Betrayal of Eighth Air Force crews by their own Commanders

The Real Masters of the Air would not have command of the skies over Germany until long-range escort fighters became available. Until then, the Eighth Air Force would suffer unacceptable casualties, culminating in the catastrophic Black Thursday raid that put a halt to unescorted daylight assaults above Germany.
Between January and October 1943, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress went from being just an aircraft to the stuff of legends when these heavy bombers launched massive air raids deep into Germany to target the heavily defended industrial heartland. This was the time of the 8th Air Force’s unescorted daylight precision bombing, and while this form of aerial assault was virtually a belief system to the Air Force officers who devised and implemented it, it proved to be deeply flawed. These flaws led to catastrophic results that its designers could never have imagined.

Between January and October 1943 the Boeing B17 Flying Fortress went from being just an aircraft to the stuff of Legends when these heavy bombers launched massive Air Raids deep into Germany to Target the heavily defended industrial Heartland this was the time of the eth Air Force’s unescorted daylight Precision bombing and while

This form of aerial assault was virtually a belief system to the Air Force officers who devised and implemented it it proved to be deeply flawed these flaws led to catastrophic results that its designers could never have imagined unescorted daylight Precision bombing was a concept developed in the 1930s at the Army aircore tactical

School at Maxwell field Alabama the Air Force stood alone in accepting this strategy the Navy rejected it in favor of dive bombing when the British realized they could not hit targets with Precision they turned to night area bombing in addition to going it alone the Air Force’s long range unescorted

Bombing missions would be carried out by bombers which raised serious concerns on August 16th 1942 Aviation expert Peter Mayfield summed up British and American concerns when he wrote American Heavy bombers the latest fortresses and liberators are not suited for bombing in Europe their bomb loads are small their

Armor and Armament are not up to the standards now considered necessary and their speeds are slow despite these concerns Air Force officers dedicated to unescorted Daylight Precision bombing remained unconvinced they shared an almost obsessive belief in a type of aerial Warfare proposed by Italian army officer Julio du he wrote a slower

Heavily armed plane able to clear its way with its own Armament can always get the better of a faster pursued plane a fleet of slower heavily armed planes is in a position position to stand up to the fire of enemy Pursuit planes and carry out its Mission successfully General William Billy

Mitchell widely regarded as the Founding Father of the United States Air Force shared this Viewpoint as did many of the officers who served under him by the outbreak of World War II many of these officers had risen through the ranks to senior command positions despite the changes in military Aviation

Particularly fighter technology that occurred in the 20 years between the two Wars many of these men remained steadfastly committed to Du ha’s and Mitchell’s views on air Warfare because of their rigid attitudes no long range escort Fighters were planned to protect the Invincible bombers while these men work tirelessly to promote the

Development of long-range heavy bombers they made no efforts to protect these bombers with longrange escort Fighters they believed that escort Fighters were not only unnecessary but also impossible to develop in 193 35 an Army aircore Board concluded that the need for escort Fighters has not yet been thoroughly

Demonstrated in the end the Air Force entered the second world war without the semblance of a longrange escort fighter in its planning the controversy surrounding unescorted daylight Precision bombing began with the Casablanca conference which began on January 14th 1943 when President Franklin D Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill accompanied

By their military staffs met in Morocco to discuss the future conduct of the war Churchill was dissatisfied with us daylight bombing efforts to date which had not yet succeeded in dropping a single bomb on Germany he arrived determined to persuade Roosevelt to direct the United States Air Force to join the Royal Air

Force’s night bombing raids on Germany which had been underway since 1940 since August 17th 1942 the heavy bombers of the eighth bomber command had completed 27 missions none of which which had taken them into German territory General Henry Hap Arnold commander of the Army Air Forces was a staunch supporter of daylight

Precision bombing he persuaded Churchill that if the RAF continued to bomb Germany at night he would bomb Germany during the day Round the Clock bombing would ensure that the devil had no rest Churchill pleased with this commitment gave up his opposition to us daylight bombing it meant that the eth air force

Bomber command would launch unescorted daylight bombing raids into German ‘s heartlands on January 27th 3 days after the conference ended the eighth bomber command launched its first unescorted heavy bomber raid into Germany however by doing so they were setting in motion tactics based on World War I thinking

Using weapon systems that had never been tested under these combat conditions on this first raid 91 unescorted bombers were sent to destroy the ubot yards at vilhelms Haven however due to bad weather only 50 53 planes made it to their target fortunately only three bombers were lost as a result of the

Defender surprise at the unexpected daylight raid the majority of the elite LOF wafa fighter squadrons were on the Eastern Front fighting Russia however this would change over the next 7 months as the US pushed their raids deeper into Germany the Germans realized that if these attacks continued their ability to

Wage war could be severely weakened they proved grimly efficient in increasing the L waffa’s day fighter Force in Germany while us losses continued to rise in the April 17th attack on Breman 16 of the 106 bombers that reached their target were shot down on a June 13th

Follow-up raid to Breman 26 of the 102 bombers that made it to their destination were lost the substantial losses were further compounded by the uncertainty surrounding their impact on German war production when the United United States entered the war German fighter plane production was at 360 per

Month but by June 1943 German air Minister milch had increased it to 1,000 per month as a result on June 10th 1943 the combined Chiefs of Staff issued the point blank directive pushing German air production to the top of the eighth bomber commands priority list the limited range of lightning and

Thunderbolt Fighters meant that by the time they got to the German border they would have to head back home thus from the ger border onwards the b7s were on their own after examining crashed b7s and b-24s the LOF vafa discovered a flaw in their protection bringing a bomber

Down required at least 20 shell hits when shot from the rear however the plane’s lack of frontal armor meant that four or five 20 mm hits from the front were enough to knock it out of the sky with insufficient frontal fire power and fast closing speeds B17 and B24 Gunners

Had little chance of hitting the small small rapidly approaching Target in Late July 1943 having recently assumed command of the eighth bomber command General Frederick Anderson launched a series of raids known as Blitz week despite the mixed results 88 b7s were shot down and many more were damaged Beyond repair meanwhile in July

Germany’s industry produced over a, fighter aircraft the Air Force believed that immediate action was necessary to Halt the Luft vafa expansion even though the blitz week losses highlighted the B 17’s vulnerability in the absence of an effective fighter escort Arnold under pressure and impatient for results placed the blame on a lack of

Aggressiveness by bomber commanders on August 17th 1943 the eighth bomber command made its deepest penetration yet into Germany’s industrial Heartland of Bavaria under the plan flying Southeast from their bases in Britain 376 bombers would penetrate deep into Germany as one powerful force before splitting up into two groups near their target to attack

The ball bearing plant at schwein Fort and the messers Schmid factories in Regensburg situated only 109 M apart instead of turning Northwest to return to England as the Germans expected the Regensburg force would turn south over Italy and land at a US base in North Africa by striking 15 minutes ahead of

The schwein fort Force the Regensburg force would attct the attention of the German Fighters and then turn abruptly towards North Africa confusing the Luft wafa and leaving schwein Fort open to attack without air cover the most important aspect of making this plan a success would be the takeoff times

Because of bad weather the schwein fort Force launched three and a half hours after the rensburg force resulting in two separate and unrelated bombing raids rather than a single powerful critically timed attack by allowing the missions to proceed Anderson gave the ltwa a plenty of time to focus their attack on each

Force separately the German Fighters formed Mass formations before striking the bomber formations headon Lieutenant Edwin Frost who was in the nose of a B7 recalled it was just pandemonium it seemed that every gun was firing at once the noise was terrific most Fighters were coming straight ahead tearing right

Through us a crew member recalled more than just the fighters and Flack exploding all around them at those high altitudes the cold was numbing as I sat and watched my fellow bombers being shot out of the sky in great numbers the losses were devastating 147 of the 376 b7s

Dispatched would never return to Britain giving the eth Air Force a staggering 39% loss rate the air General struggled to put a positive spin on the raid by claiming to have inflicted devastating damage on the targets but the results proved insignificant however this fact would not be fully understood stood until the

War was over losses continued to mount as 45 bombers were shot down while raiding stutgart on September 6th followed by another 106 downed in the first 10 days of October on Thursday October 14th 1943 the crews learned with Gloom and dismay that their next destination would

Be a follow-up raid to schwein for when the mission was announced the officers responded with booze and groans at one briefing the commanding officer concluded a pep talk with good Lu and good bombing to which someone at the back added and goodbye after the first raid the Luft wafa had improved their

Defenses they attacked the 291 b7s just south of aen when a lack of fuel forced the bombers little friends to turn for home hundreds of German planes of various type swarmed the bomber formations on their way to and from their target 229 bombers were able to reach schweinf for and drop their bombs

60 never made it back across the English Channel Five crashed upon landing and another 17 were scrapped in addition 142 of the remaining aircraft were damaged indicating that only 11% of the 291 bombers dispatched returned undamaged When The War Began the British and US Air Forces were convinced that their

Bombing would be accurate in fact it never was the US Army Air Force believed in the accuracy of the nordon bomb site which they believed enabled them to hit a pickle Barrel from a vast height in daylight in perfect conditions on the testing grounds the bomb site had a

Respectable hit rate but in combat conditions in Western Europe it was found lacking the losses for the entire month of October 1943 were Grim at this rate an entirely new bomber force would have to be created almost every 3 months in order to sustain the current level of

Bomber offensive it was clear that the bomber General’s unwavering commitment to unescorted Daylight bombing throughout their entire military careers had failed a military Dogma Shattered by the brutal realities of modern aerial Warfare the Air Force gave October 14th the nickname black Thursday and for good reason it marked the end of unescorted

Daylight Precision bombing though some air generals refused to recognize it indeed faith in unescorted daylight bombing died hard a week after black Thursday planning was still underway for the next big raid on October 22nd at a meeting of the eighth bomber command group leaders it was announced that

There would be no further unescorted raids into Germany finally putting an end to the madness all operational p47 Thunderbolts and P38 Lightnings in Britain would be modified to enable them to use drop tanks to extend their range it was a tragic iron that long range escort Fighters would have been readily

Available if this had been implemented from the beginning the reprieve that the German Heartland had enjoyed from us daylight bombing ended in February 1944 when hundreds of little friends began to Race Across German Skies protecting the Heavies when reports of dog fights deep inside Germany reached Garing he dismissed them as absurd but

When confirmed Med he was heard muttering we have lost the war Garing was correct that the lfa’s Fate was sealed although the brave young men of the eth Air Force still had a lot of dying left to do the us heavy bombers initiated this Clash by threatening the destruction of vital War Industries

Leaving the German Fighters with no choice but to defend them the resulting dog fights forced the LOF bafa into a NeverEnding cycle of of air battles against an ever increasing number of American escort Fighters soon us fighters on escort missions would fly ahead of the bombers clearing the skies

And actively searching for Luft Fafa interceptors by the end of 1944 Flack began to take a heavier toll on bombers despite the introduction of advanced weapon systems that proed too little too late in a final Act of desperation the LOF wafa formed ramming squadrons but they proved ineffective the bombers had

Be come incidental as the escorts became the primary cause of the Luft wafa’s destruction this was certainly not what the bomber generals had in mind when devising their unescorted daylight bombing strategy the men under their command would pay the ultimate price for their unwavering faith in the Invincible

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