The month of August was notable for two outstanding missions: the first attack on Schweinfurt and the final polishing off of the extensive airdrome facilities at Le Bourget. Our Combat Wing led both of these attacks. The Boss got the Silver Star for leading the Schweinfurt mission. Uncle Joe Nazzaro got one for leading the Le Bourget job.
Otherwise, the month was one purely routine interest. The weather sat on us the first eleven days. Then on the 12th, our boys braved the Hun’s worst flak by flying straight across “Happy Valley”, otherwise known as the Ruhr, in an effort to attack on important synthetic oil works at Gelsenkirchen. Unfortunately, the smoke of a million chimneys created a veritable Pittsburgh-haze over which pinpoint navigation was impossible, and a thousand belching smoke pots made confusion thrice confounded. Nobody found the target. It was a credit to our hawk-eyed leaders that they found a target that looked important and bombed it, and when our strike pictures had been plotted, it was learned that the chance victim was the priority one-plus steel plant of the Vereinigte Stahlworks at Boxhum, which was well worth the effort.
But Schweinfurt was the big deal. This was the target of targets: a town devoted 100% to the manufacture of a vital component of every weapon that flies, floats, moves or shoots: ball-bearings. A chance hit on a ball-bearing works during the Battle of Britain had come within inches of giving Hitler a final victory. But the British had taken no chances of tipping Jerry off by attacking Schweinfurt until it could be completely shattered. There was no sense in sending Jerry an engraved invitation to disperse his facilities. It was better to let him keep his eggs in one basket and then smash that basket.
The attack was planned for months. Commanders and lead teams were sworn to secrecy and then briefed over and over again. The plan was never referred to by name: always as “Operations ‘A’”. And it was a good plan. 1st Division was to attack Schweinfurt, 3rd Division was to go after a Messerschmitt factory at Regensburg. The tricky part was to be this: 3rd Division would go in first and blast its way through the German fighter belt. We were to follow at a short interval when, according to the dope, the Jerry would be on the ground refueling, thus giving us an easy time on the way in. Then, instead of coming home, 3rd Division would fly and land in North Africa, leaving us to fight our way back.
It was a great plan. We stayed up all night preparing the Boss a mission brief. At 5 a.m., General Williams arrived to fly in the second element as Division Commander. We made him one, too.
But alas; when take-off time came a thick creamy and uninvited bog rolled over our 1st Division airdromes. For three mortal hours our boys sat on the ground waiting for the pea soup to lift. Then we got off. Meanwhile, the 3rd Division area was clear, and their ships had gone on time. To our sorrow, the Germans hadn’t been told that the other guys were going south, so they rushed their entire force of fighters to south-western Germany to catch them on the way back, and this entire force caught us on the way in. We took a deadly punishment. It was impossible to state how many enemy fighters came up to meet us: the official estimate was 300. All the boys know was that it was the worst fight that had ever taken place in the air. Total losses for the day were 60 heavy bombers. Of these, 1st Division lost 36. Hardest hit of all was our own Combat Wing, which lost 23 out of the 60 aircraft that went over. The 91st and 381st, which led the Task Force, paid the penalty of being out in front, with 10 and 11 lost respectively. Uncle Clem and the Boss brought their lead ship back with the left wingtip ballooned out by a cannon shell that exploded inside the structure. We were duly grateful.
General Williams permanently endeared himself to all the crews. As the story goes, Major (then Captain) Dick Weitsenfeld, who was flying the General’s plane in the deputy position, reported that the General was the best damn gunner he had ever seen and swore he had knocked down a couple of Huns. But the General never claimed any.
Results at Schweinfurt were officially classed as “very good”. Considering what the boys had to go through to get there at all, it was a remarkable job. The vital ball-bearing plants were not demolished, but they were severely damaged by direct hits. A heavy concentration of bombs had devastated all rail facilities, including the main station and railway marshalling yard, and a mass of incendiaries was laid in the town area. It was enough to put the target on the inactive list until the following month, when we went back and polished it off.
Le Bourget, by contrast, was a top-notch bombing job against comparatively light opposition. The airdrome was blanketed by an extremely heavy concentration, and hardly any installations escaped serious damage or total destruction. Other targets for the month included Flushing and Gilze-Rijen airdromes in Holland, Villacoublay airdrome near Paris, a mysterious construction site at Watten Wood near Calais, and a final blow at Amiens/Glisy airdrome in northern France.
This second attack on Amiens/Glisy, made 30 August, was notable for several reasons. First, it was the clincher on Colonel Gross’s campaign to sell combat crews on the use of VHF. Having gone to Villacoublay, the assigned target, and found it socked in he warned off the following Combat Wings and saved them of needless exposure over enemy territory. Then, having observed going in, that Amiens/Glisy was open, he announced that attack, directed the maneuver at the IP, uncovered the Wing for bombing, and then re-assembled it afterwards, all through the medium of VHF voice communication. This was the first time in the history of the Eighth Air Force that an attack on a target was commanded rather than merely led. The success of the attack was due also in part to the system, originated by the Boss, of pre-selection of opportunity targets, which could be observed going in. We made that S.O.P. and it was soon adopted by all the other Combat Wings.
There was one other point of interest. We had made a highly successful attack on the same field on 14 July, at which time we plastered the installations on one side of the field and incidentally put a few craters in the main runway. When Jerry fixed the runway he evidently thought it a good occasion to change the camouflage, and in doing so obligingly shifted the center of visual interest to the opposite and less bombed area. On the 30th of August, we polished off the other area. It is an amusing speculation whether the change in the pattern had anything to do with our good area selection. Certainly, it didn’t hurt.
With our strength temporarily reduced by our Schweinfurt losses, our record of sorties for August fell off to 392, while our losses for the month rose to 35. There were only eight missions as against ten for July. A total of 217 aircraft of the Combat Wing were credited with attacking targets.