WW2 Bomb Crater Relics of the "Schweinfurt Raids"

The 4000lb cookie was typically armed in two ways.
One type could meant it could be dropped safe, but as mentioned could explode regardless, the other had a pin removed on the ground and once dropped, would arm itself, so couldn’t be dropped safe.
Given the chance of unintentionally dropping it safe, the safety fork not releasing properly, and that ‘safe’ didnt really work, I think the self arming type was more common later in the war.

The track into Schweinfurt by Bomber Command on Feb 1944 was roughly on bearing 45 degrees, over the target then turn to westward bearing 287 at 50 15’N 10 25’E. I think in practice, the bombers pushed eastward a bit more and were coming on more northerly track, around 35 degrees. Both phases of the raid mostly dropping short, with the majority of the bombs falling south of the river. Looks like Bergrheinfeld and especially around Grafenrheinfeld and the fields east got hammered. I’d check the lidar images for that area.
The aim point seems to be around the government offices/police station/hospital in google maps.

Thanks for posting your threads Sondler 64.

regards,
Greg

I think ‘half the enemy action was expended on dummy targets’ because the Luftwaffe were no better at precision bombing in 1941 than the RAF were in 1942 or the USAAF were in 1944!

I was looking at the target photographs posted by Sondler_64 in the other thread on Schweinfurt and it seems to me that very great efforts were made to camouflage some of the ball-bearing factories, maybe after the first (largely unsuccessful) bombing mission by the USAAF?

I don’t ever remember camouflage being given as a possible reason for the poor bombing accuracy; the usual reason given, that the various bomber formations were shaken-up by their losses due to flak and fighters, doesn’t ring true because the groups that had the fewest losses did some of the worst bombing (and some of the first bombing too).

It has been a while since I did any real reading on the subject but I’ll have a look later to see if I can find any references to camouflage in my remaining books.

Hi Sondler. Thanks for your reply. I found it astonishing to learn the lack of deceptions in place to protect these important sites. The UK set out quite early to protect vital points with many different means of camouflage and confusion. It has been stated that this was so successful, that half of enemy action was expended on dummy targets. Much was set up as early as 1940 with targets as large as London included. Some examples of the sometimes comical, sometimes ingenious here….https://stmargarets.london/archives/2016/08/operation-starfish-continued.html

Hi otis,
Schweinfurt had no Dummy sites. When you look into my new thread “WW2 Bombing of Schweinfurt” you will see, that this target, the ball bearing plants, are so large that it would make no sense. I found one article where smoke south of the city was performed. But it is reported this had no effect.
I found one Dummy at Oerlenbach near Bad Kissingen. There was a large fuel storage and therfore a Dummy of 12 large (10m diameter) wodden Dummy tanks was established nearby. Nothing else.

The Togeling technique resulted in several Blue on Blue incidents during the battle of Normandy, when both US and RAF main force bombers were used in a tactical role. These incidents being particularly bad just because of the number of aircraft involved.
My father was caught up in one incident when 300 Canadians were killed. Father could accept being bombed by the Germans and accidentally bombed by the RAF when in the (fluid) front line (both happened), but he took a dim view of being bombed by the Americans when he was seven miles behind the front line.

Hi Sondler
Just had a quick look at Martin Middlebrook’s book, ‘The Schweinfurt / Regensburg Mission’ (very good, about the August ’43 raid), which confirms that most of the B-17’s didn’t even have bomb sights fitted (only 4 a/c per Bomb Group had them) and simply dropped their bombs when the lead bombardier dropped his.
I’ve only found a couple of mentions of bomb loads carried: the lead bomber on the Regensburg part of the mission dropped, it says, 10 x 500 lb HE bombs. And several Bomb Groups dropped incendiary-only loads (250 lb incendiaries?) on Schweinfurt.
So as suggested before, perhaps your area represented a ‘group miss’ at some stage, if the lead bombardier couldn’t see the target and bombed where he thought it was.
Regards
Ian

Sondler 64, thanks for the reply. Are you aware of any target dummy, decoy or deceptions in the Schweinfurt area at all. There must have been something in an area which was targeted many times.

Not surprised that craters would still be there. There are parts of France in the Ardennes with 100yo craters & parts of Laos look like it was carpet bombed by B52’s last week. (Xiangkhouang Province, Laos on Google Earth)

I’m guessing the craters are visible here from LiDAR imagery? I’m impressed by the images above that seem to remove the tree cover and show the terrain below, in pretty vivid detail.

Daft question, but you’re sure all those craters were put there by allied bombers? It looks like the forested areas are planted out with monoculture stands of species like sitka spruce. From tramping around in various forestry stands as a student (taking measurements!) you do come across small circular ponds that have been dug into the ground for drainage or water retention, etc, usually laid out in an ad hoc manner.

I think both RAF and USAAF bombs were kept ‘safe’ with two pins both of which stopped the ‘propeller thingy’ from spinning; the first arming-pin was removed on the ground on RAF aircraft (or in the air on USAAF aircraft?) and the other pin was connected to the aircraft by a spring-loaded lanyard device.

The electrically connected lanyard device (a bit like a retracting tape-measure) pulled the second arming-pin out as the bomb fell from the aircraft (and then retracted the arming-pin back into the aircraft).

In a ‘jettison’ an electrical switch was made (or not) and, I think, the end of the lanyard normally connected to the aircraft was released and the bomb was dropped with the arming-pin still attached and trailing the disconnected lanyard behind it…

…anyway, I think that’s how it worked!

I’ve never quite figured out the need for the lanyard thing to be so complicated?

Hello friends,
you drive me to my limits. My poor English gets improoved more and more. Thanks for your help!

To Creaking Door:
You state: What was the policy of the US 8th Air Force with ‘jettisons’ over Germany; would they be jettisoned live? Pretty sure they’d jettison bombs ‘safe’ over the rest of Europe.
My answer: You forgot that these bombers passed the target. Shouldn’t the bombs then be unfused again within seconds or a minute?
You state: And I maintain that no B-17 bomber ever carried sixteen 250lb bombs in its bomb-bay.
My answer: Enclosed is a screenshot oft he B17 specification with maximal bomb loads.
You state: those areas with the bomb-craters could easily be just one RAF heavy bomber missing the intended target by a mile or two!
My answer: The RAF bombers typical bomb loads were one big Blockbuster and thousands of incendiaries (Picture enclosed).
The crater aera is nearly 8 km away from the target. This reaches the B17 and the Lancaster within one minute!
The US/RAF combined attack was divided in two tasks: The US should open and demolish the Buildings of the factories (and unavoidable city buildings?), and the RAF should then set hughe fire.

To Otis:
There was no dummy site in this aera.

To Annon:
You asked: What about the rest of the area at a similar distance – how does that compare, Sondler64?
My answer: enclosed the situation left oft he flightpath directly north of Schweinfurt. And an additional site cloth south west (Flight Path!) to the first large 120 bomb craters picture

To ZRX61
Enclosed my Google map view – no plane on the cornfield

To Matt Poole: Thanks for your work!

Again, thanks for your amazing interest

Hi CD
Not sure how that worked in practice, not having studied this, but weren’t RAF bombs ‘armed’ by the spinning of the little propeller thingy on the nose or tail as they fell? In B-17’s the bombs were carried inside the fuselage so a safety pin could be removed before bombing or re-inserted to stop the propeller turning, But there was no such access to the bombs in RAF bombers so I don’t know how their bombs could be jettisoned ‘safe’. I thought the safety pins were removed before take off.
May be completely wrong of course!
Ian

Bit of a moot point with the RAF as a lot of the tonnage of RAF bombs couldn’t be dropped ‘safe’ from operational altitudes; the High-Capacity 12000lb, 8000lb and 4000lb ‘cookie’ would all explode even if dropped unfuzed over water.

I suppose my point was really about the circumstances in which bombs would be jettisoned; to be sure that live bombs weren’t jettisoned over Holland, for example, both the navigator and bomb-aimer would need not to be incapacitated and be in communication with each other and the pilot and the bomber would need to be sure of its position. Surely, it would be just simpler, and a lot quicker, just to jettison all bombs ‘safe’ anyway?

Hi CD
Moving slightly off-topic here, but I don’t suppose we (RAF/USAAF) would’ve been too bothered by jettisoning bombs live anywhere over Germany. It might end up killing some of their bomb disposal or other military personnel after all.
Ian

If I recall correctly the B-17 bombers that attacked Schweinfurt on the first major raid bombed in three distinct groups in fairly quick succession; the bombing from the third group was scattered about Schweinfurt and the immediate vicinity due to the target being obscured by smoke from the first two groups.

I’d be very surprised if the ‘jettison’ control that the pilots had (did they?) dropped the bombs ‘live’; the bombardier would be able to ‘jettison’ them live over Germany but wouldn’t want to do so over any occupied country (maybe not even over Germany?) but in the heat of the moment a ‘jettison’ command was probably always interpreted as dropping them ‘safe’ to avoid any unintentional casualties on the ground.

Hi all
From my phone I can’t access the aerial photo attached to Sondler’s original post so will try later from home, so can someone say what size is the cratered area we’re discussing?
My initial thought was that it seems unlikely that individual jettisons would fall in the same area. Then I’ve remembered that the USAAF sometimes used togliers (that the word I’m after?) and all the bombers in a group formation would release their bombs when the lead bombardier dropped his, without even using their bomb sights. So if the lead was off-target (cloud, smoke or smokescreen-obscured, maybe) they’d all go astray.
Just a thought. Maybe this patch was a ‘group miss’ rather than lots of jettisons.
Ian

Would be interesting to know where the dummy sites were in relation to these craters. A lot of aimed ordnance was expended on these

I have nothing constructive to add to the discussion of bomb craters. Instead, as part of the offshoot pertaining to that single-engine aircraft identified by ZRX61, and for those without Google Earth, I’ve verified the location of the aircraft on the ground in a closeup. You can also see its location in a wider shot showing the relationship to Schweinfurt town. Finally, in an oblique image, most will be able to understand that the terrain in the fields where the aircraft landed is not precisely flat. Instead, the predominant mild slope is mainly in a WNW to ESE direction. There is an even gentler slope, upwards in the direction in which the aircraft is pointed.

Note that a powerline crosses the fields roughly 130 yards from the aircraft, at the closest point — something to be avoided in taking off and landing. There is no obvious airfield or landing ground here. [EDIT: These are really poles, not massive power transmission towers. I errantly labeled them as towers on two of the graphics.]

I wonder if this was a planned or a forced landing. Given the date of the imagery (26 Aug 2016, as it displays on my computer, but this is typically a day different on a UK computer, I’m told), a supersleuth might be able to reference general aviation records to solve this one.

RAF Bomber Command did indeed target Schweinfurt on the night of 24/25 February 1944 (after 266 American B-17 bombers had attacked the previous day).

The RAF force consisted of 554 Lancasters, 169 Halifaxes and 11 Mosquitoes and most of those heavy bombers would be carrying twice the bomb-load of an American B-17 at that range. However, records from Schweinfurt refer to ‘nominal damage’ from the RAF night raid which means that hundreds of those bomb-loads were scattered all over the countryside within a few miles of Schweinfurt!

As an example of just how bad RAF Bomber Command bombing accuracy could be at night, on the disasterous raid against Nuremberg on the night of 30/31 March 1944 two ‘Pathfinder’ (!) aircraft dropped marker-flares at Schweinfurt, fifty miles to the north-west of Nuremberg…

…and approximately one-hundred-and-twenty RAF heavy bombers dropped their bomb-loads on the countryside surrounding Schweinfurt (only two people were killed in the town).

The maximum bomb load oft he B17 was raised during the war from 4000lb (B17E) over to 8000lb (B17F) up to 9600lb for the G-version.

You can calculate that even the B17E could carry sixteen 250lb bombs.

I don’t think it is as simple as dividing the total bomb-load (4000lb) by the weight of an individual bomb (250lb) to give the number of bombs a B-17 could actually carry. The issue is space in the bomb-bay as well as the weight of the bombs; the B-17 had a notoriously small bomb-bay and sixteen 250lb bombs require a lot more space than four 1000lb bombs!

It is a while since I’ve studied it but I think the bomb-load for Schweinfurt was typically 3000lb of high-explosive and possibly some incendiaries; that’s only two 1000lb bombs and two 500lb bombs plus the incendiaries.

And I maintain that no B-17 bomber ever carried sixteen 250lb bombs in its bomb-bay.

So my argument is that large concentrations of bomb-craters are unlikely to be from bombs jettisoned from crashing or damaged B-17 bombers, despite their proximity to a known target like Schweinfurt.

If I recall correctly, RAF Bomber Command also bombed Schweinfurt on at least one occasion (despite the wishes of ‘Bomber’ Harris); those areas with the bomb-craters could easily be just one RAF heavy bomber missing the intended target by a mile or two!