On two different missions – to marshalling yards and an oil refinery at Vienna on 8 July 1944 and to steel plants at Friedrichshafen on 3 August 1944 – the group bombed its targets despite antiaircraft fire and fighter opposition, being awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC) for each of these attacks.
That unit was later re-designated on 30 April 1943 as Battery A, 784th Antiaircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion and inactivated on 31 December 1945 in Germany.
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The unit was reconstituted on 28 June 1950 in the Regular Army; and concurrently consolidated with Battery A, 26th Antiaircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion (active) which itself was originally constituted on 25 February 1943 in the Army of the United States as Battery A, 784th Coast Artillery Battalion, and activated on 10 April 1943 at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Reconstituted 26 October 1922 in the Regular Army as the 60th Artillery Battalion, Antiaircraft and organized at Fort Crockett, Texas.
The 61st Battalion was redesignated as the 61st Antiaircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion on 21 August 1950 and assigned to the 6th Armored Division, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, where it was inactivated 16 March 1956.
The entire Ecuadorian perimeter was covered by antiaircraft batteries and, most significantly, several teams carrying Soviet-made SA-16 Igla and British-made Blowpipe man-portable surface-to-air missiles.
Despite warnings from all aircraft to stay clear of the area due to heavy antiaircraft fire, CWO Ferguson began a low-level flight at maximum airspeed along the Perfume River toward the tiny, isolated South Vietnamese Army compound in which the crash survivors had taken refuge.
On the afternoon of 6 June, he took part in strikes flown against the heavy cruisers Mogami and Mikuma and their screening destroyers, scoring a damaging near miss on Mogami in the face of heavy antiaircraft fire.
Despite a continuing hail of antiaircraft fire, deadly surface-to-air missiles, and counterattacks by MIG interceptors, Maj. Dethlefsen flew repeated close range strikes to silence the enemy defensive positions with bombs and cannon fire.
Although his aircraft was severely damaged by an exploding missile, he reentered the target area and relentlessly prosecuted a SHRIKE attack in the face of intense antiaircraft fire.