Are you sure you responded to the correct post? None of the planes you mentioned are the JU-87 Stuka's I mentioned.
Posted on 02/15/2010 8:50:07 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Had it not been for ball bearings, Schweinfurt might have remained a small town in Bavaria and escaped the notice of history. However, it was there in 1883 that a local mechanic, Friedrich Fischer, invented the machine that made possible mass production of ball bearings. In 1906, his son founded the Kugelfischer firm, which became the cornerstone of the industry.
World War II created a huge demand for ball bearings. The German aviation industry alone used 2.4 million of them a month. Production was concentrated in Schweinfurt, where five plants turned out nearly two-thirds of Germany’s ball bearings and roller bearings. Between 1922 and 1943, the surge in manufacturing tripled the population of Schweinfurt to 50,000. In the summer of 1943, US and British planners for the Combined Bomber Offensive identified the ball bearings industry as a key “bottleneck” target, the destruction of which could clog up war production and potentially shorten the war. The British Air Ministry since 1943 had been trying to persuade the Royal Air Force to bomb Schwein-furt, but Air Marshal Arthur T. “Bomber” Harris, chief of RAF Bomber Command, was adamantly opposed.
(Excerpt) Read more at airforce-magazine.com ...
That is not true. The Me-163,He-178 and Me-262 were high enough to reach Allied planes. In fact, the P-51 and Me-262 met in combat.
Now they're blaming pigs for global warming?
You got that right.
I know a gentleman who flew B-29s over Japan and later Korea.
Are you sure you responded to the correct post? None of the planes you mentioned are the JU-87 Stuka's I mentioned.
Bookmark
A very interesting film on many levels - highly recommend; ball bearing are even highlighted.
Perhaps a better (and earlier) target was Polesti, however.
I spent some months outside Stuttgart in a nice little hotel, ristorante and Tanzcafé owned by an Italian. (There ya go—French, Italian, and German rootwords in the same establishment!)
Next door he had an Italian food import business that catered to the public and to restaurants throughout the area. I still have his catalog packed away somewhere.
My brother-in-law was stationed there about ten years after the war. He was a US Army courier who had a route across central Germany, with Schweinfurt in the middle of the route.
He told me about one Army installation, like most, a former Nazi base, he visited on his rounds. One day he looked up onto the hillside near the entrance. He saw a gigantic concrete swastika lying in the dense trees that evidently had been overlooked. They subsequently destroyed it.
Thanks for the ping!
Ira C. Eaker is indeed a relative.
Footnote:
In Crossville Tennessee there is a massive bearing distribution center. The bearings from Schweinfurt are distributed all over the western hemisphere from the Crossville center.
I asked a young man there if he had ever seen “Twelve O’clock High” and the story of the bombing of Schweinfurt. He had not and was amazed that he was a major player in the distribution of bearings that had such a high destruction priority 50 years ago.
One of my all-time favorite films. It is a great study in leadership of men.
I thought that might be the case. I had an uncle who was a bombardier on the B17 and he was involved in the bombing of Schweinfurt. He used to come by our house once in a while when we were kids and tell stories of his WW II bombing raids———
For example, the scene at the gate - for those who have never "seen" change ..., primacy of "the Group", ..., etc.
Yea. Actually both of the barracks locations ( several miles apart) were ex-nazi housing areas for troops. Many of them had swastikas stamped out or broken apart.
Pretty eerie.
I was stationed in Schweinfurt from the early to mid 80’s and I will always remember an Italian restaurant near the barracks. The owner was an old Italian lady. The best Italian food I’ve ever eaten. Her name was Teresa. I wonder if is same lady you are referring to and if her children kept the Ristorante!
Not entirely ... There was, rather, a problem with follow-up (or lack thereof). Eighth Air Force bombed the factories several times by day. Bomber Command (Harris) refused to carry out immediate follow-up raids on the same factories. The factories were quite robust in structure. The first wave of bombing was sufficient to damage the buildings and disrupt production, but not to destroy the machinery inside. A follow up raid would likely have destroyed, the machinery. Harris, however, thought killing Germans was more important than winning the war and preferred to bomb population centers.
Waah, justice for Warsaw and Rotterdam.
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