Hi Stuart,

I’ve just finished reading (well, a few pages short) ‘The Mighty Eighth’ by Gerald Astor

There are several veterans quotes in the book detailing a second run or sometimes even a third run over the target, and quite a few accounts of the larger raids (mainly in 1945 when the skies were more crowded) detail the formation turning into the path of another box and seeing them coming directly for them! One quote is from Wayne Galtin, a P-51 pilot

“I led blue and green flight as we covered our box of bombers. All in all ten ships were flying off me as we covered our box of bombers. The dang bombers made three circles around the target before they finally bombed and we were getting pretty ‘browned’ off with them. I guess they were waiting for the smoke to clear….”

and from Bill Powers, a B-17 gunner although I’m not sure which position,

“I thought I saw spots of oil on my plexiglass dome on the turret and they got larger. Here was another formation of B-17s turning directly in our path, heading right for us. All at once my pilot broke silence and said “Looks like its every man for himself” and pushed down in the stick and pulled back using evasive action. When he pulled up, I fell out of my turret and was pinned to the floor with my oxygen line stretched to the limit. I saw the tail end of a B-17 fly by. When I returned to my turret and looked around, planes were everywhere and some going down due to collision.”

Fantastic read for anyone who has not read it.

Steve

Sorry to drag this one kicking and screaming from last week, but I’ve been thinking. If the dog is not going to be called Nigger to avoid offending anyone, then why not cut all of the bombing out as well, surely that may offend some Germans? In fact why not just have the whole formation flying nicely around Germany, waving at the children looking up, and dropping bouquets of flowers.

That’s a movie I’d watch!

Steve

Maybe not

The accuracy for RAF night raids was never going to be anywhere near the 8th Air Force when they attacked by day though. The vast majority of the top brass at Bomber Command dismissed the idea of daylight bombing, after the heavy losses suffered in the early years of daylight bombing experimentation. There was no guarantee the 8th Air Force would have been anymore successful in the long term until the Mustang came along in early 1944(?) which could could escort the bomber force to the target and back.

Of course whether the RAF should have persisted with bombing by day is a completely different debate!

Smudger,

That is all said with the benefit of hindsight. In 1944, bearing in mind the recent precedent on Cities such as London during the Blitz, it may have been completely appropriate to find the idea of the US Army Air Corps hitting the strategic targets like oil and rubber during the day, whilst the RAF tried to break the will of the German people by night.

This is of course the problem with trying to re-assess historical events in todays climate.

If I recall correctly from what I have read, Harris believed he could end the war in 6 weeks, with an all-out bomber offensive on Berlin IF the 8th Air Force would come in on it. Who is say that the overwhelming force of the two wouldn’t have been successful? Okay, so he continued without US support and it didn’t work, and he could perhaps have looked at the offensive on London in 1940 as an indicator that this kind of offensive had the potential not to work. But of course, a war had never really been fought in this way before, so only with hindsight can we say that he should have switched to the kind of targets the 8th Air Force were targetting

Steve

There is one at Biggin still remaining, and I think some at Kenley

Steve