Twenty Third Mission, 21 April 1945               Target:  Target of Last Resort, Ingolstadt, Germany

This was Tony's last mission, and the last combat mission for the 486th Bomb Group.

By this date, the Allied Forces have penetrated deep into Germany. There is absolutely no hope for the Third Reich. The Eighth Air Force continues to support the advance of the Allies, which are in this case moving south towards Munich. But at this point, it is becoming increasing pointless to bomb infrastructure targets. Most of the important strategic targets have been hit multiple times. Many of the German cities are simply piles of rubble. 

But the Luftwaffe is still an adversary and a threat to the Allied Air Forces. Due to lack of viable airfields, having been heavily targeted by the Eighth Air Force, forces them to seek inconspicuous airfields.The Me 262's Jet Fighters in particular are a menace. Ju44, a fighter group led by Germany's most influential fighter ace at the time, Brigadier General Adolf Galland, has taken to hiding their planes by the side of the autobahn.  




The concept of this mission is excerpted from the 486th website: 

"To prevent these jets from launching attacks against Patton's advancing army the 8th AF was tasked to take out the ad hoc airfield. The 486th was to provide 3 squadrons and would lead the 4th Combat Bombardment Wing on this mission, which would only involve 800 heavy bombers. The Wing would be in the second position in the 3rd Air Division bomber stream. Mission details and field orders were received at 0200 hours on April 21, 1945 and the targets were: Primary - Autobahn; Seconday - Marshall yards and airfields in the München area."

Ingolstadt is part of the Munich metropolitan area and had several bridges spanning the Danube.

The weather during the mission is terrible, and since they can't observe the target, they move from primary, to secondary, and eventually to the Target of Last Resort, which is the unlucky and once-picturesque university town of Ingolstadt. 

This diagram shows the route taken by the 486th to the targets, Ingolstadt being ultimately hit.

This is taken from S/SGT Huffman's Diary: 

"Bombing altitude was 20,000 ft. We had no flak and no fighters. The most difficult part of this mission was getting there. The weather was terrible. Clouds were 35,000 ft. high. The weather was bad from take off and it took a lot of time and near misses before we were assembled, joined our formation and headed for the target. At times we had to fly 35,000 ft. to avoid thunderstorms and when we crossed over the Alps it looked like you could step out on them. This was a long tough mission. Robbie and Willems [pilot and copilot] had their hands full. Lt. Col. Dick Uhle [Commanding Officer of the 486th] was selected to lead this mission and I don't think it helped his popularity at all. Flight time was 10 hours anti 15 minutes [very close to the limit of the B17's range]."

Ingolstadt was very unfortunate during the war. Being in the Munich metropolitan area and being on the rail network at an important crossing point on the Danube, the town was bombarded multiple times. Munich itself was hit 71 times, and Ingolstadt seemed to be the alternate target for many missions.  The results were devastating. This particular raid by the 486th only compounded to the misery of the town and killed 28 civilians, some of the very few that were left. 

After the war, Ingolstadt was rebuilt essentially from scratch. It re-emerged as an important university town and happens to be the headquarters of the Audi automotive company. 

Modern day Ingolstadt, still preserving the original layout of the old (obliterated) city.

This was the 486th's very last combat mission. The war would go on, but there simply weren't enough targets to go around. 


The Eighth Air Force continued to fly. In fact, the Battle for Munich, which took place over the next several days, would be a showdown between the 8th Air Force and the Luftwaffe. In all, the Eighth lost 40 B17's on April 24 from fighter attacks and flak, an unsustainable attrition rate of about 10% of the bomber force.