitting him with a bomb.”