The
8th Air Force has by and large been synonymous with massive formations of
bombers flying from England to attack targets in Germany and Axis-occupied
Europe during daytime missions. However, following serious losses of the summer
of 1943, there was a point in time when the United States Army Air Force
(USAAF) considered joining the Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command in flying
nighttime missions, something the British had advocated all along. As it turned
out, the 8th Air Force did experiment with night bombing, flying missions
together with RAF Bomber Command during September and October 1943.
On the night of September 8, 1943, the USAAF joined RAF Bomber Command on a night mission for the first time. Five B-17s from the 422nd Bomb Squadron, 305th Bomb Group, flew from Chelveston on a night mission to Boulogne in occupied France together with 257 aircraft from RAF Bomber Command: 119 Wellingtons, 112 Stirlings, 16 Mosquitoes and ten Halifaxes. The B-17s were led by Major Price in a bomber named “We The People”, and the target was the site of a German long-range gun battery. This target was supposed to be marked by Mosquitoes equipped with Oboe, a British blind targeting system based on radio transponder technology. However, the marking was not successful. The American crews found it difficult to differentiate the Target Indicators and there was also some confusion regarding radio signals while the bomb sights were deemed to be unsuitable. The German gun battery was probably not damaged, but on the other hand, no Allied aircraft were lost.[8]
The
night of September 22 saw five B-17s flying as part of a mission composed of
711 aircraft with destination Hanover, and the 422nd Squadron was contributing
60 500 pound GP bombs to the planned destruction. This was the first major raid
on Hanover for two years, and this was the first of four major raids planned on
the city. However, the city had been on the target list for some time, since it
was home to both locomotive and tank works as synthetic rubber plants, oil
refineries and textile mills. Despite the numbers of bombers, the hoped-for
destruction did not manifest itself. Although the visibility was good, the
winds were stronger than forecast, and the target markers were concentrated
between two and five miles south-southeast of the city. The aiming errors were
further compounded by aiming at the wrong target indicator flares, and the vast
majority of the bombs landed in suburban or open areas up to nine miles from
the center of the city. The B-17s of the 422nd Squadron flew at the high
altitude of 27,000 feet, above and ahead of many of the RAF bombers, and they
dropped their bombs at the target indicators furnished by the RAF. The
participating crews reported having a grandstand view of the blazing target,
without knowing that the fires really weren’t in the target. The 422nd Squadron
did not suffer any casualties.
Following the missions in September, it may have been that the 8th Air Force was re-considering its experiments with nighttime bombing, but the demand for leaflet drops remained. On September 29, 1943, General Ira Eaker sent a message to the 1st Air Division directing that six aircraft of the 422nd Squadron were to be prepared “to carry out extensive leaflet operations at night over Germany and occupied territories as soon after 1 October 1943, as practicable.”[10] However, the 422nd Squadron was still to fly two more bombing missions before being fully engaged in leaflet drops.
Once
USAAF had deployed personnel to England in 1942, the 8th Air Force actually
initiated its bomber operations as crew members on board RAF bombers. On June 29,
1942, the first American bomber crew from the 8th Air Force took part in a RAF
Bomber Command operation when an RAF Douglas Boston III commanded by Captain
Charles C. Kegelman took part in a daytime mission to bomb the marshalling
yards at Hazebrouck. The bomber came from RAF 226 Squadron based at Swanton
Morley and the force was composed of in all twelve Bostons.
It
was to be a dramatic first mission for the 8th Air Force. Flying in over the
target at very low altitude, the lead aircraft dropped its bombs and turned
back to base. The second bomber was flown by Captain Kegelman, and he was not
as lucky, being hit in the right engine by anti-aircraft fire. The propeller
was knocked off the engine, and Captain Kegelman momentarily lost control of
the aircraft. The right wing tip hit the ground, and then the belly touched
down as well, but the Boston bounced back into the air and Captain Kegelman
managed to regain sufficient control to fly the aircraft back to Swanton Morley
without any casualties in the crew. Captain Kegelman was awarded the
Distinguished Flying Cross for this mission, while his crew was decorated with
the Distinguished Service Cross.
On
Independence Day, July 4, six American-crewed Bostons joined six RAF Bostons to
bomb four German airfields in the Netherlands. De Kooy, Haamstede, and Valkenburg
were hit, but the anti-aircraft fire over the coast and at the airfield was
heavy, and three of the 8th Air Force crews were lost, including the crew
commanded by Captain Kegelman.[1]
Meanwhile,
the 8th Air Force had started to assemble and train units equipped with
four-engine B-17 and B-24 bombers to conduct precision-bombing during daytime
missions. With extensive defensive firepower, the bombers were considered quite
able to reach the target without any escorts, as the pre-World War Two
doctrines of most air forces dictated. The first missions were mere nuisance
raids to the Germans while the 8th Air Force tried out its capabilities.
Initial results pointed towards the feasibility of unescorted daylight mission
flown over enemy territory, but this would change. The campaign against the
U-boat installations in France started in October 1942, but the results were
meager and the casualties fairly high as the American bomber crews in many
cases were only partly trained and inexperienced in important areas such as
formation flying, bombing and aerial gunnery. However, the tactical procedures
for bombing were further improved, most notably by General Curtis LeMay, the
commander of the 305th Bomb Group, who improved formation flying and introduced
a system of the a lead bomber to coordinate the bomb aiming of an entire
formation.
The
first mission with formation bombing and lead aircraft took part on January 3,
1943, when the 8th Air Force attacked the U-boat base at Saint Nazaire.
Unfortunately, the Flak was lethal over the target, and three B-17s were shot
down. Bombing tactics were further refined, and by the summer of 1943, the
entire 8th Air Force would be using a lead bomber on its missions. Bomb
accuracy tripled, although it was still far from the pre-war ideals of
precision bombing.
Winston
Churchill and the U.S. Joint Chiefs hoped to convince President Franklin D.
Roosevelt to have the USAAF join RAF Bomber Command’s efforts after the
Casablanca conference in January 1943, and they almost succeeded. Army Chief of
Staff General George C. Marshall told the Commander of the U.S. Army Air
Forces, General Henry “Hap” Arnold, that the 8th Air Force was to give up
daylight precision bombing for nighttime area bombing. General Arnold rejected
this idea, sending the commanding officer of the 8th Air Force, General Ira C.
Eaker, to convince Churchill that “round-the-clock” bombing would the more
effective than nighttime missions only and that the American bombers were
specifically designed for daylight missions. Eaker presented Churchill with a
memorandum titled “The Case for Day Bombing” on January 20, 1943, and Churchill
agreed to Eaker’s policy. However, the RAF was still cultivating plans to
include the 8th Air Force in their nighttime bombing offensive.
The
8th Air Force launched a series of operations later called Blitz Week between
July 23 and July 30, 1943. Targets were attacked in central Germany, western
Germany and Norway, and the operations cost the 8th Air Force 88 B-17s or 8.5
percent of the attacking strength, an unsustainable casualty rate. The damage
caused by these missions was also less than impressive. Blitz Week left the
aircrews exhausted, but deep penetrations without fighter escort would continue
in August, when the 8th Air Force had rebuilt some of its strength.
RAF
Bomber Command would also engage in significant operations during the end of
July, but with entirely different results. Operation Gomorrah was aimed at
Hamburg and conducted as a series of missions with 3,091 sorties beginning July
24, 1943 for 8 days and 7 nights that culminated with a firestorm on July 28
that claimed more than 40,000 lives. The 8th Air Force contributed to the
destruction with 252 B-17s on July 25 and 26, but most of the widespread
destruction was caused by RAF Bomber Command and its area bombing of huge
swaths of urban terrain. The losses for the RAF were miniscule compared to the
8th Air Force’s Blitz Week with 87 RAF bombers lost over the course of
Operation Gomorrah, which equals a loss rate of 2.8 percent. By comparison, the
8th Air Force bombers suffered a loss rate of 6.7 percent during the Hamburg
missions.[2]
The
low casualty rate of RAF Bomber Command can to a considerable degree be
attributed to technical innovations, in this case chaff, that is strips of
foil-coated paper cut to half the wavelength of the German radar which confused
and misled the German radar operators by generating enormous amounts of false
radar contacts. Further assistance was provided by airborne radar called H2S
that enabled Bomber Command to locate and bomb a target, albeit with limited
accuracy, even when the target was obscured by clouds or smoke. This would also
allow bombing missions to be flown during the winter, when cloud cover tended
to limit target visibility.
General
Curtis LeMay was impressed by the magnitude of destruction in Hamburg after
Operation Gomorrah, but also by the high operational pace of RAF Bomber Command
during the summer of 1943, which included a mission to the German V-weapon test
sites in Peenemünde. In particular, LeMay noted how the incendiary bombing and
subsequent firestorm affected military targets, since the USAAF still
fundamentally believed in precision bombing against military targets. But as
the citizens of Tokyo would find out, LeMay was definitely considering the
effects of indiscriminate fire bombing. The use of new technologies, most
notably H2S radar, but also pathfinders and chaff was studied by LeMay and his
staff.[3]
On
August 17 the 8th Air Force launched its missions to bomb the ball bearing
plant in Schweinfurt and the Messerschmitt plant in Regensburg. The mission was
another costly failure with 601 men and 60 out of 376 B-17s being lost. The
damage done to production was rather easily repaired by the Germans, since the
bombs did not cause any significant damage to the machine tools in the assembly
halls. The manufacturing process was subsequently dispersed to several
locations, making targeting even more difficult.
The
cost of Blitz Week and the Schweinfurt and Regensburg missions forced the 8th
Air Force to further re-examine its doctrine, tactics and operational
procedures. It was becoming painfully obvious that the B-17 bombers required
fighter support and that the effects of bombing were not as destructive as
envisioned in pre-war planning. On July 22, Lieutenant General Jacob Devers,
the overall commander of U.S. Army Forces in Europe, sent a memo to General
Arnold recommending that the 8th Air Force consider night missions. Six B-17 groups,
three from each division, namely the 92nd, 94th, 96th, 305th, 306th and 385th
Bomb Groups were initially to join RAF Bomber Command Raids. Thirty B-17s from in
each group were to be modified with resin lights, exhaust flame dampers, flash
suppressors for the guns and blackout curtains in the navigator’s compartment. The
crews were to be supplied night adaptation goggles. The B-17s were also to be
equipped with Gee and Standard Beam Approach navigation equipment. Only B-17s
with long-range fuel tanks were to converted.[4]
Furthermore,
the commander of the VIII Bomber Command, Brigadier-General Frederick L.
Anderson suggested that the 8th Air Force’s 305th Bomb Group should fly experimental
night missions with RAF Bomber Command until the USAAF bomber groups had
recovered from their losses. Brigadier-General Anderson had actually flown as a
passenger in a Bomber Command Lancaster of 83 Squadron on a mission to Essen
during the night of July 25, and again to Hamburg on the night of July 27, the
night of the firestorm. He could observe the destructive power of RAF’s area
bombing firsthand from the Lancaster he was flying in. Although LeMay still
considered daylight bombing to be the most effective option to hit German
targets, he did acknowledge that RAF’s night bombing accuracy had improved with
the introduction of radar and pathfinders, and he liked General Anderson’s idea
to send some of the best crews of the 305th Bomb Group to fly night missions
with the RAF. By doing this he could show the Allied leadership that he could
be flexible while still contributing to the bombing effort against Germany. At
least parts of the 8th Air Force would be able to conduct operations before
long-range fighter support would be available.[5]
The
four squadrons of the 305th Bomb Group were some of the most experienced if not
the most experienced units of the 8th Air Force. They had flown missions since
November of 1942, and the 305th Bombardment Group had been commanded by Curtis
LeMay himself until May 1943. They were based at Station 105, Chelveston, in
Northamptonshire.
The
8th Air Force had already considered nighttime operations, but for propaganda
purposes, and in this case leaflet distribution. RAF Bomber Command had
included leaflet dropping as part of their operations since the outbreak of the
war, and on May 21, 1943, the Commanding General of the 8th Air Force, Major
General Ira C. Eaker, issued a directive to initiate leaflet dropping
operations. Such activities were conducted as part of daytime missions, but
since RAF Bomber Command was looking into eliminating the burden of nighttime
leaflet dropping, the 8th Air Force was to consider including this task in its
repertoire.[6]
The
planning and training for possible night missions started in late July, when
B-17s of the 422nd Squadron were refitted for night operations even before
receiving orders to do so from 8th Air Force Headquarters. The commander of the
422nd was Major Gerald “Jerry” Price, and as the 422nd started training for
night missions, Major Pierce was temporarily attached to an RAF Bomber Command
Squadron on August 27 to fly a 674-plane mission to Nuremberg that same night.
Thirty-three bombers were lost that night, but Major Price made it back after
personally experiencing the procedures used by RAF Bomber Command. It has also
been claimed but not confirmed that he flew the Lancaster that took part in the
mission.
For
the rest of the 422nd Squadron, the night flying training consisted of night
navigation training during practice flights over England starting August 2 and
lasting through the first two weeks of September. Despite the nighttime
training, the squadron continued to support daytime missions as well. This
obviously added to the workload for both aircrews and ground personnel, while
some of the converted B-17s were lost during the daytime missions. It was also
found that the guns required illuminated reflector sights, and resourceful
crews of the 422nd Squadron manufactured such sights from spare plexiglas,
claiming that they could be used successfully in the dark.
The
training was greatly helped Lieutenant Floyd Truesdell, who had previously
volunteered for the Royal Canadian Air Force. He flew missions with RAF Bomber
Command in 1942 and early 1943 as a navigator. A pilot in the 422nd, he was
nevertheless appointed squadron navigator for combat operations. Unfortunately,
Truesdell was killed in a mid-air collision with an RAF Bristol Beaufighter on
the late evening of August 31. He was popular pilot as well as pivotal in the
training for nighttime missions, and he was sorely missed by the squadron.
It
should be noted that other 8th Air Force units, for example the 94th Bomb
Group, trained night navigation while deployed to the European Theater of
Operations. However, this was to enable bombers that took part in long-range
missions over Europe to return and land safely even if the mission lasted beyond
dusk.[7]
On the night of September 8, 1943, the USAAF joined RAF Bomber Command on a night mission for the first time. Five B-17s from the 422nd Bomb Squadron, 305th Bomb Group, flew from Chelveston on a night mission to Boulogne in occupied France together with 257 aircraft from RAF Bomber Command: 119 Wellingtons, 112 Stirlings, 16 Mosquitoes and ten Halifaxes. The B-17s were led by Major Price in a bomber named “We The People”, and the target was the site of a German long-range gun battery. This target was supposed to be marked by Mosquitoes equipped with Oboe, a British blind targeting system based on radio transponder technology. However, the marking was not successful. The American crews found it difficult to differentiate the Target Indicators and there was also some confusion regarding radio signals while the bomb sights were deemed to be unsuitable. The German gun battery was probably not damaged, but on the other hand, no Allied aircraft were lost.[8]
The
next mission took place on the night of September 15, when 369 aircraft from 3,
4, 6 and 8 Groups of RAF Bomber Command took off to bomb the Dunlop rubber
factory in Montluçon in central France. The force consisted of 209 Halifaxes,
120 Stirlings, 40 Lancasters and five B-17s from the 422nd Bomb Squadron. The
USAAF contribution of 24 officers and 30 enlisted men was once again led by
Major Price, this time flying B-17 41-24615 “Target for Tonite.” Takeoff took
place between 8:10 and 8:25 PM, and the flight to the target was without
incident. The night was moonlit, although there were some clouds over the
target. The German defenses opened fire as the bombers approached Montluçon,
but only four bursts of anti-aircraft fire were noted, and they were all behind
the B-17s. The Master Bomber for this mission, Wing Commander D. F. E. Deane,
dropped his green, red and yellow target indicators accurately over the target
between 11:37 and 11:51 PM, and the B-17s dropped 22 1,000-pound General
Purpose (GP) bombs over the Dunlop factory, although four of the B-17s required
two bomb runs to hit the target while the fifth B-17 needed what must have been
a nerve-wracking third run to the target. Every building in the factory was hit
and a large fire could be seen up to 80 miles away from the target. All five
B-17s returned individually and landed safely within a ten-minute period, a
credit to their navigational training. It should be noted that this was the
last time the Bomber Command Pathfinders used a Master Bomber until the spring
of 1944. The mission resulted in the loss of two Halifaxes and one Stirling.
The
422nd Squadron flew their next mission with Bomber Command the following
evening, September 16. The target of the evening was the railway yard at
Modane, which was located on the main railway line between France and Italy,
just about five miles from the French-Italian border. The mission was flown by
340 RAF Bomber Command aircraft from 3, 4, 6, and 8 Groups, and five B-17s
loaded with 35 500 pound GP bombs were part of the force together with 170
Halifaxes, 127 Stirlings and 43 Lancasters. “Target for Tonite” was once again
the lead aircraft, although the pilot was Captain Walker of the 422nd Bomb
Group. The railway yard was unfortunately located in a steep valley, and the
target could not be marked accurately, so the bombers did not hit the target
from their altitude of 25,000 feet, although the initial damage assessment
claimed that the results were excellent. This mission was the deepest
penetration of enemy airspace so far by the 8th Air Force, and the five B-17s
spent six and a half hours over occupied Europe. Two Halifaxes and one Stirling
were lost during the mission.
SSgt Edward Yozgadlian with two bags in hand is shown on return from a night mission to Montlucon on September 15, 1943.
Air
Marshal Arthur “Bomber” Harris was however not pleased that the American
commanders looking over the post-raid reports wouldn’t find much in the way of
results for an effort by 711 aircraft, especially since he wanted the USAAF to
join RAF Bomber Command for the Battle of Berlin that Harris planned for the
fall and winter of 1943.[9]
Next
evening, September 23, the 422 Squadron was scheduled to take part in a mission
to destroy the northern parts of Mannheim and more specifically the marshalling
yards in the city together with 623 RAF aircraft. Each B-17 carried 28
500-pound GP bombs, and although one B-17 had to abort before reaching the
target, the remaining four B-17s did not suffer any casualties. The RAF lost 32
aircraft, though, which represents a loss rate of 5.1 percent. The target
marking on this mission was accurate, and Mannheim suffered significant damage
with almost 1,000 buildings destroyed and 102 people killed.
The
422nd Squadron did not conduct night operations for another three days, but on
September 27 the target was Hannover to deliver 40 500-pound GP bombs carried
by five B-17s. RAF Bomber Command would be attacking Hannover with 678 aircraft
as well. Once again, the prevailing winds foiled the Pathfinders, and the
target indicators were dropped five miles north of Hannover, thereby sparing
the center of the city. The bombs were mainly dropped in the open countryside
or villages, causing little or no damage. The bombing force lost 38 aircraft,
including a B-17. This was B-17F 42-29555 “Centaur” piloted by Lieutenant
Harvey E. Rogers. At 11:15 PM at an altitude of just above 18,000 feet,
“Centaur” was spotted by Hauptmann
Rességuier flying a Messerschmitt Bf 109G. Cannon shells and machine gun fire
tore into the B-17, and only four men made it out of the stricken bomber while
seven perished, including an RAF observer, Flying Officer Louis Bower of 196
Squadron, RAF. The B-17 eventually crashed in the area of Landringhausen
south-west of Hannover.
Alexander,
Graf Rességuier de Miremont, was the first German night fighter pilot to shoot
down an American bomber during night operations. He was part of the Stab I/Jagdgeschwader 300 “Wilde Sau” based
at the Bonn-Hangelar airfield. The “Wilde Sau” as well as Jagdgeschwader
300, 301 and 302 came into fruition after an initiative by Oberst Hans-Joachim “HaJo” Herrmann, a former bomber pilot.
Single-seat fighters were to climb above RAF bombers and thus find the bombers
silhouetted against clouds illuminated by searchlights or the burning targets
on the ground. Rességuier would eventually be credited with five victories,
before he was shot down and wounded by return fire from a Lancaster or possibly
fire from an RAF night fighter over Roermond on February 3, 1945 while flying a
Heinkel He 219A-2.
Following the missions in September, it may have been that the 8th Air Force was re-considering its experiments with nighttime bombing, but the demand for leaflet drops remained. On September 29, 1943, General Ira Eaker sent a message to the 1st Air Division directing that six aircraft of the 422nd Squadron were to be prepared “to carry out extensive leaflet operations at night over Germany and occupied territories as soon after 1 October 1943, as practicable.”[10] However, the 422nd Squadron was still to fly two more bombing missions before being fully engaged in leaflet drops.
The
next target was the BMW factory in Munich on the night of October 2, and four
B-17s loaded with 20 500-pound GP bombs as well as 294 Lancasters were
scheduled to take part in this mission. Takeoff was scheduled for 7:55 PM, and
one of the aircraft had to abort after suffering a tire explosion during
takeoff. The pilot managed to keep the bomber under control stop just short of
the end of the runway with only minor damage to the aircraft. Another one of
the B-17s was piloted by Major Price, and the navigator was Captain Ralph H.
Nutter, a lead navigator of the 305th Bomb Group. Their bomber was caught by
searchlights as they passed the Belgian coastline, and anti-aircraft guns
opened fire at the B-17. Soon after a German night fighter was spotted by the
tail gunner of the brightly illuminated bomber, and although the anti-aircraft
guns ceased firing, the night fighter took over. Major Price conducted a
“corkscrew”, to the left, sending the bomber in a series of stomach-churning
tight turns, dives and climbs to shake off the night fighter as well as the
search lights while tracer fire zipped around the B-17. The violent maneuvering
proved successful, and as the bomber leveled out in the dark the roll call
revealed that no one had been injured and that there was no indication of
serious damage to the aircraft, although several instruments had been
shattered, and eventually an engine ceased working. Nevertheless, the bomber
and its crew made it to Munich and dropped their bomb load at 10:58 PM from an
altitude of 20,000 feet. The damaged bomber did make it back to England,
although an additional engine broke down during the flight back and with the
fuel tanks almost empty.[11]
The bombing destroyed 339 buildings and 191 people were killed, although most
bombers missed the BMW factory. Eight Lancasters were lost during the mission.
The
eighth and final bombing mission for the 422nd Squadron was scheduled for the
night of October 4, and the target for in all 406 bombers was Frankfurt am
Main, which was to suffer the first major raid against the city during the war.
The three participating B-17s were loaded with four 500-pound GP bombs each in
addition to four leaflet cases, the so-called Monroe bombs. The three B-17s
were piloted by Captain Peyton Sparks, Lieutenant Tom Seay and Lieutenant Craig
Hitchcock, and they would all face misfortune during the mission. The briefed
takeoff time was 650PM, but Lieutenant Seay’s aircraft developed engine
problems at startup, and their takeoff was delayed by some 30 minutes as
mechanics corrected the engine fault. Captain Sparks also had difficulties
keeping up with bomber stream on its way to Frankfurt, and they could not find
the intended target and had to opt for a target of opportunity. Lieutenant
Hitchcock’s aircraft did make it to Frankfurt, but it was caught in the cones
of German searchlight at the initial point (IP) just short of the target, and
had to perform evasive maneuvers. Neither Sparks nor Hitchcock reported seeing
any German night fighters, but a German pilot did spot Lieutenant Seay’s B-17F
42-3061. The bomber was promptly shot down by a Focke-Wulf FW-190A near
Frankfurt at 10:25 PM, and five members of the crew were killed while another
five became prisoners-of-war. The pilot of the fighter was Leutnant Gerhard Bärsdorf of the Stab II/JG300. Leutnant Bärsdorf
did however not receive confirmation for this kill by the Luftwaffe, but he went on to shoot down seven Allied bombers with a
further five bombers claimed but unconfirmed. He was killed in a mid-air
collision during combat on July 28, 1944.
This
was the end of nighttime bombing missions for the 422nd Squadron after in all
35 sorties. The next mission took place on October 24, 1943, but this time the
bombers were loaded with leaflets only and the target were in occupied France.
The 8th Air Force had tried nighttime bombing, but they remained convinced of
the feasibility of daylight precision bombing, preferably as part of a
round-the-clock bombing strategy with the 8th Air Force hitting targets by day
and RAF Bomber Command hitting targets by night.
The
422nd continued to operate as a night leaflet squadron, using its night-flying
skills to drop leaflets over occupied Europe and Germany until June 26, 1944, when
the unit was re-designated the 858th Night Leaflet Squadron and relocated to
Cheddington. The B-17 bomber would continue to be used during nighttime bombing
missions by RAF Bomber Command, albeit as an airborne Electronic
Counter-Measures (ECM) platform to jam German radar. The B-17 was arguably not
suited for the British doctrine of strategic bombing operations, since it could
not carry as heavy bomb loads as the Avro Lancaster and the Handley-Page
Halifax. The career of the B-17 would instead be intimately associated with the
USAAF daylight missions.
The
early autumn saw 8th Air Force missions to targets in France and the Low
Countries while introducing new tactics such as the use of pathfinders and
electronic jamming equipment. Additional fighter units were deployed to
England, and the B-17G entered service. September 27, 1943 saw P-47 fighters
escorting bombers all the way to a target in Germany and back. The B-17s and
B-24s of the 8th Air Force would suffer more at the hands of the Luftwaffe, but the tide turned with the
increased range of escorting fighters, and nighttime bombing was not considered
again by the 8th Air Force, although some B-24s cooperated with RAF Bomber
Command as part of diversion forces towards the end of the war.
Bibliography
Martin.
W. Bowman. Castles in the Air. Washington, D.C: Brassey’s, 2000.
Roger A. Freeman. The Mighty Eighth
War Manual. London: Cassell & Co., 2001
Brian
S. Gunderson. Leaflet Dropping Operations in World War II. Air Power
History, Spring 1998 – Volume 45, Number 1.
Marin
Middlebrook. The Battle of Hamburg. Allied Bomber Forces against a German
City in 1943. London: Cassell, 1980.
Martin
Middlebrook and Chris Everitt. The Bomber Command War Diaries. Hersham:
Midland Publishing,
Ralph H. Nutter. With the Possum and the Eagle. The
Memoir of a Navigator's War over Germany and Japan. Novato: Presidio Press,
2002.
Kevin
Wilson. Bomber Boys. The Ruhr, the Dambusters and bloody Berlin. London:
Cassell, 2006.
305th
Bombardment Group Facebook page.
http://falekeeins.blogspot.com
[1] Martin Middlebrook and Chris
Everitt. The Bomber Command War Diaries. Hersham: Midland Publishing,
pp. 282-283.
[2] Martin Middlebrook. The Battle
of Hamburg. Allied Bomber Forces against a German City in 1943. London:
Casell, 1980, pp. 323, 326-327.
[3] Ralph H. Nutter. With the Possum
and the Eagle. The Memoir of a Navigator's War over Germany and Japan.
Novato: Presidio Press, 2002, pp. 98-99, 121.
[4] Roger A. Freeman. The Mighty
Eighth War Manual. London: Cassell & Co., 2001, p. 93.
[5] Nutter, pp. 120-121.
[6] Brian S. Gunderson. Leaflet
Dropping Operations in World War II. Air Power History, Spring 1998 –
Volume 45, Number 1, p. 30.
[7] Martin. W. Bowman. Castles in
the Air. Washington, D.C: Brassey’s, 2000, p. 74.
[8] Freeman, p. 94, Martin Middlebrook
and Chris Everitt, p. 430.
[9] Wilson, pp.
365-368.
[10] Gunderson,
p. 31.
[11] Nutter, pp.
130-133.
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