Sixteenth Mission, 31 March 1945 Target: Oil Facilities, Brandenburg, Germany
B17's from the 833rd Squadron of the 486th BG
Tony's Mission Log:
This mission must have been stressful for Tony's crew as bad things started to happen early in the mission. Thankfully, the Ruhr region was being quickly overrun by the Allies and shortened the length of the mission over enemy territory. However, becoming a straggler was never a good thing. Thankfully, enough fighter support was available to spare an escort for them.
P51 Mustang escorting a crippled B17.
These comments are from S/SGT Clarence Kooi's journal, who also participated in this mission:
"We were on oxygen about six hours which is a long time. The Allies are really
going to town on the Western Front namely Berlin. They are near Kassel and
Hanover two rough targets and most of the great Rhine cities with their heavy
flak concentrations have been captured. We went in over Gen. Patton’s salient
and didn't get any flak like we usually do over the lines."
On the 29th of March, the Allies started conducting what would be called "The encirclement of the Ruhr" or "The Ruhr Pocket", in which the Allies trapped more than 400,000 German troops. The bombing campaign had laid waste to the infrastructure of that area and made it very difficult for the Germans to react quickly to the threat. Largely, the Germans were glad to see the end coming and to be able to surrender to the Americans instead of the Russians, who they despised AND feared. The Germans had been so brutal in their treatment of the Soviet people they conquered, and the Russians made a point of paying them back.
The Ruhr Pocket circa 4 April 1945
An American soldier guards a massive gathering of German POWs in the Ruhr pocket.
This video focuses on the Ruhr Pocket from a German perspective.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Fifteenth Mission, 30 March 1945 Target: Oil Refinery, Hamburg, Germany
On this mission, Tony's Squadron suffered a loss. Lt Veal's ship, flying alongside Tony's, was shot down with the loss of most of the crew. This had to be a very emotional moment, as these were men they knew, not strangers from some other group.
Position of Tony's Crew and Lt Veal's crew in the formation
This is taken from SSGT Huffman's diary:
"LT Veal's crew (our Buddy Crew), who trained with us at Alexandria and [was] assigned
to the 832nd Sqd. at the same time we were, was hit directly behind No. 4 engine and
peeled off and went into a dive before exploding about 5,000 ft below us. We saw
no parachutes."
This is Lt. Veal's Crew:
Lt Veal's Crew was shot down over Hamburg by flak. According to the reports from the 486th BG, "One of the aircraft's wings broke off, and began its dive. Shortly thereafter,
the aircraft exploded. Seven of the crewmen are listed as KIA and 2 POW."
The Veal Crew was flying this ship, which had been known as "Lil Butch" and later as "Rodney the Rocks".
Tony's Mission Log:
The 486th Bomb Group hit the refineries at Hamburg with 100 pound incendiaries. A grueling 7 hour and 30 minute mission flying into intense flak.
The Me 262 jet fighter was a formidable foe. The top Me 262 ace, Franz Schall, shot down 6 four bombers and 10 P-51's. But the Messerschmidt wasn't invincible. The P-51 pilots developed tactics to fight them effectively using the impressive maneuverability of the Mustang. The Tuskegee Airmen distinguished themselves shooting down several Me 262 jets on a mission just a few days before this one (24 March 1945). Below is combat footage of the Tuskegee Airmen's feat.
Eventually, the USAF came to realize that the best way to fight the Me 262 was near the ground. They made a point of waiting for them to come in to land at their airfields as they were very vulnerable at slow speeds.
Monday, March 23, 2015
Fourteenth Mission, 23 March 1945 Target: Rail Yards, Holzwickede, Germany
Tony's Mission Log:
The Eighth Air Force continues bombing ahead of the Allied Armies going across the Rhine. This time, the mission involves destroying transportation targets in the Ruhr, including Holzwickede, a small town just 33 miles East of yesterday's target, Mulheim.
On the following day, 24 March 1945, Operation Varsity started. It was the largest Airborne Operation ever made in one day. It involved more than 16,000 paratroopers and thousands of transport planes,gliders, and supporting aircraft.
Target for the day in the context of Operation Varsity.
This is a good documentary of the crossing of the Rhine and Operation Varsity. A costly operation that paid good dividends.
Tony's crew did not fly another mission for about a week. It is possible that they got some R+R time. The destination of choice was London, which offered many entertainment opportunities and could be easily reached by train from Sudbury. Piccadilly Circus was particularly notorious for wild partying!
The Rainbow Corner Club, operated by the American Red Cross. A must visit while in London.
Playing Pinball at the Rainbow Corner.
One of many dances hosted at the Rainbow Club.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Thirteenth Mission, 22 March 1945 Target: Barracks, Mulheim, Germany
Tony's Mission Log:
Tony may have been confused with the details of this mission (I think he rewrote his diary in the 1950's and some details may not have been easily available to cross-check). The target for the day was a German Army barracks area in Mulheim, which is on the banks of the Ruhr River. This bombing attack was intended to support the Allied crossings of the River Rhine, which were ongoing.
Allied Lines from 22 March to 28 March 1945. Allies are at or beyond the River Rhine.
This bellow is a simpler map that gives you an idea of how close this mission was to the friendly lines. On 25 March, the Allies launched the largest airborne operation of the war (code named Varsity) over the area of the town of Wesel, a few miles to the North-West.
I found a good account of this mission in SSGT Kooi's diary.
"Our target was an army barracks area just east of the Ruhr river near Mulheim. The Ruhr Valley which I saw very well to-day is the most thickly populated and highly industrialized area I have seen surpassing the English Midlands around Manchester or the Liverpool area. When you are over the center of the Valley, known as “Happy Valley,” you see one city after another so close that they could almost be classified as one city- Dortmund, Essen, Mulheim, Duisberg, Dusseldorf, Wuppertal, and near the southern end, Cologne. The small towns are too numerous to name. Now the western part of the Valley is one mass of debris as the Allies are moving in and we are bombing it." This film clip below is a newsreel from 1945 about the crossing of the Rhine.
This target was actually near the border with Holland, but actually in Germany.
The 486th strikes the Marx Airfield near Wilhelmshaven, Germany, March 21st, 1945.
The unit stationed at Marx Airfield was the Luftwaffe Bomb Group KG 76, which flew the world's first Jet Bomber, the Arado Ar 234. During the raid KG 76 lost 10 aircraft and had another 8 damaged. They only had 11 were left on hand by April 1st.
The only preserved Arado Ar 234, which served with KG 76
The unit stationed at Marx Airfield was KG 76, which flew the world's first Jet Bomber, the Arado Ar 234. Two other airfields are bombed, both Me-163 Rocket Fighter units, at Zwischenahn and Wittmundhafen. Evidently, the 8th Air Force was on a tear trying to eradicate the threat of the latest wonder toys of the Luftwaffe.
Me 163 Rocket Fighter
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Eleventh Mission, 19 March 1945 Target - Zwickau Motor Plants
Bombing the German auto industry into the StoneAge:
The original target for this mission were oil refineries in the Ruhr region of Germany but the weather conditions where horrible. Instead, the 486th Bomb Group ended up hitting auto-industry targets in Zwickau, home of major auto makers including Audi, Horch, VW, Auto Union, and others. Tony's log mentions small-arms plants being the target, but that's not correct according to the official records.
Zwickau is a long way from Sudbury and ended up in the Soviet-controlled East Germany.
This video shows an interesting collection of Zwickau-made Horch military vehicles that were part of the German war machine. Starting in 1944, the Eighth Air Force started to pummel the German automotive industry. Aircraft, rail, oil, and war-materiel industries were all heavily targeted.
The fate of the German auto industry was not pretty. After the war, Zwickau ended up in the hands of the Russians and became part of East Germany. The Soviet Union was not one for superfluous consumer products such as cars and what "evolved" from the once proud German auto industry was awful.
The cars below are freshly assembled Trabants coming out of the factory in Zwickau after the war. They were produced essentially without changes for 30 years. The quality of these cars was so unfathomably bad that there is widespread agreement among car enthusiasts the world over...the Trabant was the worst production car ever made! Here's a link to wikipedia, The History of the Trabant .
VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau
After the re-unification of Germany, East Germans became painfully aware of the inadequacy of the Trabant. This is what happened to many of them!
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Tenth Mission, 18 March 1945 Target: Railway Stations in Berlin
Jet Fighters in the Air - a terrifying development
The Me 262 jet fighter was by all accounts a game changer in the war. Many historians debate the impact it would have made in the outcome of the war if its potential had been exploited properly. This is the first time that Tony's crew had met them in the air. By March of 1945, the Luftwaffe had been fielding them in numbers over important areas in Germany and had concentrated some talented pilots to fly them. The Eight Air Force had this to say on 18 March 1945: "the Luftwaffe makes its most concentrated and successful attacks with the Me 262 to date".
The clip below shows footage of German fighters, including an Me 262 attacking B17 formations.
The clip below shows more detailed footage of the Me 262 and has excellent commentary about it's historic role.
The 486th's Bomb Group didn't have any major remarks about this mission to Berlin. But of the 495 bombers that flew the mission, 7 are lost and 268 damaged. There are 28 airmen wounded and 49 Missing in Action. It's no wonder that Tony and his crew were scared, this type of mission had all the necessary elements of a nightmare: tight air defenses over the prized capital, flying to close to maximum range, jet fighter opposition, and a desperate enemy . The only saving grace was complete cloud cover, which made it a little harder on the enemy to find them.
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Ninth Mission, 17 March 1945 Target - Ruhland Oil Refinery
A Fools Errand in the clouds:
The target for this mission was the Ruhland Oil Refinery, deep into Germany. The weather, terrible! Eight Air Force logs report that clouds extended from 1,000 to 15,000 feet! Perfect conditions for mid-air collisions and falling out of formations.
Tony flew this mission and the next 7 in a row aboard this plane 43-37835 Censors obscured the markings.
Ruhland, between Berlin and Dresden
The target for this mission was the Ruhland Oil Refinery, which the 8th Air Force made a point of targeting many times, 5 times in 1945 alone, and each mission included 200 to 500 bombers.
Ruhland-Schwarzheide Benzin Plant Photo taken 1944
Tony's Mission Log:
This mission was actually flown on 17 March 1945
This mission had to be very frustrating. Getting lost that to be terribly annoying. Some of the bomb group certainly managed to stay together, but were unable to hit the main objective and ended up bombing targets of last resort in Fulda and Plauen, which are west of Dresden. Naturally, the 486th Bomb Group had the benefit of RADAR navigation. So they were way better equipped to figure out their location. Tony's flew using Dead- Reckoning procedures, which would be considered absolutely crude today.
Apparently, they decided to drop their bombs, even if they had no idea what they were hitting. This is a rational decision in that flying with a full bomb load was costing them more fuel and they may not have had enough to make it home. Additionally, landing a plane full of bombs was hazardous. It made the plane much harder to land and mistakes could be potentially fatal to the crew and others. And it had to be an exhausting day with nothing to show for it. But they made it back home AND got credit for their mission, which they must have been very happy about.
This WWII will acquaint you with the Dead-Reckoning technique.
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Eighth Mission, 15 March 1945 Target - Oranienburg, Germany
Here's a wonderful photo of the 486th Bomb Group flying during the Oranienburg raid:
Photo of the 486th BG during the March 15th raid on Oranienburg. The 8th Air Force struck at the heart of the German nuclear materiels program. This raid was directed by BGEN Leslie Groves of the Manhattan project. Posted here with permission from the 486th BG Association.
Tony's Mission Log:
The mission date is incorrect, it should be 3-15-45. The target was the town of Oranienburg, VERY close to Berlin, so it was a long mission, and a hard mission as Berlin was heavily defended by both fighters and anti aircraft artillery. The Eighth Air Force sent 675 B-17's and 352 P-51's to cover Oranienberg and other nearby targets. It was a costly mission as 8 B17's were lost, 288 B-17's were damaged, 8 airmen wounded in action (WIA) and 66 airmen are MIA. Tony's crew was lucky to come out unscathed but it had to be a very stressful mission, especially watching planes going down.
Lyman Huffman, another gunner from the 486th Bomb Group left a riveting account of this mission, these are some of the details.
After take-off, the crew's trip was almost without incident until they started down the bomb run. Flak explosions rocked their plane, but they were untouched until a few seconds from the bomb release when one burst of enemy steel tore a three foot hole in their left wing, hurled the big bomber almost vertically up on its right wing and threw them out of formation.
Pilot and copilot righted their aircraft and swung back into formation in time to drop their bombs on the target with the rest of the group. Almost at that instant, SGT Huffman heard the crack of another flak burst and the sound of shrapnel hitting the fuselage like the rattle of Midwestern hail on a tin roof.
Everything happened at once. One steel fragment smashed through the top turret, leaving SGT Huffman uninjured, holding a piece of the gun sight in his hand. Another fragment zipped through the copilot's window just in front of his face and tore out through the skin of the plane a fraction of an inch behind the pilot's head.
The ball gunner felt a sudden sharp stab of pain in his arm -- and later found nine holes in his turret. The tail gunner's oxygen system was wrecked.
After they had climbed back into formation and the excitement had died down, the crew investigated the damage.
Miraculously, all four engines still droned on. The bomb bays, which had sustained the major portion of hits, were a mass of jagged holes. One tire was shot flat. The oxygen system was partially gone. Fluid poured from a severed hydraulic line, making the brakes useless.
They stuck with their formation and when back over their home base, came in for an emergency landing. With a flat tire and no brakes, they hit the runway. The pilot let his plane roll as far as possible to lessen its speed and then neatly wheeled off the concrete where the soft ground brought them to a stop.
Counting the holes in the Fort, SGT Huffman and his crewmates gave up when they reached a total of 460 in the bomb bays alone. The control surfaces and fuselage were punctured with scores of holes.
Tony's comment about "tank factory" is intriguing. I have not seen anything linking Oranienburg with tank production. BUT, there a VERY important factory in Oranienburg, the Auer-Werke, which was a chemical plant producing radioactive materials for the German Atomic Program. It is known that the chemical factory was heavily targeted, but naturally, the nature of its importance had to be kept secret. So it is possible that the "tank factory" that Tony refers to may have really been the Auer-Werke.
From wikipedia: "In 1939, the Oranienburg plant began the development of industrial-scale, high-purity uranium oxide production. Special Russian search teams, at the close of World War II, sent Auergesellschaft equipment, materiel, and staff to the Soviet Union for use in their atomic bomb project." The Allies also had teams (Alsos Mission, part of the Manhattan Project) searching for the members and equipment of the German atomic program, but the Russians naturally got to the Berlin area first and took what they could back to the Soviet Union.
This photo of the Auer-Werke below was taken in January of 1945. You see the place heavily pot marked with bomb craters, and at the bottom there seems to be a marshaling yard or large railroad siding (which is what the official target for the Bomb Group). I chatted about this with Robin Thomas Smith from the 486th BG Organization, and he mentioned that the 486th Group's portion of the 8th Air Force attack on Oranienburg was to hit the Marshalling Yards, to make it harder for the Russians to get their hands on the materials and equipment of the German Atomic program. . He mentioned that he has seen a German article that described this attack as the first shot in the Cold War.
Oranienberg has the dubious honor of being the German town with the greatest number of dud bombs buried underground. Approximately 10,000 bombs (500 and 1000 pounders) were dropped on the town. The dud rate could be 7 to 15% and they calculate that they must still have 325 bombs underground. And from time to time they go off on their own. They expect to keep digging up bombs until the year 2030.
Here's a fascinating clip about the efforts of Oranienburg to dig up their "past".
There's an error in Tony's log, this mission took place on 14 March 1945. The primary target of the Bomb Group was the oil refinery at Nienhagen, Germany. They hit the target with poor results (perhaps due to bad weather) and decided to pursue secondary targets. Osnabruck was the "Target of Last Resort" and they probably attacked it on the way back.
The Combat Wing may have been flying around a LOT longer than they anticipated, and that's probably why they ran low on fuel. By this time, the USAF had established bases and airfields in France and it was an option for the crews that were desperate for fuel or badly battered.
The mission log from the 8th Air Force reported that results of the Osnabruck raid were Fair. The photograph below certainly shows significant damage to the target and the industrial area next to it. As you can imagine, even a mission with great results would inflict significant collateral damage, as the rail yards were often located near city centers.
Photograph of Marshalling Yards in Osnabruck taken 12 May 1945
Targeting Osnabruck was evidently designed to disrupt transportation ahead of the Allied advance. Just three weeks later the British rolled into Osnabruck and occupied the city without much resistance.
This is a period photograph of the advance of the Montgomery's Second Army on Osnabruck.
Comet tank from XVII Corps of Montgomery's Second Army entering Onsnabruck 4 April 1945
Tony mentions that the ship got a hole in the nose that missed him by three inches. A hole on the plane didn't just happen for no reason, it would be made by a bullet, or flak shrapnel. And if you were in its path, it could rip you apart. The skin of the B17 was VERY thin, and the nose was made of plexiglass! The skin was thin enough that you could punch a hole through it with a screw driver. There was no armor plating at all on the aircraft. So shrapnel from flak would fly right through the aircraft freely. There are many photos documenting gruesome holes on the skin of B17's. Structurally, a hole on the skin wouldn't necessary be a problem, but you can only take so many hits before someone got hurt.
At one point, the USAF realized that the great majority of crew injuries were due to enemy flak, and they introduced body armor for the gunners as shown below. The flak vest had overlapping magnesium plates and were effective against shrapnel. But they were no protection against a direct hit by flak or a 20mm round from a fighter.
One more thing about this mission. Tony's crew flew in a ship called "The Pursuit of Happiness", a month later, that plane was shot down with no survivors over the Czech Republic (photo below). The war in March of 1945 was not over by any means!
Notes about this photo from the 486th archives: Salvers remove the right wing of "Pursuit of Happiness" from its crash site near Precaply, Czech Republic. "Pursuit of Happiness" (931:4N:L) was shot down over the Brux/Most area, with the loss of the Bartl crew on April 17, 1945. (Radovan Helt, Czech Republic)
What a difference a day makes! The 486th BG returned to bomb Frankfurt again. Except this time the skies were clear, which totally exposed the formation to visual observation from the ground. On a clear day, it would be a real challenge to hide a large formation in the air, especially when the contrails would make the formation visible for many miles. So it is not surprising that they were received with an intense welcome by the anti-aircraft crews. The upside was that the accuracy of the bombing run was also greatly improved. In this particular raid the results were "Fair".
This is a famous photo of a B17 formation from 1943. Tony keep one of these. I was able to track down the tail number of the plane in the foreground to the 95th BG. 8th AF records show that B17 tail number 30173 - 2544 was last seen "near Lingen, aircraft left the formation on fire" the entire crew MIA.
LT Moran's crew got back on the same ship as the day before, The Old Yard Dog.
As Tony comments above, "I saw another plane go down from another group". And that was probably the first time he had ever seen a Fortress go down; no doubt a very somber experience. That day the 8th Air Force dispatched 423 B17s to bomb Marshalling Yards, near Frankfurt. They lost 3 planes, 1 damaged beyond repair, 182 planes damaged, 7 airmen were wounded and 28 MIA.
This video will give you an idea of what it was like to survive flak in a B17. It took a toll on your mental health, you felt vulnerable and there was NOTHING you could do about it. Going up against fighters gave you a sense of being able to control the situation to some extent. You could kill him or he could kill you. But there was no controlling flak. Tony's Squadron in 1945 didn't suffer any losses from enemy fighters, but they lost aircraft and men to flak and collisions.
This was a lucky day for the Eighth Air Force. They dispatched 1,353 bombers and 356 fighters and they reported "NO AIRCRAFT ARE LOST AND THERE ARE NO CASUALTIES!"I gather from the Bomb Group mission records that this was a cloudy day and they bombed the target with the aid of radar through the cloud cover. The enemy probably used radar as well for fire control and never had a clear view of the target. Bombing results were unobserved. The following is an account from SSGT Clarence Kooi, another gunner from the 486th Bomb Group who flew the in the same mission. "We went to Frankfurt to-day- going into the continent over the Zuider Zee and then south to Frankfurt making a circle after the target and out over France across General Patton’s big offensive. We dropped our seven M-17 incendiaries and seven 500 lb. G.P.’s on an aircraft factory that made a lot of different aircraft parts including jet units for the ME- 262. The flak was light and we saw no enemy fighters. Most of the eighth Air Force hit in the northern end of the Ruhr Valley except for us. We took off at 1045 and landed at 1830 dropping our bombs from 24,000 ft. through 10/10 clouds. (temp. –36oC.)"
M17 Incendiary Cluster Bomb used in the mission. Primacord tube is explosive and blows the straps to allow incendiary bombs inside to scatter in the air and widen the coverage on the ground.
Frankfurt is the most modern city in Germany thanks to the Royal Air Force. The city center was devastated by RAF raids. I have been to Frankfurt and many historic buildings had to be reproduced (not rebuilt, there really wasn't much left) from scratch. The city became a blank canvas for what it is now, the only German city with sky-scrapers.
The Cathedral of Saint Paul somehow remained standing after the bombardments.
"Old" buildings in foreground are reproductions. Modern skyscrapers in background.
Tony makes a comment about his ship flying in "purple heart corner". This refers to flying in the MOST EXPOSED position in the formation. In that corner you are the first choice for any attacking fighter. But luckily, they didn't see much (if any) fighter opposition that day.
Purple Heart Corner, last plane in the formation and most exposed.
