combat crew – a B17 mission question

Being only an Indian and not a chief, I was unaware of 8th AF planes landing in N.Africa. I was already operational, since I started flying combat missions in July. I did know of the B24 group that staged out of Wheeler fld in Tripoli, Libya, when they made their low level attack at Ploesti, which I think was in August.

Forgive me if I am mistaken, since I have no books to refer to, just memory

thanx for all the replys guys – it put my curiosity to bed and answered my questions. thanx for all the input

Tony,

if you can, check out the excellent book by Martin Middlebrook – The Schweinfurt-Regensburg Mission, a few sentences of which I’ve paraphrased below.

According to the book the 4th Bombardment Wing (renamed 3rd Air Division on 13th September 1943) B-17s had extra wing tanks (Tokyo Tanks) fitted for extra range so they could fly onto North Africa.

Apparently due to delays in confirming the mission the 12 Air Force HQ did not pass onto the requirements needed to the appropriate command so the service facilities were not prepared in time.

85 of the 115 B-17s which had reached North Africa flew back on the 24th August mission against Bordeaux with 3 planes lost.

Some of the remainder were able to fly their aircraft back later via a route over the sea, whilst the rest were left and the crews flew back by transport aircraft.

If you can get hold of a copy I would recommend you do

Cheers…Martin

Ok, just pulled down Decision OVER Schweinfurt by Tomas M.Coffey.

Tony, A LOT were shot to bit’s, and yes, what they could patch up, and bomb up, did bomb on the way back to England, but it took sometime to do!.

Many flew in to North Africa, but they were so stuffed that they NEVER flew again!.

Suggest they became bitche’s of the deck mate, got the chop, and became spare’s for anyother bomber’s that needed bit’s.

Same goe’s for the Yank bomber’s and fighter’s, that got left behind in Russia, after the Luftwaffe plasted them after the Shuttle mission to there!.

I am nee deep, In B of B book’s right now, but Tony if you like I will dig deeper in to the book’s, as I have a few more here that have more info on this subject.

Chow for now!

thanx for the reply rob. Coomer mentions lack of repair facilites. the ones there could have flown back but only after repair and all there was in north africa was tea and fuel! it says there should have been a team of mechanics and spares there….. just curious if they eventually fixed them and flew them back or if they was axed. say waster of that was the case.

Tony – just googled into this, (haven’t been near my books recently) which I think has the answer:

http://www.stelzriede.com/ms/html/mshwma15.htm

After spending a week in North Africa, the bomber group [sic] returned to England on August 24, bombing Bordeaux, France on the way back.

Rob / Kansan

Schweinfurt

Tony,
In August and October, during the 2 Schweinfurt missions made by the 8th AF, there were only 4 B17 groups operating in N.Africa. I never heard that B-17s came to N.Africa after the 2 missions. I might be wrong but I doubt it.

I don’t know of the losses due to weather, but I can definately state that the greatest number of losses were due to inadequate fighter escort. Once P-51s came into the theatre the losses due to enemy fighters decreased radically.

I finished my tour in Feb 1944, I never saw a P-51

thanx for the reply rob. Coomer mentions lack of repair facilites. the ones there could have flown back but only after repair and all there was in north africa was tea and fuel! it says there should have been a team of mechanics and spares there….. just curious if they eventually fixed them and flew them back or if they was axed. say waster of that was the case.

I don’t think any B-17s were abandoned or left behind left in North Africa unless they were in no condition to make the trip back to England. I can understand thee being some logistical problems but IMHO to say they were all left behind because there was no fuel can’t be correct. They were planning this for some time.

If there had been some organisationl shambles of the kind John Comer hints at then there would have been nuch more in the history – and there isn’t, I think. He might have experienced some problems personally or with the 381stBG but even he says in the book he makes no attempt to portray anything other than his personal experiences or opinions.

Look at http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/reichert.html

from which I quote some chunks:

Having already postponed the mission for close to two weeks due to consistent cloud cover over the targets, August 17th found Germany clear but England shrouded in fog. After delaying the mission for an hour, it was decided that the 3rd would have to take-off immediately in order to be able to land at their North African recovery bases before nightfall. While the 3rd was taking off, however, the 1st remained grounded due to the thick fog. Over three hours later, the 1st finally got off of the ground and headed towards Schweinfurt.

The second battle of Schweinfurt is a microcosm of all of the reasons that Eaker was replaced as commander of the 8th Air Force. The poor weather that was constantly hampering the 8th’s ability to conduct missions was responsible for the loss of sixty bombers before the divisions even crossed into occupied Europe and was a contributing factor in the destruction of five bombers whose crews bailed when they were unable to find a landing strip. It was also responsible for the grounding of the 3rd Air Division’s egress escorts.

The majority of the aircraft lost on the mission to Schweinfurt were lost because of the lack of fighter escort any further than the German border. Repeatedly over the past year and a half, Eaker had requested the allocation of P-51 Mustangs to escort his aircrew into Germany. Before the P-51s were available, he had asked for external fuel tanks for the existing fighters. Despite the multiple requests and the large amount of losses on every deep penetration mission, Arnold could never get the 8th the resources they needed to conduct a successful operation against the Germans until Eaker had already been reassigned

Rob / Kansan

ta Moggy…… couldnt see how i rattles a cage. thanx for that :0)

ive run out of books to read so i thought id give Combat crew another read….. i have a question about the Schweinfurt raid on Aug 17 1943. it mentions 60 B17’s being left in north africa due to a **** up which meat that no repair facilities were put into place. the auther (john comer) comments he doesnt know what happened to them.

i on the other hand am curious as to what happened to them…..

can anyone shed any light??

Cheers 🙂

Tony,
I can check later but I’d guess that they were made use of by the Twelfth Air Force.
There were certainly B-17 units in North Africa and these became units of the fifteenth AF later in Italy.
There’s an American guy called Jules Horowitz who’s an ex B-17 pilot from that theatre of operations who writes on here sometimes.
Drop him a PM and see if he knows.
Cheers
Andy

Relax.

A new user popped-up and pasted an advertising post on this thread.

I blitzed it and deactivated the user account.

Moggy
Moderator

spammed??? why is this spamming…… ???????????? confused……..

Blimey!, now we are getting spammed 😮