The FReeper Foxhole Remembers "Black Thursday" Schweinfurt, 1943 - Jan. 17th, 2003

http://www.af.mil/news/Oct1999/n19991015_991907.html ^ | Tech. Sgt. Gary W. Boyd

[patton]

"Schweinefurt"

[SAMWolf]

Show your support, Have your e-mail or snail mail letter of support and appreciation HAND DELIVERED to a Service member.

[SAMWolf]

I'm sorry to hear about your uncle, I consider him a hero along with all the others who flew daylight raids over Europe.

[SAMWolf]

Thanks for another excellent link facedown.

[SAMWolf]

Thank your uncle for his service from me next time you talk to him.

[SAMWolf]

I again thank you for your service, we can never thank you and the others enough for what you accomplished during the War.

[SAMWolf]

We're planning a Ploesti Thread. Was your dad on that mission?

[manna]

Present!

[Darksheare]

Status:
Dropped in, currently dangling from ceiling fixture.
Awaiting SAR....

[Lee'sGhost]

It's one of the few things he ever talked about re the war, but for the life of me I'm not sure he was actually in it. I'll have to find out somehow. Any idea how I might check military records?

[SAMWolf]

Not really. But if you know his bombers name or his unit there may be a way to see if it was on the mission.

[Lee'sGhost]

Good idea. Thanks.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Martin Caidin and Ed Beach were prominent in my library very early on. Black Friday was one of the most chilling books I ever read, and that includes Stephen King's works.

I guess you mean "Black Thursday". It is an awesome book, in my opinion. I read it first when I was about 12 years old. B-17's rule!

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

"Despite all the terrible destruction of German cities, despite all the hardship and death it brought to the civilian population and industrial workers--whose ordeal was now often worse than the soldiers at the front--it was not,as we have seen, area bombing by night that struck the vital blow at German survival. This mission was accomplished to a far greater extent by the selective and precision bombing of the American Eighth Air Force in daylight. By careful choice of target, this first blocked the bottle-necks of armaments production, and finally brought the whole German war machine to a standstill."

Luftwaffe War Diaries, p.340 by Cajus Bekker

[WhiskeyPapa]

"In the course of the year 1943 the accent of the Reich defense shifted more and more toward action against daylight raiders. Even though numerically the British were still stronger than the Americans and were undoubtedly a great trial for for the civilian population, the American precision raids were of greater consequence to the war industry. They received priority attention over the British raids on our towns."

"The First and the Last" p. 178, Adolf Galland

Boy it really torques the Brits off when you point out little factoids like this.

Walt

[SAMWolf]

Precision bombing was the way to go but until a long range escort was availble the cost was very high.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Precision bombing was the way to go but until a long range escort was availble the cost was very high.

A very unhappy "what didn't" was that an effective long range escort was not developed sooner. And what is most tragic is that that escort WAS IN ENGLAND in the summer of 1942. That was the P38.

There was a P38 group sent to England; shortly it was detailed to North Africa.

The P-38 would and could have been MUCH more effective as an escort than it was, and earlier than it was.

As many may not know, the P-38 was plagued by mechanical problems that limited its effectiveness. I don't recall the exact problems, but they caused the lead to separate out of the gasoline, causing detonation, and engine failure. A re-designed carburator --later-- fixed the problem. As it was, even a few dozen P-38's made a big difference in breaking up the German fighter attacks on the bomber boxes. But the technical problems were not given top priority, and no large P-38 force was built up in '42-'43. Some DID go to Guadalcanal. Great thinking.

The big wigs in England just kept bulling ahead, thinking they were killing the German day fighter force, when that just wasn't happening. They seemed to think the bomber boxes were these flying buzz saws that would wreck the German fighter force. Black Thursday was the final wake up call. The 8th had lost 45 Forts on a raid to Munster the week previous to 14 October, '43.

It was finally an assistant secretary of War that came out to England in the Summer of '43 that got the ball rolling faster on the redesigned Mustang.

But the Germans had defeated the day bomber as of 10/14/43.

Walt

[SAMWolf]

It was just the old "The bomber will always get through" thinking that all sides had. The Germans made the same mistake in the Battle of Britain.

Then there was the "stay close to the bombers" vs the the "free roaming" escort arguments.

Unfortuantely, while the higher ups were debating all this the air crews were paying the price in high losses.

[Grut]

Being the kind of SAC crew dog who actually read books in college, I had this terrible recurring dream that one day I'd go into crew briefing on Guam and they'd say: "Gentlemen, your target for today is..." and put a slide of Schweinfurt up on the screen.

So I was 'kind-of' ready when on 19 Dec. '72 they put up a slide of... not Schweinfurt....

I have heard more than 600 J57s running at the same time. Have you any idea what that sounds like?

[SAMWolf]

Not even a clue, I've read about the 1,000 bomber raids and it's just mind boogling to think about them.