TARGET: GERMANY

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 4, 28 February 1944, Page 24

TARGET: GERMANY

This condensed version of Target: Germany, the official United States Army Air Force’s story of the Bth Bomber Command’s first year over Europe, was published in Life, November 29. The article gives an interesting account of how American bombers collided for the first time with the massed strength of the Luftwaffe.

The last week of July, 1943, was not a good one for European dictators. To one it brought political annihila-

tion, abrupt and ignominious. To the other it brought the greatest sustained aerial offensive yet mounted by the Sth Bomber Command.

Out in force five times, the Fortresses hit sixteen major industrial targets. They made their longest flight— -1,900 miles when they attacked the German U-boat base at the Norwegian port of Trondheim, not far from the Arctic Circle. They achieved their deepest penetration into Germany when they struck an aircraft factory at Oschersleben, only eighty miles from Berlin. In those seven climactic days they claimed 296 enemy fighters destroyed. Eighty-eight Fortresses were lost.

The best picture of the destruction attendant on a massed air battle such as the one that took place over Regensburg was given by an officer who served as co-pilot of a Fortress in the last Group of the formation, a Group that consequently was hit harder than any other :

“At 1017 hours, near Woensdracht, I saw the first flak blossom out in our vicinity, light and inaccurate. A few minutes later, two 190’s appeared at one o’clock level and whizzed through the formation ahead of us in a frontal attack, nicking two B-iy’s in the wings and breaking away beneath us in half rolls. Smoke immediately trailed from both B-iy’s, but they held their stations. As the fighters passed us at a high rate of closure, the guns of our Group went into action. The pungent smell of burnt powder filled our cockpit, and the B-17 trembled to the recoil of nose and ballturret guns. I saw pieces fly off the wing of one of the fighters before they passed from view.

“ Here was early action. The members of the crew sensed trouble. There was something desperate about the way those two fighters came in fast right out of their climb without any preliminaries. For a few seconds the interphone was busy with admonitions : ‘ Lead ’em more ’ ... ‘ short bursts ”... ' don’t throw rounds away ’ . . . ' there’ll be more along in a minute.’ “ Three minutes later the gunners reported fighters climbing up from all around the clock, singly and in pairs, both FW-igo’s and ME-ioq’s. Every gun from every B-17 in our Group was firing, crisscrossing our patch of sky with tracers. Both sides got hurt in this clash, with two Fortresses from our low squadron and one from the Group ahead falling out of formation on fire with crews bailing out, and several fighters heading for the deck in flames or with their pilots lingering behind under dirty yellow parachutes. I noticed an ME-no sitting out of range on our right. He was to stay with us all the way to the target, apparently reporting our position to fresh squadrons waiting for us down the road. At the sight of all these fighters, I had the distinct feeling of being trapped. The life expectancy of our Group suddenly seemed very short, since it appeared that the fighters were passing up the preceding Groups in order to take a cut at us. “ Swinging their yellow noses around in a wide U-turn, the twelve-ship squadron of ME-icq’s came in from twelve to two o’clock in pairs and in fours, and the main event was on. “ A shining silver object sailed over our right wing. I recognized it as a main exit door. Seconds later, a dark obiect came hurtling through the' formation, barely missing several props. It was a man, clasping his knees to his head, revolving like a diver in a triple somersault. I didn’t see his chute open.

“ A B-17 turned gradually out of the formation to the right, maintaining altitude. In a split second the B-17 completely disappeared in a brilliant explosion, from which the only remains were four small balls of fire, the fuel tanks, which were quickly consumed as thev fell earthward.

“ Our airplane was endangered by falling debris. Emergency hatches, exit doors, prematurely opened parachutes, bodies, and assorted fragments of B-i7’s and Hun fighters breezed past us in the slip stream.

“ I watched two fighters explode not far beneath, disappearing in sheets of orange flame, B-i7’s dropping out in every state of distress, from engines on fire to control surfaces shot away, friendly and enemy parachutes floating down, and, on the green carpet far behind us, numerous funeral pyres of smoke from fallen fighters, marking our trail. The sight was fantastic ; it surpassed fiction.

“ I watched a B-17 turn slowly out to the right with its cockpit a mass of flames. The co-pilot crawled out of his window, held on with one hand, reached back for his chute, buckled it on, let go, and was whisked back into the horizontal stabilizer. I believe the impact killed him. His chute didn’t open. “ Ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, and still no let-up in the attacks. The fighters queued up like a bread-line and let us have it. Each second of time had a cannon shell in it. “ Our B-17 shook steadily with the fire of its -50’3, and the air inside was heavy with smoke. It was cold in the cockpit, but when I looked across at the pilot I saw that sweat was pouring off his forehead and over his oxygen mask. He turned the controls over to me for a while. It was a blessed relief to concentrate on holding station in formation instead of watching those everlasting fighters boring in. It was possible to forget the fighters. Then the top turret gunner’s • twin muzzles would pound away a foot above my head, giving a realistic imitation of cannon shells exploding in the cockpit, while I gave an even better imitation of a man jumping 6 in. out of his seat.

“ A B-17 of the Group ahead, with its right Tokyo tanks on fire, dropped back to about 200 ft. above our right wing and stayed there while seven of the crew successively bailed out. Four went out the bomb bay and executed delayed jumps, one bailed from the nose, opened his chute prematurely, and nearly fouled the tail. Another went out the left-waist-gun opening, delaying his chute opening for a safe interval. The tail gunner dropped out of his hatch, apparently pulling the rip cord before he was clear of the ship. His chute opened instantaneously, barely missing the tail, and jerked him so hard that both his shoes came off. He hung limp in the harness, whereas the others had shown immediate signs of life after their chutes opened, shifting around in the harness. The B-17 then dropped back in a medium spiral and I did not see the pilots leave. I saw it just before it passed from view, several thousand feet below us, with its right wing a solid sheet of yellow flame.

“ After we had been under constant attack for a solid hour it appeared certain that our Group was faced with annihilation. Seven of us had been shot down, the sky was still mottled with rising fighters, and it was only 1120 hours, with target-time still thirty-five minutes away. I doubt if a man in the Group visualized the possibility of our getting much further without 100 per cent. loss. I know that I had long since mentally accepted the fact of death, and that it was simply a question of the next second or the next minute. I learned first-hand that a man can resign himself to the certainty of death without becoming panicky. Our Group fire-power was reduced 33 per cent., ammunition was running low. Our tail guns had to be replenished from another gun station. Gunners were becoming exhausted and nerve-tortured from the prolonged strain. “ One B-17 dropped out of formation and put its wheels down while the crew bailed out. Three ME-ioq’s circled it

closely, but held their fire, apparently ensuring that no one stayed in the ship to trv for home.

“ Near the 1.P., at 1150 hours, one hour and a half after the first of at least 200 individual fighter attacks, the pressure

eased /off, although hostiles were still in the vicinity. We turned at the I.P. at 1154 hours with fourteen B-iy’s left in the Group, two of which were badly crippled. They dropped out soon after bombing the target and headed for Switzerland.

“ Weather over the target, as on the entire trip, was ideal. Flak was negligible. The Group got its bombs away promptly on the leader. As we turned and headed for the Alps, I got a grim satisfaction out of seeing a rectangular column of smoke rising straight up from the ME-109 shops. “ The rest of the trip was a marked anti-climax. A few more fighters pecked at us on the wav to the Alps. A town in the Brenner Pass tossed up a lone burst of futile flak. We circled over Lake Garda long enough to give the cripples a chance to join the family,

and we were on our wav toward the Mediterranean in a gradual descent. The prospect of ditching as we approached North Africa, short of fuel, and the sight of other B-iy’s falling into the drink, seemed trivial matters after the vicious nightmare of the long trip across southern Germany. We felt the reaction of men who had not expected to see another sunset.

At 1815 hours, with red lights showing on all the fuel tanks in my ship, the seven B-iy’s of the Group which were still in formation circled over a North African airdrome and landed in the dust. Our crew was unscratched. Sole damage to the airplane : a bit of ventilation around the tail from flak and 20 mm. shells. We slept on the hard ground under the wings of our B-17, but the good earth felt softer than a silk pillow.”