Previous months had seen the heavy bombers of the Eighth Air Force work up gradually from very modest beginnings. The earliest raids were touch-and-go affairs just over the Channel: Rouen, Albert/Mesulte, Abbeville/Drucat and such places. Then we divided our attention between Lille and the sub bases on the west coast of France. January and succeeding months had seen the first tentative blows at the Reich, but attacks were limited to ports such as Emden, Bremen and Wilhelmshaven. In June, we had penetrated inland as far as the Ruhr, on the inland fringe of Western Germany. Was in July, we struck boldly at the center of the Reich, striking twice at Kassel and twice at Hamburg, with one attack at Keil.
July was a big month in other respects. It witnessed a first attack by our forces on German targets in Norway, where we delivered a devastating attack on the vital aluminum works at Heroya. And in the memorable week of 24-30 July, we delivered six major attacks in seven days – a record which was still un-approached as we wrote this, seven months later. In addition, there were attacks on Le Mans, France, on 4 July. Caen airdrome on the 10th and Amiens/Glisy airdrome on the 14th.
Many of the attacks were entirely successful. This was the season of good visibility, and when the weather was good, there was no great difficulty in finding and destroying our targets. Even on the smoothest of the missions, however, there were minor troubles due to the extreme complexity of our operations. These troubles we aired at our Combat Wing critiques, which we held as soon after the missions as possible in order to straighten things out while they were still fresh.
The mission to Le Mans is a good example. Our target was an important engine works in central France, working for the Germans and servicing German machines. We attacked under conditions of perfect visibility, the target was plastered, and we never had to go back. But here were some of the difficulties reported at the critiques:
One Group got off two minutes late and one Group had trouble during the climb. There was some typical confusion during assembly due to the difficulties of telling which Group was which. A cloud bank at mid-channel endangered the formation, but negotiated by snaking. Everything was rosy until the IP, but as we approached the target, there was a sudden burst of flak and simultaneous fighter attacks on the nose that shook us a little. Throughout the mission there was some position trouble: apparently the altimeter settings of the several Groups didn’t entirely agree with each other. For a part of the trip, the high squadron of the low Group and the low squadron of the high Group got too close and got mixed up. At the IP, the high Group didn’t allow enough room and started on a collision course with the low Group on the bomb run. In consequence, it had to turn off at the last moment and its bombs were wide of the mark. One Group couldn’t make AFCE work. There was trouble with the VHF radio. It must be emphasized that there were minor troubles. On the whole, this mission was the kind the boys call a “milk run”. The target was well and truly hit by a good percentage of our bombs. Still, there was one airplane lost in the target area. Nobody knew why.
There was a persistent rumor that Bomber Command weather officers came over from the States in good health and went home a month or so later in straight-jackets. It was probably false, but we believed it passionately. The mission of 17 July shows why. It was a maximum effort. By borrowing some airplanes for the 103rd Combat Wing and scheduled 78 of our own, we managed to put up two complete Combat Wing formations. The size of the effort was stupendous compared with what we could do only a few months before; our Wing alone put up more planes than the whole Eighth Air Force had at its disposal during the previous winter. Our assigned target was the important Continental Gasworks at Hanover, which was a logical move after what we had done to German rubber production at Huls.
Alas, however, for the well-laid plans: weather caused the greatest possible difficulty in take-off and assembly, and then the Germans failed to coordinate their weather with the forecast on which the operation was based. Our formations made a deep penetration over Germany, but found nothing but a solid undercast and had to abandon the mission. A few airplanes bombed a town through a random hole in the clouds. The navigators guessed that the town was Rheine, just over the Dutch frontier, and that was the name we filed our papers under, but we were candid enough always to mark it thus: “Rheine (?)”. In spite of the weather, plenty of enemy fighters came up to make it tough for us. We were lucky: only one ship was lost, and the crew of that one was picked up by Air/Sea Rescue. Another ship had its controls shot out over Germany, but the pilot was flying in on AFCE, brought the ship back and landed it after the pilot had bailed his crew out safely over England.
Then came our big week. The mission to Heroya, Norway on 24 July was the start. Until then, the 400-mile circle on our situation map was virgin. Bremen had been our longest drag and that was only 380 miles from home base as the crow flies. (Of course, no same crew would fly that way in wartime.) Then, without previous warning, we were called on to go for a pinpoint target beyond the 600-mile circle. At first we thought someone had gone slightly nuts.
But they hadn’t. Our boys negotiated the trip with ease and precision. For two years, the Hun had been patiently building a monumental works to keep up his dwindling stores of magnesium and aluminum. In a few minutes, those two years went down the drain. Results were assessed by British experts as follows:
“The attack developed from the northwest and resulted in a very heavy concentration of bomb bursts within the target area. Although a great many are seen in each of the four subdivisions of the target the concentration on the magnesium and aluminum plants is especially heavy.”
This, it will be remembered, was the week in which the RAF and the AAF made a verb out of what had been a noun: “Hamburg” – to inflict final and irretrievable destruction by air attack. We went there on two successive days, the 25th and 26th, adding to the havoc and bringing to fruition the oft-repeated promise of round-the-clock bombing. While the magnificent heavies of the British rained fire and devastation by night, our boys put the bee on the industrial waterfront by day. It was a complete job.
Then the boys had a day off. It was the first time in the history of our force that they stood us down for an earned rest. Then on the 28th, another three day round began: first to Kassel, the next day to Kiel, and a final mission to Kassel on the 30th.
To summarize: for July, we were credited with 674 aircraft scheduled and 576 making operational sorties. A total of 17 aircraft failed to return from operations. As against this figure, we received credit for 104 enemy aircraft destroyed, with 23 damaged and 56 probables. 97 aircraft returned early and 412 attacked targets. It wasn’t a bad month!